Bolivia enacts sweeping land reform law

This article was first published by Cuba’s Prensa Latina on Nov. 29.

Considered as a historical day, Bolivian president Evo Morales proclaimed on Wednesday the new Community Reconduction Law of the Agrarian Reform finally passed at the Senate despite opposition obstacles.

Modifications to the land law aim at recovering fraudulently acquired plots to redistribute them among native peoples

Bolivian president Evo Morales signed a progressive new land reform law this week.

and establishing their social-economic function.

Morales said the new regulation puts and end to division of land into sprawling plantations in the Andean nation and provides the grassroots with a legal tool to wipe out massive landowners in eastern Bolivia.

He pleaded for unity in support of the government and announced that in 2007, the Executive will nationalize minerals.

The new distribution of land is part of an Agrarian Revolution program that includes mechanization and markets with ecological products.

The project was stalemated at the legislature due to opposition maneuvers such as the withdrawal of senators from the plenary to affect the necessary quorum.

However, since Oct. 31 over 1,000 indigenous people left eastern Santa Cruz province to demand the approval of that initiative in La Paz.