Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Agrarian Debate Begins

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

GUATEMALA CITY, Mar 6 2004 (IPS) - The Guatemalan government and leaders of the peasant group Plataforma Agraria (PA) will take part in dialogue to seek solutions to rural land conflicts and discuss policies for developing the countryside. “Two commissions will be set up to study and develop solutions to the agrarian problem, which has been historic and a leading cause of the poverty” that affects 80 percent of the country's 11.2 million inhabitants, PA spokeswoman Ursula Roldán told Tierramérica.

Four representatives of the Oscar Berger administration and four from the PA will comprise the first commission, to discuss the legal matters related to labor and land conflicts, including land takeovers.

The second commission, with the same make up, “will have a longer-term task, because they will have to discuss an integral policy for rural development” in a country where 85 percent of farmable land is in the hands of one percent of the population, said Roldán