From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: El Salvador: Proceso 531: Land and Demobilization
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 00:33:51 GMT

/** reg.elsalvador: 119.0 **/
** Topic: Proceso 531: Editorial **
** Written  5:09 pm  Sep 26, 1992 by cidai@huracan.cr in cdp:reg.elsalvador **
From: cidai@huracan.cr (Centro de Informacion Documentacion y Apoyo a la Invest. - UCAJSC)
Subject: Proceso 531: Editorial

Center for Information, Documentation and Research Support (CIDAI)
Central American University (UCA)
San Salvador, El Salvador
 
PROCESO 531
September 23, 1992
 
EDITORIAL:
Land and demobilization
 
     The FMLN leadership had announced that it would not demobilize
it second contingent of combatants as long as the government
refused to begin effectively transferring lands to them, as the
accords stipulate. In fact, everything indicated that there would
be no second demobilization as scheduled. President Cristiani
stated bluntly that he was not about to effect a land reform, as
the FMLN wanted, nor was there enough money in the State coffers to
buy the lands in question.
     The United States, through its State Department, warned both
sides that irrational postures would not be tolerated, that the
second contingent must demobilize, and that land transfers must
begin. These warnings coincided with the evaluation of the
Salvadoran peace process carried out by the U.N. Secretary General
one month after Marrack Goulding's visit.
     Thus the third crisis in the peace process never quite
materialized. The FMLN leadership went ahead and demobilized its
second contingent of combatants and turned over their respective
weapons. This means that, in some fashion, the president has agreed
to begin transferring lands, as can be deduced by the presence of
U.N. land experts in the country. Cautiously this time, the FMLN
leadership has announced that the demobilization of the other three
contingents will depend upon full compliance with the land accords.
     Now that the difficulties of the FMLN land inventory have been
overcome, and now that the COPAZ Agrarian Commission has initiated
verification of the properties, why has President Cristiani not
begun to facilitate the land transfers? What is really stopping
him? The transfer and legalization of lands located in former
conflict zones has not begun because the terms proposed by the
president have been rejected by the FMLN. In reality, from a socio-
economic viewpoint, the president's proposal is unacceptable. Let
us see why.
     President Cristiani is proposing to transfer individual small
plots, and to discriminate between former combatants and those who
currently occupy and work the lands [called "landholders", or
tenedores], awarding the former twice as much as the latter.
Furthermore, the maximum amount of funds assigned to pay for these
small plots is quite low compared to the prices named by some of
the landowners who wish to sell.
     In economic terms, the president's proposal is unrealistic.
The size of the plots and the awarding of individual titles will
not permit adequate conditions for generating enough income to
sustain a family throughout the year, much less to produce a
surplus capable of producing investments in the long-term
development of the former conflict zones. Owners of small plots
will be condemned to work at subsistence levels only, and in
addition, will be forced to break up their current forms of
productive organization.
     The president's proposal would also prevent the modernization
of the agricultural sector and the transformation of the peasantry
into a true productive force and a strategic component of socio-
economic development. For all these reasons, neither the future
landowners nor the current landholders can possibly accept what the
president proposes.
     The lack of available funds means that the only ways to
sustain production and confront the uncertainties and risks
inherent in agriculture are through cooperation and community self-
management. If, on the one hand, cooperation and community self-
management are suppressed, as President Cristiani appears to wish,
and if, on the other hand, they are substituted by the
opportunities he offers, then at best, the future landowners will
be forced to complement the income generated from their little
plots with wage work on large farms. This will turn them back into
minifundistas, just as their families were for generations before
the war.
     Instead of modernizing this important agricultural sector,
where the lives of hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans are at
stake, President Cristiani wants to restore the dominion of the
minifundio which, in and of itself, is unproductive. This means
that the country will be able to boast of abundant and cheap farm
labor. Obviously, the former combatants and current landholders in
conflict zones are unwilling to accept a return to a minifundista
economy which, by its very nature, restricts their access to
resources. Nor are they willing to accept the future status of
semi-wage workers without a future.
     Looking at matters from another angle, the government's
posture in this matter sheds light on the president's strategy
around the peace accords. He is only willing to concede the
minimum, in other words, the end of the armed conflict. It has
become clear that the president would like to use the land accords
to restore an unacceptable status quo ante to the countryside. It
is also clear how directly subordinated the president is to agro-
export interests which have historically dominated El Salvador.
     But at stake here is something more than honoring a
commitment. The president and the ARENA government are throwing
away an opportunity to promote agricultural development in the
medium term. By evading the responsibility of governing for the
future, they are letting slip by a chance to make the best social
investment of their administration: the transformation of important
productive sectors with great potential, sectors which need only
guarantees to obtain access to resources. They refuse to modernize
agriculture because they fear change and because, due to their
ideological limitations, they confuse national interest with a
vulgar rendition of land reform, and struggle frantically to hang
on to obsolete concepts.
     The land problem is far from being resolved, and therefore the
future of FMLN demobilization is up in the air. There is still time
for President Cristiani and ARENA to reconsider their stance. We
can only hope that the U.N. experts help them make this shift in
order to take advantage of an historical opportunity.
 

** End of text from cdp:reg.elsalvador **

Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive