Land Without Lords: Peasant Mandate from Colombia
NACLA
Introduction Of the many crises currently facing Colombia, one of the most important is that revolving around the use and distribution of land. Every political group within the country, left,...
...Heretofore, the peasants had always been a manipulated segment of the oppressed...
...The agrarian reform executive councils and their individual members shall be under obligation to render an account of their management to the respective Associations of Peasant Usuarios...
...139...
...The councils shall rule on disputes arising among peasants which involve land, provided the concerned parties voluntarily decide to submit to the decision of said councils...
...WE, THE PUERTO RICAN PEOPLE: A STORY OF OPPRESSION AND RESISTANCE...
...2. Emphasis added in all quotes by the reviewer...
...ANUC's inclusion of Indian peasant representatives in the agrarian reform councils represents a first and significant attempt to include Indians in essential political processes...
...This alliance was formalized in the creation of the National Front in 1958 which ended the Violencia by declaring a truce between the warring factions.3 Law 135, like its earlier counterpart, contained legal ambiguities, especially regarding the definition of adequately utilized holdings and the forms of payment for expropriation in the courts...
...For him they are all simpletons, lacking a concrete analysis of the societies that they wish to destroy...
...At the same time, the political parties will continue discussion of this issue on the national level...
...By Richard Gott...
...It further states that highly capitalized and mechanized properties will no longer be automatically protected from expropriation...
...Government Printing Office, 1970) pp...
...The South Puerto Rican Sugar Company gained control of Central Guanica in 1900...
...The peasants have claimed the agrarian reform as their own, asserting that their collective interests will serve as their guide...
...c) Free and fast distribution of land to those working on it or wanting to work on it...
...486...
...The wave of peasant land invasions, which increased last February and continues today, has been complemented by the work of the various Asociaciones de Usuarios Campesinos...
...These will form the basis of the agrarian sector in direct opposition to the agribusiness operation favored by urban capitalists and foreign investors...
...6th) To procure the recognition of public utility and social interest in the expropriation of all farm properties owned by corporations or any other type of association other than the cooperative enterprises operated by peasants...
...e) To undertake as complete a census as possible of the farms that may be over the maximum limit tentatively established by the municipal agrarian reform executive council, and of those found encumbered by rental, sharecropping or similar agreements, or that have been abandoned for more than two years, or are property of juridical persons other than community enterprises or peasant-run cooperatives, indicating the degree of economic use in cultivation or livestock and the size...
...485...
...Type 4) Cooperatives formed on the bases of the collectivization of expropriated latifundios already developed agro-industrially...
...4 Two representatives of unionized workers...
...Attempts to solidify the government's position have led to reshuffling within the administration...
...Coffee production, after all, is one of the few areas in which the small landholdings envisaged under the reform are economically feasible...
...Having laid out an enormous task, he sets out to do it in the most articulate, detailed, and objective manner possible...
...In addition, the Mandate plans peasant-controlled cooperatives...
...b) To resolve conflicts that present themselves at the peasant level in land problems, provided the peasants whose dispute is to be resolved agree to submit to the decision of the council...
...These kinds of support are commonplace in South American affairs...
...Karol or a Rene Dumont...
...e) The State must appropriate in its budget amounts sufficient for the development and the carrying out of the proposed agrarian reform...
...National Association of Peasant Usuarios Fourth National Board of Directors 30 BOOK REVIEWS This issue initiates what will hopefully become a regular feature, a book review section...
...4. W.E...
...They failed to realize at the time the degree to which they had become pawns in a struggle between the urban and rural elements of the oligarchy for control over the land...
...Though there have been setbacks in various guerrilla struggles, the guerrilleros have returned to Bolivia, the Tupamaros are stronger than ever, the Colombian guerrillas have united, new groups have appeared in Argentina and Mexico, and the Chilean Miristas are radicalizing the revolution...
...Two representatives of peasants from the zones of colonization (new settlements...
...still the mobilization of the peasant masses to a new level of struggle could represent an important stage in Colombia's revolutionary drama...
...h) To stimulate and aid the peasant-run cooperatives that may be formed, and promote the economic and technical development of small and medium properties...
...The installations, buildings, machinery, livestock and other means of production that may be expropriated for the purposes of the agrarian reform will be subject to independent appraisal and payment therefor will be the responsibility of the state...
...But there are two kinds of docility...
...1971...
...The U.S...
...This clearly shows the nature of Puerto Rican society around 1900...
...1971...
...c) A decree nationalizing imports of farm machinery and of agricultural and livestock inputs, which would be administered by the technical assistance organization of the agrarian reform, which agency shall establish in different parts of the country machinery stations in order to satisfy the technical needs of peasant-run cooperatives and individual properties...
...2. INCORA was created by Law 135 of 1961 as a "decentralized institute...
...See NACLA Newsletter, (vol.5,No.3) May-June 1971, p.16...
...Said stations shall provide machines to the cooperatives and shall at reasonable prices render the services of utilization by means of rental of this equipment and machinery to whoever needs it...
...CHAPTER III: PROGRAMMATIC ASPECTS OF THE MANDATE Article IX The aspects of the agrarian program which serve as the basis for the work of motivating, organizing and awakening of consciousness to be carried out by the agrarian reform executive councils, are: lst) To create conditions so that in compliance with Article 30 of the National Constitution the right of expropriation be established as the only means to acquire privately-owned farms for purposes of the agrarian reform...
...The latifundios with developed agro-industrial or livestock activities will be allocated for production under the system of peasant-run cooperatives...
...Silen then analyzes the Jibaro or peasant of the coastal plains and highlands...
...Monthly Review Press...
...townships...
...In order to procure the modernization and mechanization of the countryside the state must promote the construction of a national machine-tool industry...
...g) To transact and decide on applications and requests from peasant organizations or individual peasants in matters relating to colonization, expropriation, adjudication, exploitation and other aspects of the reform...
...Article XII...
...llth) To procure likewise the extinction of all mortgage and real property guarantees which encumber the land of owners holding less than the maximum permitted area for a zone or municipality of the country or land expropriated for purposes of the agrarian reform...
...In light of the carefully documented studies showing the failure of the agrarian reform program (some even coming from within the government) Pastrana's administration has been put on the defensive...
...However, real changes seem unlikely...
...246 pages...
...It too, sought to quell rural unrest through the manipulation of state mechanisms as an alternative to the direct and rather unsophisticated methods hitherto employed by the Army...
...6 2nd) To procure that large latifundist properties of natural or juridical persons be declared of social utility and interest and therefore open to expropriation...
...The decisions of the agrarian reform councils may be appealed before the executive council of the Municipal Association of Usuarios, which shall resolve the matter...
...2. See section on Colombia in Richard Gott, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America (Doubleday, New York, 1971...
...Every political group within the country, left, right, and center, has felt compelled in recent months to deal in some way with the "agrarian problem...
...The emergence, therefore, of a strong national peasant organization in itself is an important event for the struggle in Colombia...
...Colombia's rural districts (veredas) are crudely parallel to U.S...
...Two representatives of the Association of Peasant Usuarios...
...Mercier Vega also suggests that, since guerrilla groups attack banks in order to secure badly needed funds for their work, they use "the help of specialists who are not necessarily political sympathizers" (p.72...
...Article XI...
...Terese Gel GUERRILLAS IN LATIN AMERICA: THE TECHNIQUE OF THE COUNTER-STATE...
...It describes the Taino Indian and African influences and the roles they played in the cultural and social spheres...
...For interesting background on the Indian struggle as seen in the experience of one of its leaders see Manuel Quintin Lame, "En defensa de mi raza" with introduction and notes by Gonzalo Castillo Cardenas (Bogota: Publicaciones de La Rosca, 1971).27 executive councils shall be designated by the national, departmental, municipal and rural district Associations of Usuarios, who are to proceed immediately to name them, taking into account the criteria established...
...CHAPTER II: AGENCIES OF THE MANDATE Article II...
...It is reasonable to assume that, when the revolution comes, it will come at a time and from a quarter that is least expected" (p...
...The growth of peasant solidarity through common struggle and direct conflict with the ruling class can provide a basis for truly revolutionary action...
...The government condemned the document, deeply aware of the danger inherent in such assertions...
...Two representatives of the peasant-run cooperatives...
...A "juridical person" (persona juridica) is an entity such as a corporation, society, association or foundation which, without having individual physical existence is nonetheless legally empowered to assume contractual obligations and possess certain rights before the law...
...One is reminded of the way in which the Brazilian military dictatorship defused the militancy of those peasant leagues centered in Northeast Brazil...
...It also represented one of the first major items in the general compromise between latifundists and the industrial bourgeoisie...
...b) Those which may be devoted to public establishments or experimental farms for general service to the community, as long as this situation is maintained for the fulfillment of these very purposes in a direct manner, without any profit deriving therefrom...
...151...
...They may involve concentrations of population in villages or dispersed populations...
...5, 6, 11-15...
...By the end of the nineteenth century class divisions and structure are clearly evident...
...4th) The peasant-run cooperatives shall have the power to decide to allot part of the farm for individual use in whatever proportion the members determine...
...The word docility has a special meaning in the Puerto Rican context or perhaps we can say a special use...
...Expropriated or socially-owned lands will be devoted to peasant-run cooperatives or will be distributed in parcels to the peasants, in accord with the decision of the respective agrarian reform executive council, following consultation with the peasant beneficiaries...
...The Minister of Agriculture voiced the sentiments of the administration of Misael Pastrana...
...It will be of help to those who are interested in an honest, decent, and scientific overview of the Puerto Rican people's history since the Spanish occupation in 1508 until the present day...
...Recent background on "usuarios" is found in NACLA Newsletter (vol.5, No.3) MayJune, 1971,p.14-16...
...In other words, while we can not predict where, when, or exactly how the revolution will take place, sooner or later constant collective struggle will assure that it does take place...
...Overall, the agrarian reform laws, inside of unliberated Latin America, have been used to keep the countryside quiet in the face of unaltered ownership patterns...
...AID Contract No...
...The 1968 modifications of the law brought little relief for the rural proletariat...
...This bank will adapt its credit policy to the decisions of the executive body of the agrarian reform...
...In sum, Silen's book is a good analysis of the Puerto Rican odyssey and its present reality...
...in all farm properties with land renters, sharecroppers or the like, respecting small and medium property owners...
...Two specifics of the Mandate demonstrate that the organized peasantry is consciously unwilling to work within the traditional frameworks or to ally itself with urban capitalists...
...then the Chase Manhattan Bank, the First Federal Savings Bank, the Banco Popular, the Banco Credito y Ahorro Ponceno, the Banco de Ponce, etc...
...f) To give due protection to the small and medium peasant, unconscious victim of the present regime, to eliminate the effects of money-lending intermediaries and usurers which are seen in the eviction hearings which have occurred and continue to take place, and from any other procedure implying his ejection from the parcel he is working (or in which he works...
...Yet one need only read his specific country studies, which are written with almost comic book simplicity, to shatter any such illusion...
...The very existence of such a Mandate...
...Coffee growers, for example, resisted implementation of the law by arguing that they constituted a special group...
...The "Independent Republics" such as Marquetalia that arose out of armed peasant agitation during the Violencia (the civil war that wracked Colombia between 1947 and 1957) attained a fairly sophisticated social and political organization, yet remained geographically 2 and politically isolated from the rest of the country...
...4 In addition, the Rockefeller Foundation contributed in 1967 alone $214,334 to the ICA and another $66,395 to the International Center of Tropical Agriculture...
...The Mandate, however, indicates that this form of ruling class manipulation is coming to an end...
...Type 2) Cooperatives based on the contribution of parcels of different values and worked collectively...
...6. According to a study published by the Centro de Investigacion y Accion Social, Distribucion del ingreso y de la propriedad en Colombia (Bogota, 1970), p. 93, Article XXX provides that the Congress, "for reasons of equity, shall be able to determine cases in which petition for indemnization is refused, by means of the favorable vote of the absolute majority of the members of each chamber separately...
...Gott, without any arrogant pretensions, begins by placing limits on what he plans to discuss...
...e) The areas designated as national reserves...
...They are not guilty, as many maintain, of failing to create the revolution...
...The work, originally published in 1970 as Hacia una vision positiva del puertorriqueno by Editorial Edil in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, begins the story of Puerto Rico's journey toward independence by presenting an overview of the country's history since 1508...
...A mandato in Hispanic law is a consensual contract whereby one of the parties (mandante) entrusts his personal representation or the management of one or more concerns to the other (mandatario).29 13th) To procure that farm properties whose extension is less than the maximum permitted area fixed for a zone or municipality of the country by the executive councils of the agrarian reform be declared unattachable, and that in consequence eviction proceedings or any other proceedings against a working peasant which signify ejection from his farm or parcel be suspended regardless of what stage they are at, even if a sentence has been passed...
...Repeated abuses of Indian rights from colonial times to the present have produced a defensive reaction in the form of cultural withdrawal...
...The initiative, however, has been seized by those closest to the land -- the peasants -who have invaded the land that they work but do not own...
...For example, within the last nine months there have been two Ministers of Agriculture and three directors of INCORA (the official agrarian reform institute...
...Article V. The agrarian reform executive councils at the municipal level shall enjoy full autonomy in determining the maximum permitted holding that a natural or juridical persons may possess in a zone or municipality of the country, as well as in carrying out the functions expressly assigned to them in the Mandate...
...g) That the States through the agrarian reform's technical assistance organization establish centers for research in agronomy and animal husbandry and technical assistance centers where peasants and cooperatives may seek advice...
...The applauded docility serves the interests of imperialism and the ruling classes, and establishes as a social value an alleged characteristic which permits the exploitation of Puerto Ricans...
...With the object of accelerating and fulfilling the process described above, so as to contribute effectively toward the solution of the problems which have arisen in the Colombian countryside, agrarian reform executive councils shall be created at the national, departmental, regional, municipal and rural district levels...
...14th) To procure recognition of the expropriated latifundist's right to retain an expanse of land equal to the maximum permitted area established for the zone or municipality where the farm is located, guaranteeing the unity of the portion retained, and the equitable and just distribution of its water resources...
...e) To protect the small and medium proprieter who directly exploits his farm, helping him to develop his production on a continually more technical and economical basis and providing him with a gradual and voluntary transition to peasant-run cooperative farms...
...It did, nevertheless, accomplish its primary purpose of checking a growing rural unrest...
...The decisions of the rural 5. A "natural person" (persona natural) is a physically existing human being recognized before the law as possessing certain rights and able to assume binding legal obligations...
...The final conclusions are even worse...
...services offered by agencies of the government, ie., schools, credit, technical assistance, agrarian reform, etc...
...This mandate is in force from the time of its approval by the National Board of Directors...
...In the 1930's foreign capital moved into the banking and financial sectors...
...and from the decision of a group of beneficiaries of the agrarian reform...
...f) Those reserved for certain social welfare purposes when such has been previously declared by the respective municipal agrarian reform council...
...Special consideration is given to the nineteenth century because it constitutes the "golden age" of Puerto Rican history...
...He states that he will consider only the movements in Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela...
...No new base has been established since the one in south-eastern Bolivia...
...h) To create sources of jobs and to favor the growth and diversification of industry and the rational utilization of natural resources...
...5. North American Congress on Latin America, The Rockefeller Empire: Latin America (New York, 1969) p. 23...
...Two representatives of Indian peasants...
...The Mandate outlines a peasant-controlled agrarian reform that promises a complete change in the structure of the Colombian countryside...
...He further enumerates the differences between groups and their positions toward key issues, quoting or citing respected and reliable sources to support his statements.32 The following passage clearly shows Gott's basic understanding of the guerrillas: "First one must be clear as to what failure the guerrilla movements are guilty of...
...On page after page one finds the same arrogance that characterizes a K.S...
...The deplored docility.....is the selfjustification of certain reformist positions...
...The objectives of the Mandate will serve as a guide for its regulation, interpretation and execution...
...From its meetings has come a number of formal position statements, the most important of which we reprint after these introductory remarks...
...After reading Luis Mercier Vega's Guerillas in Latin America, one is left with a sense of disgust...
...626 pages...
...Further on he analyzes the economic aspect of Puerto Rico's colonial status and several main facets of Puerto Rican society -- education, religion, and the oppression of women...
...Silen specifically treats such subjects as the imposition of North American citizenship on the Puerto Rican people in 1917, the island's captive labor movement, the Nationalist movement and revolution, the development of the Popular Democratic Party, and the organization of the Independence Party (PIP) -- a group that Silen calls " the opposition in peace and friendship...
...Article X. No indemnization shall be paid for expropriated latifundios...
...The Associations of Peasant Usuarios shall freely name and remove the members of the agrarian reform executive councils...
...In evaluating the significance of this document certain aspects of the agrarian problem in Colombia should be noted...
...10th) To procure the abolition of rental, sharecropping and like contracts and the cancellation of pending debts between peasants and latifundists...
...from the expropriation of latifundios with agro-industrial or livestock development...
...The agrarian reform executive councils shall be composed insofar as possible of the following: Two representatives of the agricultural wageearners, farm-hands, day-laborers, etc...
...The Mandate outlines clearly the basic assumptions that will guide this transformation and provides an initial outline of the organization that such a transformation will require...
...1 Specifically, the Asociacion Nacional de Usuarios Campesinos (ANUC), the national peasant federation which represents the 1.5 million peasants grouped in local associations, has developed an aggressive position in relation to the government agrarian reform program...
...For anyone with very little knowledge of Cuba, Fidel, or Che, such a statement, supported by the counterrevolutionary propaganda so common in capitalist journalism, implies that Fidel was directly responsible for Che's death...
...This Minister branded the Mandate subversive in intent and affirmed the commitment of Pastrana's government to the right of private property...
...CIAS noted that 3rd) To procure the establishment and approval of a "unity of properties" rule for land expropriation, i.e., that farms anywhere in the country belonging to the same natural or juridical person will be considered as a sole property and consequently the expropriation will apply to the area exceeding the maximum limits of land fixed by the zone or municipality where it is located...
...1969...
...Words used to describe the Puerto Rican people's docility would be "aplatanados...resigned...pacific...fatalistic...
...This step recognizes the Indians' unique interest in Colombian society...
...Much of the current peasant agitation in the Colombian countryside has focused on the implementation of this law...
...j) To organize discussions and speeches to publicize the contents of the Mandate...
...The immediate goal of land reform does serve to incorporate the peasant into the system by giving him a vested property interest and integrating him into the competitive market mechanism but it must not be dismissed as merely conservative...
...Frederick A. Praeger...
...RoutD ~ Nfflm[0 &W&~O26 CHAPTER I: OBJECTIVES OF THE MANDATE Article I Inspired by the necessity of integrating the peasants into the national decision-making process and to promote the socio-economic development of the country on the basis of justice and equity, and conscious of the social functions that the Republic's Constitution assigns to property, this mandate's objective timder the motto LAND WITHOUT LANDLORDS is to create the conditions for modifying the structure of the Colombian countryside through a process of agrarian reform having the following objectives: a) Elimination of the land monopoly and the final liquidation of latifundist property...
...The National Front agreement provided for the alternation of the presidency and other political offices between the Liberal and Conservative parties every four years...
...134 pages...
...2nd) The peasant-run cooperatives are based on the collective work of members with equality of rights and duties and carry on their entire economic activity with full independence based on internal cooperative democracy and their own regulations...
...Like all his conclusions and their implications, his work consistently lacks any historically valid proof...
...In the spring of 1968, reforms were implemented24 by presidential decree that provided the machinery for peasant organization...
...It covers four presidential terms from 1958-1974...
...Pastrana, the Conservative Party candidate, was elected president in 1970 -- his politics have been moving right ever since...
...This approach provides a true and carefully weighted picture which allows the reader to comprehend the failures of some movements and the victories of others...
...14-1...
...The second agrarian reform law (Law 135 of 1961) which forms the basis of the current program, paralleled the first law...
...does have the correct Marxist analysis of the world...
...Also, it staffs courses in the National University at Bogota, Medellin, and Palmira in such fields as agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, agronomy, animal science, extension-social sciences, home economics and veterinary medicine...
...this constitutional provision had never been applied since being instituted in 1936...
...Clothing, shirt and pants for men, a muslin dress for women...
...Doubleday Co...
...He also discusses the Korean War and the role of the Puerto Rican soldier in what he terms "the counter-revolutionary Army...
...He also defined Puerto Rican nationhood: "La Patria es valor y sacrificio" ("Our nation means courage and sacrifice...
...Thus the Mandate indicates that ANUC has analyzed the dynamics of past reforms and that the peasants are no longer deceived by the machinations of the oligarchy...
...Nobody from Havana to Peking to Moscow is spared Mercier Vega's cynicism...
...And this is exactly what he does...
...Peasant groups, at the time, committed to a legalistic stance, yet powerless in the face of legal manipulation, allowed their energies to be dissipated through endless waiting...
...15th) To procure that the small proprietors (minifundists) who possess landholdings...
...Implied in this approach is that he, Luis Mercier Vega (writing from some ivory tower, probably in Paris...
...By Luis Mercier Vega...
...Likewise in a few sentences he dismisses the Tupamaros by trying to create a sense of their defeat...
...Fortunately, history moves in a different direction and disproves the false predictions of people like Luis Mercier Vega...
...Article XIV...
...In the context of the national policy they serve, the facade of their innocence crumbles.25 Although the Mandate is a preliminary statement, it represents a bold call to the rural proletariat and to all progressives demanding a radical transformation of the rural areas...
...4. There is an Indian population of about 400,000 in Colombia (two percent of the population), with varying degrees of cultural assimilation and autonomy, living in various regions of the country...
...In reality the Church has accomplished little in the way of economic improvement in these regions...
...Fundamental to an understanding of the Mandate is a knowledge of the various agrarian reform laws and the response of peasants to them...
...i) To establish relations with any public or private entities that have to do with rural community development relative to the agrarian reform, and to coordinate extension services...
...He defines a guerrilla movement as "a political organization that seeks by means of armed warfare in the countryside to change the political and social structure of a country" (p...
...It can become a lever that raises the level of struggle and it is symbolic of the growing revolutionary ferment of Latin America's exploited rural masses...
...In order to determine the maximum holding that a natural or juridical person may possess in a municipality of the country, the municipal agrarian reform councils shall take into account the VITAL MEDIAN INCOME that a peasant family requires for the satisfaction of its needs...
...This is known as the period of awareness and development of the Puerto Rican personality...
...3 Article III...
...The Conservative groups backing Pastrana hope this maneuver will shift the focus of agrarian reform away from direct expropriation to colonization efforts in the Amazon Basin...
...the majority of our people, and convinced at the same time of the inoperancy of the so-called Colombian Institute of Agrarian Reform (INCORA), 2 and of the national government's failure to adopt a policy to accelerate a massive, rapid and democratic process of agrarian reform that will radically transform Colombia's existing agrarian structure and replace it with a system of property, tenure and exploitation of the land which would at the same time guarantee social justice in the countryside and the economic development of the country...
...The Agrarian Cooperative Statute will press for: a) Establishing a close cooperation between cooperativized and individual peasants...
...Official policy since the ratification of a Concordat with the Vatican in 1878 has left the education and development of these communities in the hands of the Catholic Church...
...12th) To procure that expropriated lands by adjudicated without cost to the peasants who work or desire to work them and that debts pending for purchase of lands by peasants from the government or from latifundists be abolished...
...Article IV...
...He pays special attention to the Nationalist movement between 1922 and the 1950's, which he calls "the catalytic agent" of the Puerto Rican movement for independence and liberation...
...2) In view of the fact that the courts at the present time are extremely expensive, slow and biased, there shall be created by virtue of this Mandate the Peasant Jurisdiction, under the authority of the agrarian reform executive councils...
...The national agrarian reform council shall regulate with respect to the above...
...d) The areas reserved for public housing...
...Such a reaction is typical of an oligarchy, masking its fear of political groups whose formation is a clear threat to the oligarchic control of the ruling class...
...b) The creation of an agrarian bank which would provide credit for peasant-run cooperatives and small and medium proprietors for the promotion of production...
...The diet for the body, scanty and of little nutritional value, for the mind, ephemeral...
...Although they managed to resist successfully until finally crushed by the army in the late 1960's, these republics did not develop any means for expression at the national level...
...Type 5) Cooperatives on lands of social ownership...
...The following are functions of the agrarian reform executive councils: (a) To intercede in order to seek the most suitable solution to problems resulting from the inequitable distribution of land, especially in cases where land has already been occupied...
...The representatives of the agrarian reform 3. As in many republics with highly centralized systems of government, the geopolitical unit corresponding to the North American "state" is the "department...
...They stipulated that land holdings above a legal minimum size could now be passed into peasant ownership...
...Moreover, among the functions established for the councils, they have that of pressing for the consistent application of this Mandate and resolving in the last instance those problems which cannot be resolved at the lower levels...
...Meanwhile, U.S...
...The ANUC statement reprinted below is one sign that a rising level of consciousness is developing among the rural proletariat...
...One representative of the small proprietors...
...b) Prohibition and liquidation of the aberrant systems of land rental, sharecropping, labor contracting and the like...
...Finally, he summarizes: "However scientific we try to be, the current state of our knowledge of the social processes in Latin America is not sufficiently advanced to allow us to plot with any degree of accuracy the shape of the future...
...We therefore encourage readers interested in reviewing to send us some background information, including specific fields of interest, current research and writing and suggestions for books or other literature to review...
...owned tourist centers and factories...
...k) To carry out any further responsibilities assigned by the Manate or its regulations...
...Paragraph...
...5th) The production in with the aims the Colombian consolidating export and to peasant-run cooperatives will plan their accord with national development needs, of satisfying the food requirements of population, replacing the one-crop system, new lines of production destined for provide raw materials for industry...
...1 Whenever possible Vega attacks...
...As the first armed underground group on the island, it has caused substantial capital losses by planting bombs and incendiary devices in U.S...
...Ministry of Education (schools), Agrarian Reform Institute (land, technical services, credit), Agrarian Bank (credit...
...The struggle never stops, it intensifies...
...Article XVII...
...universities...
...To elaborate an Agrarian Cooperative Statute based on the following: lst) The peasant-run cooperatives are large-scale productive enterprises which arise from the voluntary union of small proprietors...
...Even though the program is still a paper program, it faces strong reaction from the Colombian oligarchy...
...3. This is not to be confused with the United Front, a liberal-radical coalition that Camilo Torres tried to form before his assassination by government troops...
...More information on INCORA may be found in Ernest Duff, Agrarian Reform in Colombia (New York: Praeger, 1968) and Thomas E. Weil et al., Area Handbook for Colombia (Washington: U.S...
...By and large those registered under National Peasant Organizing Campaign which began in 1968 were aspirants for land under programs of the Agrarian Reform Institute...
...the one that is applauded and the one that is deplored...
...The national and departmental agrarian reform councils shall coordinate and advise the other councils under their jurisdiction...
...the wage barely enough for subsistence...
...In addition, it has helped the ICA record and distribute almost 700 radio programs and distribute over a million pieces of literature between 1966 and 1969...
...whatever its content, threatens the prevailing rural order...
...Congress in 1954, represent the real mystique or31 spirit of the movement...
...GUERRILLA MOVEMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA...
...district agrarian reform councils regarding the establishment of the maximum limit of a holding shall be taken into account only when they have been approved by the respective municipal agrarian reform council...
...By Juan Angel Silen...
...Manuel Ramos 1. Authors of Guerrillas in Power (New York: Hill and Wang, 1970) and Cuba: Socialism and Development (New York: Grove Press, 1970...
...Article VII...
...After that others soon moved in: the Fajardo Sugar Company (1905), the Loiza Sugar Company (1907), and the United Puerto Rican Sugar Company (1926) which later became the Eastern Sugar Associates...
...Article XVI...
...First came the National City Bank, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Bank of Nova Scotia and some others...
...Fuquene, Isle of Santuario, August 22, 1971...
...These changes revised the formula under which lands could be expropriated...
...In Colombia its governor is appointed by the President of the republic and the governor in turn appoints municipal chief magistrates...
...One representative of the medium proprietors...
...Most probably there will be no further attempt to put Che Guevara's theory into practice " (p...
...In Silen's own words: "The social and intellectual life of most of the population was as poverty stricken as its economic life....The work day was sunrise to sunset...
...Such businesses are owned primarily by those agribusiness interests in which foreign investors have a stake, and thus have been exempted from agrarian reform...
...Such occurrences seem to reflect the dynamic situation in which the document was drafted and perhaps also divergent currents within ANUC.] The National Association of Peasant Usuarios of Colombia, being conscious of the limitations and class interests of the different political parties in Congress, in order to find a solution to the Colombian agrarian issue in the interest of the peasant class and 1. The term "usuarios" (literally, "users") as employed in the Colombian agrarian scene refers to rural residents who currently make use of or who aspire to make use of the services provided by government agencies or decentralized institutes, e.g...
...Article VIII...
...365-371...
...The Grito de Lares or revolution of Lares of September 23,1868 is the maximum expression or demonstration of the people's level of consciousness...
...Finally, Silen talks about the "Enraged Generation" which matured with FUPI (University Students Federation for Independence), the formation of which in 1956 opened a new door for the liberation struggle...
...tolerant...
...g) To facilitate technical assistance, machinery, sufficient and opportune credit, adequate marketing systems, programs of housing, education, health and social security to the peasant-run cooperative farms and to the small and medium property owners...
...On recent land invasions see "Colombia: The March Outburst" in NACLA Newsletter (Vol...
...He writes: "The movement is everywhere in retreat...
...Article XV...
...4th) To procure the prohibition of rural land tenure and ownership by corporations or any other type of association other than the peasant-run enterprises...
...5th) To procure that studies and investigations carried out by the executive councils of the agrarian reform and their propositions regarding maximum farm size be taken into account for establishing the country's maximum limit of private property for natural persons...
...The University of Nebraska Mission in Colombia, for example, provides a number of services related to land reform programs...
...In 1899, the Fords of Boston took control of Central Aguirre (one of the island's largest sugar operations...
...Footnotes: 1. Associations of rural usuarios or residents who use [Translator's note: The reader may note internal inconsistencies at several points in the Mandate...
...US/AID 514-58T has provided $2 million, the ICA $1 million, the Ford Foundation $400,000, and the Kellogg Foundation $600,000...
...As is so often the case in South America, national debate is internationalized by imperialism...
...All this demonstrates that he lacks even a minimal understanding of the oppressed and their struggles...
...The government is also in the process of revising the current agrarian reform law and has introduced a reformulation of it in the Colombian Congress...
...To arrive at this median income, they shall take into account the fertility of the soil, topography, communication routes, distance from urban centers, type of crops and family size...
...RESOLVES To approve and publish the present document which will be called the FIRST PEASANT MANDATE, and whose development and enforcement is assigned to the Associations of Peasant Usuarios and the organizations which are created by virtue of the same...
...3rd) The principles of organization and of the forms of work of the peasant-run cooperatives, and the rights and obligations of their members must be included in the regulatory provisions of the Agrarian Cooperative Statute...
...Juan Angel Silen's introductory words aptly describe this work: "This is a book to explain the Puerto Rican people's fight for independence in a simple, clear, and reasoned way...
...One of his most important points is that such Nationalists' actions as the 1950 revolutionary uprising in Jayuya, the attack on Blair House and President Truman in that same year, and the armed intervention of the U.S...
...Consequently, they ended up entering into a fruitless alliance with the urban bourgeoisie...
...In accord with the socialization of the means of production and the level of technological development reached, and in order to combine the general interest with individual interest, the following types of peasant-run cooperatives will exist: Type 1) Production and service cooperatives based on small and medium property, for the purpose of utilizing machinery, seed, etc., and organizing the marketing of produce...
...While this has allowed such organizations as ANUC to form, it seems clear that rural mobilization will be undertaken from above and be subject to state control...
...Colwell, Dean of International Programs, The Nebraska Mission in Colombia: The First Four Years, 1966-1969 (University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1969) pp...
...companies also penetrated other sectors of the island's economy...
...There is a subtle and important distinction between these two positions...
...9th) To procure that land owned by the nation be declared "LANDS OF SOCIAL OWNERSHIP" and to prohibit insofar as possible their adjudication as private property, except in the following case: When the current user of the land shows that his possession and exploitation predates this Mandate, and that the adjudicated property does not exceed the maximum limit fixed for the zone or municipality where the land is located...
...c) The areas devoted to purposes of education, public recreation, promotion of agricultural and livestock development, research and public health...
...3) May-June, 1971, pp...
...c) To advance studies or investigations tending to formulate criteria for determining the possible maximum private holding that a natural person could possess in a zone or municipality of the country...
...in all farm properties abandoned by their owners for more than two years...
...This liberalization of the law heightened landowner resistance...
...Next Silen reviews what he calls " the literature of docility...
...Type 3) Cooperatives formed on the basis of the collectivization of expropriated latifundios which are inadequately exploited...
...Their aim has been to create the conditions for revolution...
...d) Substitution in place of the present system of property, land tenure and exploitation, one composed of large units of peasant-run cooperatives on the basis of voluntary association and technological development of the countryside...
...smaller than the minimum required to provide a vital median income be adjudicated free of charge the lands necessary to give them that income...
...The future will in all probability reveal a hard-line stand against "illegal" invasions and against the ANUC...
...This has not been their main objective...
...As free men, the peasants can do more for Colombia than as slaves...
...Such a method insures a peasant movement that is docile and that develops within the limits of the liberal bourgeois state...
...There had been no room in Havana any longer for the Argentine doctor" (p...
...The author also deals with investments by North American corporations in Puerto Rico since the invasion of the island in 1898...
...In contrast to the above book, Richard Gott's Guerrilla Movements in Latin America is a superior piece of truly objective writing...
...7th) To procure the declaration of public utility and social interest in the expropriation of the installations, buildings, machinery, livestock and other means of production of the latifundias with developed agro-industrial or livestock operations utilizing wage labor, to be then operated by the workers themselves...
...f) To collect information and organize a listing of landless peasants, or permanent or migrant wageworkers, of renters, sharecroppers and small proprietors or minifundists...
...Translated by Cedric Belfrage...
...Article VI...
...d) Advancement of housing programs in cooperatives for which the necessary contributions must be appropriated...
...Shoes: who had any...
...f) Prepare social security programs for rural areas as a complement to the agrarian reform...
...d) To propose on the basis of such studies the The following people helped with this issue: Tom Anthony, Hal Benenson, Penny Ciancanelli, Susan Draper, Barry Frank, Gordon Greathouse Jenny Roper, Zayda Sanchez, Hoby Spalding, Tom Trainor, Julius Wool and Israel Yost.28 possible maximum holding to be permitted in the area of a zone or municipality...
...This resistance to reform on the part of the landed bourgeoisie underscores a determination to maintain their class privileges...
...After FUPI came the MPI (Pro-Independence Movement), organized in 1959, as well as other political and literary groups also engaged in the struggle for independence...
...The Mandate states that peasants will operate outside of all existing political parties...
...16th) To procure that lands of the nation, the departments and the municipalities may be distributed among the peasants, with only the following exceptions: a) Lands given to peasant-run enterprises or to individual peasants...
...For example, he writes, "for Fidel, Che is less of a nuisance dead than alive...
...In a truly cynical form, he leads the reader to certain conclusions which can only be labeled as lies...
...1) The municipal agrarian reform councils shall determine who are to be considered medium proprietors...
...Then FEPI (High School Students Federation for Independence) appeared on the scene and more recently (1967) the Comando Armados de Liberacion (CAL or Armed Commandos of Liberation...
...Every group, every leader, every situation is carefully and meticulously analyzed...
...V, No...
...The several peasant leagues and unions of the 1920's and 1930's, though often strong at a local level, never could project themselves as a national force...
...The Colombian peasant movement has from its very beginning suffered from a debilitating regionalism imposed primarily by the nation's geography, in that sharp mountain ranges divide individual valleys making coordination and communication difficult...
...He specifically condemned "certain leaders" of ANUC for moving the organization away from fraternal concerns to political ones, so that it becomes a force not only outside the framework of Colombian party politics but outside of the laws of the land as well...
...They are the basic rural subdivisions of the municipalities...
...Written under the leadership of the "progressive wing" of the Liberal Party, it attempted to undermine the political base of the Conservative Party in the countryside...
...Colombia's first agrarian reform law, passed in 1936 by the Liberal Party, proved little more than a pile of legal loopholes which allowed a continuance of the status quo...
...This very spirit is embodied in the political testament of a major Puerto Rican independence leader and writer, Pedro Albizu Campos (who died in 1965): "Para quitarnos la Patria, tienen que quitarnos la vida" ("To take away our country they must take our lives...
...Paragraph: Representatives of organizations that are identified with the objectives of the Mandate shall be able to participate in the agrarian reform executive councils, as the respective Association deems proper...
...Formed in 1966 and financed jointly by AID, the Ford Foundation, and the Kellogg Foundation as well as by the Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA), it has trained 103 students at 24 U.S...
...The municipality (municipio) in Spanish America occupies territory roughly equivalent to the North American "county", but its.administration is combined with that of the town which is its seat of government...
...We agree that land reform itself, within the capitalistic framework, is not revolutionary...
...Article XIII...
...The Mandate in our analysis is a progressive document...
...Its legislative bodies operate in farily well-defined but limited spheres...
...8th) To procure that undeveloped properties in petroleum exploration or other mining concessions as well as those in lumber concessions be put at the disposal of the agrarian reform in cases where they can be used for peasant agriculture or livestock production without prejudice to or interference with the previously cited activities...
...The guerrilla attitude is not so much that Latin America is ripe for revolution, but rather that it needs a revolution (p...
...Gangsters, in short...
Vol. 5 • December 1971 • No. 8
