Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
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Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
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The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
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The Case for Boycotting Israel
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They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
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Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
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FBI Torture Memos
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|
Weekend Edition
February 26 / 27, 2005
More Like Lincoln Than Lenin
Land
Reform in Venezuela
By
SETH DELONG
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is
pushing full speed ahead with land reform, an issue that has
been one of the most divisive and perennially debated topics
in Latin America. Land reform poses perhaps the greatest challenge
yet to Chavez's stormy presidency, as it historically has been
the Achilles' heel of left-of-center regimes. Chavez's daunting
task is twofold: first, he will have to overcome problems that
doomed past attempts at land reform throughout the region by
other reformist governments, notably Jacobo Arbenz's 1954 attempts
in Guatemala and Salvador Allende's 1970 - 1973 attempts in Chile.
Second, he must grapple with the middle class's opposition to
agrarian reform, which it will continue to oppose more tenaciously
than any other aspect of his "Bolivarian revolution."
So far, he appears to have learned from his predecessors' mistakes
by implementing a host of cautionary institutional measures in
order to avoid them. Although the rightwing wrongly considers
land reform to be a carte blanche attack on private property,
the opposition and business interests, such as the Vestey cattle
ranch, do have some legitimate concerns that need to be addressed.
The Facts Regarding Chavez's
Land Reform The Venezuelan leader first articulated his land
reform plan, what he calls "Vuelta al Campo," (Return
to the Countryside) under the Law on Land and Agricultural Development
in November 2001. The goals of this legislation were as follows:
to set limits on the size of landholdings, tax unused property
as an incentive to spur agricultural growth, redistribute unused,
primarily government-owned land to peasant families and cooperatives
and, lastly, expropriate uncultivated and fallow land from large,
private estates for the purpose of redistribution. On the last
and most controversial goal, the landowners would be compensated
for their land at market value. The National Land Institute (INTI)
was set up to facilitate achieving these goals by establishing
criteria to determine what land could be redistributed and the
eligibility of those applying for new land deeds. Under Plan
Zamora of 2003, both the INTI and its sister organizations, the
National Rural Development Institute and the Venezuelan Agricultural
Organization, have been tasked to administer agricultural expertise
to the new peasant landowners and to provide markets for their
goods. After a slow start, the Chavez government has redistributed
about 2.2 million hectares of state owned land to more than 130,000
peasant families and cooperatives (1 hectare = 2.47 acres). So
far, although not one acre of private property has been expropriated
by the government, tensions are beginning to mount as Chavez
extends his reform program from government-owned land to the
latifundios (large, privately owned estates of more than 5,000
hectares, roughly 12,350 acres).
Chavez Emulates Lincoln In
the history of land reform, the most accurate analogy to illustrate
what is transpiring in Venezuela is not Zimbabwe or Cuba - Chavez
officials have repeatedly emphasized that they are not emulating
the Cuban model of land reform - but the U.S.' own Homestead
Act. Signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, the measure
declared that any U.S. or intended citizen of at least 21 years
of age could claim up to 160 acres of government land. Like Chavez's
Vuelta al Campo, there were many restrictions in the Act which
benefited the recipients by ensuring that the new reform could
not be manipulated by entrenched, moneyed interests. Under Lincoln's
legislation, the land could not be sold to speculators or used
as debt collateral, and only after five years of "actual
settlement and cultivation," according to Section 2, could
the homesteader submit an application for a land patent. Similarly,
in Chavez's plan, only after three years may the peasants obtain
legal ownership of the land, and only then after they have rendered
it productive. The Homestead Act was one of the most progressive
and far-reaching government initiatives in U.S. history insofar
as it helped to develop and secure an agrarian-based middle class,
which had an epic impact on the future democratization of the
nation. That Chavez is trying to emulate it in his own country,
as part of his plan to extirpate Venezuela's entrenched inequality,
is an effort that all right-minded people should applaud.
Upping the Ante Last month,
the president of INTI, Eliecer Otaiza, said that "We hope
to issue 100,000 land grants within the next six months."
This announcement followed a series of new decrees issued by
the government intended to speed up the reform. However, since
where the land will come from for the proposed grants is not
clear, hostility has ignited between ranch owners and campesinos
as the government begins inspecting which private estates it
might appropriate. According to Juan Forero of the New York Times,
even before these latest decrees were passed, "as Mr. Chavez's
government trains its sights on 6.6 million acres of private
holdings, farmers are increasingly worried that it will recklessly
seize private property." The government has recently set
up an "Intervention Commission" to determine what lands
are productive and were obtained legally. Last January, this
commission began exercising its mandate under the INTI by inspecting
the British-owned Vestey cattle ranch of El Charcote in Cojedes.
In two months, the commission is due to announce its findings
pertaining to the ranch's proprietorship and productivity.
The Right Throws a Fit The
prospect of Chavez's "revolutionary" government supporting
hundreds of thousands of machete-wielding campesinos as they
shout "fuera los ingleses" (out with the English) has
provoked a spate of somewhat hysterical editorials by conservative
Caracas and U.S. commentators. Frequently, much of what is written
in the U.S. press on the subject is simply inaccurate or egregious
hyperbole, which eventually gets passed off as gospel. For example,
though the New York Times got it right, the Christian Science
Monitor wrote in an editorial that "The plan supposedly
applies to both private and governmental agricultural holdings,
but so far only private lands are being targeted." While
that statement is demonstrably false, the Washington Post - ominously
reminding its readers that Chavez is a "disciple of Castro"
- noted that the "assault on private property is merely
the latest step in what has been a rapidly escalating 'revolution'
by Venezuela's president that is undermining the foundations
of democracy and free enterprise." Carlos Ball of the CATO
Institute flatly declares in his piece, "Chavez's Land Grab,"
that in the Bolivarian Republic, "Private property is history."
Even though, as of today, no privately owned land has yet been
redistributed to the landless poor by the government, the rightwing
and its media lapdogs seem mighty nervous over any possible change
in the status quo of Venezuela's landed elite. But before dismissing
Chavez as another Castro, it would behoove one to analyze the
Venezuelan land barons and the history of agriculture in the
country, at least since the oil boom, in order to determine just
how radical the president's land reform plan really is.
A Brief History of Venezuela's
Spectacular Iniquities In Venezuela roughly 75 to 80% of the
country's private land is owned by 5% of all landowners. Regarding
agricultural holdings, that figure drops to a mere 2% of the
population owning 60% of the country's farmland, much of which
is fallow. Because these stark statistics do not help one understand
the extraordinary levels of both rural and urban inequality in
Venezuela, perhaps the following analogy will. Imagine if in
the U.S. a handful of families owned the entire state of California.
There is no California Coastal Commission, no limits on the amount
of land that may be purchased, no zoning laws, no government
oversight of any kind, nothing of the sort. But none of this
really matters to the average citizen because California, as
a conglomeration of large, privately owned estates, will never
be seen by most U.S. residents (excepting itinerant laborers).
In other words, try to think of one of the most beautiful states
in the U.S. as a giant gated community. Meanwhile, the country's
landed oligarchy owns the vast majority of the land, most of
which lies fallow because they prefer to sit on it for the purpose
of land speculation rather than use it for agricultural production.
With most of its arable land unused, the U.S. is the only net
importer of food on the continent and is forced to purchase more
than two-thirds of its foodstuffs abroad. Though this analogy
may help one to empathize with the land situation in Venezuela,
it is still woefully inadequate for conveying an adequate grasp
on the levels of inequality in that country, as California only
makes up 4% of the U.S. land mass.
Venezuela and the "Dutch
Disease" Today, about 90% of Venezuela's 25 million people
live in urban areas. This gross imbalance between urban and rural
populations is largely a result of the 1970s oil boom. Before
that, about two-thirds of Venezuelans lived in rural areas. However,
once the country became flush with petrodollars, a succession
of middle-of-the-road governments began to neglect the countryside
and focus its resources in the petro industry. This concentration
led to a demographic surge from rural to urban areas as peasants
left their traditional vocation for the lure of urban jobs. The
dire consequence of this internal migration was to turn the country
into a net food importer, the only one in South America. With
campesinos fleeing from the country to the cities, Venezuela's
planners failed to provide for the labor required to build or
even sustain its pre-1970s agricultural base.
The oil revenues were allocated
largely towards urban infrastructural projects, almost all of
which went towards middle class neighborhoods and white collar
pursuits, at the expense of shoring up the country's agricultural
sector and domestic manufacturing. The result was a convulsed
economy and a shrinking agricultural base. Accordingly, it was
no wonder that the Venezuelan co-founder of OPEC, Juan Pablo
Alfonso, said in 1975: "I call petroleum the devil's excrement.
It brings trouble . . . Look at this locura_waste, corruption,
consumption, our public services falling apart. And debt, debt
we shall have for years." This problem of the "Dutch
Disease" - the phenomenon of an economy slumping as a direct
result of a rapid spike in one of its sectors while the others
remain constant - has plagued Venezuela for decades. According
to some analysts, even the country's culture suffered as a result
of the boom. Gregory Wilpert, a freelance journalist and political
scientist based in Caracas, has written that the problem with
"Venezuela's reliance on oil is that it has fostered a rentier
and clientelistic mentality among Venezuelans. The consequence
was that rather than engaging in creative entrepreneurial activity,
Venezuelans were encouraged to ally themselves with the state,
seeking either employment or contracts from the state, which
had a monopoly on Venezuela's oil income."
In short, since the Punto Fijo
pact of 1958, the successive governments under the two dominant
middle-class parties, the Christian Democrats (COPEI) and Democratic
Action (AD), made the same mistake as many Middle East regimes:
they poured oil revenues into a privileged elite when they should
have been spread out to most Venezuelans. This mismanagement
of resources thereby created a nation divided between those who
benefited from the oil revenues squarely pitted against those
who ultimately suffered from them. By facilitating what the government
hopes will be a long-term demographic movement back to rural
areas, Chavez intends to strengthen precisely those sectors of
the economy and culture that suffered the most from the oil boom.
His land reform program should thus be viewed in the broader
context of his "Bolivarian Revolution," which can be
described as an attempt to reverse much of the damage the country
suffered by the problems of its mismanaged oil wealth, coupled
with the clientelism, profligacy and corruption of the leprous
series of COPEI/AD governments.
Why Chavez's Land Reform just
Might Work Chavez has been criticized for returning to a dead
end social program, characterized more by socialist babble than
by clear thinking and sound planning. Critics point out that
land reform already has been tried in Venezuela and failed. Some
argue that Chavez's plan could make for the same kind of agricultural
disaster wrought by President Robert Mugabe's land reform policy
in Zimbabwe. Regarding this context of botched agrarian reform
attempts, the Christian Science Monitor notes that, "In
the 1960s and '70s, much of Latin America (including Venezuela)
tried such land reform and failed . . . Government control of
agriculture is on the way out globally."
While it is true that during
the 1960s land was distributed to 150,000 peasant families, there
are fundamental differences between Chavez's current plan and
those that have failed in the past - differences that indicate
the "Fifth Republic" under Chavez has learned from
past mistakes. In a paper prepared for the 2002 World Bank Latin
American Land Policy Workshop in Pachuca, Mexico, one key reason
identified for the botched attempts of previous agrarian reform
campaigns was the state's failure to implement "programs
to promote efficient use of land by beneficiaries." According
to the report, reform efforts fail "where access to land
is not accompanied by a set of institutional reforms able to
secure the competitiveness of beneficiaries." In other words,
the approach of most governments towards agrarian reform was,
"here's a plot of land. Good luck." Chavez has already
taken steps to ensure this mistake is not repeated.
First, his government is taking
a much more activist roll in the reform process than previous
attempts at land reform. Under Vuelta al Campo, the government
does not just distribute land and then walk away. Unlike past
attempts, the government maintains a legal and market-oriented
purview over the land reform process. This includes de facto
government ownership of the distributed land, dissemination of
knowledge about proper farming techniques to the new peasant
cooperatives and, most importantly, the creation of internal
and external markets required to absorb the new products. The
intention behind de facto government ownership, in which public
authorities basically hold the deeds to the distributed land
in an escrow account, is to ensure that the new peasant families
will not sell their farms back to the big landowners. That is
precisely what happened in the 60s when many of the peasants
re-sold their newly distributed land to the latifundistas due
to a lack of government assistance and a sufficiently clarified
market for their produce, which promptly resulted in a reversion
to the status quo.
Furthermore, the previous land
reform in Venezuela never got to the core of the problem, which
was the retention of large, unused but arable tracts of land
by the latifundistas. Under that system, land was left idle for
the purpose of "engordar el toreno," (to fatten the
cow), defined as not using the land for any agricultural purposes
but keeping it fallow while engaging in land speculation. In
an interview with COHA, Professor and Venezuelan expert Miguel
Tinker-Salas of Pomona College said this is the bankrupt agricultural
system that Chavez is seeking to reform: "The attempt at
land reform under the COPEI/AD government was never an effort
to break up the large, landed estates. It was basically a patronage
system. It left the fundamental power structure in tact, which
is what Chavez is trying to change." He argues that unlike
the "superficial efforts at land reform in the past, in
which the government provided little support," Chavez is
earnest about changing the status quo, and that we "should
view his land reform program in the broader context of the overall
social transformation taking place in Venezuelan society."
The Right does have a Point
In fairness, it certainly looks like the government is on the
cusp of expropriating some private lands, though it would only
do so if the INTI determines such land to be fallow or unlawfully
gained. The government's intervention in the 32,000 acre El Charcote
cattle ranch, owned by the Vestey Group of Britain, raises legitimate
questions regarding how far Chavez's land reform will go and
whether it is prepared to risk scaring away foreign investors.
That prospect poses a serious problem to the regime since a precipitous
flight of foreign capital over fears of "another Castro"
is the last thing Chavez's social movement needs. As Jose de
Cordoba of the Wall Street Journal reported, "Fear of confiscations
is drying up agricultural investment and financing, and a continuation
of this trend almost certainly would erode production in the
not-too-distant future." In the wake of Chavez's repeated
calls for a war against the latifundios, squatters have appropriated
much of the Vestey ranch's land. While they undoubtedly have
suffered historical wrongs, the sight of campesinos pouring over
the vested estates is almost guaranteed to send investors scurrying.
Just imagine the CEO of a firm
specializing in agricultural exports reading in the New York
Times that, according to Anthony Richards, the manager of the
El Charcote ranch, "the presence of the squatters has forced
the farm to cut the size of its herd to a little more than 6,000
from 13,500 in 1999. Instead of producing 3.3 million pounds
of meat a year, the farm now produces about a third of that amount."
If Chavez gives into all the squatters' demands, many of whom
may in fact be occupying land that is both lawfully owned and
productive, his Vuelta al Campo could become another sad example
of the revolution eating its children. Why he is eyeing some
estates which, like the Vestey ranch, appear productive and beneficial
to Venezuelans (the combined Vestey cattle ranches produce around
5% of the country's beef), rather than focusing all attention
on shoring up the productivity of government land that has already
been distributed - at least as a first stage - is a perfectly
legitimate question to pose to Chavistas.
Nice Job so far - but be Careful
Chavez is right to enact sweeping land reform, both as a means
of reducing Venezuela's feudal levels of inequality and as a
way of boosting agricultural output, which now accounts for a
pathetic 6% of the country's GDP. And the right is certainly
wrong to offer up only its usual, knee-jerk reaction to anything
Chavez promotes. That noted, Chavez would be well advised to
consolidate the gains already made by the newly landed peasants
on public lands. By making certain that those who have been deeded
public land live up to their end of the bargain - as was the
main obligation of Lincoln's Homesteaders - Chavez can establish
his program as a rare success story in a region littered with
failed attempts at agrarian reform.
Seth R. DeLong, Ph.D, is a Senior Research Fellow
at the Center for Hemispheric
Affairs.
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