Bolivia court upholds seizure of US man's ranch

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Bolivia court upholds seizure of US man's ranch
By CARLOS VALDEZ Associated Press Writer © 2010 The Associated Press
Aug. 2, 2010, 10:58PM

LA PAZ, Bolivia — A Bolivian court has upheld a government decision to seize a ranch from a U.S. cattleman and his family on the grounds they treated workers as virtual slaves, an official announced Monday

The National Agrarian Tribunal rejected a challenge by Ronald Larsen, a 65-year-old from Montana who has owned the 58-square-mile (15,000-hectare) ranch nearly four decades, deputy land minister Juan Manuel Pinto said at a news conference.

Pinto said the Caraparicito ranch would revert to Guarani Indians, traditional inhabitants of Bolivia's southeastern region, known as the Chaco.

He said the ranch and an adjacent 15-square-mile (3,790-hectare) spread owned by an unrelated family, the Chavezes, would be cleared by authorities and divided among 2,000 Guarani families


Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/latinamerica/7136508.html

[Ken Burch]

1. Ama Kela!

We need this kind of ruling in this country!

(Especially with the all the sweatshops we have).

[pipoman]

8. Yea! Hopefully your house goes back to someone more needy!

[Judi Lynn]

10. If the land was not legally obtained, and you are forced to work for $40.00 a year,

it may be that your owner should expect some trouble from somewhere, somehow, sometime.

[pipoman]

11. Agreed

I'm not sure where that is the case in the US, particularly where the victims are not dead for generations. Most of the US was stolen by the US government and given to the railroads who later sold the land in parcels to people who paid the going rate. It seems to me that the poster I was responding to was somehow equating what these slugs were doing in Bolivia to what people like Ted Turner are doing in the US.

[Judi Lynn]

13. I'd like to see Larsen pull that nonsense near George W. Bush's "ranch!"

Of course, if it's true the _Bushes bought a lot of land in Paraguay, in the area above the Guarani Aquifer, like Rev. Sun Myung Moon, they may be indulging in a little slavery themselves. It wouldn't be beneath them, I'm very certain.

It's amazing what some people will do once they are around helpless people who can't protect themselves. This guy REALLY has an lively date with his Karma to anticipate.

[hack89]

15. I thought the Bush ranch was an internet myth?

I don't ever remember it being confirmed.

[Tempest]

41. It might be a myth, but the Bush's act like it's true

Soon after the news of the purchase of land hit these shores, Laura and Jenna Bush made a trip to Paraguay and stayed in the area where the land is. Reports in the Paraguay media say they stayed with the previous owner of the land.

[hack89]

46. Jenna Bush was in Paraguay as part of her work with the United Nations Children's Fund.

The story of the Bush's buying land in Paraguay was a rumor started by the Cuban press. It has never been confirmed.

How are they acting like it is true? The last story was 4 years ago - nothing has happened since.

[Tempest]

53. "as part of her work with the United Nations Children's Fund"

So they say.

It's not like the family of the former head of the CIA wouldn't know about deception and cover stories, right?

[hack89]

56. Without real evidence it is just more Bush derangement

there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the Bush's bought land in Paraguay.

I am not one to believe that the proper negative emotions directed at the properly evil person somehow excuses one from basic logic and evidence - feel free to get back when you have more than your dislike of the Bush family.

[Judi Lynn]

59. Yeah, you wouldn't expect a family which already hid all the kid's DUI arrest reports,

swept the local records, cleaned out the military records concerning his stay in Texas, etc., and covered up his entire history while he stayed in Alabama when he was supposed to be serving in the military actively since he was hiding from Viet Nam in the Champagne Brigade, and you'd never expect the son of the former head of the CIA who has kept its history almost completely unknown except for material which somehow gets pried loose in F.O.I.A. searches YEARS AND YEARS after the fact, to be able to keep their land transactions private, would you?

Oh, my god!

From DU poster seafan:
Asuncion, Oct 17 (Prensa Latina) The land grab project of US President George W. Bush in Chaco, Paraguay, has generated considerable discomfort both politically and environmentally.
The news circulating the continent about plans to buy 98,840 acres of land in Chaco, Paraguay, near the Triple Frontier (Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay) is the talk of the town in these countries.

Although official sources have not confirmed the information that is already public, the land is reportedly located in Paso de Patria, near Bolivian gas reserves and the Guarani indigenous water region, within the Triple Border.
Alto Paraguay Gov. Erasmo Rodriguez Acosta revealed he heard that part of the land purchase consists of an ecological reserve (Fundacion Patria), with which Bush is affiliated.

snip

Concern increased last week with the arrival of Bush' daughter, Jenna, and a source from the Physical Planning Department saying that most of the Chaco region belongs to private companies.
Luis D'Elia, Argentina´s undersecretary for Land for Social Habitat, says the matter raises regional concern because it threatens local natural resources.

He termed it “surprising” that the Bush family is trying to settle a few short miles from the US Mariscal Estigarribia Military Base.
Argentinean Adolfo Perez Esquivel warned that the real war will be fought not for oil, but for water, and recalled that Acuifero Guaraní is one of the largest underground water reserves in South America, running beneath Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (larger than Texas and California together).

snip

Orlando Castillo, Paraguay Peace and Justice Service member, recalled the US military buildup in Chaco under a bilateral agreement.

More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2567178

We've discussed this for years at D.U. If anyone tells you there's not enough information, just ignore him. It's really not worth the attention. Just another one trying to bait D.U.'ers. The object is to jerk members around, create blocks in the conversations. They gain if they cause so much trouble we give up. Ignore.

[Ken Burch]

14. UH...Ted Turner?

I was talking about people who run sweatshops.

Where did you get Ted Turner out of THAT?

[pipoman]

48. Ted is a big time rancher

with thousands and thousands of acres and many hired hands. I do believe that he and other US ranchers pay a decent salary and don't use slave labor.

Clothing sweat shops however, we agree.

[Ken Burch]

54. Oh...I'd forgotten Ted did ranching.

I was trying to tie it in to CNN...and it didn't compute that way.

Thanks for the clarification.

[LanternWaste]

51. I inferred that the poster you responded to was referencing

I inferred that the poster you responded to was referencing immigrants literally forced to pick fruit in Florida, or armed guards keeping welders in a factory in Tulsa, OK; or Sebastian Pereria et. al.(http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/12/13/80576/despite-us-laws-thousands-still.html); or those who are the subject of the book, "Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy" and the poster's visceral reaction to how those responsible for the above transgressions should be dealt with.

[Lightning Count]

25. What is the median yearly income in Bolivia?

?

[Judi Lynn]

28. It's not so little the people live as slaves, I'll tell you that.

If it were an ordinary amount the Houston Chronical wouldn't have published "Human rights groups said last year that several thousand Guarani lived in conditions of "forced labor and servitude" in the region, earning as little as $40 a year."

They would have exclaimed "They made as much as $40.00 per year!"

Don't try to play foolish games here. We are busy people.

On edit:

Found an article from 2003. The annual per capita income in Bolivia was $890.00 7 years ago. Or it was $2,450.00, using the other of a couple of methods at this link:
http://www.success-and-culture.net/articles/percapitaincome.shtml

This is something you could have found for yourself, if you hadn't expected to create a time problem for someone who doesn't have a lot of leisure time to screw away on a message board.

[Lightning Count]

29. So you do not know?

Neither do I. I also don't take the poor journalism of places like the Houston Chronicle at their initial word. They specialize in hyperbole.

I am looking for the median income in Bolivia on google. If you find it first, please let me know.

[Lightning Count]

30. I found it.

http://carreiras.empregos.com.br/carreira/administracao/planejamento/131201-profissoes_2002.shtm

Amazing how little money the citizens make.

[LanternWaste]

52. Still, $40.00/year seems to me to be orders of magnitude...

Still, $40.00/year seems to me to be orders of magnitude less than $732.00/year

ed: sp

[fasttense]

16. We confiscate property from convicted drug dealers

how is this any different? The "ranchers" were convicted and their land was confiscated.

The only difference is that here police departments sell the convicted drug dealer's property and keep the proceeds. While in this ranch case the land was given to the victims of the crime.

[pipoman]

55. Certainly similar...

[Judi Lynn]

2. Background on Ronald Larsen:

"Reuters Pictures 25 months ago
Bolivian Guarani men eat lunch at the Caraparicto ranch, property of U.S.-born rancher Ronald Larsen, near the town of Camiri June 10, 2008."





Larsen's son, Duston, "Mr. Bolivia 2004"



"Reuters Pictures 25 months ago
Guaranis are seen near Caraparicto land , property of U.S.-born rancher Ronald Larsen, near the town of Camiri June 10, 2008. "
Landowners' Rebellion: Slavery and Saneamiento in Bolivia
Written by Alexander van Schaick
Monday, 28 April 2008 09:23

In recent weeks, cattle ranchers and landowners in Bolivia's Cordillera province, located in the south of the department of Santa Cruz, resorted to blockades and violence in order to halt the work of Bolivia's National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA - Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria). As a referendum on Departmental Autonomy for Santa Cruz draws near, the conflict calls into question the central government's ability to enforce the law in the Bolivian lowlands.

The dispute centers on the region of Alto Parapetí, south of the provincial capital of Camiri, where INRA is currently trying to carry out land reform and create an indigenous territory for the Guaraní indigenous people. Additionally, it claims various communities of Guaraní live and work on white or mestizo-owned ranches in conditions of semi-slavery.

For nine days landowners and their supporters blockaded major highways and virtually sealed off Alto Parapetí. The blockades continued until Bolivia's Vice-minister of Land, Alejandro Almaráz, left the region on April 18. At the end of February, Ronald Larsen, a major landowner in Santa Cruz, and other ranchers took Almaráz hostage at gunpoint for several hours when he and other government officials tried to enter the region.

An Incomplete Land Reform

In the 1990s and up to the present, the Guaraní Nation and Bolivia's other lowland indigenous peoples mobilized to force the national government to recognize their right to their ancestral territories. In 1996, the first administration of Gonzalo "Goni" Sánchez de Lozada passed a land reform law that gave Bolivia's indigenous people the opportunity to claim their Communal Territory of Origin (Territorio Comunitario de Origen or TCO).

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1254/1/

~~~~~
U.S. Rancher in Bolivia Showdown
Friday, May. 02, 2008 By JEAN FRIEDMAN-RUDOVSKY/LA PAZ

In his native Montana, Ronald Larsen's current legal straits might be the stuff of an old-fashioned Western movie: A cattle rancher who believes the government and its allies are unfairly trying to seize his land, and picks up a rifle to signal his displeasure. But in contemporary Bolivia, where Larsen makes his home, his recent clash with the authorities is but another instance of rising tension over land-ownership between, on the one hand, left-wing President Evo Morales and his supporters among Bolivia's indigenous population, and on the other, political opponents backed by the country's wealthy eastern elite.
(snip)

Both the autonomy and land-reform issues have sparked violent unrest over the past year, pitting the largely white farmers and ranchers of Bolivia's more affluent lowland east against the impoverished indigenous majority who back Morales, himself an Aymara Indian and the nation's first indigenous President. Little surprise, then, that a national furor has erupted over a confrontation involving government officials and Larsen, 64, who along with his two sons, owns 17 properties totaling 141,000 acres throughout Bolivia, three times as much land as the country's largest city. (Larsen insists his holdings amount to less than 25,000 acres.)

Last month, when Almaraz and aides tried to pass through Larsen's Santa Cruz property — they insist it was the only route by which to reach to nearby indigenous Guarani residents to whom they were delivering land deeds — witnesses say the caravan was fired on by Larsen and his son Duston, 29. The incident was followed by two weeks of rancher roadblocks and violent protests that left 40 indigenous people injured.

Larsen, who arrived in Bolivia in 1968, told a La Paz newspaper that Almaraz's vehicle had entered his property at around 3 a.m. Almaraz, he said, "had not presented any identification. He was drunk and being abusive ... I quieted him with a bullet to his tire. That's the story." But the government insists this wasn't Larsen's first run-in with Almaraz: the rancher is accused of kidnapping the vice minister for eight hours in February. The two alleged incidents prompted the government to file a criminal complaint of "sedition, robbery and other crimes" against Larsen and his son two weeks ago. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to press formal charges. Neither father nor son has responded publicly to the accusations, and neither responded to repeated requests by TIME for comment.

U.S.-educated Duston Larsen, referring to Morales' efforts to empower Bolivia's indigenous, wrote on his Myspace page in 2007, "I used to think democracy was the best form to govern a country but ... should a larger more uneducated group of people (70%) be in charge of making decisions, running a country and voting?" The fact that Duston, in 2004, won the Mr. Bolivia beauty pageant, in the eyes of many government supporters, puts him in the company of the country's European-oriented elite. (That same year, Miss Bolivia, Gabriela Oviedo, also from the country's east, suggested Bolivia shouldn't be considered an indigenous nation: "I'm from the other side of the country. We are tall, and we are white people, and we know English.) Morales backers say it is precisely this disdain for the indigenous that is driving what they call the secessionist agenda behind Sunday's autonomy referendum — which is not legally sanctioned by the National Electoral Court or recognized by the Organization of American States. But autonomy supporters say they're only seeking states' rights on questions such as taxation, police and public works. "This is a historic demand based on long-standing differences with a La Paz-based central government," says Edilberto Osinaga, managing director of the Chamber of Eastern Farmer/b]s.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1737244,00.html?xid=rss-world

[pipoman]

9. They certainly appear to be a magnanimous bunch...Karma soup anyone?

[Judi Lynn]

12. They are too good for this world. We are not worthy to live on his planet. We need to pay him!

Bolivia: At the Bolivian Chaco 500 Guarani families are suffering suppression by landlords

ABI
Abril 11, 2008, 10:10 EDT
Camiri, Santa Cruz - Bolivia --

From Iviyeca to Alto Parapet and in the other side of the Hill Sararenda, there are 500 guarani families suffering suppression from landlords, this report was made by Assembly of Guarani People (APG Spanish initials).

The Guarani people reported that they will continue fighting to recover their land and rescue families in captivity, giving a pronouncement under the slogan "Basta de peones y patrones en el Chaco Boliviano" (Enough of being servant, enough of landlords in the Bolivian Chaco).

According to APG, until now, 80 families have moved away from the area, leaving their communities to escape from landlord abuses.

At El Alto Parapeti, 13 landlords have 167 guarani families under slavery conditions, from those families 12 families are in captivity at Ronald Larsen’s lands, a United States citizen.

More:
http://www.redbolivia.com/noticias/News%20in%20English/Bolivia/62999.html

~~~~~
ABI-B A2336 21:54:32 14-04-2008
1-P
ABI: GOVERNMENT - CARDINAL

Government will show the Cardinal the existence of servants on the Chaco region

La Paz, April 14 (ABI).- The Executive Power announced this Monday that will show the Cardinal Julio Terrazas, evidence of servant conditions in that 500 families would be subdued on Bolivian Chaco region.

The Vice-minister of Governmental Coordination, Hector Arce, at press conference, stated that the Government will show all the documentation to the ecclesiastic authorities about the fact of exploitation and servant conditions in some areas of Santa Cruz and Tarija Departments.

"We will report about facts, that not only the Government has knowledge, but also international organisms of human rights," said Arce.

The Cardinal Julio Terrazas expressed in his Sunday homily that he does not believe in slavery existence on Chaco region, asking the Government to show the corresponding proofs.

"It is said there are places full of slaves, they have to show us where we can find them, it is not possible that we continue condemning us only with offensive words", stated Terrazas.

However, reports made by Assembly of Guaraní People (APG Spanish initials) show that From Iviyeca to Alto Parapety and in the other side of the Hill Sararenda, there are 500 families suffering subjugation to landowners.

On Alto Parapeti, 13 landowners have 167 Guarani families in slavery conditions, from them 12 families are in captivity at Ronald Larsen’s lands, the American citizen.

More:
http://abi.bo/index.php?i=noticias_texto&j=200804142154323x

~~~~~
Translation of info. from a news program. This is the google translation:
Ronald Larsen and other patterns of the province throwing stones and shooting at Cordillera indigenous and State officials; is the second attack in a month.

They attacked with stones, firecrackers and bullets officials to the Ministry of Lands and INRA in Caraparicito vicinity of the farm, located in the Town of Lagunillas, approximately 80 kilometers from Camiri. The intellectual and material authors of the attack are farmers and ranchers, including an American citizen linked to the political and business elites of the capital cruceña.

While sanitation in the area will benefit 10 thousand small owners and consolidate a TCO for Guarani indigenous communities, many of them exploited labour, landowners and ranchers formed "defense committees" with armed people to prevent the entry of government officials and paralyse the work of sanitation.

This is not the first time that landowners Cordillera in the province of Santa Cruz to prevent violence reorganizing its finances. On 29 February abducted and threatened with death to the highest authorities and national agricultural shot at the tires of his car.

Spanish version:
Ronald Larsen y otros patrones de la provincia Cordillera apedrean y disparan a indígenas y funcionarios del Estado; es la segunda agresión en un mes.

Atacaron con piedras, petardos y balas a funcionarios del Viceministerio de Tierras y del INRA en inmediaciones de la hacienda Caraparicito, ubicada en la Localidad de Lagunillas, aproximadamente a 80 kilómetros de Camiri. Los autores intelectuales y materiales de la agresión son ganaderos y hacendados, entre ellos un ciudadano norteamericano vinculado a las elites políticas y empresariales de la capital cruceña.

Aunque el saneamiento en la zona beneficiará a 10 mil pequeños propietarios y consolidará una TCO a favor de comunidades indígenas guaraníes, muchas de ellas explotadas laboralmente, los hacendados y ganaderos conformaron “comités de defensa” con gente armada para impedir el ingreso de funcionarios de gobierno y paralizar los trabajos de saneamiento.

No es la primera vez que los terratenientes de la provincia Cordillera de Santa Cruz impiden con violencia el saneamiento de sus haciendas. El 29 de febrero secuestraron y amenazaron de muerte a las máximas autoridades agrarias nacionales y dispararon a las llantas de su vehículo.

For Spanish speakers, Video:
http://www.boliviaenvideos.com/2008/04/hacendado-norteamericano-arma-grupos-de.html

~~~~~
BASN statetement about Violence against Indigenous Guarani people and Autonomic Referendum
Fri, 04/18/2008 - 00:47 — tupaj
BASN statement
On April 13, an unarmed and peaceful delegation of indigenous Guarani delegates was attacked by an armed gang in the service of large landholders in the Bolivian province of Santa Cruz. More than 40 of the Guarani were injured, some seriously, and 11 are missing.

The Guarani delegation was accompanying officials from Bolivia’s National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), who were trying to regularize ownership of illegally occupied territories, where Guarani people are being held in conditions of enslavement, as witnessed and reported by UN Rapporteur, the Catholic Church, and other institutions.

The Morales administration is trying to change the unjust and illegal tenure of land for the benefit of Bolivia’s majorities – the Indigenous Peoples who make up 81% of the population, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
We emphatically condemn the desperate and brutal attacks of the Bolivian oligarchy and its armed shock groups against Indigenous Peoples and State officials trying to restore the rule of law.

We also condemn the attempt of breaking up the unity of the country through an illegal “referendum on autonomy,” to be held May 4, 2008. This vote has been denounced by several multilateral organizations, the European Union, individual governments and regional governmental organizations, like the Andean Pact. Such a rigged poll, held under conditions of severe and unrestrained right-wing violence, endangers stability and peace throughout Latin America.

http://grupoapoyo.org/basn/node/83

~~~~~
Another article, after going through google translation tool:

Ronald Larsen and other patterns of the province throwing stones and shooting at Cordillera indigenous and State officials

It was the second attack in a month
Hacendado American gun assault groups to defend estates in the Chaco cruceño
They attacked with stones, firecrackers and bullets officials to the Ministry of Lands and INRA in Caraparicito vicinity of the farm, located in the Town of Lagunillas, approximately 80 kilometers from Camiri. The intellectual and material authors of the attack are farmers and ranchers, including an American citizen linked to the political and business elites of the capital cruceña.
While sanitation in the area will benefit 10 thousand small owners and consolidate a TCO for Guarani indigenous communities, many of them exploited labour, landowners and ranchers formed "defense committees" with armed people to prevent the entry of government officials and paralyse the work of sanitation.
This is not the first time that landowners Cordillera in the province of Santa Cruz to prevent violence reorganizing its finances. On 29 February abducted and threatened with death to the highest authorities and national agricultural shot at the tires of his car.
At 10 am this Friday, 4 April, the government commission composed of 40 officials and the Ministry of INRA, sheltered by a police contingent of 40 troops, resumed the work of sanitation in the town Parapetí High, and again found violent resistance from landowners.
The caravan was arrested in the town of Ipati by a group of people on board more than a dozen vehicles drivers threatened to burn vehicles carrying government officials. However, the number broke the blockade and continued its journey under siege permanent threatening the farmers who sought aboard six vehicles.
At 15:30, government representatives came to the farm "Caraparicito." The road was completely blocked by a trailer without wheels of eight metres long, several logs and stones. Behind these barriers landowners erected a barricade and more ago placed a tank in the middle of the road.
He began a vigorous discussion followed by insults and shoves. Ranchers denying the government of Evo Morales. "This is going to take a few more days because they are no longer you," said one of the owners, an allusion to the autonomous status that entrepreneurship cruceño aims to adopt May 4.
Ranchers shouted that there were no captives in their estates, although the Guarani accompanying the commission denying them official. Journalists covering these incidents prevented asked why sanitation if there is no indigenous captives in their land, but the landlords did not respond. After a struggle was withdrawing the first trailer and the committee moved ahead with the police.
At that time he left his finances American Ronald Larsen, shouting and threatening directly to the Deputy Minister of Lands Alejandro Almaraz. The kidnapping of 29 February, the same character intimidated to Almaraz with firearms. The group clash of landowners began to throw firecrackers, rockets and stones at skilful and sinister, in the face injuring a policeman and a Guarani, and also a councillor of Lagunillas. The police had to use tear gas to halt the aggression. Then they negotiated a truce, without which neither party has abandoned their positions.
Both sides remain in their positions: the official contingent composed of 40 officials, 36 policemen and about 50 indigenous Guarani, as opposed to "defence committee" composed of 50 livestock people, some armed and equipped with radioreceptores.
Who's Larsen?
An American starred in two attacks on an official in less than 40 days. This foreigner who hired thugs levantisco to prevent the Guarani obtain a TCO in High Parapetí called Ronald Larsen.
Larsen connected with the Peace Corps, arrived in the Bolivian Chaco in 1968 and the next year bought the hacienda Caraparicito. Over the years, their finances became a tourist complex with natural attractions, gym, game room, dining room, meeting room, library, sauna and whirlpool.
The Chaco livestock farms are part of a tourism project promoted by the Prefecture of Santa Cruz. The investment of private property, with support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), reaches a million dollars, according to a report of the New Day (June 5, 2007).
Larsen is well connected with the political hierarchy of the department. The Prefecture cruceña elected Caraparicito as an example of environmental management. Within the estate of 2,800 hectares there is a "Private Nature Reserve Heritage" of 2,335 hectares. On June 4, 2007, Larsen received at its finance the prefect Ruben Costas, the president of the civic committee Branko Marinkovic, and the chairman of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (CAINCO) then Gabriel Dabdoub.
All over land
Larsen and landowners in the province Cordillera, in alliance with the elites of Santa Cruz, formed a "defence committee" in the province Cordillera comprising medium and large landowners, they Juan Carlos Santistevan, owner of the property of an extension of Mandioty 1,885 hectares, and the family of Elvy Abbet of Malpartida, owner of the property Itacay of 9,783 hectares.
The most active clan are Larsen. According to data of INRA, the father, Ronald Larsen owns Caraparicito of 3,377 hectares and Caraparicito II, 3,399 hectares. His son Duston owns Yaguapoa campus of 2,696 hectares. All of these properties are located in the cantons Choreti, and Camiri Cuevo (Santa Cruz) and Sapirangui and Guembe (Chuquisaca).
Of a total of 98,875 hectares in High Parapetí, 51,512, 52 percent of all land was concentrated in 14 sites categorised as businesses. The 40 small properties identified at the scene joined an area of 7,755 hectares, or 7.8% of the land.

Original, in Spanish:
http://omarquiroga.blogspot.com/2008/04/ronald-larsen-y-otros-patrones-de-la.html

[Scruffy1]

20. Thanks

This is just some awesome news, and I am not up to speed on this.

[Judi Lynn]

26. I didn't take the time to look for more, but the guy's not homeless: he has 3 ranches,

and they take up a VAST area.

He went to Bolivia as a Peace Corps worker, he said, and within 10 years of his arrival he acquired an enormous amount of property.

First case I've heard of a Peace Corps worker becoming a millionaire on Peace Corps wages! Really, REALLY strange.

When I get the time, I'd like to find out a whole lot more about this monster.

He's connected to a prominent, extremely wealthy man in Santa Cruz named Branko Marinkovic, very powerful, whose parents fled Poland immediately after the Second World War. He is the leader of the racist European descended white separatists in Santa Cruz, and has most lately been caught up in a plot to assassinate Evo Morales with the importation of some European mercs, 3 of whom were shot to death in a hotel in Bolivia by the police on a tip. Their hotel room was filled with wierd equipment including guns with silencers, machine guns, etc., etc.

Branko Marinkovic has given out clubs from one of his offices to the Santa Cruz Youth Union, a group of college aged kids, who drive around their area in trucks carrying clubs they embed with spikes, etc., beating indigenous people unlucky enough to not get out of sight before they spot them, they drive into indigenous neighborhoods and attack people with these hideous clubs. Sometimes they set fire to buildings, sometimes they kill people, the whole area if entirely viciously racist.

http://www.radioiyambae.com.nyud.net:8090/images/stories/civivcos_crucenos.jpg http://www.radiomundial.com.ve.nyud.net:8090/yvke/files/img_noticia/t_branco_marinkovic_ujc_110.jpg

The boys on the truck are from the Youth Union.

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net.nyud.net:8090/object3/726/38/n52336400273_6398.jpg http://www.radiomundial.com.ve.nyud.net:8090/yvke/files/img_noticia/t_80985182_381.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_Qrs-_3Ew3iA/SKyeZ-dh-OI/AAAAAAAACgk/9WMwabQhnO0/s200/1.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_UL5gef6g4hI/SNT6PSP18cI/AAAAAAAABcY/zM6q5UNJsxw/s400/Union_Juvenil_Crucenista.png http://farm4.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/3240/2846925004_e03e575cd6.jpg http://www.prensamercosur.com.ar.nyud.net:8090/fotos/3991_1G.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_GEDUTlyzpkI/SMmQ_026KBI/AAAAAAAAAiQ/04LIYHP-BmY/s320/bolivian-thugette.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_GEDUTlyzpkI/SM9ZJAtWqyI/AAAAAAAAAl4/fQ1IwpakDEs/s320/unionistas-pando.jpg

The Santa Cruz Youth Union (Union Juvenil Crucenista) has even been outfitted with their own shields in case some of their victims start throwing rocks at them.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_Y-2OxCfUrpo/SWECbNk9uKI/AAAAAAAAAmc/1fCzCZkSQpY/s320/3081208b_g160.jpg http://www.relial.org/Db/Comit%C3%A9%20C%C3%ADvico%20pro%20Santa%20Cruz,%20Branko%20Marinkovic.jpg

Branko Marinkovic, Ronald Larsen's friend.
The more you learn about Bolivia, the more you discover how much MORE you need to find out!

Regarding the racism, the indigenous people were not allowed to walk on the sidewalks, or to vote until after a revolution in 1952. The racists in Bolivia refer to the landslide-elected indigenous President Evo Morales as "that ####ing Indian." US Americans who've been there long enough to learn what's going on have felt it is at least as bad as the American South was a long time ago.

[IndianaGreen]

3. He paid them $40 a year

Bolivia's government has also confiscated ranches totaling more than 60 square miles (15,500 hectares) from two powerful white opposition leaders in Bolivia's eastern lowlands, the stronghold of Morales' most bitter foes.

The government said the seized land had been fraudulently obtained and met another main criterion for confiscation — that it served no "social or economic purpose."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/latinamerica/7136508.html

We can't have these peasants and indigenous people going around demanding, and getting economic justice. That's socialism! Communism!

Let's call Hillary Clinton and ask her to lump Morales into the same pile of Administration enemies in Latin America!

:sarcasm:

In reality, the Obama Administration has been encouraging a secessionist movement in Bolivia. As Bush did, Obama has sided with the white oligarchs:

May 9, 2008

US backs eastern secession in Bolivia

Minority landholders vote for independence

Bolivia’s landowning eastern elite voted on Sunday for autonomy from President Evo Morales' central government. According to author Forrest Hylton the US government has spent up to $125 million dollars supporting the secession movement, a movement which has been disregarded by a large percentage of the Bolivian population as well as governments from Bolivia's neighboring countries.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?Itemid=74&id=31&jumival=1469&option=com_content&task=view

[Judi Lynn]

5. Had not heard this part, yet, about supporting these nazi racist monsters. Damn. Him, too.

No doubt you remember very well Bolivia's US-supported dictator Hugo Banzer took property from indigenous people already living in their own property for generations and gave it to imported farmers to create his "White Bolivia":

(This was written in 1995, before he was elected yet again, and privatized Bolivia's water, raised the water prices beyond reach for the poor, and kicked off the water rebellion, broke into people's homes to find rebels, and brought out government sharpshooters who shot at the crowds of protesters. Then he died of cancer, or he would have harmed the poor and indigenous even more.)

COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia

In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

I must add that the Second World War criminal, Nazi butcher Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon" was hired by the Banzer administration, and worked for Banzer, and other Bolivian officials, later.

~~~~~
~snip~
A Nazi Reunion
In nearby coca-producing Bolivia, Nazi fugitive Klaus Barbie was working as a Bolivian intelligence officer and drawing up plans for a putsch that would add that central nation to the region's "stable axis" of right-wing regimes. Barbie contacted Argentine intelligence for help.

One of the first Argentine intelligence officers who arrived was Lt. Alfred Mario Mingolla. "Before our departure, we received a dossier on (Barbie)," Mingolla later told German investigative reporter Kai Hermann. "There it stated that he was of great use to Argentina because he played an important role in all of Latin America in the fight against communism. From the dossier, it was also clear that Altmann worked for the Americans." (For an English translation of Hermann's detailed account, see Covert Action Information Bulletin, Winter 1986)

As the Bolivian coup took shape, Bolivian Col. Luis Arce-Gomez, the cousin of cocaine kingpin Roberto Suarez, recruited neo-fascist terrorists such as Italian Stefano della Chiaie who had been working with the Argentine death squads. (See Cocaine Politics by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall) Dr. Alfredo Candia, the Bolivian leader of the World Anti-Communist League, was coordinating the arrival of these paramilitary operatives from Argentina and Europe, Hermann reported. Meanwhile, Barbie started a secret lodge, called Thule. During meetings, he lectured to his followers underneath swastikas by candlelight.

While the CIA was encouraging this aggressive anti-communism on one level, Levine and his DEA field agents were moving against some of the conspirators for drug crimes. In May 1980, DEA in Miami seized 854 pounds of cocaine base and arrested two top Bolivian traffickers from the Roberto Suarez organization. But Levine saw the bust double-crossed, he suspected, for geo-political reasons.

One suspect, Jose Roberto Gasser "was almost immediately released from custody by the Miami U.S. attorney's office," Levine wrote. (Gasser was the son of Bolivian WACL associate Erwin Gasser, a leading figure in the upcoming coup.) The other defendant saw his bail lowered, letting him flee the United States. Levine worried about the fate of Bolivian officials who had helped DEA.(See Levine's Deep Cover)

On June 17, 1980, in nearly public planning for the coup, six of Bolivia's biggest traffickers met with the military conspirators to hammer out a financial deal for future protection of the cocaine trade. A La Paz businessman said the coming putsch should be called the "Cocaine Coup," a name that would stick. (Cocaine Politics)

Less than three weeks later, on July 6, DEA agent Levine met with a Bolivian trafficker named Hugo Hurtado-Candia. Over drinks, Hurtado outlined plans for the "new government" in which his niece Sonia Atala, a major cocaine supplier, will "be in a very strong position."

Later, an Argentine secret policeman told Levine that the CIA knew about the coup. "You North Americans amaze me. Don't you speak to your own people?" the officer wondered. "Do you think Bolivia's government -- or any government in South America -- can be changed without your government and mine being aware of it?"

When Levine asked why that affected the planned DEA investigation, the Argentine answered, "Because the same people he's naming as drug dealers are the people we are helping to rid Bolivia of leftists. ...Us. The Argentines ... working with your CIA." (Big White Lie)

More:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon6.html

[burnsei sensei]

18. I condemn any activity against Morales.

Our government needs its hands smacked hard over this!
President Obama is just more of the same in Latin America.
No change at all.
President Morales is the DULY elected leader.
Legitimate in every sense.
His policies represent the majority.
To hell with U.S. policy in the region.

[burnsei sensei]

21. What a model citizen of the world.

Fuck the "eastern elite".

[The Backlash Cometh]

23. $40 a year. What a crime.

My mother use to pay $100 a month for a live-in maid. And that was back in the sixties.

[Lightning Count]

31. Not unusual for the country.

http://carreiras.empregos.com.br/carreira/administracao/planejamento/131201-profissoes_2002.shtm

[Judi Lynn]

34. You did know the link you've posted,

http://carreiras.empregos.com.br/carreira/administracao/planejamento/131201-profissoes_2002.shtm actually is Brazilian, didn't you? Close, but no cigar.

[Lightning Count]

36. So wages in Bolivia are greater than Brazil?

How much greater are Bolivia's wages?

Regional data is still valuable.

[Judi Lynn]

37. Not a worthwhile avenue to pursue. My subject is Ronald Larsen. n/t

[Lightning Count]

39. So how much wages should Mr. Larsen have paid?

Based on the average of Bolivian farmhand wages.

[Judi Lynn]

32. The average annual per capita income in BOLIVIA was, in 2003, $890.00. Or, $2490.00

On edit:

This link gives two different methods.... Hmmmmm.

http://www.success-and-culture.net/articles/percapitaincome.shtml

[Lightning Count]

40. Where do you think a farmhand falls compared to the average?

At what point in the spectrum?

[riderinthestorm]

43. At what point of the slavery spectrum does "semi-slavery" fall?

Larson's not some saint here. He's exploiting the native indigenous population that's not going anywhere since it's their ancestral homeland. He can pay them anything or nothing as far as he's concerned since they are basically never going to leave. And since he now "owns" their ancestral homeland through what looks to be akin to shady deals, he's got a ready made slave population.

[Lightning Count]

44. Is he the only rancher in the region?

How do his wages compare to other ranchers? Are all ranchers in the region having their land confiscated? I am not defending Larsen, I just want all the facts and wish there was better reporting in the US. These are basic questions that should have been answered in the story.

[Jazzgirl]

49. Then let your fingers do the walking and look for those

answers. Nobody is going to give you everything on a platter. If you're interested, dig.

[Lightning Count]

50. I have dug. I found nothing, besides that wages in Bolivia are very low.

Either the information is very difficult to obtain, or there are parties that don't want the information to be obtained.

[Peace Patriot]

47. IndianaGreen, that's a serious charge, that Obama is siding with the white oligarchs.

I know there are some inferential things that point that way, but is there anything more than the usual State Dept/CIA/Pentagon hostility to democracy, especially Latin American democracy--anything more specific, as to Obama and Bolivia? Do you just mean "the Obama administration" rather than Obama the man? And do you think that Obama has full control of U.S. policy in Latin America (or anywhere)?

As to the latter, I truly wonder if he does. This may not excuse some things that are occurring on his watch--the coup in Honduras, the U.S. military buildup in Colombia and the region, the on-going horrors in Colombia (with $7 BILLION in U.S. military funding!), the on-going psyops against the Chavez government in Venezuela, the U.S. "war on drugs" wrecking ball to Mexico, and the rest. But it would explain some things--for instance, how Obama can announce a new policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America, while our money funds the exact opposite and our military and other operatives continue to do the exact opposite? Is Obama just a complete hypocrite, or is his control only partial or non-existent over these U.S. actions? (--such a thing--that he does not have control on some issues--may be by his agreement to such a deal, or not; Chavez said that Obama is "the prisoner of the Pentagon"; it's something to think about.)

In this context, I have had the feeling--more just a feeling than anything--that the U.S. had kind of laid off of Bolivia, maybe for the very reason that Obama is president, and Bolivia is very like South Africa, transitioning from very racist white minority rule, to democracy, in a country where the previously despised dark race is the majority. I would think it would be a somewhat touchy matter to openly try to topple an Indigenous president in an Indigenous majority country, after so many decades of white racism--especially a president as mild-mannered, as sincere and as peace-loving as Morales.

There are policy differences, certainly--Copenhagen and climate change being a dramatic one. There are many others--Bolivia evicted the U.S. "war on drugs," for instance--and threw the U.S. ambassador out, when he was funding/organizing the white separatist insurrection. But that was under Bush. What I'm asking is, is there more specific evidence that Obama supports the white racists--apart from the general U.S. policy of supporting rich elites/corporate rule everywhere?

The U.S. corporate rulers/war profiteers seem to be focusing on the northern part of South America (Colombia, Venezuela) combined with Central America/the Caribbean, as their main (current) battlefield for reconquering Latin America. I call it their "circle the wagons" strategy. They may be hoping to "domino" the entire "Southern Cone" and everything in between, but they had enough trouble "dominoing" Honduras to take on a much stronger democracy like Bolivia, especially one deep in the south. They are targeting Venezuela, of course, but there are reasons for that--Venezuela is much closer; it has the largest oil reserves on earth (twice Saudi Arabia's), sits right at the edge of their "circle the wagons" region, and has inspired leftist democracy movements in that region--in Nicaragua, Honduras (until the coup), El Salvador and Guatemala, with an almost in Mexico back in 2005. They are also allied with Cuba. All of this is much more of an immediate threat to the profits of our corporate rulers/war profiteers than democracy in Bolivia, an undeveloped, land-locked, distant country. Venezuela is an immediate target. Bolivia seems a remote one, to me--and a bit risky, as to being on the wrong side of an obvious racial equality struggle.

One other thing: our corpo-fascist media, which takes its cues from the CIA, has been VERY CAREFUL about Bolivia. They have not attacked Morales the way they do Chavez--even though Morales is arguably more radical than Chavez, in his quiet way. I don't have illusions about what this may mean. It's just a matter of priorities and strategy by people who mean very ill, indeed, to the poor of Latin America. But it COULD BE that it's also a matter of who is president here, now--that is, that Obama IS influencing policy on Bolivia for the better, for the time being.

I invite you to dismantle my feelings and guesses about these matters. They are tentative. I certainly know that, as a real democracy, and an ally of other independent-minded countries and their leaders, including Venezuela, Bolivia is one among many U.S. targets. Is it a particular target at this time, and is there evidence that Obama or others in his government would be as crass as the Bush Junta, in allying with the white supremacists? Don't they have enough trouble in their relations with Latin America countries already?

[dipsydoodle]

4. In the age old words of the prophet

Fuck'im.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Or, as George W. Bush's scuzbucket sidekick, Karl Rove said, regarding Valerie Plame's husband,

"fuck him like he's never been fucked before."

It ain't obscene if a Republican says it, we all know.

[mix]

7. Now that is a happy ending.

:thumbsup:

[burnsei sensei]

17. I have no sympathy for Mr. Larsen.

He should have damn well known better about the conflicts in Central and South America concerning indigenous lands.

[Odin2005]

19. Good!

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. Now THERE's something that free market never anticipated.

[Judi Lynn]

33. It only works in countries with a deeply abused group of people treated like dirt

by people with powerful weapons who invaded them, crushed them, constantly reinforced their hatred for them, did it violently over and over, in great numbers, keeping them submissive in the country where their own ancestors lived thousands of years.

[The Backlash Cometh]

42. That's what I'm say'n.

[rug]

24. You've been on top of this for a while.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3274980#3274990

Kudos!

[Judi Lynn]

27. Oh, my god! I forgot I had found information like his friend, the dictator General Rene

Barrientos Ortuno "who massacred miners......"

Post #25.

Wow! I'm so glad to see this, now I can stash it where I can find it again.

This is so helpful. You've saved someone a TON of time. Thank you so much.

[Catherina]

35. Good for Bolivia! Let this be a warning to those who exploit human misery. n/t

[Enrique]

38. the opposition to Morales is straight-up fascists in that region

as in, they call themselves fascists.

[Judi Lynn]

45. In case there's a fluent Spanish speaker who wants to summarize this article from Bolivia,

I found one which says, according to a very garbled google translation, Larsen has FIVE ranches, and 17 properties, and this property covers 15,000 hectares.

Here's the article:
EL GOBIERNO REVIERTE 15 MIL HA DE LOS LARSEN PARA EL ESTADO
Fallo. Se emitieron 2 sentencias con las que se recuperan cerca de 19.000 hectáreas
Wilma Pérez - La Paz
http://www.la-razon.com/version.php?ArticleId=61283&a=1&EditionId=1361

La Justicia boliviana respalda la expropiación de tierras a una familia estadounidense
Por Agencia EFE – Hace 1 minuto.

(google gave a fairly decent translation of this one which says, in google translation:

~snip~
Bolivian law states that land may be expropriated for the State without compensation at all if it confirms that there is labor exploitation , servitude, payments to employees below the minimum wage or child labor.

More:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5jpW7wT_ISpo-YKKgKtEWMekK3y7A

[David Zephyr]

57. The U.S. should have had agrarian reform after the Civil War

and broke up the plantations. Of course, Lincoln was murdered and Andrew Johnson became President and the Reconstruction was over by the 1870's. This left the same murderous, slave holding families with their land, their fortunes built upon slave labor all intact. It also set up the poor white resentment against the even poorer former slaves as they were pitted against each other by the monstrous land barons. These same families, in turn, passed along their "wealth" to their children and grandchildren. Huey Long knew that the "rich" folks in his state -- who despised him and who killed him -- had, for the most part, received their advantages through inheritance. And he correctly taxed them. And it was (and is still) a wicked inheritance.

In Peru, in the 1970's, General Velasco took over the government in a coup and immediately began agrarian reform because so much of Peru's land was owned by Europeans (primarily Germans) and Americans. While, it many cases, it was problematic, it was the right thing to have done.

In Japan, under the Marshall program, the big feudal land tracts were divided up into well-defined parcels with titles issued which helped attribute to create a middle class there.

In California, another sort of "agrarian reform" took place after 1850, but in reverses where poor Mexican landowners were ripped off by lawyers and con-artists who preyed upon "English Only" laws that put them at the mercy of their "lawyers" who happily traded their legal "work" for their client's land.

Bolivia is simply in a horrible state of affairs on so many dimensions because of foreign economic and political domination for so long. Anyone remotely familiar with Hugo Banzer and the School of Americas or the more recent grab at Bolivia's drinking water, understands what kind of jacket the Bolivian people have been put into. And while I am ranting, check out the role that the scum-bag, James Carville, played in Bolivia.

[Judi Lynn]

58. It was a master stroke, helping "Goni" get elected who then turned around and ordered his troops

to fire directly into the street, aiming at people protesting his hideous administration, dropping them where they stood.

April 11, 2009
Why are top Democrats shielding Goni?

Top Democratic Party pollster Stanley Greenberg rolled into San Francisco last month to promote his latest book, Dispatches from the War Room – In the trenches with five extraordinary leaders (2009, St. Martin’s Press). The slight, bespectacled man spoke at the Commonwealth Club, sharing what he hoped were “honest and frank” accounts of working with leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton.

While he happily pontificated on the lessons these experiences held for President Barack Obama, he was a bit more defensive on why he had proudly featured in the book Gonzalo “Goni” Sanchez de Lozada, former President of Bolivia who is currently wanted for his role in a massacre of 67 people in October 2003.

Greenberg was drafted in 2002 to help Goni, a Chicago-educated and wealthy businessman, get elected president during a time of social upheaval created largely by U.S.-backed "free market" economic policies (known as neoliberalism). Branding Goni as the only man who could “resolve the crisis,” Greenberg and other US political consultants helped their client scrape an electoral victory with just 23 percent of the popular vote.

The deaths took place less than a year later when Goni announced deeply unpopular plans to give foreign corporations more control over Bolivia’s natural gas resources. Road blockades erected by protesters in the poorest neighbourhoods of the high altitude city of El Alto effectively cut off supplies. Goni signed a decree that instructed the army to clear the roads and promised “indemnification for any damage to property and persons which might occur.” That effective carte blanche resulted in the army shooting live ammunition indiscriminately at men, women and children.

Military repression brought to a head one of the country’s bloodiest years, in which more than 100 people died in social protests. Rising popular anger led Goni to flee the country to exile in the US. He has since lived comfortably in Chevy Chase, Maryland protected by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Greenberg admits in the book that the violence caused him “to take stock,” yet he ends up saying he is now “more certain of my course and his .” He concludes: “I am proud of what we did to help Goni become President.” From the podium at the Commonwealth Club, he blamed the atrocities on the supposed “parallel violence” by the unarmed protestors.

It seems a surprising conclusion for a man who is supposedly in-touch with the electorate. Goni is reviled by most Bolivians as a corrupt and arrogant politician who devalued human life. Even Goni’s Vice President Carlos Mesa denounced him and swore that he would never use violence to enforce policies. Two-thirds of Bolivia’s Congress – including many who had formed part of Goni’s coalition – approved a trial seeking responsibility for the massacres. Disgust at Goni’s neoliberal economic and social policies, which had increased poverty and inequality, was partly behind the landslide 2005 electoral victory of one of the leaders of Bolivia's many social movements, Evo Morales.

More:
http://www.nickbuxton.info/bolivia/2009/04/why-are-top-democrats-shielding-goni.html

http://www.filmcritic.com.nyud.net:8090/assets_c/2010/02/Our-Brand-Is-Crisis-thumb-560xauto-25066.gif

Carville at "Goni's" campaign headquarters

http://upsidedownworld.org.nyud.net:8090/main/images/stories/september2007/goniindymedia.jpg http://www.narconews.com.nyud.net:8090/images/gonitrial_heridos.jpg http://www.aporrea.org.nyud.net:8090/imagenes/2003/1003/bolivia3.jpg

One of Goni's massacre survivors

http://4.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_p9JGYWAE99w/SkD0K4M2IiI/AAAAAAAAASk/jeJs6M-ZkFQ/s400/foto+1.jpg http://www.lostiempos.com.nyud.net:8090/diario/actualidad/nacional/20090529/media_recortes/2009/05/29/18676_gd.jpg

http://www.citizen.org.nyud.net:8090/trade/images/Masacre_small.jpg