Comunero Democracy Endures in Chile

For the comuneros, socialism was not an abstract utopia,
but a set of ideas that resonated with the way they already organized
their economic production.
We agree, allot the land!” shout impatient
comuneros from the back of the packed
“V hall. But because the holders of neigh-
boring lands are absent, the motion to allot a 10-
hectare Iluvia to a fellow comunero-a member of
one of Northern Chile’s Agricultural Communities–
is set aside. Yet another motion from the stack of
more than 70 is then brought before the Junta General
de Comuneros, the highest decision-making body of
the Agricultural Community of Canela Baja.’
Some 250 comuneros meet two to three times each
year in Canela Baja to make the land and resource-use
decisions of the community. Despite repression and
interference, these meetings-part of the traditional
decision-making process of the Agricultural Commu-
nities-continued during the 17-year military dictator-
ship, through times when large participatory meetings
were unheard of in the rest of Chile. Now, three and a
half years into Chile’s transition to democracy, the
Agricultural Communities are struggling to undo the
legacies of the dictatorship and to create economic
development projects that improve their quality of life
and strengthen the communities.
Located almost exclusively in Chile’s Fourth
Region, about a five-hour bus ride north of Santiago,
community lands total one million hectares (about 2.5
million acres). Eighty-thousand people-about 57%
of the Fourth Region’s population-live in the Agri-
cultural Communities. 2 Over 160 communities are legally recognized, and others await recognition from
the government.
The Agricultural Communities maintain an old form
of collectively owned and managed property. Every
comunero is entitled to three distinct forms of proper-
Stephanie Rosenfeld is a researcher on the Development and Democracy project for the Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First.
VOL XXVII, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1993
ty within the Agricultural Community. Comuneros are
allotted 1.5 hectares of irrigated land for vegetable and
spice crops, the goce singular, alongside which many
build their houses. Each comunero also has the right
to fence in a lluvia, 10 hectares of unirrigated-rain-
dependent, hence the name-land for cereal crops, mostly wheat, for family consumption. The land is
farmed through a combination of family labor,
unwaged labor exchanges among related families, and
wage labor on the farms of the relatively better-off
comuneros. The lluvia is planted for approximately 10
years. When it is time for the land to lay fallow, the
comunero returns it to the community and petitions
the Junta General de Comuneros for a new lluvia.
Finally, comuneros have access to common pasture
land, where thousands of goats eat everything but the
cacti.
Organizationally, the Agricultural Community is like a stock corporation with a fixed number of equal
shares. The Agricultural Communities are jointly
owned and governed by all those who possess a legal-
ly registered derecho de comunero, or share in the
community. Only those who own derechos are offi-
cially considered comuneros, with the right to vote in
meetings of the community, and with rights to land
and water resources.
Comunero democracy has the limits dictated by its
traditions, and as a consequence, has its critics within
the communities. Because only those who hold a dere-
cho de comunero have the right to vote in community
meetings, comunero “citizenship” is almost entirely
limited to aging men. Very few women own derechos.
With a few exceptions, those who do are widows who
inherited their husband’s derecho upon his death.
Young people are almost totally excluded. Men in
their 50s cannot vote if their elderly fathers hold the
derecho. This systematic exclusion of women and
youth is not, of course, unique to the communities.
29REPORT ON DEMOCRACY
Mayorazgo and the machista subordination of women
both have their roots in the Spanish colonization of
Latin America, and have been maintained in the com-
munities since colonial times.
The communities are among the poorest districts in
Chile. In a recent study of 286 rural counties in Chile,
A comunero residence and its small irrigated plot of land, surround
the arid countryside, in El Chivo in northern Chile.
three of the four poorest were populated predominant-
ly by Agricultural Communities. 3 They often lack
basic infrastructure like good roads, health clinics and
schools. And their lands are becoming desertified.
Community land is so ecologically degraded that,
despite the vast expanses, comuneros often cannot
produce enough to eke out a living even in good years.
Nor do they have the natural resources to support an
expansion in population. Many of the youth abandon
the communities to find work or go to school, leaving
behind an aging population of grandparents, many of
whom care for small children. Some young people
eventually return home to the communities, but most
settle elsewhere.
“In the countryside we live by fate. When it rains,
and we harvest what we sow, we have life. And if it
doesn’t rain, then we don’t even have money for
aspirin,” laments one comunero, as others shake their
heads in agreement. 4 When agriculture is bad, the
comuneros look for gold and other minerals in small
mines on community lands. Comuneros also make
use of a variety of small government subsidies for old
age, widowhood, motherhood, indigence and
school-aged children. Many find they still can-
not make ends meet. As a result, they leave the
community to find wage labor. Wives and
daughters often work as domestic servants,
while men mostly find jobs in construction or
mining.
This pattern of temporary labor migration has
contributed a leftward slant to comunero identi-
ty and political culture. Comuneros who went to
work in the nitrate fields a century ago brought
back to the communities their experiences in the
radical unions. Over the past three quarters of a
century, comuneros have learned left-wing poli-
tics in the copper mines and the construction
unions. Stories abound of comuneros who stood
side-by-side historic figures of the Chilean Left
such as Emilio Recabarren, Clotario Blest and
Elias Lafferte, or received personal phone calls
from Salvador Allende.
“That Communism in Eastern Europe ended,
the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union fell
apart means nothing in the Agricultural Com-
munities,” says Eduardo Lara, director of the
La Serena office of Youth for Development
(JUNDEP), a non-governmental organization
(NGO) working with the Agricultural Commu-
nities. For the comuneros, socialism was not an
abstract utopia, but a set of ideas that resonated
with the way they already organized their eco-
led by nomic production. Communist and Socialist
discourse on national integration and the over-
coming of poverty and marginalization spoke
to the historic complaints of the comuneros.
Lara describes a conversation he had with a
comunero who had recently returned to his communi-
ty after working in the mines up north:
A friend-a comunero-told me, ‘Compaiiero, it is
one thing to be a unionist and a Communist, and be on
strike. But it is another thing to be chief of the strike committee and be worried about whether all the com-
paiieros eat every day, that their kids don’t go hungry,
and when someone is sick to find them medicine….’ Imagine. A campesino that you see up on those barren hills over there tells you he took part in a nationally
important strike. All the richness of this experience
gets transferred to the Agricultural Community,
because that comunero arrives back in the community
and starts to stir things up. 5
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30REPORT ON DEMOCRACY
The Agricultural Communities emerged at the
end of the seventeenth century as northern
Chile fell into economic decline due to econom-
ic competition and ecological disaster. 6 The region’s
wheat boom came to an end as Chile’s fertile central
valley proved more efficient in producing wheat for
domestic consumption and export. Meanwhile,
northern Chilean mining camps and metal refiner-
ies consumed all the regional forest resources as
fuel, and grazing sheep and goats left desert in
their wake. Many haciendas became unprofitable, and some hacendados were forced to sell their
land or to work it themselves. Ecologically
degraded, much of the Fourth Region became
suitable only for subsistence agriculture and
small livestock. In this depressed atmosphere, the
subsistence-oriented Agricultural Communities
were born.
Collective tenure and inheritance became the
norm, because vast expanses were required for
grazing, and the low-grade agricultural land had
to be frequently rotated. Individual farmers on
small private plots of land simply could not have
survived. More people and land were added to
the Agricultural Communities during the mid-
nineteenth century, when out-of-luck miners
sought refuge in subsistence agriculture on the
vast lands once owned by the mining companies.
For centuries now, the Agricultural Communi-
ties have been pockets-of extreme poverty,
ignored by the government and isolated from the
economic transformations that have “modern-
ized” Chilean agriculture. When Chileans in San-
tiago think of their countryside, it is the
parceleros (campesinos who have received land
during the agrarian reform) or the fruit-export
industry that come to mind, not the Agricultural Com
Communities. tural
The Chilean state first showed some sign of
interest in the communities during the presidency of
Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei (1964-70). The Frei
government implemented a series of measures to
encourage rural unionization and agrarian reform.
During this same period, the Agricultural Communi-
ties were legally recognized as a special case of col-
lective land tenure within Chile, and their decision-
making and land-use customs were codified into law. 7
The new law formalized a series of practices that
the comuneros had incorporated into their society–
organizational forms “borrowed” from the unions,
peasant cooperatives and corporations with which
they had contact. The communities have, for example,
adapted their form of self-governance from labor
unions. The structure of the Junta General de
Comuneros, the general assembly of all comuneros in
VOL XXVII, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1993
a given community, is borrowed from the general
assembly prevalent in workers’ unions. Leaders are
directly elected, and the Junta General has final say
on all matters. The Juntas de Vigilancia-which pro-
vide a check on the actions of the elected officers of
the community, especially regarding community
unero Josd Castillo and a young friend take a break in the Agricul- Community of Yerba Loca.
funds-are based on similar organizations in peasant
cooperatives.
“Fhe military coup of September 11, 1973, which
brought a brutal end to Salvador Allende’s Pop-
ular Unity government, constrained the democ-
ratic functioning of the Agricultural Communities.
During much of the dictatorship, elections of all kinds
were forbidden throughout Chile. The Agricultural
Communities were no longer allowed to elect their
own leaders. Community leaders were “elegido a
dedo”-appointed by the dictatorship. “It was like a
strainer,” explains the president of the Agricultural
Community of Carquinmafio. “We had to send a list
of names to the governor (who was appointed by the
military) in Illapel, and from there the names would
come back approved or rejected.” 8 Community meet- had more or
ings could not be held without advance permission munities wol
from the carabineros (the police) who would often Comunero
attend the meetings, enforcing the will of the appoint- land to indi,
ed leaders and taking prisoners when necessary. Com- land taxes w
munity resources were sometimes confiscated or comuneros
destroyed. In some communities, an implicit alliance land, their d
developed between some elders and the local repre- that they wo
sentatives of the dictatorship. The extension of be entitled tc
comunero democracy became virtually impossible. Between 1
Representatives of several Agricultural Communities discuss reforestation with technicians from the NGO development corporation JUNDEP.
“The carabineros took me prisoner three or four times tional fruit
during the dictatorship for trying to speak in meet- new law.
ings,” one son of a comunero told me. 9
The dictatorship did not stop at just repressing and T ough
abolishing democratic institutions. Always at the ideo- the pc
logical forefront of Latin America, Chile went from organic
being the experiment in the democratic road to social- exile abroad
ism to being the so-called “pure case” of neoliberal Party in the
free-market development. The Agricultural Communi- comuneros’
ties were not spared from market reforms. The dicta- a history far
torship argued that turning collectively owned com- repression
munity land into individual private property would relatively 1
promote economic growth and development. Individ- Comuneros
ual titles would supposedly give comuneros easier destinely thr
access to credit and rural housing subsidies, and pro- ly with the
vide a sense of security and tranquility to individual lizing peopl
property owners. Modifications to Article 42 of the campaigning
1967 law of the Agricultural Communities permitted Patricio Ayl
comuneros to expropriate their goce singular from the But the pI
community as individual private property, and sell it nomic justic
as such to anyone. 1 0 Before, only the derecho could be tion that ma
sold, and only to someone from the community. This not regain th
VOL XXVII, No 2 SEPT/Oct 1993
less ensured that the Agricultural Com-
uld remain intact.
s were not told that if they converted their
vidual property, they would have to pay
rhich they may not be able to afford. The
were also not told that if they sold their
terecho de comunero would go with it-
uld cease being comuneros and would not
new land from the communities.
986 and 1990, the government conducted
three house-to-house campaigns to
encourage and/or coerce comuneros into
inscribing their goce singular as individ-
ual sellable private property.” Most
comuneros showed a lack of enthusiasm
for the campaigns. Two communities,
Huentelauqu6n and Montepatria, reject-
ed the campaigns entirely. In the end, 3,214 comuneros, or 22% of those tar-
geted, converted their land. Most of the
largest goces which were inscribed as
private property (some as large as 50
hectares, well over the 1.5 hectare aver-
age) were taken in the names of officers
of the communities who, during this
period, were not democratically elected.
Many of these large parcels of scarce
irrigated land were sold off to transna-
tional fruit-exporting companies. No sur-
prise to critics, it was the best irrigated
land that entered the land market, and it
was not the communities as a whole, but
a few individual comuneros and transna-
companies that benefited most from the
formally banned during the dictatorship,
ilitical parties of the Left maintained their
izations clandestinely within Chile, and in
d. The very survival of the Communist
Agricultural Communities testifies to the
deep-felt culture of resistance, which has
older than the dictatorship. In rural areas
vas especially harsh, and it wasn’t until
ate that opposition took public forms.
who were politically active worked clan-
ough the political parties, and more open-
NGOs, organizing demonstrations, mobi-
e to vote “no” in the plebiscite, and then
g for center-left Concertaci6n candidate
win.
)litical transition has not brought the eco-
e and opportunities for popular participa-
ny Chileans dreamed it would. Chile did
ie form of democracy it had 20 years ago.
33
C
CREPORT ON DEMOCRACY
In the new democracy, the military is not under civil-
ian control, and the Congress has been at a near stand-
still because “designated” or “institutional” senators
representing the interests of the military regime block
most proposed reforms. Meanwhile, because the
national economy is booming with natural-resource
exports, many political leaders who are critical of the
poverty this model has brought to many are fearful of
making changes that might threaten the prosperity it
has brought to others. The Concertaci6n is anxious to
show that high economic growth rates and increasing
export volumes can be maintained under democracy.
The mass mobilizations, and the social organizations
that made them possible, died down with the transition
to democracy. Although the democratic government
It has proven more difficult
to build strong independent organization
in a formal democracy than it was to
organize during the dictatorship,
when there was a common enemy ani
ample foreign donor money.
maintains popular support, many people who partici-
pated in the anti-dictatorship struggle feel disillu-
sioned and frustrated with how things have turned out.
It is in this context that the revitalization of
comunero democracy is taking place. The comuneros
can again elect their own leaders and have meetings
whenever they want, without notifying the cara-
bineros. Like the opposition movements in general,
participation in some of the social organizations in the
Agricultural Communities died down after the transi-
tion. It has proven much more difficult to build strong,
independent organizations in a formal democracy than
it was to organize during the dictatorship, when there
was a common enemy and ample foreign donor
money. The NGO development corporation JUNDEP,
however, has helped mobilize the communities, sup-
porting organizations of youth and women, training
community leaders, organizing reforestation projects,
and working with the comuneros to write and pass a
new law for the Agricultural Communities. While 20
years ago, social demands were channeled through the
political parties, in today’s climate of political open-
ing and social demobilization, they are expressed
largely through NGOs.
Some groups of comuneros, for example, are partic-
ipating in reforestation projects to take advantage of a
government tree-planting subsidy to which only large
corporations usually have access. During the dictator-
ship, the comuneros resisted such projects, suspicious
that somehow they would lose their land to the gov-
ernment. However, three years into the transition, a
certain level of trust is developing and, one lluvia at a
time, thousands of hectares are being planted with
trees to be used for fence posts, and with bushes that
goats can eat.
Right now the comuneros are celebrating the sign-
ing into law of their own modifications of the Law of
the Agricultural Communities. JUNDEP and the
comuneros took advantage of the democratic opening
to rewrite this law, which they hope will help keep the
communities together while encouraging economic
development that can benefit the comuneros. The
proposed changes came out of a process of edu-
cation and consultation with the comuneros.
JUNDEP held a working retreat with comunero
ons representatives, where they studied the law
together, and mounted a theatrical production of
how the new law would work its way through
Congress and the Senate on its way to presiden-
tial approval.
d “We looked for a formula,” says Juan Solis de
Ovando, a lawyer for the comuneros, “that would
permit us to reconcile respect for the right of the
community to have its properties, and the desire
and the necessity of incorporating individual
property as part of the strategy of a complex and com-
bined economy like that of the Agricultural Communi-
ties.” 1 2 The new law creates separate rights for the
derecho de comunero and individual property. This
will allow comuneros to sell off an individual parcel,
or lose it to creditors, without forfeiting their derecho
de comunero and its entitlements. With the changes,
individual comuneros can no longer unilaterally
decide to expropriate their goce singular from the
community. The decision must now be approved by
the Junta General de Comuneros as part of a process
which encourages economic planning for community
development. Comuneros are no longer restricted to
selling only their own goce singular. They can now
make collective decisions to sell or develop parcels of
land as a community, benefiting all interested
comuneros. To ensure survival of the communities,
only 10% of community land can be sold off as indi-
vidual property.
Today, many comuneros characterize the communi-
ties as “the place where I am going to die.” The
comuneros hope that the recent changes in the law
will set the stage for economic development that can
alleviate the extreme poverty and isolation of the com-
munities, making them places where their children
will want to live. 0
34 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACU REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34
Comunero Democracy Endures in Chile
Thanks to Norman Araya, Concejal of Canela Baja, and Eduardo Lara of Corporaci6n JUNDEP for introducing me to the Agricul- tural Communities, and to Heidi Tinsman and Sergio Gonzalez for helpful criticism.
1. Junta General de Comuneros de la Comunidad Agricola de Canela Baja, March 25, 1993. 2. Juan de Solis de Ovando S. et al., Normativa legal de las comu- nidades agricolas: Estudio critico del D.F.L. no. 5 de 1967 del Ministerio de Agricultura con sus modificaciones posteriores
(Santiago de Chile: JUNDEP, 1989), p. 10. 3. “Diagn6stico del impacto de las campafias de inscripci6n de los goces singulares en forma individual, a trav6s del D.L. no. 2695 de 1979 en las Comunidades Agricolas de la IV Regi6n: Informe
final,” unpublished manuscript (Santiago de Chile: Cipres Con-
sultores, August, 1992), p. 19.
4. Interview with comuneros, Canela Baja, March, 1993.
5. Interview with Eduardo Lara, La Serena, May, 1993.
6. Milka Castro and Miguel Bahamondes, “Surgimiento y transfor-
maci6n del sistema comunitario: Las comunidades agricolas, IV
Regi6n, Chile,” Ambiente y Desarrollo, Vol. II, No. 1 (May,
1986). pp. 111-126.
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Women, Resistance and Politics in South America by JO FISHER
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In this fascinating study, Jo Fisher uses a series of case studies to
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vol XXVII, No 2 SEPT/Ocr 1993 43
VOL XXVII, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1993 43
REPORT ON DEMOCRACY
7. Decreto con Fuerza de Ley No. 5 de 1967, Chile.
8. Interview with comuneros, Carquinmafio, May, 1993.
9. Interview with comuneros, Santiago, April, 1993.
10. Juan de Solls de Ovando S. et al, Normativa Legal, p. 106.
11. For a full description of the campaigns and their impact, see
“Diagn6stico del impacto de las campafias de inscripci6n.”
12. Interview with Juan de Soils de Ovando, Santiago, June, 1993.