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Today's
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September 8,
2004
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
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September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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September 8, 2004
La Plataforma Agraria
Land
Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
By
LISA VISCIDI
In rural Guatemala, poor mostly indigenous
farmers scrape off a living on the nation¡s poorest soils
while wealthy finca (large plantation) owners reap the
benefits of an agricultural system based on international exports
and the exploitation of cheap labor. Guatemala has one of the
most skewed land distribution patterns in the world and the second
most inequitable in Latin America--roughly 2 percent of the population
owns 70 percent of all productive farmland. This has led to fierce
and often violent land conflicts between poor campesinos
(farmers) and a powerful landed elite that maintains dominance
vis-a-vis close ties to the government.
A Long
History of Land Conflict and Inequality
Guatemala¡s inequitable land distribution system is rooted
in the Spanish conquest, when land seized from the indigenous
populations was granted to colonizers. The Spanish usurped the
nation¡s richest soils and exploited the indigenous labor
force in order to sell products such as sugar and cacao on European
markets. Indigenous farmers were relocated to the most unproductive
farmlands where they barely survived off of subsistence farming.
Independence from Spain in
1821 brought few rewards to Guatemala¡s rural indigenous
population. The emerging class of wealthy ladinos (non-indigenous)
gained increasing control over land and labor. Coffee became
the nation¡s largest export, and a powerful elite of coffee
growers forced farmers to abandon their lands in order to further
agribusiness interests. As communal land tenure disappeared and
export crop growers forced indigenous villagers to relocate to
less productive highland areas, many campesinos were compelled
to migrate to coastal plantations in search of work.
Land ownership became increasingly
concentrated until Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz initiated
the Agrarian Reform Law of 1952, which called for the expropriation
of mostly idle lands from large plantation owners to be redistributed
to poor farmers. The reform, which benefited an estimated 100,000
families, threatened the holdings of large landowners and powerful
foreign companies, especially the North American-owned United
Fruit Company.
Under the guise of combating
communism, the U.S. government ordered a CIA-orchestrated coup
to oust Arbenz in 1954. The democratically-elected president
was replaced by a U.S.-backed general who annulled the majority
of the land expropriations, returning the territory to its previous
owners. In the following decades a civil war ensued, pitting
military dictatorships against a leftist guerilla insurgency.
The best lands were rewarded to military officers and rich land-owners
tied to the military regimes, thus cementing the system of inequitable
land distribution.
Indeed, land ownership was
one of the most controversial components of the 1996 Peace Accords,
which charged the state with the task of providing land to peasant
farmers. The stipulations of the accords, however, have yet to
be implemented, and Guatemala remains a panorama of inequality
and poverty-- the same ills that have devastated the nation since
the Spanish conquest.
The
Agrarian Problem Today
Today, Guatemala has the largest rural population in Central
America-over 60 percent of its inhabitants depend on agriculture
to survive. Yet available land is shrinking as rural families
grow and expansive tracts devoted to export agriculture are concentrated
into fewer hands. The United States and international institutions
such as the World Bank have pressured Guatemala to employ an
agricultural export model that allows multinational food corporations
and wealthy finca owners to reap the benefits of the country¡s
rich agricultural environment and cheap labor source, while the
majority of the population survives on tiny subsistence-oriented
plots.
On the steep slopes of the
Western Highlands, where most subsistence farms are located,
intensive land cultivation has led to soil degradation. Rural
families suffer from severe malnutrition and inadequate living
conditions: more than half lack running water and electricity.
Illiteracy also plagues rural communities, where financial constraints
prevent many children from attending school.
Rural poverty has led to an
increase in migration. Many farmers must supplement their harvests
by working as seasonal laborers on large coffee, banana and sugar
plantations on the southern coast while others have migrated
to urban areas in search of wage labor. However, according to
Jose Luis Aguilar of the Pastoral de la Tierra in Quetzaltenango,
migrants often encounter worse conditions in urban areas: "They
lack the resources to buy land or houses, so they go to marginal
zones where there is a lot of crime, delinquency and narco-trafficking.
They live in truly horrendous conditions." More recently,
many poor farmers have chosen to migrate to the United States,
and funds sent home from workers in the U.S. are many families¡
only means of survival.
Impediments
to Accessing Land
In order to combat rural poverty, the peace accords established
a land market system and the government land fund FONTIERRAS
to facilitate poor farmers¡ access to land. The fund offers
credit to campesinos to buy idle state lands or private fincas
sold on the market while simultaneously providing technical assistance
to its beneficiaries to make acquired lands productive.
However, the market system
has been largely ineffective, and lands have not been adequately
redistributed. This is due in part to large landowners¡
tendency to sell low quality land at inflated prices, forcing
campesinos to incur a crippling debt which they find impossible
to repay. Aguilar notes that "it is difficult to implement
productive agricultural projects because many times the fincas
are in poor conditions or they do not have infrastructure such
as schools, roads and electricity." Farmers must use all
their income to repay the debt rather than invest it as capital
to make the project productive. Many have thus been forced to
abandon the land or return it to the government.
In addition, FONTIERRAS suffers
from a severe lack of finances. Its budget is too small to purchase
all the lands requested and hire personnel to provide technical
assistance. According to the United Nations, current budget levels
would allow FONTIERRAS to adequately meet approximately 5 percent
of the claims of landless families.
Without the help of FONTIERRAS,
it is practically impossible for campesinos to enter the land
market because most lack sufficient savings to purchase large
tracts of land. In addition, as Guatemala does not have a well-established
property system, many who do possess land have no legal documentation
to prove ownership. Guatemala is currently the only country in
Central America that lacks a national catastro, or property
registry, that acurately covers all landholdings, and some estimate
that over half of Guatemalan landholdings are not currently registered.
In many cases, several titleholders claim the same land, which
often leads to fierce land disputes.
In recent years, the land crisis
has been exacerbated by a global "coffee crisis," which
began in 2000. Coffee prices in Guatemala and throughout Central
America have plummeted since Asian countries, especially Vietnam,
have begun producing large amounts of coffee at lower prices.
Coffee plantations throughout Guatemala have since halted production,
resulting in rampant unemployment in the countryside. Farmers
who traditionally migrated from their small plots to seek jobs
harvesting at plantations now find that there is no available
work. Industry other than agriculture barely exists in rural
areas. As workers are dismissed, they are also expelled from
their homes and the land they have cultivated for decades.
Poor
Campesinos Retake the Land
With no other means of survival, evicted families frequently
retake the land. Increasingly desperate groups of poor farmers
have taken to occupying idle lands or refusing to vacate plots
which they have traditionally cultivated. In most cases of land
occupation, campesinos are pressuring for the payment of their
wages or the right to cultivate the terrain from which they were
evicted. Campesinos are often forcibly removed from the land
by police or landowners¡ private security. Since president
Oscar Berger took office in January, the number of evictions
has drastically increased. The National Civil Police have set
fire to crops, burned houses, and murdered campesino leaders
and rural families. Many campesino families have been left homeless
as a result.
During his political campaign, Berger promised to prioritize
agrarian problems, but has offered no concrete land proposal
and has not suspended evictions as promised. Campesinos groups
do not anticipate radical agrarian reform, given the president¡s
close ties to finca owners.
The
Agrarian Platform
In light of the state¡s virtual silence on this pertinent
issue, several campesino, indigenous, religious and human rights
organizations across Guatemala have formed the Plataforma
Agraria, a group of non-state actors that has proposed sweeping
reforms to Guatemala¡s land tenure system. Central to this
coalition¡s analysis is a condemnation of the centuries
of exploitation that Guatemala¡s poor indigenous majority
has endured and the resulting unequal distribution of land and
wealth.
The Agrarian Platform proposes
to reform the market-based land distribution system to make land
accessible to poor farmers. Its members advocate the redistribution
of land by expropriating estates taken illegally during the armed
conflict and taxing idle land to obligate landowners to create
jobs or give the property to landless agricultural workers. In
the interest of promoting sustainable rural development, they
propose that the government provide technical assistance, credit
and market information to small farmers to enable them to produce
for sale rather than just subsistence.
In addition, the Agrarian Platform is pressuring the government
to secure property and labor rights. They advocate a national
land registry to ensure proof of property ownership and legislative
reform to guarantee the fulfillment of employers' obligations.
Unfortunately, the government
has not been very responsive to the proposal, claiming that it
represents only a small sector of society and not the interests
of the campesino population as a whole. Aguilar and others see
this as a mere excuse not to implement the much-needed reform.
Aguilar holds that "the agrarian conflict in Guatemala is
an historical conflict, and the majority of the governments haven't
been interested in resolving it. The governments have been manipulated
by people with economic power and people tied to the oligarchy.
They have done everything possible not to resolve the situation."
Given the government's history of supporting the economically
powerful at the expense of the poor majority, it is unlikely
that the nation¡s unjust land tenure system will be dismantled
by the new administration.
Members of the Plataforma
Agraria have therefore proposed their own solution to the
agrarian problem to foment true rural development in hopes of
finally bringing an end to Guatemala¡s centuries-long system
of inequality.
Lisa Viscidi is editor-in-chief of EntreMundos
Newspaper, based in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. She can be reached
at lviscidi@yahoo.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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