Brazil & Southern Cone - May 2012 (ISSN 1741-4431)

The land and rural development institute (Indert) has been at the very centre of the controversial land ownership disputes that have plagued Paraguay in recent years. The Indert and indeed its now defunct predecessor, the Stroessner-era rural welfare institute (IBR), have a long history of incompetence and an equally damming reputation for being corrupt. In the past two years, the Indert’s shortcomings have been vividly exposed as President Fernando Lugo’s administration has struggled to push forth its proposed agrarian reform.

Since replacing the IBR in 2003, the Indert has been in charge of quantifying ‘idle’ or ‘surplus’ state lands and to re-distribute these to landless farmers. However it is criticised for not doing enough to address the heavy concentration of land ownership and in fact has been blamed for promoting it for political means (various cases of the Indert showing favouritism toward the government political allies and their relatives have surfaced over the years). When President Lugo came to power in 2010 he promised a comprehensive agrarian reform and called on the Indert to work exclusively to this end. However President Lugo’s term has been marked by serious land disputes between self-proclaimed landless farmers and wealthy landowners, as the promised agrarian reform failed to materialise. To make matters worse, to date most attempts by the Indert to acquire land for redistribution have been plagued by corruption allegations. As result little has been achieved. The most notorious example of this was the Inder’s attempt (in 2010) to purchase lands in San Pedro from a Brazilian settler, Ulises Rodrigues Teixeira.

On 28 February last a frustrated Lugo finally ordered an intervention in the Indert. The Presidential legal advisor, Emilio Camacho, was designated as the official intervenor and the Indert president, Marciano Barreto, was temporarily suspended pending Camacho’s interventions. Barreto had only assumed the post in April 2011, when he replaced Eugenio Alonso Massare, who was criticised by landless farmers for continuously blocking the purchase of the Teixeira lands. In contrast Barreto was recommended for the post by Sixto Pereira, a close aide of President Lugo and largely identified with the landless farmer movement.

Within weeks Camacho revealed that had found evidence of serious administrative irregularities pointing to internal corruption, including the creation of “phantom settlements and the unauthorised sale of state lands”. Yet Lugo appeared very reluctant to dismiss Barreto, prompting speculation that in reality Barreto was doing Lugo’s bidding at the Indert. Landowners perceive the Lugo government as sympathetic to the often violent landless farmers and accuse the Indert of taking a biased approach in land dispute cases.

However, the political pressure on Barreto mounted on 11 April when the opposition Partido Patria Querida (PPQ) pressed charges against him for authorising the irregular sale of state owned lands. PPQ deputies Carlos Soler and Sebastián Acha presented a formal complaint before the economic crimes investigation unit alleging that Barreto had personally authorised the sale of state lands in the department of Alto Paraguay for a value of Gs.36m (US$8,096) when in reality they were valued at US$3.5m. As the case gained momentum and with Camacho’s report due imminently, t Lugo finally took the decision to formally sack Barreto on 9 May. Upon his dismissal Barreto was very critical of the president and accused him of no longer being in charge of the government. Barreto blamed his dismissal on the fact that powerful politicians like the presidential secretary, Miguel Angel López Perito, want to use the Indert for future political campaigns.

• Landless farmers push for Teixeira purchase again

On 14 May, to commemorate Paraguay’s independence celebrations, members of the Liga Nacional de Carperos (LNC) organised a march in Santa Rosa del Aguaray, San Pedro, and announced that they would give the government 15 days to purchase 7,800 hectares of lands belonging to Ulises Rodrigues Teixeira near Paso Kurusú, San Pedro. The LNG leader, Eulalio López, complained that a year after the government had announced the purchase of the lands “absolutely nothing has been done and our colleagues are ready to go to war if necessary”. López added that LNC members around the country were on alert and “if the government or congress blocks the purchase again we will take over the lands, as we have in Ñacunday”.