The popular and peasant organizations of El Salvador have always advocated land reform. Increasingly, over the past 20 years, the peasants have given their lives in the struggle for modest social and economic improvements in the country- side. Why, then, have these groups condemned an agrarian reform that is sopken of as the "most far-reaching reform in 36 Latin America"? The answer lies in the brief history of El Salvador's agrarian reform. Background to Reform El Salvador urgently needs a profound agrarian reform. The historic monopolization of land resources in the country has created a situation in which 50% of the rural population are unemployed for eight months of every year and more than 7 0% of all rural children suffer from chronic malnutrition. Furthermore, as large estates steadily encroached on small farmers and campesinos during the past 20 years, the number of landless skyrocketed. This situa- tion further deteriorated with the arrival of modern agribusiness companies. As modern agricultural firms have forced thousands of peas- ants off the land, they have not been able to find employment in the cities; for El Salvador's in- dustrial growth has depended on labor-saving machinery supplied by multinational corporations. Thus, employment in the manufac- turing sector grew only 6% from 1961 to 1971 while manufacturing activities increased by 24%. Despite this growth, El Salvador remains a predominantly agrarian country dependent on export crops which make up approx- imetnlv 7. n of the total v;lup, of AGRARIAN REFORM Hope Turns to Terror its exports and absorb more than 50 % of the workforce. Reform of the nation's agricultural sector, therefore, is critical for improving the general health of the economy and, above all, for laying the foun- dation for a just distribution of social wealth. Reform to Repression On October 15, 1979, after ousting the regime of General Carlos Romero, a group of young military officers led by Col. Adolfo Majano pledged their firm commit- ment to agrarian reform. Yet the peasants' hopes and expectations turned to skepticism and disap- pointment when government Leaders took few concrete measures to implement the reform. NACLA Reportupdate update.update.update To the contrary, state security forces unleashed an unprece- dented wave of terror against the popular organizations and their followers, particularly the' peasant- ry who, according to Church reports, had been singled out for especially harsh treatment. This attack provoked the March 1980 resignation of the truly moderate members of the Junta. In view of the marked shift to the right by the Junta and this unrelenting assault against the peasants, the government's an- nouncement of the Basic Agrarian Reform Law in early March came as quite a surprise. The shock, however, was to be short-lived. Phase I: The Large Estates On March 7, the government announced the first phase of the agrarian reform, Decree 154, which authorized the expropriation of estates 500 hectares and larger (1 hectare = 2.47 acres) and the formation of cooperative peasant associations. At first blush, such a program seemed to be a very radical attack on the agrarian oligarchy. Yet the reality of the situation was dif- ferent. In the first place, coffee, the basis of El Salvador's rural oligarchy, is typically grown on relatively small plots. Secondly, coffee magnates had subdivided their estates among family members since 1971 in anticipa- tion of the demand for reform. Thus, estimates are that only 2-15% of coffee estates were af- fected by Phase I reforms. In addition, those estates 500 hectares and larger make up only about 15% of El Salvador's arable land. While it is often claimed that these estates encompass El Salvador's best farmland, this is only partially true. More than 60% of the land affected by Phase I is either pasture, forest or mountains -some of El Salvador's most un- productive land. Thus, one has to be careful about accepting a pic- ture of deep economic change caused by Phase I reforms. In addition, Phase I was de- signed and implemented without the participation of peasants, popular organizations, the Church or academics-precisely the groups which had a strong com- mitment to agrarian reform and the expertise necessary to carry it out. At this stage of the process, U.S. involvement appears to have been limited. U.S. advisers basically saw agrarian reform as a device for winning the peasantry away from the popular organiza- tions. As government officials have acknowledged, the timing and motivation for the agrarian reform were eminently political. Simultaneous with the Basic Agrarian Reform Law, the Junta declared a countrywide state of siege. Claiming that this was necessary to protect peasants from landlord retribution, the government actually authorized the militarization of the country- side. Not surprisingly, the peasants reacted with fear and distrust when the military first appeared. Many fled and hid in the fields. Five hundred agricultural technicians from the Salvadorean Institute of Agrarian Transformation (ISTA) were dispatched to inform the peasants of the reform process and to organize them into cooperatives. But this aspect of the reform, as well as all the others, excluded peasants from the planning stages. Further, those social sectors closest to the owners were able to dominate these cooperatives. To understand how this was possible, we must look at the two socio-economic sectors that work on the large estates: salaried employees and permanent resi- dent laborers (colonos). The salaried employees-administrat- ors, bookkeepers, mechanics, etc.-maintain close ties with paramilitary organizations and the National Guard. Colonos, on the other hand, have been kept in a state of submission. They have been prevented from joining the popular peasant organizations and are often characterized as the sector of the peasantry with the lowest level of social and political consciousness. It therefore is not surprising that administrators and other salaried employees dominate many of the newly formed peasant cooperatives. More than 10 months after the reform, the colonos continue to live in extreme poverty with no control over their own destiny. For this reason, we must question sources which claim that 60,000 families have benefitted from Phase I. Ignoring the Landless To understand the real nature of the reform process, one has to look at the question of benefits. Landless rural workers (60% of the rural population who neither rent, sharecrop or own) have been entirely excluded from the agrarian reform at a moment when the rural proletariat is ex- panding faster than any other group in the countryside. Thus, we encounter the absurdity of an agrarian reform process that ig- JanlFeb 1981 37update update update update nores the landless. If the reform doesn't benefit the landless, it often isn't much better for the newly formed cooperatives. Landlords, operating through paramilitary organizations and the National Guard, sabotaged the machinery and moveable assets of many cooperatives. More than 30% of their cattle were slaughtered. Thus, scores of newly formed cooperatives were left with little but empty pastureland. Fur- thermore, landlords bribed military officials in order to get their farms returned, and were successful in many cases. Finally, security forces either killed or set to flight peasants and/or ISTA technicians who resisted. By the end of March 1980, the first month of the reform process, it was clear that security forces had escalated their assault against the popular organizations. In that month alone, they killed more than twice as many people as they had in February. Of the dead, more than 50% were peasants-the supposed beneficiaries of agrarian reform. This glaring fact provoked the late Archbishop Oscar Romero to declare: "Reforms which re- quire the blood of the people are invalid." Phase II: The Heart of the Reform Whereas the first phase of the agrarian reform process author- ized the expropriation of estates larger than 500 hectares, Phase II targeted all estates between 150 and 500 hectares. In other words, Phase II hit directly at most of the wealthy coffee estates-the economic stronghold of the oligar- chy. Phase II reforms would en- compass more than 25% of the good farm land (1800 farms) as opposed to 15% (250 farms) af- fected by Phase I. Undoubtedly, Phase II is at the heart of the agrarian reform process. Yet nothing has been done on Phase II. No enforcing laws have been passed; no cooperatives have been formed; no farms have been expropriated. And there is good reason to believe that Phase II will never be implemented and the economic base of the oligar- chy never threatened. Indeed, to carry out Phase II is to alienate the oligarchy and its military sup- porters, and the Junta has thus far shown little desire to move in this direction. By not implementing this program, the government clearly demonstrates that its interest in agrarian reform is predicated on political expediency rather than a genuine commitment to far- reaching social and economic change. Phase III: "Land to the Tiller" The "reform" process did not end with Phase II. On April 28, 1980, the Junta announced Decree 207. This so-called "Land- to-the-Tiller" program came as a surprise to everyone except the group of U.S. "experts" who designed and imposed it on El Salvador's government. The pro- gram was drafted by the AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) with the consultation of Roy Pros- terman. A University of Washington law professor, Pros- terman had authored a similar pro- gram in Vietnam as a part of the in- famous Operation Phoenix. The Land-to-the-Tiller program is designed to create "owners" out of all current tenants, providing their plot or plots do not surpass seven hectares. No more renting of land will be permitted. The new "owner" can stay on the land for 30 years, but cannot sell or transfer it. In theory, the program appears simple and highly beneficial. But its consequences are disastrous. First, it institutionalizes and reproduces extremely small farms (minifundia). Second, it will lead to serious over-use of the land, trig- gering accelerating rates of ero- sion. Third, it will provoke a greater need for inputs from agribusiness concerns, such as fertilizer. Fourth, it creates an impossible credit snarl: how do you get credit to 150,000 disparate small holders? Finally, it will lead to an avalanche of litigation. These negative consequences stem from the manifest ignorance of El Salvador demonstrated by the program's U.S. planners and its architect, Roy Prosterman. Simply put, small renters rotate plots of land from one year to another; seldom does anyone cultivate the same plot of land more than three years in succes- sion. The objective behind this practice is to minimize soil erosion and falling yields of basic grains. Given the very poor soil on which most small-scale renting occurs, overutilization would create a total- ly sterile soil. But that is exactly the effect of the Land-to-the-Tiller program. Since the renting of plots will be prohibited, the program locks poor peasants onto one very small plot of land for 30 years, thus freezing their system of plot rotation. Because they cannot afford to let their land lie fallow, the soil will quickly become useless. Moreover, Land to the Tiller is built upon the supposed NACLA Report 38update * update * update * update desireability of fostering petty capitalist ownership among peasants. But, because of land use, population density and provi- sion of credit, this model is com- pletely inappropriate for El Salvador. Once again, the ra- tionale behind the program is political, not economic: the goal is creation of a sector of privileged peasants who will disassociate themselves from the popular organizations and fully support the Junta. Peasants flee from random torture or murder by ORDEN members. Beneficiaries or Refugees? Yet, even on its own terms, the program is an abysmal failure. Although many U.S. news reports make bold claims about the number of beneficiaries in the Land-to-the-Tiller program, the fact remains that there are none. No one has received title to land under this program. Instead, the areas of Chalatenango, Cuscatlin and Morazin-the areas of great- est concentration of small renters-have been turned into a nightmarish wasteland because of the ceaseless attacks of military and security forces. Thousands of potential "beneficiaries" have been turned into refugees. The violence in areas most acutely af- fected by Land to the Tiller is un- paralleled. Groups of National Guard troops accompanied by ORDEN peasants (ORDEN is a paramilitary network of spies, in- formers and enforcers, see Report on the Americas, Vol. 14, No. 2) have seized the land of peasant refugees. JanlFeb 1981 El Salvador's agrarian reform has been accompanied by an un- precedented level of violence. It has exacerbated the problems of landless rural proletarians. It has been characterized by poor plan- ning, political expediency and the complete absence of peasant par- ticipation. The result: El Salvador remains in dire need of radical agrarian reform which must be built on the full and open participa- tion of all peasant organizations and political groups in that nation. Without that participation, the pro- duct at best is a coarse form of paternalistic manipulation. At worst, it is a program which, like the current one, aims at the destruction of independent peas- ant organizations.
