Annotations for Communities: Indigenous People

The Brazilian weekly, Opinião, reported this week from Rio on the further activities of the Catholic Church in opposing the military government. Brazil's bishops, in their strongest and most detailed declaration of human rights, have denounced various types of discrimination in this country and the limitation on basic freedoms here. According to conclusions of the 13th General Assembly of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops made public last week, "It is the duty of the Roman Catholic Church to inform public opinion of the violations of human rights and to defend those rights." The question of human rights was one of the main topics on the agenda of the General assembly that met in Sao Paulo for 10 days last month. A total of 215 bishops or 80% of the episcopate of the world's largest Catholic country, took part in the meeting.

Opinião continues, "The document is not really an open challenge to Brazilian authorities, but a clear statement of the church's position on the question of human rights, and an offer to work with the authorities to improve the situation. In the last year, individual bishops and groups of bishops have publicly attacked Brazil's military regime on its social policies. In particular, they have denounced police and military authorities for arbitrary and repressive actions which have included torture. They have also attacked civilian authorities for allowing large business interests to exploit rural workers in the name of economic development."

The basic human rights, said by the bishops to be among those least respected, were the right to liberty and physical integrity when faced with excessive repression. The right to political participation, in particular denied to the opposition party. The right to association, especially in regard to labor unions. The right to expression and information. The right to a legal defense, in view of the absence of habeas corpus provision. The right to possess the land on which one works. The right not to be subjected to systematic, political, and social propaganda, and aggressive and indiscriminate commercial advertising. And the right of the church to greater participation in social activities sponsored by the civilian authorities.

Opinião concludes, "The bishops came out even more strongly in denouncing various types of discrimination in Brazilian society. Including discrimination in favor of big landowners and against peasant families. For business management against workers. For whites against blacks. For pro-regime, political parties against the opposition. And for men as opposed to women. The bishop's strongest denunciation was directed against the oppression of Brazil's Indian population. The document charged that about 100,000 Indians were in the process of being exterminated. The document urged that the church make a study of the present condition of the Indians and that all persons engaged and work with Indians join forces to help them." This is from the Brazilian weekly Opinião.

Our feature this week is a report by German anthropologist Mark Munzel on the Indian situation in Paraguay. In South America, unlike most other areas of the world, indigenous tribes subsist in some primitive areas. However, they are fast-disappearing because of the advance of urban civilization and the repressive policies of certain governments. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate how the basic human rights, described in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, are denied to the Aché Indians of Paraguay. Not through indifference or neglect, but by deliberate government policy of genocide disguised as benevolence. 

There has never been any particular respect for Indian lives. An early account describes the situation, "In 1903, Paraguayans shot several Aché and even cut one of the bodies into pieces and put him in a cage trap as jaguar bait." Munsusin saw a settler pull out of his hunting bag the finger of an Aché and boast about it. Then again in 1907, "They had followed the traces of the Aché, and when they reAchéd the Indians the very first evening of the journey, they slaughtered seven women and children and caught seven small children." This report by the Brazilian Ethnologist, Baldus, is neither the first nor the most cruel one concerning the inhumane treatment of the Aché over the centuries. 

Unlike the sedentary Guarani Indians, their neighbors and linguistic relatives, the majority of the nomadic Aché never surrendered to the white man. Without being exactly aggressive, they attempted to defend their territory against incursions and withdrew deeper into the forest when they could not resist. On the other hand, captive Achés, once separated from their people, proved to be of extreme tameness and have a lack of aggression against their captors and the white Paraguayans soon learned to appreciate their aptitude for any kind of agricultural labor.

The Ethnologist Clastres notes the sharp contrast between the two kinds of relations the Aché know. For an Aché tribe, there is no kind of relation to strangers other than hostility. This is in astonishing contrast to the perceptible constant effort to eliminate all violence from relations between comrades. The most extreme courtesy always prevails, the common will to understand each other, to speak with each other, to dissolve in the exchange of words all the aggression and grudges which inevitably arise during the daily life of the group.

So it seems that the captive Aché, once they realized that they have to stay among the whites forever, decided it is wiser to use their non-aggressive approach, hence the softness for which they are liked. The author says, "I have only known captive Aché, no free forest Indians, and all I can say is that I have never met any other people who are so tame and obedient. I also happen to meet at Aché's who have been captured just three days previously. They were desperately unhappy but ready to do anything they were commanded to do."

Thus, war against the Acha since colonial days has served not only to conquer new territories, but also to obtain captives as a cheap and appreciated labor force. The hunting and selling of Achés became, and still is, an important branch of the economy in areas close to the lands of the wild Aché.

The extermination of these Indians is very much related to the economic development of the country. If the remotest parts of the country were to be open to foreign investment and to international roads, as is the government's intention, the anachronism of slavery may have to be eliminated in order to make the country exhibitable to foreign eyes. But at the same time, commercial penetration is bound to render the situation of the Indians more difficult. Since 1958, and especially since 1968, their situation has indeed become worse.

This coincides with the foundation of the Native Affairs Department of the Ministry of Defense, which meant that Indian affairs were put under military control as a part of the general transfer of power from civilians to the military and with the subsequent retirement of an official in 1961. But there are also deeper reasons. Paraguay has in recent years experienced a slight economic boom. The international road through Eastern Paraguay, from Asuncion to Puerto Presidente Stroessner, was completed in 1965. An additional road, which cuts the forests of the northern Aché into two parts, was completed in 1968.

Land prices are rising in the areas which have become more accessible through the improved system of communications, as well as the price of forest products; timber, palmito, and [inaudible 00:19:41]. And most especially that of cattle, which means that less land is reserved for the Indians. Commercial penetration means, from the Aché point of view, that the forest, the indispensable basis for their hunting life, is cut down. Or at least crossed by roads that frighten away the game. There have been slight Indian efforts at resisting, especially attacks on woodcutters who were destroying trees that bore beehives. Honey is a very important element in the Aché diet. 

But more frequently, the Achés try to adapt to the new situation. If they neither wish to die from hunger on their reduced hunting grounds, nor enter the of working for Paraguayan masters, their only way out is to steal food from the Paraguayans. This is the reason for the frequent, but normally non-violent raids on white men's cattle and fields. The Achés also steal iron implements in order to compensate for their loss of territory by the intensification of subsistence technology. Those who live on the Indian frontier are thus confirmed in their hatred of Aché and so the new invaders of the forest, wood cutters, palmito collectors, and landowners, want to have the forest cleaned of Achés for they are bothered by the presence of the ancient owners of the forest.

Most sources agree that manhunts for the Aché have increased in volume and in violence during recent years. In 1968, a member of the armed forces and of the ruling political party, then vice director of the Native Affairs Department of the Ministry of Defense, wrote that the Acha were close to extinction due to repressive actions that follow any of their efforts to resist the occupation of their lands. In December, 1971, the reporter Jay Mesa of ABC Color, an important newspaper in Asuncion Paraguay, wrote of murders of fathers and mothers as the only way of seizing Aché children who are then sold and brought up as servants.

They even tell of prizes for those who managed to kill the Indians. The Paraguayan anthropologist, Chase Sardi, confirmed this in an interview in the same newspaper in 1972. "They're hunted. They're pursued like animals. The parents are killed and the children sold and there is no family of which a child has not been murdered. I was told by Paraguayan country people that the price of Aché children is falling due to great supply. It is said to be presently at about the equivalent of $5 for an Aché girl of around five years of age."

The following recently documented cases are rather typical. In 1970, [inaudible 00:22:20] learned in Itakyry of a raid that had been organized there. The killers kidnapped three children, all of whom died thereafter. On another incident, in about June of 1970, on the river Itambay, approximately 52 kilometers up river from Puerto Santa Teresa, several Indians were killed in a raid according to the claims of a palmito collector, an Indian hunter, who says he killed several Indians before he was wounded. Two kidnapped girls were given to the organizer of the raid. In February, 1972, close to San Joaquin, Munzel himself reports being told by several people of an Aché hunt in the area southeast of Itakyry.

"We were not able to gather any concrete or detailed evidence," he says, "but I believe that an inquiry commission sent to the area could easily gain this information." The massacre seems to have taken place about the middle of 1971. Various children of slain Aché parents were then deported. The kidnappers were said to have declared that the only reason why they did not take more children was that they were not able to carry off more at one time and that they were forced to leave several children with their dead parents, but that they would return to the forest later on to seize them.

Despite documentation and reports to government authorities, very little is being done about the problem. Recently, the director of the Native Affairs Department declared that there were no concrete indications of massacres of Indians in Paraguay. General Bejarano, president of the Indigenous Association of Paraguay, described massacres as problems that were normal in any part of the world. The officially recommended solution of this problem does not include the limitation of the massacres by means of legal pressure, but the installation of a reservation to which the Aché, who were a problem elsewhere, may be deported.

A well-known hunter and seller of Achés in 1950s was Manuel Jesus Pereda, a junior partner of the biggest manhunter in the area. In 1959, a band of Aché whose hunting possibilities had been reduced too much to permit the continuation of their free existence, and who were suffering strong pressure from the manhunters surrounding them, surrendered to Pereda at Torin. This was at the time when the authorities had taken some measures against the slave hunters. Afraid of legal prosecution, Jesus Pereda did not dare sell his new Indians, but used them instead as a cheap labor force on his farm at Torin.

The story he told the authorities was that the Indians had sought his protection because they loved him. Pereda was shortly thereafter nominated as a functionary of the Native Affairs Department of the Ministry of Defense. And his farm transformed into a reservation called the Indian Assistance and Nationalization Post Number One.

Extensive documentation at the Aché reservation shows this to have been the scene of criminality of the grosses sort. Jesus Pereda's first administrative act was to plunder the goods of his wards in order to sell them as tourist souvenirs. There's also extensive documentation of sexual abuse of women and of very young girls by the reservation administration. And very numerous acts of gratuitous violence, including murders of Aché. Food allocated for the Indians is often sold instead to local farmers for profit.

Also, the resources, land, and water of the reservation itself are very far from generous. Furthermore, virtual manhunts through the forest are still used to round up Indians and forcibly bring them to the reservation. Captured, domesticated Indians are encouraged to participate in this activity.

In June of 1962, the reservation of Aché numbered about 110, at least 60 of whom had been brought there by direct violence. In July of 1968, only 68 Indians were left. This demographic reduction becomes more spectacular if we take into account that the Aché are a very fertile people. Anthropologist, Chase Sardi in 1965, pointed out the absolute lack of any type of preventative medicine on the Aché reservation. Officially in 1968, the absence of medical and sanitary assistance was admitted as one of the reasons for the deaths. Other evidence shows that the oft cited biological shock of the first contact with the microbes of the white man cannot be the main reason for the disappearance of so many Indians.

Many of them had been in contact with whites before, having been captured by the Paraguayans and having escaped again before finally coming to the reservation. Besides, the greatest reduction of population took place, not when the reservation was first established, but later on. The main reasons for the reduction of the Aché population seem to be hunger and hunger related diseases, as well as the selling or giving away of reservation Indians to outsiders. 

An element of psychological importance is the brutal destruction of the cultural inheritance of these Indians. This is not the place to discuss whether primitive cultures should be preserved or modernized. What has taken place in the case of the Aché is not modernization, but the destruction of the identity and even the self-respect of the Achés as human beings. Munzel recorded on tape many songs lamenting the end of the Aché, in which the singer regards himself as no longer an Aché, not even as a human being, but as half dead.

A French ethnologist, Clastres, describes a song he recorded on the reservation. "[inaudible 00:28:00] on a sound of deep sadness and nausea," he said, "ended in a lamentation that was then prolonged by the delicate melancholy of the flute. They sang that day of the end of the Aché and of his despair in realizing that it was all over. The Aché, when they were real Aché, they hunted the animals with bow and arrow, and now the Aché are no more. Woe is us."

Especially since 1972, the Aché situation turned into a public scandal yet still no action has been taken against those who, outside the reservation, continue to hunt the Aché like animals. Still there are Aché slaves all over Eastern Paraguay. Still, countless Aché families remain separated through slavery or through the deportation of some of them to the reservation. Still, the reservation is located on such ungenerous soil that one can foresee its bitter end.

This has been a report by Mark Munzel of the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs is a non-political, non-religious organization concerned with the oppression of ethnic groups in various countries.

Our feature this week is a commentary on Latin American art, taken from a recent book by Jean Franco called "The Modern Culture of Latin America".

An intense social concern has been the characteristic of Latin American art for the last 150 years. Literature and even painting and music have played a social role, with the artists acting as teacher, guide, and conscience of his country. The Latin American has generally viewed art as an expression of the artist's whole self, a self which is living in a society and which therefore has a collective as well as an individual concern. On the other hand, the idea of the moral neutrality or the purity of art has had relatively little impact. 

In countries like those of Latin America, where national identity is still in the process of definition and where social and political problems are both huge and inescapable, the artist's sense of responsibility towards society needs no justification. Generally, movements in the arts have not grown out of a previous movement, but have arisen in response to factors external to art. A new social situation defines the position of the artist, who then improvises or borrows a technique to suit his purpose. 

Ms. Franco's book is a careful study of these changes in the artist's attitude to society and the way that this is expressed in literature and, to some extent, the other arts. She begins her analysis with the year 1888, the year of the publication of an influential volume of poetry by Ruben Dario, the leader of Latin America's first native artistic movement, known as modernism. 

Modernist is a term used to characterize many diverse writers, such as Nicaraguan Ruben Dario, the Cuban Jose Marti, and the Colombian, Jose Silva. All of these writers had a great deal in common. The type of society the modernist hated above all was contemporary bourgeois society. This may seem strange, since Spanish America was only at the margin of industrial and capital expansion.

Yet the poets did not have to see dark satanic mills on their doorsteps to realize that a new and disturbing force was looming over them. The cash nexus, destructive of all other human relations, was what the artist most feared. Indeed, many of the prose pieces written by the modernists are in the nature of allegories about the relation of the artist to a materialist society. The poet's hatred of the materialism of his age was often to remain exclusively verbal.

But there were very many different shades of social involvement. From Dario's aloofness to the militant commitment of Jose Marti, a dedicated fighter for Cuban independence, nothing could be further from an elite attitude than these words of Marti. "Poetry is the work both of the bard and of the people who inspire him. Poetry is durable when it is the work of all. Those who understand it are as much its authors as those who make it. To thrill all hearts by the vibrations of your own, you must have the germs and inspirations of humanity. Above all, you must live among a suffering people." 

After this early period, characterized by a real or symbolic rebellion, came an intense concern with culture rather than politics. A new influential movement known as Arielism took its name from an essay by Uruguayan Rodo, in which he emphasized the spirituality of Latin American culture, especially when contrasted with the vulgar neighbors to the north, the United States. There was an emphasis on original native culture and efforts to revive the memories of heros of the past. 

After the first World War, the Latin American intellectuals began to seek some roots in the cultures of the Indian and the Negro, and in the land itself, alternative values to those of a European culture, which seemed on the verge of disintegration. Literature about Indians and Latin America was to have two distinct functions. One was to fulfill a direct social purpose by arousing a general awareness of the plight of submerged sections of the population. The other was to set up the values of Indian culture and civilization as an alternative to European values. 

This tenancy found its best expression in Mexico, where the world famous muralists Diego Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros, and O'Gorman revived mythological Indian figures with very beautiful and innovative techniques. The Negro tradition expressed itself in the 1920s within Cuba and fostered a great deal of literature, as well as music. This trend towards more native emphasis in Latin America was a very important stage of development. At its most superficial, it was a gesture of defiance towards Europe and the United States. At its best, it did justice to hitherto ignored, if not disparaged segments of the population. 

In the 1920s, the world gradually began to divide into the hostile political camps of communism and fascism. Political concern was almost unavoidable. Whether such concern would be reconciled with the pursuit of art was another matter. Some intellectuals became militants and abandoned their painting or poetry. Some put their art to the service of a message. A few attempted to find a form of art which would universalize their political concern. 

In Latin America, many communists and socialist parties were founded and run by the artists and intellectuals. The most outstanding example was the Mexican Communist Party, which had, at one time, no less than three painters, Rivera, Siqueiros, and Guerrero on its executive committee. In Peru, the socialist party was founded by an intellectual, Mariategui. In 1936, the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War drew many more writers and artists into the left-wing ranks, and prompted middle-class intellectuals to join with workers and peasants. 

Of all the poets and authors involved in this political reawakening, Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet, succeeded most in bringing political elements into poetry without sacrificing originality or creative depth. While arguing that poetry should not be separated from everyday life, but rather should be impure, as he put it, "corroded as if by an acid, by the toil of the hand, impregnated with sweat and smoke, smelling of urine and lilies". He still managed, as is obvious from the quote, to use very striking and beautiful imagery. 

The novelists of the early 20th century also show political concern, but are preoccupied with such philosophical and ethical issues as authenticity. Carlos Fuentes and Juan Rufo in Mexico both struggled with the problems of the Mexican consciousness. Ms. Franco writes, "In the modern novel, revolution is no longer seen as a total solution. At best, it is only an essential first step. The real battle, it has suggested, is now within the human mind and particularly within the minds of the upper and middle classes, whose failure to construct a reasonable society is one of the tragedies of Latin America." 

For a century and a half, the republics of Latin America have been following different paths. Mexico has undergone a social revolution. Paraguay has lived under a series of dictators. Argentina's population has been transformed by immigration from Europe. Obviously, such factors have their repercussions in the continent's literature, which besides common Latin American features, has also specifically Argentinian, Mexican, or Paraguayan characteristics. 

These local variants are not necessarily political. The incidents of illiteracy, the presence of a large rural population also affect the artistic environment. This does not mean that socially underdeveloped countries do not produce good literature, but simply that in such places the artist's task is lonelier and more difficult. 

Most countries in Latin America have experienced political oppression during the present century, and in many, the condition has been constant. Contemporary literature abounds with the personal testimonies of men who have been imprisoned and persecuted by dictators. In many countries, the problem of oppression is much wider than the immediate physical consequences. The writer suffers from the much slower torments of frustration, lack of freedom to write as he wishes, and a crushing intellectual environment. To be born and grow up in a Latin American dictatorship is, to use the words of Asturias, "to be born into a tomb". 

Two outstanding writers, Augusto Roa Bastos and Miguel Angel Asturias, the first from Paraguay and the second from Guatemala, have succeeded in gaining an international reputation, despite the inhibitions of their background. Asturias' book, Men of Corn, traces the dispossession of the Indians and the commercialization of agriculture. Roa Bastos' short story, "The Excavation", presents a nightmare of frustration in which those who rebel against the status quo are shamelessly murdered. The works of such writers as Asturias and Roa Bastos only serve to emphasize the tragic waste of human potential inherent in a dictatorship. These problems are particularly relevant to the Brazilian situation today, where a censorship of all printed and electronic media is unlimited. 

Latin American intellectuals have always been intrigued with the subject of revolution. The Mexican experience of 1910 is very prominent in the literature and art of the last decades. The Cuban Revolution has also had a great effect on national cultural life. Although the changes in the political and social life of Cuba are still too recent for a solid judgment to be formed, the revolution of 1959 changed the social structure of Cuba. Most of the upper class and many of the middle and professional classes left the island.

A vigorous campaign against illiteracy has brought into being a new amass readership, encouraged to write and help to publish by the official Union of Artists and Writers, and by the prizes offered by the Casa de las Americas, which acts as a cultural clearinghouse. Book production has enormously increased, and there are now available cheap editions of many Cuban and Latin American classics.

In a 1961 speech to intellectuals, Castro guaranteed freedom of literary expression, declaring, "Within the revolution, everything, outside the revolution, nothing," a guarantee that was repeated by other leading intellectuals and which has allowed a remarkable variety of styles. Unlike Soviet writing, realism has not been the only permitted style. Science fiction, fantasy, and black humor are all common. Within the first 10 years, the struggle in Cuba has not meant the sacrifice of spontaneity and variety. It'll be interesting to see whether, in time, totally new art forms will emerge. 

To declare one's self an artist in Latin America has frequently involved conflict with society. In the 19th century, the artist was divided from most of his fellow countrymen because of his culture and upbringing. As we have seen, the majority of 19th century reformers were also political fighters dedicated to reforming their society. It was only towards the end of the century, with modernism, that it was even suggested that art might be more important than the political struggle. 

This did not mean that they had given up on social programs. On the contrary, the modernist ideal of society was the exact contrary of the vulgar materialism, which they regarded as the symptom of the age, and their way of life was a protest against those who were uncritical of bourgeois values. Without abandoning ideals of culture and refinement, the Arielist generation saw itself as moral leader. The artist put his faith in education and in the written word as a means of changing society. 

However, ultimately, neither the written word or education was effective. The Arielist generation was overtaken by a rising tide of unrest, by the shattering impact of world events such as the Russian and Mexican revolutions and the First World War. The post-war generation was no longer in a position to feel superior. The masses had become a power to be reckoned with. The intellectual was therefore obliged either to regard himself as an ally of the masses, a helper in their cause, or if he could not do this, he tended to stand aside, proclaiming that politics and social reform belonged to a world of appearances. 

At any rate, there are many signs that Latin American literature has come of age. Two Nobel Prizes in the last five years have gone to Latin Americans, Miguel Angel Asturias of Guatemala, and Pablo Neruda of Chile. The work of these two men effectively summarizes many of Ms. Franco's points about Latin America and the artist's social concerns. Asturias' most famous series of novels deals with the role of foreign banana companies in his native country, and Neruda's verse is an enthusiastic witness to the success of the new Chilean regime. 

The British news weekly, Latin America, reports that the Brazilian Army has been battling with peasant guerrillas near the Araguaia River in Northern Brazil, and recent events have shown the impotence of the Army in dealing with these jungle fighters. Two landowners have been killed by the guerrillas for collaborating with the armed forces during anti-guerrilla operations, which ended in April, and other important landowners who assisted the Army have been forced to leave their haciendas to take up residence in the comparative security of larger cities. 

The leader of the guerrillas, the now legendary Osvaldão, nailed the guerrillas' manifesto to the door of a church in a village near the Araguaia. The statement reaffirmed the 27 points of the guerrillas' program. In this document, the guerrillas, who began to settle the region in 1967 as a part of the long range strategy of the pro-Chinese faction of the Brazilian Communist Party, supported the principal demands of the local population. 

They used simple and direct language in making their points. One of the chief demands involved the posseiros, small farmers who have lived in the Araguaian River for generations without legal title to the land. Large landowners have been taking over in recent years, and the guerrillas demanded that the posseiros be given security of tenure. 

A second point of the guerrillas' manifesto involved an ancient scandal in which gatherers of Brazil nuts are forced to sell their harvest to local merchants at the officially-controlled price, which is approximately 1/13th of the price which merchants sell them for. These widespread grievances, combined with the violence and corruption of the military police, provide the guerrillas with an ideal environment, and this explains the fantastic popularity of Osvaldão and his followers among the local people. In the region, tales of the guerrillas' exploits paths from mouth-to-mouth, and apart from Osvaldão, one hears mention of others, especially the women of the group.

The decision of the Army to end active operations against the guerrillas angered local oligarchs, who recently met with the military commander and suggested a final solution to the problem. The suggestion was that they should form a death squad of hunters who knew the forest, men accustomed to kill Indians, entrusted by the landowners. This band of killers would be employed to hunt the guerrillas for a bounty of 10,000 cruzados each. The offer was refused by the Army on the grounds that it did not accord with the philosophy of the government, but local opinion was that the risks outweigh the possibility of success. The guerrillas already have local recruits with them and the hunters might well change sides, and furthermore, the conflict would inevitably run out of the control of the Army. 

The Army also claims the guerrillas forces to be now reduced to a half a dozen fugitives, but Air Force officers based in the area told a recent inquirer that of the 35 original combatants, 20 still remained active. Local civilian sources assured the same inquirer that Osvaldão commanded at least 60 men divided between two vans, which were themselves divided into yet smaller patrols. Their influence is felt along 100 kilometers of the River Araguaia. Popular support from the local population ranges from several cases of incorporation into the guerrillas, to discrete provision of information, supplies, and often, shelter. 

The present situation is complicated for the government by the fact the peasant leagues springing from the spontaneous need of country people to defend themselves and their scant livelihoods are again important for the first time since their suppression during the first years of the military government. Their demands are backed by the church, which has been taking an increasingly hard line with the government in recent months, and it is this wider movement which gives the Araguaia conflict its particular significance. This from Latin America. 

Our feature this week is the text of a lecture given by Tim Harding at a conference in Madison, Wisconsin in April of last year. Mr. Harding has traveled and done research extensively in Chile, and his subject is the plight of the Mapuche Indians in southern Chile, focusing particularly on the interaction of the Mapuches with the Allende government. 

It should be remembered that Professor Harding's words were written at a time last year when the Allende government was still in power, and the agrarian reform was an ongoing process. While the new military junta has not said specifically how it will deal with the question of agrarian reform, many observers feel that the previous reforms will be ended if not reversed. 

The Mapuche Indians constitute 4% of the population of Chile today. The story of the Mapuche is particularly important to the subject of agrarian reform in Chile, because in the province of Chile with the greatest rural population, that is the province of Cautín in southern Chile, 69% of the population is Mapuche. They are located on 2,000 reducciones. The settlements are not unlike Indian reservations within the United States. 

Besides living on the reservations, the Mapuche Indians form part of the rural proletariat, that is they go out and work in the surrounding properties for extremely low wages. The Mapuches have traditionally been subjected to discrimination, they have gotten the least of the benefits of what society has had to offer in Chile. 

Many people wonder about the reasons for the low position of the Mapuches in Chilean society. There are very good historical reasons which are so parallel to the oppression of Indians within US society that images of what happened to American Indians at the Wounded Knee Massacre and other places can be called to mind to give some idea of what has happened to the Mapuche population. 

Unlike the conquest of the Inca and Maya civilizations, the Mapuche had a frontier situation of combat with both the Spaniards and the Chileans. The final conquest of the Mapuches might be put as late as the 1880s after centuries of colonial contact. Pedro de Valdivia, the first Conquistador of Chile, wrote back to the king of Spain that he had never fought so valiant an enemy as the Mapuches. 

The conquest of the Mapuches was begun by the Jesuit priests. They tried to keep it peaceful, but as in the United States, every treaty with the Mapuches was broken and warfare kept recurring. They were finally reduced to the reducciones or reservations. As the years wore on the amount of land left to the Mapuches shrunk constantly due to the encroachments of powerful surrounding landlords. 

The beginning of the resistance to this came in 1961 when under the influence of the Communist Party and the National Labor Confederation, a federation of peasants and Indians was organized. This organization began to engage in land seizures. Mapuche groups joined the Federation and recede the land which had been taken away in the previous century. 

When a Mapuche leader was asked by the magazine Ercilla, "Are you people communists?" He said, "It's true, most of us belong to the Communist Party, but what do you expect us to do? They're the only ones that help us even if at times they use us as instruments in their own interests. Look at the owners, the latifundios, they are liberals, conservatives, and radicals. To whom do you expect us to turn?" 

There were only about 14 land seizures between 1961 and 1966. They didn't significantly change the situation of the Mapuches in the south. The Frei government's response to the Mapuche problem was to propose a comprehensive bill, which was to make it easier for the Mapuche communities to be broken open and their land was taken away. 

In response to this, partly under the same Christian Democratic influence, the Mapuches organized into a National Confederation. They went to Congress and oppose the Christian Democratic bill by mobilizing and demonstrating they kept Congress from passing that bill. 

Then the Mapuche Confederation wrote their own bill. At this point, the Allende regime and the Unidad Popular was elected. The Unidad Popular people acted as lawyers advising the Mapuches on how to draw up their legislation. The bill would provide credit education and training for the Mapuches so they could join the mainstream of Chilean society. 

The Unidad Popular members in Congress, though, then took the bill and revised it, limiting the amount of Indian control. The bill was going to set up a corporation for Indian affairs, which would define legally the position of the Mapuches reducciones and establish mechanisms for running them. 

The Mapuches wanted to control this corporation which was to be funded by the government, but the Unidad Popular also wanted control. Thus, there was disagreement about this and extended negotiations took place. Finally, the Unidad Popular people agreed to a compromise with the Indians, in which they both more or less shared control of the corporation. That bill has been introduced to the Chilean Congress, and so far has been effectively blockaded by the opposition members. 

In the meantime, the action was taking place in Cautín province, which was not involved in the previous land seizures. The Revolutionary Left Movement, commonly known as the MIR, through their rural organizations, became active in organizing among the Mapuches. Most commonly they simply hooked up with existing organizations. Thus, this should not be seen as controlled by outside groups, but as outside groups acting as links to the political process. 

The MIR working with Mapuche leadership began a series of land seizures in Cautín province that coincided with agendas taking power. These seizures were not only Indian, they were also by non-Indian peasants. As the Allende government came into power, it responded favorably to these land seizures, since it gave them an excuse to get the land reform program off to a very rapid and dramatic start in Cautín, which was not only the largest but also the poorest rural population. Cautín had experienced the least agrarian reform under the previous Frei regime. 

Thus there were many reasons for Allende to go with the impetus that the MIR was giving him and to respond to these land seizures by accelerating the expropriation of properties in Cautín. Most of the land seizures in Cautín involved landless workers who seized properties that were large enough or underutilized enough to be subject to legal expropriation. 

A government official readily admitted that it was this pressure, combined with the needs of the Cautín poor, which compelled the government to put first priority on land distribution in Cautín. Clearly, the government welcomed the land seizures because it gave them the opportunity to rapidly expropriate a large number of properties and to show dramatic progress precisely where social pressure was the greatest. 

Land seizures in the South continued, however, on fundos which had not been marked for expropriation. Landowners and opposition leaders attacked the government for being responsible for lawlessness and violence. Actually, there was little violence against the landowners, but each incident was blown out of proportion by the opposition press. 

But the problem with respect to the Mapuches was that many of the properties that they seized were less than 80 hectares in size. According to the agrarian reform law which the government had inherited, properties of this size were not to be seized. The government was thus put in the position of being asked to legalize seizures of land which were too small according to existing law. But why were the lands too small? It seems that the largest landowners in these areas had never felt the need to dispute with the Mapuches over land. But the smaller marginal landowners were told by the larger landowners, "If you want land, don't come to us, go to the Mapuches." 

The poorer landowners in the more desperate positions, using force and violence, then seized the land from the Mapuches and held it. Thus they were the ones the Mapuches were directly responding to when they seized the land back again. At this point then, the small landowners were the ones who were the most sympathetic to an extreme right-wing reaction to agrarian reform, just as the small-property middle class tends to react more strongly to socialist reform measures. 

The large landowners have thus organized the small landowners into armed vigilante groups in order to oppose the land seizures. They defend not only their own small properties but their large holdings as well. Thus a situation exists which some even describe as an ongoing civil war between land-seizing groups and counter-reform vigilante groups in southern Chile. 

In addition to these vigilante actions, some landowners use tactics such as refusing to plant, dismantling equipment, slaughtering breeding stock, or sabotaging production. Professor Harding visited an expropriated fundo in central Cautín. The former absentee owner had allowed dairy production to decline purposely and had fired all but nine of a workforce of 81. The workers who had joined the Ránquil Farm Workers Union, which was affiliated with the Unidad Popular, requested expropriation from the government. 

A government agency intervened in the property and appointed a temporary administrator to set up the asentamiento. The workers who had been fired returned to work on the property and now formed part of the community. A five-man production council was elected from among the workers to administer the property. 

The council, in cooperation with government officials and other technicians from the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Bank, then made a careful inventory of the property and drew up a production plan for farming the property as a collective unit. An 18-year-old youth with a primary school education was sent for a three-week training course in accounting so that the council could keep its own books for the property. 

The council negotiated with the State Bank for credit, borrowing to stock the farm with dairy cattle, breeding animals, and two tractors. Natural pastures were replaced with improved grasses, new sections were plowed for cultivated crops, and forests were planted on steep hillsides. A section of the property was set aside for garden plots and the construction of houses. The workers realized that since they were literally working for each other, anyone who shirked while drawing his wage was freeloading on the others. 

Group pressure was applied to anyone who was underproducing during working hours. But all this happened on one of the larger land holdings, which was legally expropriated. There still remained the problem for the government of what to do about the Mapuche seizures, which were still too small. 

Rather than calling in troops to forcibly drive the Mapuches out, the government responded by negotiating. First, government negotiators told the Mapuches that they shouldn't take their problems out on the small landowners, since they too were poor people. The enemies, they said, were the big property holders. The Mapuches answered, "That may be true, but the property is taken away from us, and the ones we can walk to are the small properties." 

The Unidad Popular representatives proposed three solutions, which still have not been completely enacted. 

One solution was that the Mapuches were to receive concentrated credit, which they had not received before, and technical help to increase the productivity of the land they already had. Secondly, some of the smaller properties would be bought up by the government by cash payment, as opposed to expropriation. Thirdly, the government would place the Mapuches on the less populated asentamientos, the expropriated farms, where there was employment. 

This last possibility was basically a way of keeping people quiet for a time, while they explored other solutions, and it hasn't necessarily worked very well. 

Another problem faced by the Mapuches regards employment status. While they were agricultural proletariat on the asentamientos, they then became hired hands of the cooperative and faced the problem of relating to the new cooperative as employees, rather than actual members. 

The projected solution to that problem was the idea of a center of agrarian reform, in which all people in an area of an expropriated fundo are put on equal footing in terms of the use and resources of that land so that no difference or distinction would be made between employees and cooperative members. 

The government has responded to the Mapuches with some bewilderment, Professor Harding says, because just as the Unidad Popular has a considerable problem dealing with the women's question, they also have a considerable problem dealing with the Indian question, based on prejudices which have been unconsciously accepted even by some members of the Unidad Popular, an attitude of trying to sweep the problem under the rug, of ignoring the Mapuches. 

Yet there has been an enormous willingness on the part of this government, more than any other, to have at least a dialogue, to treat the Mapuches as people who have a right to a certain amount of self-determination. At least the government has become gradually more aware of the problem from the Mapuche point of view. 

Although the Communist Party had had a tradition in the early 1960s of leading land seizures, they have not cooperated or led Mapuche movements since that time. Now it is the MIR that has worked with the Mapuches most effectively and has won the most direct confidence of the Mapuche toward the outside political system. The attitude of the Mapuche is one of let's wait and see. There is more hope now that they can solve their problems. 

But unfortunately, at the end of last year, in one land seizure, a group of armed landowner vigilantes killed a Mapuche chief. At the funeral, the speaker was the head of the MIR organization. He said that the MIR, of course, didn't create the problem with the Mapuche and that it still is for the government to deal with the problem in a more serious way. 

You've been listening to a text of a lecture given by Professor Tim Harding at a conference in Madison, Wisconsin, in April of last year. Mr. Harding has traveled and done extensive research in Chile. 

The single most important event in Brazil this year was the announcement in June that current military president, Emilio Médici, will be succeeded next March by another general, Ernesto Geisel. In this analysis, we will look at developments in three main areas and attempt to foresee what changes, if any, can be expected when Geisel assumes power. We will examine Brazil's economic development, its role role in Latin America, and recent reports of dissidents in Brazil. The military has been in power in Brazil since 1964, when a military coup toppled left liberal president Goulart.

Since then, Brazil has opened its doors to foreign capital, attempting to promote economic development. In some ways, results have been impressive. Brazil's gross national product has grown dramatically in recent years and it now exports manufactured goods throughout the continent, but this kind of growth has not been without its costs. The Brazilian finance minister received heavy criticisms this march for two aspects of Brazilian economic development.

The first was the degree of foreign penetration in the Brazilian economy. For example, 80% of all manufactured exports from Brazil come from foreign-owned subsidiaries. The second problem brought up was the incredible maldistribution of income in Brazil. The rub of the critic's argument is the top 5% of the population enjoys 40% of the national income, while the top 20% of the population account for 80% of the total. Moreover, this heavily skewed distribution is being accentuated as Brazil's economy develops. Whether any of these policies will change when Geisel comes to power next March or not as uncertain. Some feel that he is an ardent nationalist who will be called to business interests.

Others recall that it was Geisel who provided lucrative investments to foreign companies, including Phillips Petroleum and Dow Chemical, when he was president of Petrobras, the state oil industry, which was once a symbol of Brazilian nationalism. They also say that he has consistently supported the concentration of wealth into fewer hands.

Brazil has sometimes been called the United States Trojan Horse in Latin America. The idea is that Brazil will provide a safe base for US corporations and then proceed to extend its influence throughout the continent, either by outright conquest or simply economic domination. Brazil has, to be sure, pretty closely towed the line of US foreign policy. It has taken the role of the scourge of communism and has been openly hostile to governments such as those of Cuba and Chile under Allende, and it is clear, as has been stated before, that American corporations do feel at home in Brazil.

Brazil, of course, discounts the Trojan horse theory and instead expresses almost paranoia fears of being surrounded by unfriendly governments, whether for conquest or defense though, Brazil has built up its armed forces tremendously in recent years. In May of this year, Brazil signed a treaty with neighboring Paraguay for a joint hydroelectric power plant. Opposition groups within Paraguay called the treaty, a sellout to Brazil, and it is generally agreed that the treaty brings Paraguay securely within Brazil's sphere of influence.

The treaty was viewed with dismay by Argentina, which has feared the spread of Brazilian influence on the continent for years, especially in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. A Brazilian military buildup along its border with Uruguay caused some alarm last year. And this spring, an Uruguayan senator said he had discovered a secret Brazilian military plan for the conquest of Uruguay. According to the plan, Uruguay was to be invaded in 1971 should the left wing Broad Front coalition win the Uruguayan elections.

While these developments seem to point to an aggressive program of Brazilian expansion, some observers feel that Brazil may be changing its policy in favor of more cooperation with its Latin American neighbors. They point to the Brazilian foreign minister's recent diplomatic tour in which he spoke with representatives of Peru and Chile as evidence. Others expect Brazil to continue its expansionist policies. It is interesting to note that General Geisel has the full support of the conservative General Golbery, the author of a book proclaiming that Brazil's domination of Latin America is manifest destiny.

During the past year, there have been increasing reports of dissidents against Brazil's military regime. In recent months, the Catholic Church has risen to protest occurrences of torture of political prisoners with surprising boldness. In April, 24 priests and 3000 students held a memorial mass for a young man who died mysteriously while in police custody. The songs in the service which was conducted in a cathedral surrounded by government troops were not religious hymns but anti-government protest songs. 

The real blockbuster came a month later when three Archbishops and 10 bishops from Brazil's Northeast issued a long statement, a blistering attack on the government. The statement, which because of government censorship did not become known to the public for 10 days after it had been released on May the 6th, is notable for its strongly political tone.

The declaration not only attacked the government for repression and the use of torture, it also held it responsible for poverty, starvation wages, unemployment, infant mortality, and illiteracy. In broader terms, it openly denounced the country's much boned economic miracle, which it said benefited a mere 20% of the population, while the gap between rich and poor continued to grow. There were also derogatory references to the intervention of foreign capital in Brazil. Indeed, the whole system of capitalism was attacked and the government accused of developing its policy of repression merely to bolster it up.

The military regime is also threatened by a major conflict with trade unions. Because of government efforts to cut dock workers wages, dock workers threatened to strike against reorganization of wage payments, which union officials said would've cut wages 35 to 60%, but since strikers could have been tried for sedition, they opted for a go-slow, which began on July 25th in Santos, Brazil's main port. After six weeks, the government announced restoration of wages, froze them for two to three years.

The freeze will have the effect of diminishing wages as much as the government wanted to in the first place. At this time, the unions are appealing the case through the courts. The military rulers are also under pressure from the Xavante indians, who warned President Medici in November that unless a start is made within a month to mark out the Sao Marcos Reservation, they will have to fight for their lands.

The latest reports indicate that a number of Indians have captured arms and are massing in the jungle. At the same time, the government continues to be plagued by guerrilla operations on the Araguaia River. Various incidents during the past months have signaled the impotence of the armed forces in the face of these guerrilla activities. In São Domingos das Latas, a little town about 30 kilometers to the east of Marabá, along the Trans-Amazonian Highway, two landowners have been killed by the guerrillas for collaborating with the armed forces.

The guerrillas have distributed a manifesto written in simple direct language dealing with the principle demands of the local population. The Army claims that the guerrilla forces have been reduced to half a dozen fugitives, but civilians in the area estimate that there are from 30 to 60 members of the guerrillas, who seem to enjoy a fantastic popularity among local people.

Our feature this week is the first half of an article on the controversial Brazilian model of economic development written by the United Presbyterian Church and reprinted in the Mexican daily El Dia. 

Most Americans don't know it, but the land of Carmen Miranda and the bossa nova has become the industrial giant of the Southern Hemisphere. Derided only a few short years ago as the perpetual land of the future, Brazilians now proclaim loudly that the future has arrived. "Underdeveloped hell", read the slogan at one of Sao Paulo's recent auto shows. The talk now is of an economic miracle to rival the recovery of West Germany after World War II. 

One wonders what this economic boom means for the majority of the Brazilian population. Brazil's resources may be extensive, but the majority of its people have always been poor, and their suffering great. Brazil's Indian population was nearly wiped out by the Portuguese colonists in the 16th and 17th centuries. Black slavery was introduced early into Brazil and was practiced widely until 1888. Historically, most Brazilians, slave or free, have been dependent and poor. Even those who own land, supervise plantations, and led expeditions were poor by today's standards. Very few had much in the way of comforts and goods. For most of its history, Brazil was a colony. It was governed by Portugal and existed to make money for the Portuguese. No matter that Indians were exterminated and African slaves went to early graves. 

One must not forget that most of Brazil's population is racially mixed, according to El Dia, that much of it is Black, and that its history of subjugation and misery continues to this day. 

There exists in Brazil one of the deepest cleavages between rich and poor, economically, culturally, and racially, to be found anywhere in the world. A few facts may help sketch the current scene. Here are Brazil's income distribution figures for 1968. The richest 1% of the population received an annual per capita income of $6,500. The middle 40% income group received $350 in 1968, and the poorest 50% of the population earned an average income of $120 in that year. What this says is that one half of Brazil's population in the middle of the 1960s had an average cash income of 35 cents a day. Most people, in other words, live outside the money economy. A cultural and economic middle class does exist in Brazil. It is the small, relatively privileged top 10% of the population. A tiny part of this group is wealthy, but most of it is composed of business and professional people, army officers and government officials, and corresponds to the salaried urban middle class in the United States. 

"But what do you do about poverty?", asks El Dia. A decade ago, Brazilian leaders and their North American allies embarked on an alliance for progress, a program which had its roots in Kubitschek's Operation Pan America. Kubitschek was president of Brazil from 1956 to 1961. His idea was to improve the lives of all Latin Americans by laying out an elaborate and massive program of economic development. He would stimulate this development with huge inputs of foreign capital, principally from the United States and Western Europe. Factories would be built in Latin America to produce the things people needed, provide them with jobs and wages, and yield tax revenues for their schools and cities. Foreign investors would become catalysts in the process of developing the natural and human resources of Latin America and partners in the creation of new and greater wealth for everyone. 

The key to the process of industrialization in Brazil was to be a program of import substitution. The idea was for Brazil to limit the importation of manufactured goods and build domestic industry behind high tariffs. Thus, Brazil would exploit her own internal market. Brazilian industries would be created to supply a domestic market, formerly undeveloped or in the hands of foreign companies. Once these companies were on their feet, the tariff walls would be lowered, forcing Brazilian industry to become more efficient and competitive. Finally, these industries would operate without protection and in competition on the world market. Brazil would then begin to export manufactured goods, improve her balance of trade and be on her way. 

A glance at Brazil's economic history is instructive. El Dia explains that traditionally, the Brazilian economy was based on agriculture and the export of agricultural commodities and minerals, coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton, iron ore and gems. Rubber and gold were of great importance at one time. But countries whose economies are based on the export of primary products play a losing game. They are subject to the fluctuations of the world market and the increasing competition of other primary producers. Brazil's economic history is characterized by a succession of cycles of its major export commodities. From the early 16th century on, this was in turn the story of dye, wood, sugar, gold and coffee. The latter, of course, is still Brazil's major export commodity, although its strength has fluctuated substantially with changes in world demand. 

Against this discouraging history, the process of industrialization began, but it was a late beginning. Until 1822, Brazil was a Portuguese colony administered along strict mercantilist lines. That is, no industry was allowed to develop. It was not until the First World War that the beginnings of industrialization were much felt. The impetus towards industrialization came from the impact of the two World Wars, largely because of the interruption of supplies from overseas and the elimination of foreign competition. It was during this period that Brazil's import substitution policies began. 

Kubitschek was undoubtedly one of Brazil's most enthusiastic developmentalists. When he was inaugurated in 1956, he immediately set up a national development council, formulated a program of targets, and called for 50 years of development in five. His most spectacular project was the building of Brasilia, the country's modernistic capital, 600 miles into the interior. Brazil's automobile industry began under Kubitschek. Steel and cement production doubled and power generation tripled. 

After Kubitschek, however, the country experienced a period of political instability. Jânio Quadros resigned shortly after taking office, and the administration of was marked by a period of runaway inflation. By 1963, prices were going up by 71% a year. In 1963, the gross national product increased only 1.6%, while population growth exceeded 3%, thus producing a negative growth in per capita income. 

Brazil's relations with foreign investors and the United States government suffered during this time. Popular movements were gaining force and demanding redress of the country's longstanding inequities. Social unrest was widespread and growing. United States economic aid and corporate investments dropped sharply. Then in March 1964, the Brazilian army staged a coup d'etat and the United States recognized the provisional military government within 24 hours. United States economic aid was then restored at higher levels than ever before, and US technicians and advisors began to enter the country in unprecedented numbers.

The Brazilian military, under Castelo Branco, crushed the protest movements, jailed their leaders and deprived civilian political leaders of political rights for 10 years. Under the leadership of Brazil's new Harvard-trained Minister of Planning, Roberto Campos, stringent measures were taken to stem inflation, and tax concessions and investment guarantees were set up to lure back foreign capital.

The economic picture began to change. In 1965, the Brazilian economy, principally the industrial sector, grew at a rate of 3.9%. In 1966, the rate was 4.3%. In 1967, it was 5%, and in 1968, it was 6.3%. Since 1968, the GNP has increased by no less than 9% a year to a record high of 11% in 1972. This is what Brazilians call their economic miracle, and it is indeed a formidable achievement. The evidence is everywhere. One may raise questions about the way Brazil is growing and about who is benefiting from this growth and who is not, but the growth is very real. 

According to El Dia, in 1968 the US Information Agency in Rio released a somewhat whimsical TV spot announcement, extolling the success of Brazil's industrial development. It showed a scantily clad and shapely model operating a massive drill press to the sensuous beat of the samba and asked, "Is this development or isn't it?" 

For many Brazilians, the answer was, "Maybe not." They had basic questions to ask about what was happening to their country, and they were not matters about which to be whimsical. The first question has to do with the theory of import substitution. On the surface, it looks like a good idea for Brazil to cut foreign imports and encourage the growth of domestic industry in a protected market. Why shouldn't Brazil supply its own consumer needs, reinvest its profits, and spread the wealth? Perhaps it should. The problem is the theory doesn't work that way.

It is not Brazilians, by and large who are manufacturing the import substitutes, but foreign companies incorporated under Brazilian law. No group of private investors in Brazil, for example, could possibly compete with Volkswagen, Ford, and General Motors in establishing an automotive industry. There are, of course, many successful Brazilian industrialists, but they compete at a great disadvantage against the corporate giants of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan.

An American professor in Brazil put it this way. "What was supposed to be a solution for Brazil has turned out to be a solution for us. It was supposed to be a gain for Brazil to have foreign companies come in and set up shop. What we are now discovering," the professor said, "is that these companies make far more money through direct investments in manufacturing and sales operations in Brazil than they were able to make previously by exporting these same products from home. Volkswagen and Ford no longer ship cars to Brazil from Bremerhaven and New York. They manufacture them in Sao Paulo. Why is this more profitable? Certain costs, of course, are lower, but the more compelling answer is that the Brazilian market can be more effectively penetrated when a company's entire manufacturing, sales and servicing operation is managed within the host country." 

John Powers, president of Charles Pfizer & Company Pharmaceuticals, put it this way, in a speech to the American Management Association. "It is simply not possible in this decade of the 20th century to establish a business effectively in most world markets, in most products, by exporting. Successful market penetration usually requires building warehouses, creating and training an organization. It requires local sales promotion and building plants or assembly lines to back up the marketing effort. In short, it requires direct investment." 

It should not be surprising that some Brazilians are wondering who's helping whom. It is argued, of course, that even though foreign corporations take sizable profits out of Brazil, both in the form of repatriated profits and from cheaper production costs, Brazil benefits more than it loses. Certainly, some Brazilians gain from the salaries and wages paid to Brazilian managers and factory workers, from taxes paid to the state and from the availability of added goods and services. Whether the country gains more than it loses is another matter, and the answer depends on more than conventional economic considerations. 

You have been listening to the first part of a two-part feature on the Brazilian economic development model, written by the United Presbyterian Church and reprinted in the Mexican daily, El Dia. 

The British News Weekly, Latin America reports that the expropriation of Cerro de Pasco Corporation and its assets in Peru on New Year's Day was a logical step forward in that government's efforts to bring the Peruvian economy under national control, but it had long been avoided for three reasons. In the first place, there was a very real fear that of another confrontation with Washington and of scaring off potential investors in the mining projects which the government was desperately anxious to open up. Secondly, Cerro's operations in the Central Andes are extremely antiquated having been run down over the past few years and would require substantial investment. And thirdly, Cerro de Pasco was deeply involved in the medium-sized Peruvian mining operations, which will now effectively fall into the control of the state sector of the Peruvian economy. 

Sources in Washington have been hinting recently that the Nixon administration was prepared to allow the Peruvian government to nationalize Cerro without making too much fuss and that there will shortly be a package deal covering all the matters still outstanding between the two governments. The vex question of the International Petroleum Company, a Rockefeller concern nationalized by Peru in 1968 will not be mentioned, but the Peruvians are believed to have given some ground in the question of compensation for WR Grace's Sugar Estates. 

Apparently, President Nixon's special representative James Green of Manufacturers Hanover Bank was kept informed of all developments leading up to the expropriation. The packages reported to include a number of United States loans, some of which will be used to pay compensation to the Cerro Corporation, Cerro de Pasco's parent company. 

The Cerro management is very well aware that it's 20% stake in the Southern Peru Copper Company is worth more than all of the assets of Cerro de Pasco combined. Certainly Cerro was unhappy to be losing Cerro de Pasco says Latin America, but the best two thirds of a cake is much better than no cake at all. It may yet be that there will be disputes over the whole issue as to who owes what to whom, but no one apparently expects the repeat of the international hullabaloo, which followed the expropriation of the International Petroleum Company in 1968. 

Cerro de Pasco for many years virtually ruled Central Peru. Not only were its own mines scattered through the mountains, but it purchased ores from independent miners and had large stakes in most important mining operations. It ran a large metallurgical complex, a railway, several hydroelectric generating centers and vast haciendas, which have all been expropriated under agrarian reform legislation. These holdings had been built up during the course of the past half century and formed the basis for a corporate empire with metal fabricating plants in the United States and investments in the Philippines and Chile. 

The Rio Blanco Mine in Chile was nationalized by the popular Unity government in 1971. Cerro has feared nationalization in Peru ever since the military took over the International Petroleum Company in 1968. The management was acutely aware of the company's exposure there, and this was reflected in the persistently low value of the company's shares on The New York Stock Exchange. In these circumstances, the company was reluctant to invest in its Peruvian operations. 

In the preamble to its decree of expropriation, the government accused the company of neglecting essential maintenance of polluting rivers despite government orders to clean up its operations and of exploiting only the richer ores on their mining concessions. This latter point of rapidly mining only the richest deposits just before an expropriation is important since normal mining practice is to maintain steady productivity throughout the maximum economic life of a mine. Asset strippers try to maximize profits for a few years leaving quantities of low quality ores, which by themselves would be uneconomic to mine. 

The problems which the new Peruvian company set up specifically to take over the Cerro de Pasco mines is likely to face, go far to explain why the government was always reluctant to go ahead with the expropriation, that from the British News Weekly, Latin America. 

The London News Weekly Latin America reports on developments in Ecuador, Latin America's newest oil producing nation. By mid-1972, the pipeline connecting the rich oil fields of Ecuador's northeastern jungles to the shipping ports on its western shores was completed. This boosted Ecuador to the top of the list of Latin American oil exporting nations, second now only to Venezuela.

Oil, which scarcely one year ago replaced bananas as Ecuador's leading export, is expected to bring a total 1974 revenue of over $700 million. In 1971, oil earnings were only $1 million. With world prices at attractive heights, Ecuador's fledgling state oil corporation obviously wants to get hold of as much oil for free dispersal abroad as it possibly can. At present, only the United States companies of Texaco and Gulf Oil are producing and drilling on any scale in Ecuador. 

No matter how tough and nationalistic the new oil terms might be, Gulf and Texaco seem confident that they can run a very profitable operation. Despite the flood of revenue from its oil bonanza, Ecuador's economic situation has not improved. In fact, quite the opposite has occurred. Ecuador, which continues to be classified as one of Latin America's four least developed nations, now faces an annual rate of inflation of 17%, unprecedented in recent Ecuadorian history.

Ecuador's outdated social structure has virtually prevented the huge inflow of oil money from being readily absorbed. Ecuador's archaic tax system has long been criticized. The collection of taxes has been called abusive and unjust and Ecuador's allocation of tax revenue branded absolutely irrational. 

A small number of people control the majority of Ecuador's wealth. Less than 2% of Ecuador's population has cornered 25% of the country's total wealth. Unequal land distribution, a high illiteracy rate, and a lack of adequate healthcare continue to plague Ecuador's indians who comprise well over half of Ecuador's population. The mal-distribution of wealth is compounded by a sharp fall in agriculture production brought on by the resistance of Ecuador's large landowners to the present regime's haphazard attempts at agrarian reform. 

While it is apparent that the Rodriguez Lara regime would like to control the new oil fortune and further Ecuador's economic development, recent events point toward strife and unrest. An increasing number of strikes and demonstrations staged by students, faculty, and trade unionists are expressions of discontent. It appears that rising expectations have resulted in frustration. This is clearly expressed in an Ecuadorian wall slogan, "Why is there hunger if the oil is ours?" This from Latin America, the British news weekly. 

From Opinião of Brazil with the coming of the dry season last July, large earth moving machines began work on the first section of yet another Amazonian highway. This one 2500 miles long. This highway will link up with others, which are part of the Brazilian government's program to develop Amazonia. Estimated costs for the road building alone are $10 million per year.

Some of the largest construction firms in Brazil are contracted to build the highway. Sebastião Camargo, owner of the largest Brazilian construction company is also a large ranch owner in the area. He is ecstatic about the new highway. "The Amazon region," he said, "is a blank space in the world." What is happening there now reveals completely unforeseen possibilities. 

The human factor that lies behind Brazil's national integration plan is that the Amazon region is the aboriginal homeland of hundreds of independent Indian nations. The Christian Science Monitor reports that a long smoldering conflict over land claims is threatening to explode into open warfare between Indians and white ranchers in the vast frontier region of central Brazil. The Xavante Indians have sent an ultimatum to the Brazilian officials.

They want the National Indian Foundation to reaffirm the reservation boundary lines or face the prospect of war. The Xavante nation grows year by year, but its lands are shrinking. Their chief, Apoena, told them more than 300 warriors, "The people are hungry. These are lands of our forefathers. If the ranchers do not want to leave peacefully, we will push them out."

Chief Apoena said he doesn't understand why Xavantes must exist on such little land. "The rancher alone wants to own the forest, the world", he said, "this is wrong." The poor must also receive something. Government Indian experts pacified the Xavante in the mid 1940s. Soon after the Land Department began selling tracks in the Xavante area and granting ownership titles. The tribe roamed Central Brazil, 300 to 400 miles northwest of Brasilia, the nation's ultramodern capital.

Gradually the Xavantes were weakened and decimated. Intertribal wars killed some. Farmers and ranchers also have been accused of organizing expeditions to wipe out Indian villages in surprise attacks with modern arms. The Xavantes fled their ancestral lands about 1957. The exodus ended when they settled peacefully near the Salesian Mission at São Marcos in 1958. The tribe slowly recovered and their numbers increased. 

From 1960, the Xavantes press for the return of their lands, most of it now taken over by immense ranches. In 1969, the interior minister visited São Marcos. He solemnly promised Chief Apoena the problem would be resolved quickly that the tribe would not lose their lands. The minister received a magnificent feathered headdress symbol of Xavante friendship and trust. The decree expanding the Xavante reserve came in September, 1972. The high point of Xavante confidence in the government. The confidence declined as the ranchers continued on the land, and then the interior minister made headlines saying, "no one is going to stop development of the Amazon because of the Indians."

Chief Apoena now tells his warriors to expect nothing of the white man's promises and to prepare for war. "We will show the whites that Xavantes are not domesticated animals. Our war will give the enemy no rest. It will be bloody and spare no one."

The fabulous wealth of the Amazon is a longstanding Brazilian myth. Ever since the Portuguese explorers first set eyes in the opulent jungle, Amazonia has been thought of as the land of the future through construction of the Trans-Amazonian highway and colonization programs. The Brazilian government, since the military takeover in 1964, has sought to develop the area. Recent studies published in the Brazilian weekly Opinião however, caution that the Amazon is probably not as wealthy as has been thought. 

Part of the rationale for building the Trans-Amazonian Highway is to open the land to colonists. A recent report has found, however, that along a 550 mile stretch of the highway, the land is too sterile to grow such crops as rice and beans, the mainstay of most colonists. In 1972, the same group found that another stretch of 800 miles of the highway bartered infertile land. Those fertile areas which have been located are small and far from the roads and colonial settlements. 

The colonization program, which has moved more than a hundred thousand people to Amazonia, has been met with serious setbacks. Subsistence crops are always below expectation and do not provide much earnings. The attempt to introduce cash crops has been hurt by the colonist's lack of technical experience and the high price and scarcity of fertilizer. The major problem, however, is ecological. Despite the abundant lavish jungle growth, the soil is actually poor. Plants live off of themselves.

They're nourished by the leaves that fall to the jungle floor and decompose into humus. When the trees are cleared to make way for agricultural land, there is nothing to prevent the rain from washing the humus away, leaving only the sterile soil. As a result, states the report published by Opinião, crops prosper their first year, but returns diminish the second and third years. By the fourth year, the land often does not support the colonist any longer. 

Another report on the Amazon published by Opinião is a study by an expert who lives in the north. It was solicited by Brazil's leader, General Geisel. In it, the expert states that even though Amazonia has received some of the most grandiose public works from the past three governments and is continually referred to as an important element in national plans, the region is more fragmented and dependent than before. While attempting to integrate Amazonia into the rest of the country, the three governments followed mistaken policies, concludes the report. Government investments have not been sufficient to correct the deformities and deficiencies in Amazonia that require development. 

The integration of Amazonia into the rest of the country through an extensive road network, has not brought economic interdependence, which is the goal of the program. On the contrary, states the report, the new transportation avenues have solidified the dependent relationship and have provoked a series of crises such as the population drain of Belém, capital of the state of Pará. Three forms of dependency have been brought by the national integration system.

First, new roads have wiped out the invisible tariff barriers, which permitted Amazonian products competitive advantage. Second, the Amazon has been culturally tied to Brazil South through the extension of the National Television network, which shows programs set almost exclusively in Rio or São Paulo. Thirdly, the region has become administratively dependent on the central government. Regional authorities and local officials have little say in directing their own destiny. 

The report in Opinião concludes that the goal should be less to increase the colonization program than to save the existing population. Injecting new populations into the region would be to submit a larger number of people to the same process of blood and exhaustion says the report 21 diseases potentially fatal to humans have been isolated in Amazonia. Increased colonization has caused a greater incidence of disease. There has also been growing crime, prostitution, and disruption of the villages of the area's original inhabitants. "Wouldn't it be more rational?," asks the report, "to use the resources and people already in the region to develop the Amazon." This report from the Brazilian weekly Opinião.