Word: lande
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Both the autonomy and land-reform issues have sparked violent unrest over the past year, pitting the largely white farmers and ranchers of Bolivia's more affluent lowland east against the impoverished indigenous majority who back Morales, himself an Aymara Indian and the nation's first indigenous President. Little surprise, then, that a national furor has erupted over a confrontation involving government officials and Larsen, 64, who along with his two sons, owns 17 properties totaling 141,000 acres throughout Bolivia, three times as much land as the country's largest city. (Larsen insists his holdings amount to less than...
...Last month, when Almaraz and aides tried to pass through Larsen's Santa Cruz property - they insist it was the only route by which to reach to nearby indigenous Guarani residents to whom they were delivering land deeds - witnesses say the caravan was fired on by Larsen and his son Duston, 29. The incident was followed by two weeks of rancher roadblocks and violent protests that left 40 indigenous people injured...
...Santa Cruz or the other three eastern states: Beni, Pando and Tarija, which will hold similar votes this summer. But critics say the remark betrayed an underlying goal of the country's eastern elite: gaining total control over Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves and its most fertile land...
...Conflict over land is also at the heart of the clash over a new draft constitution restricting an individual's land holdings to just under 25,000 acres - a profound challenge to the ownership pattern in a country where 10% of the population controls more than 90% of arable land. "This is an extremely problematic proposal," says Osinaga. "You impose those kinds of limits and watch how fast the economy crumbles and poverty grows...
...Under its current land reform program, the Morales government has already given landless Bolivians deeds to 25 million acres (10 million hectares). Some analysts suggest that staging the autonomy referendums is simply a political device to give the easterners greater leverage in pressing Morales to renegotiate constitutional changes. Others fear the rising tension points to that classic Western movie resolution: a violent showdown...