In a press meeting on August 21, the president of the Guarani Assembly, Nelly Romero, accused the Bolvian parliament of inaction regarding approximately 5,500 indigenous Guarani who currently live in conditions of slavery.
Bolivian newspaper El Deber investigated the Guarani situation in January and revealed that hacienda owners in the eastern provinces of Santa Cruz and Sucre have established feudal systems in which the Guarani work without salaries or personal liberties, and are often subjected to physical and psychological abuse. Because mestizo ranchers evicted many Guarani in the early 1900s from their ancestral lands—often the same lands they now work for hacienda owners—they have nowhere to go. Ranchers refer to a supposed "debt" the Guaranis owe for their subsistence farming on historically Guarani land.
"I don't know how much I owe," German Cardoso, a Guarani currently working off his "debt," told El Deber in January. "My boss takes care of all the accounts ... I'm always falling behind because he tells me I can pay for my clothing and food with labor. Money never changes hands."
A commission made up of the Bolivian Ministry of Indigenous Affairs, the Vice-Minister of Justice, and the Office of Defense of Human Rights, was launched in July to confirm El Deber findings.
"They (Guarani) are basically submitted to a form of debt peonage," said Bret Gustafson, an anthropologist who works with the Guarani. Gustafson said the practice has been an ongoing issue since the 1980s. "They're kept in these conditions by virtue of the claim they owe money to ranchers."
Though the government is considering plans to allocate territory to landless Guarani, the quality of available state land is in question. Guarani authorities say these lands are not suitable for cultivation.
In 1999, 514 Guarani families living under similar feudal conditions were liberated with the purchase of 30,000 hectares by private and religious institutions. Many are wondering if this solution might be possible for the 900 families currently working under the system of debt peonage.
In her address to the government, Argenpress reports that Romero requested that the government commission set a deadline for obtaining lands for displaced Guarani.
