Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09LAPAZ232
2009-02-11 16:41:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy La Paz
Cable title:  

ALLEGED GOVERNMENT LAND GRAB AFFECTS U.S. RANCHER

Tags:  ECON EAGR PGOV PHUM EINV CACS BL 
pdf how-to read a cable
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C O N F I D E N T I A L LA PAZ 000232 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/16/2024
TAGS: ECON EAGR PGOV PHUM EINV CACS BL
SUBJECT: ALLEGED GOVERNMENT LAND GRAB AFFECTS U.S. RANCHER

Classified By: Acting ECOPOL Chief Brian Quigley for reason 1.4 (b).

C O N F I D E N T I A L LA PAZ 000232

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/16/2024
TAGS: ECON EAGR PGOV PHUM EINV CACS BL
SUBJECT: ALLEGED GOVERNMENT LAND GRAB AFFECTS U.S. RANCHER

Classified By: Acting ECOPOL Chief Brian Quigley for reason 1.4 (b).


1. (SBU) Summary: Recently, the Bolivian Government and
landowners in the Cordillera province of Santa Cruz have
clashed violently concerning land rights. The government
acuses the landowners, including a high-profile AmCit
rancher, of labor abuses and serfdom against the resident
Guarani population. The ranchers assert there is no forced
labor in the region and say the government wants to
confiscate the land to exploit gas and oil reserves without
having to pay the owners any compensation. In other cases,
supporters of the MAS government have squatted on municipal
parklands, attempted to take over public land belonging to
the national hydrocarbons distribution company, and invaded
privately-owned property. These cases may portend things to
come as the government implements the new constitution,
including a limit of 5,000 hectares of land for any
individual owner. End summary.


2. (SBU) For over a year, the central government had been
trying to gain access to a group of ranches in the Cordillera
province of Santa Cruz Department in an attempt to prove that
the landowners are employing indigenous Guarani through
forced labor or slavery. One of the landowners is an
American citizen named Ronald Larsen, who has lived in
Bolivia for over 40 years, gradually acquiring land and
building a successful cattle ranch/popcorn farm/ecotourist
destination. Larsen has transferred most of his Santa Cruz
properties into the names of his three dual-national (U.S.
and Bolivian) sons. The Larsen case serves as a microcosm of
the government-vs-landowner conflict, and has been used in
the media as an example of the Morales government's
anti-American policies. However, the Larsen ranch is only
one of 46 affected farms.


3. (SBU) The main player on the government side is Vice
Minister of Land Alejandro Almaraz. In April 2008, Almaraz
traveled to Cordillera province with members of the National
Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA) and forcibly tried to
enter several properties to carry out a process known as

"saneamiento," a review of land ownership, usage and
complaince with all applicable laws. Almaraz told the press
that he was in the region to "free the slaves." He and the
other government representatives were prevented from entering
the properties by the landowners and their employees. The
sometimes-violent stand-off lasted a week. There were
accusations and counter-accusations, including a statement by
the Minister of Government that "Larsen is an instigator of
the violence, intending to turn Bolivia into the Wild West."
Prominent Santa Cruz figures also weighed in. Cardinal Julio
Terrazas declared there was no slavery in the region, drawing
the wrath of President Morales. Two independent commissions
of Santa Cruz leaders traveled to the region and also
declared that there was no slavery. The government did not
give in on that point, but to end the confrontations, it
ordered Almaraz to return to La Paz and declared a "pause" in
the saneamiento process.


4. (C) The night of November 21, at 3:00 in the morning, INRA
officers returned to the area with police and forcibly
entered the ranches. Landowners report that a great deal of
force was used, including shooting off locks, breaking doors
and fences, and generally destroying anything in the way.
Almaraz showed up the next morning. Ronald Larsen was not at
the ranch at the time, and shortly after the incident he
returned to the U.S. in order to avoid the appearance of
resistance that could have provoked additional charges
against him or his family members. The Larsens' lawyer told
us that, worse than the property damage to the residence, was
the damage to the ranch's infrastructure. For example, the
police destroyed fences enclosing cattle, and the animals
wandered off into the hills and forests. INRA then told the
foreman he had to produce all the cattle that he had on the
books within five days, knowing it would take weeks or months
to round up all the animals that escaped into the wilderness.
According to Guido Nayar, President of the Bolivian
Ranchers' Association, the government told several landowners
that they would be left in peace if they agreed to give
declarations "against the gringo." The Larsens' lawyer, who
also represents many of the other landowners in the dispute,
said that many of them had agreed to surrender some land to
the government under threats that they would lose it all.
After the political negotiations took place, all under police
occupation of the ranches, INRA settled down to the process
of collecting the legal documents required in the saneamiento
process. The lawyer said there were many irregularities.
For example, the saneamiento was directed by a public
prosecutor from La Paz, rather than one from Santa Cruz as
required by law.


5. (C) Nayar said the farms were occupied from November 21
through December 19. At each farm, INRA compiled folders of
production records and land titles, but also collected
declarations from local Guarani claiming to have been
mistreated on the various farms. The lawyer told us most of
these declarations were completely false, given by people who
are no longer employed at the ranches, or given under duress.
Nayar claims that several Guarani received money or other
government benefits in return for their statements. We have
heard from numerous people, including some current government
officials, that the Larsens are exemplary employers. They
pay laborers well above the admittedly-meager minimum wage,
comply with labor laws such as providing contracts, built a
church and elementary school on the property, and provide
subsidized food. Ronald Larsen is said to be well-liked by
the people in the region, and the employees are fiercely
loyal to him. On December 19, INRA officials sent the
folders they had compiled back to La Paz, another
irregularity as the decision-making would normally be done at
the Santa Cruz INRA office.


6. (SBU) The week of February 2, the government announced
that of the 88,000 hectares that INRA investigated in
November and December 2008, they had decided to confiscate
36,000 hectares. The decision affects many landowners, some
of whom will lose only part of their property. The Larsens,
however, would lose everything. The lawyer points out that,
although they are not being singled out as Americans per se,
because many other landowners are affected, he believes the
Larsens are being treated extra-harshly and being stigmatized
by INRA as U.S. citizens. The landowners are appealing the
decision at the National Agricultural Tribunal (a branch of
the Supreme Court in Sucre). Nayar's organization called for
"civil disobedience" to resist the unjust decision, but
several of the affected landowners (not the Larsens) have
vowed to resist with force and say they won't leave their
farms alive.

But Why?
--------------


7. (C) The big question is why the government is going
through all this trouble in the out-of-the-way Cordillera
province. The land is not particularly fertile in the
Bolivian Chaco, and it requires much more acreage to support
a head of cattle than in other areas of the country. Larsen
told us in April 2008 that Almaraz had received a grant from
a European human rights NGO to "eliminate slavery in the
Chaco," and thus he needed to produce some slaves or else he
would have to return that money. We were not able to verify
that story, and we have never heard it repeated by anyone
else. The prevailing theory is that the ground under those
ranches is rich in hydrocarbon resources, which the
government wants to exploit without having to pay any
compensation for surface rights for the necessary roads and
wells. According to this theory, the government intends to
confiscate the land from the ranchers and give it to pro-MAS
indigenous as communal property. Private landowners cannot
profit from sub-soil resources that by law belong only to the
state. However, under the new constitution, communal
property holders are entitled to receive access fees for
exploitation of minerals or hydrocarbons. Nayar mentioned
that INRA was offering the local employees land from the
ranches in return for their "cooperation," however the land
would be "communal property." None of the ranch employees
are interested in communal property that they cannot profit
from individually. Nayar theorized that the government could
even go so far as to "import" cooperative Aymara or Quechua
groups to carry out the plan.


8. (C) Comment: The facts in Cordillera are elusive, and it
remains to be seen what will become of the 46 ranches. We
expect a lengthy appeal process. The Embassy has not engaged
with the government on this issue because, despite the
special press coverage (some of which he himself sought),
Larsen has not requested specific assistance. Despite the
lawyer's opinion, it is not clear he is being singled out by
the government for treatment worse than that received by many
of his Bolivian neighbors. Furthermore, he has registered
the land in the names of his three dual-national sons in an
effort to protect it.

"Without a Roof" Movement
--------------


9. (C) Land disputes are not limited to rural, agricultural
areas of Santa Cruz. Within the capital city, a group that
calls itself "Movimiento Sin Techo" ("Without a Roof
Movement") has taken over eight municipally-zoned parklands
and demanded property rights. Mayor Percy Fernandez and his
chief legal advisor told American Presence Post Officer
(APPO) that the law is firmly on the side of the municipal
government, since protected areas within the city are
inviolable. The movement has existed since 1990, but gained
momentum in 2000 in both urban and rural areas with the
support of the MAS. The leader of the movement in Santa Cruz
is Valerio Queso, the Evo Morales look-alike who played the
president in a biographical film. Although the squatters
claim to be homeless families, most of the land they are
occupying is in the city's center and, if it were not
protected property, it would be valuable real estate. In
addition, numerous neighborhoods in and around Santa Cruz are
growing daily, absorbing immigrants from other Departments,
and therefore the argument that there is no land for these
families rings hollow. It is clear that economic interests,
and not humanitarian ones, are behind the incidents. The
municipality is seeking court action against the movement to
remove the squatters from public land. If the court orders
the squatters to move, the municipality will ask the Bolivian
National Police to enforce the decision. The police have a
good track record in this respect. In fact, one policeman
died in Oruro in 2008, and police have been injured in
Tarija, enforcing court-ordered squatter evacuations.

Targets of Opportunity
--------------


10. (C) Immediately after the January 25 constitutional
referendum, several well-organized and armed groups attempted
land-grabs in Santa Cruz. Generally, each family that
participates must pay the organizer(s) 200 to 300 dollars
(several months salary) in advance, as a payment for any
potential land won through the squatting action. This is why
the participants can be very aggressive, because it is not a
spontaneous action, but one in which they have a big
investment. One group attempted to take over land controlled
by YPFB, the national hydrocarbons distribution company. The
leaders claimed that the new constitution promised them land,
and they were demanding that the state pass out state lands
immediately. However, the central government distanced
itself from this group, and it quickly dispersed. In another
case, residents of the San Juan municipality, who are largely
pro-MAS internal immigrants, seized three private properties
in nearby Guarayos province. Interestingly, the groups
didn't target the obvious Santa Cruz "Oligarchs," i.e. the
famous ten families that own huge tracts of land in the
department. Rather, the landowners were targets of
opportunity based on geographical proximity: a Brazilian, a
Mennonite, and a run-of-the-mill Bolivian farmer. As the
General Director of the Agicultural Chamber of the East (CAO)
Edilberto Osinaga explained, "Carnivores target the weakest
of the herd." Again in this case, the land-invaders were
well-organized, aggressive, and armed with farm implements
and machetes. A local court has already ruled in favor of at
least one landowner, who is going through the process of
requesting the police remove the trespassers. However, the
three farmers have reportedly gotten threatening calls from
alleged MAS leaders, implying that if they want to keep part
of their land, they should give up 50%, or else they risk
losing it all. In the meantime, their farms continue to be
occupied by the squatters in a form of continuous pressure.


11. (C) Osinaga told APPO that when these incidents first
occurred, Santa Cruz farmers were worried the land-grabs
would be epidemic. However, there have not been additional
cases. Now the theory is that the cases were MAS trial
balloons. Perhaps, he speculated, the central government
expected to garner support among the general Santa Cruz
population using the land promise. And perhaps, he added, if
the land grabs had targetted the traditional "oligarchical"
families, they would have had more popular resonance. But
these cases served only to alarm the majority of people about
the government's intentions. The truth is, the large farms
owned by foreigners and well-established Bolivians are the
ones that generally obey the land-usage and labor laws.
Small and medium farmers are most susceptible to losing their
land due to legal violations, and if that happens there will
be a strong anti-government backlash in Santa Cruz and
throughout the rest of the country.

Communal Land -- A Big Mistake
--------------


12. (C) Universally, farmers in Santa Cruz agree that the
biggest miscalculation of the government's land reform plan
is the idea of indigenous communal property. Banks in
Bolivia do not finance agriculture; agroindustry does. And
agroindustry is very unlikely to finance communal land, as no
one is ultimately responsible. Therefore, agriculture for
export under communally-owned property is almost impossible.
Farmers worry that the agriculture-based economy that
Crucenos are so proud of could be destoyed by the land-reform
policies of the Morales administration, and this hits the
Cruceno psyche much deeper than any one example of property
loss.

Prefect: Legal Defense and Peaceful Resistance
-------------- --


13. (C) So far, it seems that Santa Cruz farmers are
committed to exhausting every legal means possible to defend
their lands, and in many cases the courts and police are
doing their jobs. Prefect Ruben Costas, a farmer himself, is
personally organizing a Department-wide Committee in Defense
of Property. He is urging all farmers to get their paperwork
in order and make sure that they are in compliance with all
laws. Producers are hopeful Costas will be able to persuade
the MAS to back down from the land grabs. The Crucenos have
learned that they get more sympathy nationally and
internationally when they are the victims, not the
aggressors. However, as the MAS constitution is implemented,
especially the section prohibiting property ownership in
excess of 5,000 hectares, things could get dicey. (Note: The
constitution grandfathers farms in excess of 5,000 hectares
already in existence prior to February 1, 2009; only new
farms are prohibited from exceeding 5,000 hectares. However,
there are other legal means for taking land, such as
confiscating land that does not serve a "social purpose,"
which greatly worry Cruceno farmers.) When it comes to
taking people's land and livelihood away, there is a strong
potential for violence.
URS