Contemporary revolution in Latin America; Agrarian revolution

<v Speaker>[Announcer intro] The following program is produced by the University of Florida's School <v Speaker>of Journalism and Communications under a grant from the National Educational Television <v Speaker>and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of Educational <v Speaker>Broadcasters. <v Speaker>[Granados] Small countries have an urgent problem of land reform[inhales], especially <v Speaker>in certain countries like my own, where we have a million and a <v Speaker>half Indians packed in to half of the highlands and who [small noise] have <v Speaker>only about uh three or four hectares, <v Speaker>perhaps less than that per head of family and uh with the trouble <v Speaker>that there are no more lands in the highlands.[fades to Bradbury speaking] <v Speaker>[Bradbury] Speaking of the peasants, we mustn't forget the aspirations of these millions <v Speaker>of them that want to feel that they own something <v Speaker>and land is something which is valuable. <v Speaker>Money isn't so important to them. <v Speaker>But, if they can say this land is mine, they are a much happier man.[Latin music <v Speaker>plays]

<v Speaker>[Announcer 2nd intro] The University of Florida presents the Agrarian Revolution, the <v Speaker>second in a weekly series of recorded documentary reports on the contemporary <v Speaker>revolution in Latin America. <v Speaker>Your reporter is the distinguished American journalist and editor of the Christian <v Speaker>Science Monitor. Erwin D. <v Speaker>Canham. <v Speaker>[Canham] Cry of the world's masses for land reform is not new. <v Speaker>The slogan Land for the Landless dates back at least 30 centuries. <v Speaker>In Roman times Plutarch tells us how the Gracchi attempted a social reform <v Speaker>based on a more equal distribution of land. <v Speaker>Similarly, the desire for agrarian reform in Latin America is no recent <v Speaker>development. Agrarian reform was the rallying point of the Mexican

<v Speaker>Revolution. By expropriating and redistributing the land Mexican economists <v Speaker>point out Mexico was able to achieve economic freedom and social equality <v Speaker>for her people. The Mexican Revolution began in 1910. <v Speaker>Land reform then has been a goal in Latin America for over a half century. <v Speaker>What happens when this yearning for land is thwarted? <v Speaker>Cuba is a case in point. <v Speaker>In 1950, a prominent sociologist delivered a paper at the University of Florida's <v Speaker>first conference on the Caribbean. <v Speaker>Summing up, Dr. Lowery Nelson said, "The grand paradox of Cuba <v Speaker>is the potential fruitfulness of the land and the poverty of people <v Speaker>who work upon it." Yet in 1959, North Americans were astonished <v Speaker>when Fidel Castro and his followers brought about a drastic social revolution. <v Speaker>Now self-described as a "socialist" revolution in the communist <v Speaker>sense. The fact is the cornerstone of Castro's revolution was

<v Speaker>land reform. The most dramatic indicator of the need for land reform in Latin <v Speaker>America is the high concentration of ownership. <v Speaker>Too few people simply own too much of the land. <v Speaker>[Clarence Senior] Venezuela, for example, er has a tremendous concentration of land <v Speaker>ownership. [Canham] A Columbia University sociologist, Clarence Senior supplies <v Speaker>some statistics. [Clarence Senior] 3 percent of all of the land owners <v Speaker>of Venezuela own 90 percent of the land. <v Speaker>In Chile, the situation isn't quite as bad, but it's bad enough. <v Speaker>2 percent of the land owners own 52 percent of all <v Speaker>of the farmland. And the situation is just about the same in <v Speaker>Brazil, where 2 percent of the people own half of <v Speaker>the land of Brazil. <v Speaker>[Canham] Many Latin Americans, as well as North American observers, believe if there is <v Speaker>one step necessary to the continued development of Latin America from a feudal

<v Speaker>society to a community of industrial powers, that step <v Speaker>is successful agrarian reform. <v Speaker>At the nub of the agrarian reform problem is the feudal institution known as <v Speaker>the Hacienda, the large estate or plantation. <v Speaker>The system is very close to the one described in the history of medieval Europe. <v Speaker>The land owner, the feudal lord, is usually an absentee owner <v Speaker>who generally gets his status and prestige from the mere ownership of land. <v Speaker>These estates are worked by peasants who by circumstances are literally bound <v Speaker>to the land. They are born there many times and either cannot or care not <v Speaker>to leave. Before the revolution in Bolivia an advertisement appeared in a prominent <v Speaker>newspaper in La Paz. Ah Hacienda, located on the main highway, a short <v Speaker>drive from the Bolivian capital, was offered for sale. <v Speaker>The hacienda was described as having 500 acres of land, 50 sheep, <v Speaker>much water and 20 peons. <v Speaker>We asked Dr. Raymond Crist, the research professor of geography at the University of

<v Speaker>Florida, to brief us on the historical and geographical background of land <v Speaker>tenure in Latin America. <v Speaker>[Crist] The Spaniards, when they came, found uh Indo <v Speaker>or Indian civilizations that had already evolved <v Speaker>their land tenure systems, and those were based around <v Speaker>village holdings. <v Speaker>The Spaniards themselves, in many cases swept these aside <v Speaker>or superimposed on these groups from <v Speaker>in the in the higher mountain areas between Mexico and northern <v Speaker>Argentina their own manorial or feudal systems <v Speaker>of great landed estates. <v Speaker>These have, in the course of time, exerted a kind of dead hand <v Speaker>influence on the economies of these countries, in <v Speaker>many instances. Furthermore, in relatively recent times,

<v Speaker>there has been a development of the <v Speaker>plantation economy in both in both <v Speaker>cases, the systems of the plantation system and <v Speaker>the Hacienda system have been superimposed <v Speaker>or pushed aside the original Indians <v Speaker>and their holdings. <v Speaker>This has brought about in so many instances, <v Speaker>cases in which the rights of property have been so far extended <v Speaker>that millions of people have been without land, without <v Speaker>enough to live on. <v Speaker>And with the result [high pitched noise] that in the course of time they have demanded <v Speaker>what they think is an inalienable right, namely the right to land, <v Speaker>which they can cultivate and get the food they want to eat. <v Speaker>[Canham] Hand-in-hand with

<v Speaker>the problem of the ownership of too much land is the ownership of too little land. <v Speaker>The urgency for redistribution of land as well as the method of redistribution <v Speaker>depends on the particular country in Latin America that we're talking about at the time. <v Speaker>This is the view of the former ambassador to the United Nations from Guatemala, Jorge <v Speaker>Garcia Granados. <v Speaker>[Granados] For instance, the large countries of South America, even uh <v Speaker>Argentina or Brazil are not in an urgent need of land reform. <v Speaker>They have plenty of land still left that can be occupied by <v Speaker>immigrants. Eh what their problem is more a problem of population <v Speaker>than the land reform. Eh on the other side, small countries have <v Speaker>an urgent problem of land reform,[inhales] especially in certain countries <v Speaker>like ah my own, where we have a million and a half Indians <v Speaker>packed into half in the highlands and who [small noise] have only about uh <v Speaker>three or four hectares, perhaps less than that per head of family

<v Speaker>and uh with the trouble that there are no more lands in the highlands. <v Speaker>There are no large estates. <v Speaker>So we have to open up new lands for them wherever we can do it, <v Speaker>and especially the uh uh difficulties that we <v Speaker>have to give an incentive to the Indians to work to lower lands because <v Speaker>they are accustomed to live in the highlands. <v Speaker>[Canham] So land reform depends upon the country, and it also depends upon the section of <v Speaker>a particular country as well as a particular type of agriculture desired. <v Speaker>Cattle raising by necessity uses much larger tracts of land than, say, raising coffee. <v Speaker>Colombia does both, and Colombia has been writing a land reform law <v Speaker>now before its legislature. When he was minister of agriculture, Orlando Fals <v Speaker>Borda helped to draft recommendations for this law. <v Speaker>We put a question to him. How do you go about writing a good land reform <v Speaker>law that will cover the various regional differences in land and crops? <v Speaker>[Borda] Well, the law should include the most ah, the more general points,

<v Speaker>should include generalities and uh give ample eh <v Speaker>authority to the entity supposed to <v Speaker>implement the law to make these uh regional uh <v Speaker>qualifications or adjustments. <v Speaker>And ah the law now in Congress, in the Colombian Congress, contemplates <v Speaker>such an institute and uh an an freedom to <v Speaker>do perform the law. <v Speaker>[Canham] The problem appears to be not in writing a land reform law, but in getting it <v Speaker>passed in the national legislature, where in most cases the landowners also hold <v Speaker>the political power. Professor Emeritus Frank Tannenbaum of Columbia University <v Speaker>has written that the hacienda has no built in device that will allow for reform <v Speaker>of the system. He points out that in two countries where the hacienda has been <v Speaker>repudiated, Mexico and Bolivia, it was by revolution. <v Speaker>Cuba could be added to this list.

<v Speaker>Professor of economics at the University of Mississippi, Pedro Teichert, puts <v Speaker>it this way. <v Speaker>[Teichert] See that's the problem. Uh it's very difficult because the the ruling class <v Speaker>has been the landholding class in Latin America. <v Speaker>And to and eh to bring about land reform would mean to bring about <v Speaker>a fundamental change, social change. <v Speaker>And the landholding class is not going to give in easily, since that <v Speaker>would mean they would lose political power. <v Speaker>After all, if you pass tax laws to tax the agricultural people, if they <v Speaker>are in the control of the government, they're not going to pass laws to tax themselves. <v Speaker>So it is almost eh, eh required that you have a social upheaval <v Speaker>to dislodge the the landholding class. <v Speaker>Take away the political power from them. Then then you can have a land reform. <v Speaker>But even in a country, even Argentina, with all the power Peron had, he did <v Speaker>not touch the land ports.

<v Speaker>[Canham] Florida's junior senator George Smathers disagrees with Dr. Teichert. <v Speaker>The senator has always had a keen interest in Latin America, has traveled extensively, <v Speaker>particularly in the countries of Central America and the Caribbean. <v Speaker>Here's what he has to say in response to the view that revolution is necessary to bring <v Speaker>about agrarian reform. <v Speaker>[Smathers] I would say that the Fidel Castro revolution <v Speaker>and the communist takeover there in Cuba has <v Speaker>alerted and aroused and awakened most people <v Speaker>of Latin America to the need that is the so-called privileged class who we <v Speaker>all agree up to this point have not done enough for their own countries. <v Speaker>They have taken a lot out of it and given very little back. <v Speaker>I think they are now awakening to the fact that unless they themselves <v Speaker>initiate uh certain governmental reforms, <v Speaker>unless they themselves start paying taxes and contributing to the upgrading <v Speaker>of their schools, their hospitals, their roads, it then

<v Speaker>if they do not do something of this character, they're then going to be thrown out and <v Speaker>not only lose their lives <v Speaker>and their fortunes,uh but their country as well. <v Speaker>[Canham] Guatemala's Garcia Granados is another leader who believes in the chances of <v Speaker>democratic evolution over the prospects of revolution. <v Speaker>[Granados] It all depends on the government that is in power. <v Speaker>If it is a government, a democratic government that has been elected and that in it <v Speaker>in its program it carries a a sound land reform, they can make <v Speaker>it without recurring to the violent measures. <v Speaker>[Canham] Senor Garcia explains what he means by a sound land reform law. <v Speaker>[Granados] I would say that if it is sound I uh and by that paying a <v Speaker>rational price for the property and uh taxing those properties <v Speaker>highly, those properties that are un untilled, there is no social benefit <v Speaker>from that land, that then the government is in the right to buy.

<v Speaker>And that property at this value, that is really value. <v Speaker>I mean by that that land that is not tilled, that is ah worthless, there eh <v Speaker>has can not have the value of land that is cultivated. <v Speaker>So uh I don't think that there would be any difficulty by government to carry <v Speaker>out such a program. [Canham] So far in this program <v Speaker>we have used the terms land reform and agrarian reform interchangeably. <v Speaker>Is there a difference in meaning between them? <v Speaker>We asked a research sociologist at the University of Florida T. <v Speaker>Lynn Smith this question. <v Speaker>[Smith] Yes, I myself uh very definitely prefer the term agrarian reform <v Speaker>because uh whatever measures or endeavors we make <v Speaker>along these lines uh, we are dealing with the relationship <v Speaker>of a of man to land. And in this relationship man <v Speaker>is the ah is the active element and the

<v Speaker>land is the passive uh element. <v Speaker>For this reason, I prefer to refer to it as agrarian reform to stress <v Speaker>the human element rather than land reform which stresses the <v Speaker>passive element [inhales]. <v Speaker>[Canham] Well, under this definition, what is the ultimate objective of agrarian reform? <v Speaker>[Smith] Well, always when I am in uh Latin America, and this now for <v Speaker>decades that I have uh been working in and with Latin <v Speaker>American governments [inhales], I have uh <v Speaker>always accepted and uh and followed a uh a <v Speaker>statement which was made one time by the Brazilian uh Commission on <v Speaker>Agrarian Policy, which [inhales] indicated the fundamental <v Speaker>objective of agrarian reform was the uh the valerization <v Speaker>of the ordinary uh rural man in Brazil.

<v Speaker>Meaning uh to develop the uh human qualities <v Speaker>of the ordinary citizen, rural citizen, to the maximalists uh. <v Speaker>This is the fundamental objective of ah of agrarian reform. <v Speaker>[Canham] Dr. T. Lynn Smith explains the appeal of the demagog to the landless masses <v Speaker>in Latin America. <v Speaker>[Smith] The demagogs are narrowly is inclined to uh to point <v Speaker>to the uh the fact there uh there <v Speaker>are rich uh, productive lands, <v Speaker>frequently uh large amounts of them in the hands of a few proprietors [inhales] <v Speaker>and very large numbers of uh of workers and frequently voters uh <v Speaker>with little or nothing in the way of uh landed property which he can <v Speaker>use, either saying or insinuating uh that <v Speaker>you, the voter, ought to have a a part of ah of <v Speaker>this uh other man's estate.[inahles] A matter

<v Speaker>of fact uh, a great many people this is about the only idea they have of a meaning <v Speaker>of agrarian reform is simply to seize the acreages held <v Speaker>in large estates and to divide them among the uh among the workers. <v Speaker>[Canham] The appeal of a demagog who uses this approach is <v Speaker>irresistible, seems to be, to the landless masses in Latin America. <v Speaker>[Clarence Senior] Actually, one of the bases of the strength of Fidel Castro in Cuba <v Speaker>is the fact that there was a tremendous concentration in a few hands of <v Speaker>land ownership in Cuba. <v Speaker>[Canham] Once again, Clarence Senior. [Senior] And Castro has <v Speaker>been able to get a tremendous following from the landless peasants <v Speaker>of Cuba uh because he has been distributing land. <v Speaker>Now, somebody may say, of course, he's distributing land in such a way that uh the <v Speaker>workers, ah the land workers may not get the land and I would <v Speaker>agree entirely with this criticism.

<v Speaker>On the other hand, nobody else has helped the Cuban peasants <v Speaker>and this man, mad man though he may be, <v Speaker>has offered and is delivering land to the peasants. <v Speaker>[Canham] Castro agents and hundreds of so-called Soviet and Chinese communist technicians <v Speaker>have been stepping up efforts to export Castro style revolutions throughout <v Speaker>the rest of Latin America. <v Speaker>This threat from Cuba has had the positive effect of helping to wake up a few of <v Speaker>the landowners to the urgent need of land reform now. <v Speaker>So in Peru, we see Premier Pedro Beltran, a member of one of the 25 families <v Speaker>who control most of the land, seeking to convince his fellow landowners <v Speaker>that now is the time to act. <v Speaker>The alternatives are to begin minor reforms immediately or face the prospect <v Speaker>of being wiped out as landowners in a Castro type revolution. <v Speaker>But in general, the landowners in Latin America seem reluctant to act.

<v Speaker>[Oswaldo Lima] The great landowners throughout the country are not frightened of this <v Speaker>Castro revolution. <v Speaker>We're in Brasilia now listening to a Labor Party leader who serves in <v Speaker>Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, Oswaldo Lima. <v Speaker>[Lima] There are some areas in Brazil was meant to grow ?inaudible?, ?inaudible?, <v Speaker>live eh two people per square mile. <v Speaker>But in some part of the countries, as that from which I come in <v Speaker>the state of Pernambuco representing in the house, where <v Speaker>these Castro revolution has got a lot of sympathy eh <v Speaker>among the peasants and there, in Pernambuco of course, the <v Speaker>landowners are sometime frighten with their propaganda <v Speaker>of Castro revolution. Cause you know, in that part of country live <v Speaker>a third of the national population of Brazil. <v Speaker>[Canham] Responsible Latin American leaders are worried about what may happen if agrarian

<v Speaker>reform laws are not passed and put into operation soon. <v Speaker>In Bogota, Dr. Orlando Fals Borda wondered aloud what might take place <v Speaker>if the land reform law, which was then before Congress failed to pass. <v Speaker>[Borda] I think it would be a very unfortunate situation because uh <v Speaker>most farmers and uh most Colombians uh have a high expectations <v Speaker>about the passing of this law. <v Speaker>It would be a definite outcome that uh a social revolution could happen. <v Speaker>Perhaps worse. [Canham] On the campus of the University of Florida, the debate goes on <v Speaker>over land reform. Which way? <v Speaker>Evolution or revolution? <v Speaker>With students from 18 Latin American countries in attendance it's not unusual to hear <v Speaker>very frank discussions on this subject. <v Speaker>We listen in on a bull session with 4 Latin American students. <v Speaker>[Student 1] Well the point uh under issue now seems to be whether it is convenient to <v Speaker>go into a radical fast land reform <v Speaker>in Latin American countries or go are a low rate of speed.

<v Speaker>Eh how long have we have to wait to see <v Speaker>some changes crystallize and if they're going to be effective <v Speaker>as a whole? [Student 2] It will be effective. All depends eh the government and they and <v Speaker>their people under education, too. <v Speaker>Well,[Student 3] that's a that's an important point to education. <v Speaker>And you can't educate a man in a period of six or seven months. <v Speaker>You can't change his whole way of looking at the earth and try and change <v Speaker>his psychological relationship between his relationship to the government <v Speaker>and his relationship as a free land owner and his relationship to <v Speaker>the the landlord. [Student 4] Yeah but there is only one way of learning how to play <v Speaker>piano. Start playing it. [Student 3] Yeah. <v Speaker>You have to do it but you...[Student 4] Another radical way.[Student 3] You can't do it <v Speaker>the radical way and I think has proven in Guatemala very, very <v Speaker>effectively. <v Speaker>[Canham] And so the debate continues well on into the night.

<v Speaker>Evolution or revolution? <v Speaker>We've invited Dr. Jose Baquero, professor of economics at the Catholic <v Speaker>University of Quito, Ecuador, to outline what he feels to be an intelligent, <v Speaker>workable program for Latin America. <v Speaker>[Baquero] In my opinion, the time is ripe to take action regarding <v Speaker>a well-planned, well-financed agrarian reform in Latin America. <v Speaker>Land must be redistributed not only because people need <v Speaker>to find a place of their own, but also because the development <v Speaker>of production requires a land distribution to avoid <v Speaker>both lengthy fundio, which leaves large plots of land <v Speaker>uncultivated, as well as many fundio. <v Speaker>Also unadvisable for the reduction of land area to units <v Speaker>too small is economically unsound. <v Speaker>An agrarian reform must be well-planned to cover also

<v Speaker>irrigation, better agricultural methods, diversified production, etc. <v Speaker>and well-financed in order to compensate the legitimate price <v Speaker>of expropriation, not confiscation, without scaring <v Speaker>away either national or international investments, and <v Speaker>to give the new owners a good start to make their enterprises <v Speaker>a success. Good agrarian reform cannot be made <v Speaker>without the wholehearted approval of the great majorities and without good <v Speaker>faith and technical know how. [Canham] To conclude our program <v Speaker>we have invited members of the graduate faculty, the University of Florida's School of <v Speaker>Inter-American Studies to summarize what we have heard so far and if they will try to <v Speaker>come to some definite conclusions about the agrarian revolution. <v Speaker>The panelists are Dr. Robert W. <v Speaker>Bradbury, professor of economics, Dr. Raymond E. <v Speaker>Crist ,research professor of geography, whom we've heard earlier in the program, and A.S. <v Speaker>Muller, professor in the College of Agriculture.

<v Speaker>[Bradbury] Land reform is needed in Latin America because today <v Speaker>we need more agricultural production and the system of <v Speaker>land use in Latin America in the past will not satisfy <v Speaker>the need of today because the Hacienda <v Speaker>system lives, you might say, for itself. <v Speaker>It produced what was needed on that large estate for the people who <v Speaker>live there but, it did not produce food <v Speaker>to be used in the cities which are developing at such a fast rate. <v Speaker>And you cannot have large populations in cities unless <v Speaker>you have large amounts of food to feed them. <v Speaker>[Crist] There's one thing that uh is hopeful in Latin America, and that is that uh <v Speaker>under our point, for we have been giving technical assistance <v Speaker>to try to develop a more modern, market <v Speaker>oriented agriculture.

<v Speaker>This is very important because we know that um since 1945, <v Speaker>in other words the last 15 years, in a good many countries, the <v Speaker>population has grown more rapidly than agricultural production. <v Speaker>In other words, the agricultural production per capita is less today than it was in 1945. <v Speaker>And yet, if we can train these um <v Speaker>Latin Americans in better methods of agriculture, evolution <v Speaker>may bring about a reform rather than revolution. <v Speaker> One of the important things, I can't help thinking in this connection, that one of the <v Speaker>important activities that should be carried out all over <v Speaker>Latin America is a land survey. <v Speaker>There should be a land survey instituted so that people, <v Speaker>the country itself, knew how much uh land, how much national land <v Speaker>it had so that people could figure out how much land <v Speaker>the large landlords had.

<v Speaker>I might say that in many countries this survey has been opposed because <v Speaker>the landlords, who themselves have been the government to a large extent, are not <v Speaker>interested in having it known how much land they have. <v Speaker>I think one of the reforms that uh is taking place but <v Speaker>taking place very, very slowly is an imposition of land <v Speaker>taxes. Historically, the land in Latin America <v Speaker>has been taxed at a very, very low rate. <v Speaker>And this has made it possible to do, as you say, of producing only <v Speaker>on one third or one quarter of your land holding. <v Speaker>The imposition of heavier land taxes would force more of this <v Speaker>idle land into productive use. <v Speaker>[Another voice]Precisely.[Crist] But if those who own the land are the ones in the <v Speaker>government, they are not going to get too energetic <v Speaker>about imposing taxes on their own property. <v Speaker>That's that's one of the difficulties.

<v Speaker> Yes, it is. And that is, of course, one of the hopeful signs of the emergence of a <v Speaker>middle class, because it's when the middle class gets political power, <v Speaker>it is apt to bring about this reform <v Speaker>uh in a peaceful manner through taxation, rather than the violent <v Speaker>overthrow of the whole system by the lower class, the peasants, <v Speaker>demanding they break up all large estates. <v Speaker>[Another voice]Yes. [Crist] And who have nothing to lose and everything to gain. <v Speaker>[Bradbury] And speaking of the peasants, we mustn't forget the aspirations of these <v Speaker>millions of them that want to feel that they own something <v Speaker>and land is something which is valuable. <v Speaker>Money isn't so important to them, but if they can say this land <v Speaker>is mine, they are much happier man. <v Speaker>[Canham]Thank you, gentlemen. For the past half hour, we've been reporting on the <v Speaker>agrarian revolution, part of the contemporary revolution <v Speaker>in Latin America.[Latin music plays]

<v Speaker>[Announcer outro] The Agrarian Revolution is the second in a series of weekly documentary <v Speaker>reports on the contemporary revolution in Latin America. <v Speaker>The program was narrated by the distinguished American journalist and editor <v Speaker>of the Christian Science Monitor, Erwin D. <v Speaker>Canham. This series is produced in cooperation with the University of Florida's <v Speaker>School of Inter- American Studies. <v Speaker>[Latin music ends] [Announcer] You may receive without cost a printed copy of today's <v Speaker>program by writing this station. <v Speaker>Today's report was based in part on material published by the University <v Speaker>of Florida Press. Today's program was prepared and recorded by Wil Lewis

<v Speaker>for Radio Center School of Journalism and Communications, University <v Speaker>of Florida, Gainesville. <v Speaker>Under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center and <v Speaker>is being distributed by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. <v Speaker>This is the NAEB Radio Network.