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July/August 1987 .
$2.00 No. CJ7
!~Schwarzbart July-August 1987 Number 97
James Finn Editor Diane Ezer Contents Mark Wolkenfeld Editonal Assistants Gerald Sterbel Senior Research Associate Elias M. Schwarzbart U.N. Correspondent Letters from Readers 3 Publications Committee Richard Gambrno Bruce Brager, Aleksa Djilas, John Lawrence, R. Bruce McColm, Jiri Pehe, Oscar Handlin Vinton Uddell Pickens, Jean-Fram;ois Revel, Arthur M. Shapiro, Milan Sve~. Sidney Hook Burns W . Roper Milovan Svitak Robert A. Scalaprno Paul Seabury Phrlip Van Slyck Articles Comparative Survey of Freedom Sidney Hook-A Book and a Life Raymond D. Gastrl Director Always a Step Ahead . Elias M. Schwarz bart 5 Jeannette Gastil Research Assrstant The Communist Peace Offensive ...... Sidney Hook 13 Coordinator. Exchange Correspondents Barbara Futterman Many-Sided Sidney. . Arnold Beichman 18 Afghamstan and South-West As1a The Ralph Nader of Moral Philosophy . . Stefan Kanter 19 Rosanne Klass Steve Grnsberg. Assrstant Land Reform 1n El Salvador: A Fresh Look . . Richard L. Hough 21 Western Hem1sphere Douglas W Payne Andrei Sakharov Gorbachev's Loyal Opposition. . Edward Kline 28 Eastern Europe Jackson-Van1k and Its Cri tics . Allan Kagedan 31 J~r r Pehe Sov1 et Umon Ludmilla Thorne For the Education Record Davrd Smclalf Education for Democracy . American Federation of Teachers, Busmess Manager Educational Excellence Network, and Freedom House 25 Jessre Mrll er Subscnpoons Manager Free Comment Ern est Bryant Lrlli an Tung Thatcher shows it's possible. Nicaragua s 0 Escoto receiv es hi s Lenin Lu z Vega ProduCtiOn ASSIStants Prize 30 Cover photograph of S1dney Hook. Vic ton a Rouse Prev1ous Chalfoersons
Co-Ch a~rs Dorothy Thompson BOARD OF TRUSTEES IExecutrve Commmee "). MAX M I
FR EE DOM HOUSE Srgned anrcles reflect v'ews of :he a ~ tho rs . not necessarrly Freeoom House or rts Boaro Unsolr crtec anrcles must De Executrve D ~r ector accompanrec by a st ampec serl·aaaressec envelope. Leonard R Sussman Artrcles tn tnrs JOurnar are aostractec and rndexec rn H1stoncaJ Abstracts ana or Amenca: H1story and l.Jie. anc rnaexed by Public Affarr s lnlormatron Servrce. Deputy D~ree1or Eacll tSSu e avarlable tn entrrety tllrough Xerox Unrversrty Mrcrolrl ms. R. Bruce McColm 21
Land Reform in El Salvador: A Fresh Look
Richard L Hough
t is time to take a new and objective look at El estimated at 31.359 heads of household; with their families I Salvador's land reform program. In March and April of they number 189.154 people. 1980, the Revolutionary Junta in El Salvador decreed a The Phase Ill. or Land-to-the-Tiller program. is quite major land reform program in two Phases. I and Ill. (Phase different in character. being predicated on the principle tha t II as originally authorized was not implemented.) From its small primary producers on agricultural lands should be able inception, the program was marked by bitter controversy and to claim ownership of the parcels they directly cultivate. violence. Deaths attributed to land contlicts. particularl v in Phase Ill permitted small farmers to apply for title for up to the first few years of the program. numbered in the hundreds. 7 hectares ( 17 acres) of the land they had been pre viously and illegal evictions of small farmer beneticiaries from the farming a<> renters or sharecroppers. As of April of this lands they cultivated numbered 1n the thousands. yea r. there were 56,188 direct beneficiaries of Phase Ill who Opposition to land re fo rm came ess entiall v fr om the had applied for title to 79.142 parcels of land. The estimated political extremes, the hard core conservative \l, ing of th e total land tran sferred is 240.054 acres. The aver ag e size ARENA Party and si milar fringe group s on the r 1~h t. and Phase Ill holdi ng is 4 to 4.5 acres and the estim Jted total the FMLN-FDR. the Front of guerrilla groups and npatrJate number of beneficiaries including family members is politicians on the left. Perhaps this \l.a s ~ o be e'pected. 33/.128. given the polarized character of the body politic in El ,-\ gg regating Ph a.' e l and Ill. about 782.000 acres of Salvador. with its organized min orities that ha ve not agricultural land ha\e been tran sferred to an eqi mated hesitated to use viole nce as a political weapon. conunuou, lv .:\25.000 beneficiary Ta nners and fam ily members v,h o buffeting a tenuous democratic center. Given the polemical conte nt of [\·cntnday, it'itfl the survt\·al of land reform no longer in the attacks on land reform---their sheer virulence and e., cess---a question , auacksfrom the right and left continue as part of rea so ned dialogue on the t\\ 0 phases the unrelenting it mfare against the Duane gm·cmmcnt. has been largely ab sent. Even todav. w1th the su rvival of land reform no lo nger in question. anacks fr om the right and left conunue repre :;ent 25 percent of the Salvadoran rural plXlr. as part of the unrelenting warfare again st the Duarte Arproqmately 22 percent of El SJh acto r ' ·Jrable land- --the government. cou ntrv 's sc arce st factor of agr1cultural producuon--·ha:, hec:n However. with the perspective time allows and the redi -. tributed . growi ng evidence on the performance of the programs. These figure s indicate th at J \erv ..;ubstJnti,il SJh ad I (I 22 privileged minority controlled a disproportionate share of the mcrease productivity and maximize production have been land. While the landless population increased, rural poverty lacking. Since virtually all the income of the co-op deepened. Fully two-thirds of the rural population (more members is obtained from wages, the tendenc y has been to than 300,000 people), were landless, with heads of maximize labor inputs and give less attention to profit households subsisting either as seasonal laborers on the strategies and economic efficiencies. large agricultural estates, or as tenant farmers sharecropping There are two other problems: the small membership of or renting small plots of land. If one uses the Gini Index of the cooperatives measured against available land, and the Inequality• to measure the extent of concentration of lack of definition of members' rights. A land/man rat io n of landholdings, the Gini in prereform EI Salvador was a high 20 acres per family on the cooperatives is difficult to justify 83 . A comparison with the Ginis in large numbers of other when there are still large numbers of landless as well as a developing countries, which average in the middle to hig h great need to increase agricultural production through more 60s, reveals the skewed character of this land d.i suibution intensive land use. Using the wage labor of nonmember pattern. agricultural workers to meet seasonal manpower require ments that cannot be met by the present membership is Troubled periods hardly a solution to these problems. It is reminiscent of the Phases I and [l have gone throu gh uou bled peri od~. serf-like labor prac tices of the old land-extensive agricultural marked by an assortment of ills and problems. The estates that the Phase I program was supposed to eradicate. programs have been carried out under the mos t difficult There are now about 17 ,000 nonmember far m laborers circumstances of protracted war---wage d larg ely In the wo rking on the cooperatives. countrys ide---and the strong resistance of local landlords. Important issues on cooperative members· rights and particularl y in the first three years of Phase Ill. The obligations are still outstanding. Cooperatives have been landlords' resistance took the form of II legal e' icuons of. able to resolve particular questions such as renting land, the and also acts of violenc~ and intimidation against. clai m withdrawal of membership, and inheritance. but a IJige vital ants . But gove rnment land reform Jgencies gr:1du ~.lily area ha s been neglected. It is the government's responsi improv ed the admini suation of the progrJms and leJ rn ed bilit y to r<:!pair this neglect with a new agrarian reform law how to better manage contlict in the counu-y si de . v.hich inter alia will provide a charter of rights and obliga To look fi rst at so me of the problems . The Pha ~ e I ti ons for reform , <:!cto r cooperative members . L nti l th is is cooperatives have been burdened wi th a debt which ex ceeds done. the presen t uncertainties and insecunties among m<:!m the productivity of the hol dings. They hav e been hJmpered b<:!rs about what th eir membership entails---how thei r status as well by government in efficienCies and pJtemJII~m . The on the land has changed as property owners---will no doubt excessive debt was due in part to fau lty finan ci JI and remam . ec onomic plann ing and the hasty implementation of the The! maj or failing , and disap pointm<:!nt. of the Land-to initi al stages of the reform carried out du nng the pol i[I cal the-Till<:!r program has b<:!en the shortfall between eligible! crisis period of 1979 and 1980. The inefficiencies are the cl aiman L~ and those clai mJnts who exercised th<:!Ir rig hts and result of the gove rnment's in ability to deliver the array of ha ve r<:!c<:! ived. or will receive. title to the! flJIC<:!Is the y te chnical. social and economic services that are vital to the appli ed for. In the ab \ <:!nC<:! of r<:!liable data. the num b<:! r of cooperati ves. At the same time. gove rnment offi cials ha ve <:!ligibl e Phase Ill small farm<:!r ' has b<:!en esumatcd J\ high so ught to maintain conuol of th e cooperatives through an ill as 150,000 and as low as 75.000. The! finJI num b<:!r that conceived. poo rl y functi oning "co-management" S}Stem. was tnformall y ac cepted by Salvadoran and L.S . publtc Jnd With a few excepuons. the COt' perati ves In the reform pri,ate agen ci es involved In th e! program v.as 111 ,000. Th is sector ha ve indeed suffered fr om poor management prac[Ices. figu re v.as derived fro m a 1982 fi<:!ld prolil<:! of Phase! Ill a lack of profess ional managers and accountanL'i . and the be n<:!fi ciaries do ne by th e! GOES Office of Plan ning and neglect of farm-level services. ~1any go•<:! rn m<:!nt and [ \ JiuJtion for :\granan Reform (PERA). In tum. the c,ioperati ve officials , as well as l<:!ad<:!rs of the polit ical pre~<:!nt ·tctual number of Phase Ill benefiCIJiics t'i 56. 188. a parties and campesino (peasant) organiZ.JtiOns. ha\<:! bee n substantial shoru·a ll indc<:!d. divided between view ing the! coo per:JU\<:! ~ In t<:! rm'i of the Tv.o pnmary factors nplain this ~hortfall. Fir -. L profess ional and technic:JI requir<:!m<:!n L<; th<:!y n<:!<:!d to <:!\ il l\e <:!lig ibk b<:!neficiaries in dang<:! rous zo nes could not ai \\ JY' be into modem private- ~ect o r ag ncultural enterpmes. and nf reached . S<:!co nd.. the de Jur:ro r<:! t<:!nti on limi t of 17 acres for their potential fo r political mobilizatiOn and acu on. :, mall prope rt y owners v. ho did not directly farm their land~-- Further. as is fr<:!quently the! cas <:! v.ith CO July- Av.g However, the sharp dips in production, so freely Indeed, the present evidence strongly suggests that the predicted by opponents of land reform, have simply not family farm model in El Salvador's land reform program is occurred. Excepting rice and, marginally, sugar, the yields proving to be considerably more successful in economic on the Phase I cooperatives have consistently equalled or terms than the collective farming modeL surpassed crop-year national averages. In fact the The Salvadoran land reform programs had political as cooperatives have been faring somewhat better the past few well as economic objectives. The programs preempted the years. The commercial banks in El Salvador now rank 60 extreme left's exploitation of the land issue , particularly percent of the 309 cooperatives in the A or B credit risk: during the political struggles of the early 1980s. but also categories. Also, 36 of the cooperatives distributed for the over the longer term, and contributed to the democratization first time about $200 in dividends per member from their process by bringing the mass of Salvadoran peasants into 1986 profits. At the same time, only about 65 percent of the new democratic constitutional system. the lands of the functioning cooperatives IS under Clearly, land reform played a significant role in opening cultivation, or being used as pasture for livestock:. There is up the countryside to democratic alternatives . There were no little doubt that with better technical management, and more appreciable gains in popular support by the guerrillas or intensive land use and effective profit incentives. both their mass organizations in the rural areas of El Salvador productivity and production can be markedly increased on the during the 1979-82 period. despite political crises and Phase I lands. instability. In fact, the democratic campesino organizations expanded their memberships during this period, in considerable part Clearly, land reform played a significant role in opening up because of the implementation of the countryside to democratic alternatives. land reform initiatives. However. it is too much to argue. as some have. that these initiatives were instru It is interesting to note that although Phase mental in the substantial rollback: of the guerrilla insurgency beneficiaries have better quality land---and close to five that occurred in 1980 and 1981. Rather. the rollback wa.~ times as much of it---in addition to greater access to due mainly to the vicious indiscriminate destruction that the technical assistance and credit, they also have an annual Salvadoran mil it ary and death squads inflicted on the urban :~ v erage net income only slightly better than that of Ph:~ se III guerrillas' infra\ trlJCture during these years. beneficiaries working sm :~ll famil y farms. Simdarlv. the The land re ttl rm programs most directl y intluenced the yields and inc omes on particular crops fr om Phase I parcels rol e of the de mocratic campesino movement in the bodv culti va ted individu:~ll y h:~v e been greater than the yields and politic of El Salvador. The national peasant org:wizatlons. income on the same crops cultivated collectively. The trend the Union C l"l mmunal Salvadorerio (l:(S) and the toward more indi vidu al farming on the cooperatives is Asoctacion de Cooperativas pa.ra La Produccion .-\ grope· sharply upward. About 25.000 parcels are now being farmed cuaria Integral ( ACOPA!). emerged a.~ intluential forces on individually bv Phase I beneficiaries. the nati onal political sc ene in the earl y 19 80s as ad voCJt es The economic record of the Land-to-the-Tiller program. of democratic politico-economic change al mos t ""h ollv thus far appears to be remarkably good. The program is through their identification with land reform issues. Land doing what it was supposed to do. Many small farm fami reform became a means for mass mobilization and political lie s. having gained access to land. are now responding quite representation of the peasantry. and for the de\elopment of dramatically to the tncentives that secure tenure provides. an organized constituency in the counuyside of maJor long For example. the volume of production of basic grains on term significance to the tledgltng Salvadoran democracv. It Phase III farms now represents 25 percent of the nJtional is also nece ss ary to note that land issues also generated a ba.>ic grain production. up from 11 percent in 19 82. Crop mt!ttancy within the democratic peasant organtzati o n~ diversification is al so expanding. The value of diversified themselves that sustatned them tn ad ve rs itv. The re> le of a crops has in creased from 5 percent to 28 percent of th e total great is su e tn le aventng the democratization pmces -; IS n,·,t Phase III production value. The ave rage value per acre of unique to El Sal vado r. diversified crops is 250 percent the val ue of basic grains It is often forgotten or overlooked that th e land retmm ~1oreover. the family tnc ome ob tained from Pha.~ e Ill pa.rcels decrees of 1980 could no t ha\e been promu lgated \l.t th,lu t rose 37 percent in current prices (fr om S303 tn 198 2 to S417 the backing of the Salvadoran Army. In fact. the rnoderJte in 1984\. The percentage of Pha.>e Ill families wtth eamtngs reformist elements withtn the army that dom1nated the under S200 a year has dimintshed from 41 5 percent to 5.3 Revolutionary Junta directlv supported the decree>. as th e\ percent. The available data also indicate tncreased use of soil dtd th os e that nationalized the banks and the comm odtt\ co nse rvation. a greater reltance on the market economy and export trade. The army was also largelv respo nstble r,; r upwa.rd trends tn cap tt al formation . The average st ze of the reversing the surge of illegal evicuons of Pha se Ill Phase Ill farm holdi ng ha.s increased by about 20 percent benefictaries. Arm y conungenL'i in local area.s pu t thou,Jnd' (from 4.1 to 4.6 acres per family) through the purchase or of small farmers back on their lands. Fl\'AT.-\. the GOES leasing of additional land by the new property owners . agency in charge of Phase Ill , was very abl y admtnhtere d Fre eJom ul ! ss ~U 25 during the most difficult period of the programs' imple carnpesinos, in large part agricultural laborers, as well as mentation by Army Colonel Gallileo Torres. 100,000 small farmers seeking additional land. Although In short, one of the most important aspects of land some of these are in refugee camps, or in war zones. the fact reform is that it both mirrors and contributes to a break in is the land/man problem in El Salvador is a continuing one the traditional political alliance between the army and the and will remain so until economic reforms generate landed oligarchy that dates back to the bloody repression of substantial increases in nonagricultural job opportunities. the peasant rebellion of 1932. Basically, since the political Pressures for land among the landless and near-l andless turmoil of 1979-80, the prevailing leadership in the army are again beginning to grow. Unless there are continuing has no longer viewed its institutional interests as means of land distribution to the rural poor, the land issue coincidental with those of the civilian economic elite it had will again likely swell to crisis proportion and in the not protected for fifty years (as a trade-off for exercising virtually too-distant future. absolute political power). Land reform signaled a shift in CARA estimates that there are now about 73.000 traclitonal power relations in Salvadoran politics. and its hectares ( 182,500 acres) of land that would be available for implementation has further deepened this change. distribution through further government initiatives in the Last, the most important political payoff of the land agrarian field. These lands include the old Phase II holdings reform programs derives from the new economic interests in excess of the new constitutional limit of 245 hectares that are being generated on the land. These interests inevi ( 605 acres) that have not been voluntarily sold off by their tably demand political representation in order to protect and owners. lands that are in bank receivership, and government extend themselves. If the democratic carnpesino unions grasp owned lands. As already noted, the GOES is developing this opportunity and continue in militant fashion to organize new legislation concerning the distribution of these lands to and represent their reform sector constituency. the political campesinos. The experience of the recent past suggests impact of land reform will indeed be to enhance the longer weighting the alternatives in favor of the Phase I1I family term prospects of sustaining democracy in El Salvador. farm approach, and the use of nonpunitive models which A recent study done under the auspices of C.-\RA. the bring the many willing sellers and buyers together in an GOES Advisory Commission on Agrarian Reform. institutional market, say, a national land bank. • estimated that there were still about 250.000 landless