BOLIVIA, like Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country surrounded by Brazil in the north-east and east, Paraguay in the south-east, Argentina in the south, Chile in the south-west and Peru in the north-west.
And, similar to Zimbabwe, prior to the Bolivian National Revolution of 1952, land in Bolivia was unequally distributed.
Chile promulgated its first land reform law in 1962.
Until then, 92 percent of Bolivia’s agriculturally productive land was controlled by extensive estates measuring no less than 1 000ha and more.
During Bolivia’s war-scarred post-colonial history, many battles were fought to safeguard its territory; the most significant being the Chaco War from 1932 to 1936.
Despite mediation attempts by various countries, the increased number of border incidents inevitability led to the war.
The source of the war was a long-standing dispute between Bolivia and Paraguay over the Grand Chaco region.
This region is a vast, largely undeveloped area except for some minor oil discoveries by Standard Oil Company in Bolivia and Royal Dutch Shell in Paraguay.
Bolivia had traditionally regarded the Chaco as a province.
After Bolivia lost its Pacific coast to Chile, the Chaco became more important to Bolivia, that hoped to gain access to the Atlantic Ocean with an oil pipeline to the Paraguay River running across the Chaco.
The war raged on for three years.
The Bolivians were defeated in all major battles, and by the end of 1934, they had been driven back 482km from their original positions deep in the Chaco to the foothills of the Andes Mountains.
An estimated 65 000 people were killed on the Bolivian side while 35 000 were wounded or captured out of a population of just under three million.
The Paraguayan troops were eventually stopped from advancing closer to Bolivian supply lines.
On June 14 1935 a commission of neutral nations — namely Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and the US — declared an armistice; a definite settlement was finally reached in 1938.
Bolivia lost the Chaco but retained the petroleum fields which Paraguay had failed to reach.
Both countries suffered heavy losses in the war.
Bolivia’s defeat in the Chaco War had a profound impact on the country and marked a turning point in the modern history of that nation.
The great loss of life and territory discredited the traditional ruling classes, while service in the army produced stirrings of political awareness among the indigenous people.
A large portion of the contested Gran Chaco region had been surrendered to Paraguay.
In return, Bolivia was given access to the Paraguay River, where Puerto (Port) Busch was founded, through which free access to the Atlantic Ocean through international waters was possible.
On May 17 1936, the president was overthrown in a military coup. Its leader hoped to reform the country from the top down through a programme of ‘military socialism’, that included social and economic justice and government control over natural resources.
He nationalised the Bolivian operations of Standard Oil without compensation and the state-owned Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) was created in its place.
On August 2 1953, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) Government that followed decreed the Agrarian Reform Law (Decree 3426) that abolished forced labour of indigenous peasantry and established a programme of land expropriation and redistribution of the rural property of the landlords to the traditional indigenous (Indian) people.
Only estates with low productivity were completely distributed. More productive small and medium-sized farms were allowed to keep part of their land and were encouraged to invest new capital to increase agricultural production.
The Agrarian Reform Law also provided for compensation for landlords to be paid in the form of 25-year government bonds.
The amount of compensation was commensurate on the value of the property declared for taxation.
A unique feature of the Bolivian reform was the organisation of peasants into syndicates and their militias were supplied with arms.
The peasants remained a powerful political force in Bolivia during all subsequent governments.
By 1970, 45 percent of peasant families had received title to land. Land reform projects continued in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1996, a further agrarian reform law increased protection for smallholdings and indigenous territories.
However, the law also protected absentee landholders who paid taxes from expropriation.
Additional land reforms were continued in 2006, with the passing of a bill that authorised the government the redistribution of land among the nation’s mostly indigenous poor.
However, in Latin America, Bolivia was not alone in instituting land reform.
Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, among other countries, also underwent programmes of land reform.
In 1930, land reform was used as a ruse during the Brazilian revolution.
Attempted land reforms continued during 1985-1990, after the fall of the military government.
According to Article 184, of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, the government is required: “To expropriate for the purpose of agrarian reform, rural properties that are not performing its social function.”
However, the ‘social function’ was not well defined, and the First Land Reform National Plan was not implemented, until the Landless Workers’ Movement led a strong campaign on favour of fulfilling the constitutional requirement to land reform throughout the 1990s.
Law 200 of 1936, was passed in Colombia that permitted the expropriation of private properties in order to promote ‘social interest’; following which land reforms declined in Colombia until further attempts were carried out during the governments of 1958-1962 and 1966-1970.
They created the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA).
In 1968 and 1969 alone, the INCORA issued more than 60 000 land titles to farmers and workers.
Despite this, the process stopped and the situation began to reverse, resulting in the subsequent violent actions of Colombian drug lords, paramilitaries, guerillas and opportunistic large landowners who severely contributed to a renewed concentration of land and to the displacement of small landowners.
Tentative government plans, in the early 21st Century, to use the land legally expropriated from drug lords and/or the properties given back by demobilised paramilitary groups have not yet borne much practical improvement.
Dr Michelina Rudo Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher, industrial design consultant lecturer and specialist hospitality interior decorator. She is a published author in her field. For comments e-mail: linamanucci@gmail.com