[News] Paraguayan Farmers Mobilize for Agrarian Reform

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Paraguayan Farmers Mobilize for Agrarian Reform

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1903/1/
Written by Benjamin Dangl
Monday, 29 March 2010

Thousands of Paraguayan farmers raised their 
clubs, fists and placards into the air while 
marching through the streets of Asunción, the 
capital city, on Thursday, March 25. The farmers 
demanded that President Fernando Lugo follow 
through on his campaign promises for agrarian 
reform, including the distribution of land to 
poor farmers, and access to health care, 
education, better homes and roads for rural 
communities. After a year and a half in office, 
Lugo’s failures to meet such demands have led 
various farmer organizations to directly oppose his administration.

“We can’t speak of change if 80% of the fertile 
land in the country is in the hands of 1% of the 
population, while 85% of the campesinos [small 
farmers] have access to only 6% of all the land,” 
National Campesino Federation (FNC) general 
secretary Odilón Espínola 
<http://www.abc.es/agencias/noticia.asp?noticia=324244>told Efe.

The situation in rural Paraguay is dire; 38% of 
the country’s population lives under the poverty 
line, and most of this sector is based in rural 
areas. Paraguay has one of the most unequal 
distributions of land in the world, and the 
rapidly expanding 
<http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3093/the_multinational_beanfield_war/>soy 
industry is making matters worse.

Participants in the March 25 mobilization also 
focused demands on the soy industry, which is 
directly linked to their displacement and 
marginalization. For years, large soy producers 
have been displacing small farmers through 
violence and intimidation. The toxic pesticides 
soy producers use have had terrible health 
effects on small farmers who live near the soy 
fields, while also poisoning their water sources, 
and killing crops and livestock.

Campesino leader Espínola told 
<http://www.europapress.es/latam/paraguay/noticia-paraguay-miles-campesinos-marchan-asuncion-reclamar-lugo-mayor-compromiso-reforma-agraria-20100325170417.html>Europa 
Press that Lugo has continued the “same discourse 
[as previous presidents] and has not followed 
through on his promises to realize agrarian 
reform.” Since the end of the dictatorship in 
1989, Espínola said that “no government has 
responded to the needs of the campesinos.”

Responding to the marchers, President Lugo told 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/69126-NN/campesinos-paraguayos-marchan-para-exigir-a-lugo-reforma-agraria/>Telesur, 
“Unfortunately we haven’t been able to execute 
[agrarian reform] at the speed that we hoped to, 
but it is moving forward at a slow speed, and we 
have prioritized these demands.”

If the demands of the marchers are not met, 
campesino leader Marcial Gómez 
<http://lta.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idLTASIE62O0LJ20100325?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0>told 
Reuters that they would have to resort to their 
standard strategies of direct action.  Without a 
response from Lugo, “We don’t have any other 
choice but to resort to other means used in our 
historic struggle such as the occupation of lands 
and the blockading of highways if we want to 
obtain a small piece of land to work on.”

***

Benjamin Dangl is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/190485933X?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=190485933X>The 
Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements 
in Bolivia (AK Press) and the forthcoming book 
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1849350159?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1849350159>Dancing 
with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in 
Latin America (AK Press). He is the editor of 
<http://towardfreedom.com/>TowardFreedom.com, a 
progressive perspective on world events and 
<http://upsidedownworld.org//>UpsideDownWorld.org, 
a website on activism and politics in Latin 
America. Email: Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com
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