Morales steps up pressure for land redistribution

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia — Indians, coca farmers and landless peasants are heeding a call by leftist President Evo Morales to surround Congress to press for radical land redistribution that is opposed by landowners and farmers.

From Bolivia’s highlands hundreds of miles away, protesters are descending on the capital, La Paz, for a series of demonstrations next week targeting the Senate, which refuses to pass the land measure.

“We have been struggling for years to regain control of our resources and are prepared to apply communal justice against the corrupt senators that stand in our way,” said Juan Choque, the leader of a peasant group that started out two weeks ago for La Paz from the eastern town of Yapacani.

The new law is a centerpiece of government plans to redistribute millions of acres to Indian supporters.

It has been approved by the lower house of Congress, but the Senate has refused.

“We will not pass a law that destroys this country’s productive system” said Senate Vice President Jose Villavicencio, who represents the northeast province of Pando. He accuses the government of financing the mobilization of 10,000 Qechua and Aymara Indians from around the country.

The measure is strongly opposed by landowners and farmers in Bolivia’s fertile eastern lowlands.

Mr. Morales initiated the protest against the Senate, saying it “must be forced to approve this law that revindicates the original indigenous people of Bolivia.”

Agriculture Minister Hugo Salvatierra has been giving away tractors donated by Venezuela to peasants rallying at various points along the marching routes stretching about 400 miles.

In the Senate, the rightist Podemos party and smaller centrist parties hold a majority of 15 seats over 12 controlled by Mr. Morales’ Movement to Socialism (MAS).

MAS is drafting a new constitution that would abolish the upper chamber. Podemos leader Jorge Quiroga has charged that Mr. Morales is redesigning the system of government to perpetuate himself in power by “following the radical example of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.”

The Senate is also holding up final approval of a military agreement signed with Venezuela last August to build major army bases in eastern Bolivia, where an opposition-led referendum for regional self-rule won with more than 70 percent of the vote in July and separatist sentiment is growing.

“If they close down the Senate, the central government is finished for us, and we will have to fight to defend our own democracy,” the Santa Cruz civic committee president, German Antelo, told 8,000 people in an anti-government protest earlier this week.

The rally was also attended by a group of independent miners from the western mountain province of Huanuni, where a revolt against the nationalization of the mines resulted in 17 deaths last month.