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Show 1 2 A The Salt Lake Tribune, Wednesday, December 9, 1981 Chicagogj Cutlery fpIliese rices 5 Avrcr pt r, i 3070 Selected Open Stock Pieces Orr 9 Gourmet Slant Block GSB-6Gourm- et Slant Block Reg. 109.98 Reg. 150.00 Sale GH-- 5 SALE Gourmet Helper Gift with Steel sets Reg. 84.98 SALE of his 10 children, his sits with their youngest. colon- Paraguayan Pioneering holds one ist Ramon Zacariilaz wife His $88 and other families have moved to the woods to farm and live. Washington Post Writer PUERTO ITAIPYTE, Paraguay Roman Zacariilaz is a pioneer and lives on land where the forest is still burning g plots of big smouldering logs and dark white smoke and tree stumps. Each burning acre is one pioneers assault on the Paraguayan woods. From the shacks where they have brought their families, they are clear-in- g sour-smellin- d the land with machetes and matches. Between the forest and the fires stretch their orange trees, their dark plowed soil, their pale green plots of new wheat and soybeans. To ride along these dirt roads, the pickup truck tires kicking up thick red dust, is to imagine the first raw clearing a century ago of the American Midwest. Zacariilaz came nine years ago to the land where his cabin now stands. Modem Pioneer didn't I ask any- came body, he said. and found forest and I I began to work it was a Paraguayan, and I was working the land. I thought no one could take me away from the land. Zacariilaz is so deeply Paraguayan that the only language he speaks well is Guarani, the glottal 1 ... Asian-soundin- indigen- g ous tongue that is still more widely spoken than Spanish here Paraguayan translated into Spanish on this warm afternoon as Zacariilaz had his children cut down fat papayas for the visitors. Zacariilaz did not eat; he stood barefoot and bared chested in the dirt, his black hair damp on his forehead. Around him stood his 10 children, his mint and manioc plants, the shed of stacked corn, the donkey and the fat pig, the baby chick that scrambled over Zacarillaz's toes looking for fallen papaya seeds. Zacariilaz had put three years of labor into this land when he was officially informed for the first time that it was not his. It belonged, Zacariilaz was told, to some North Americans called Gulf and Western. brick-colore- Changing Landscape A change of centuries had worked its way over the hills around Puerto Itaipyte while Zacariilaz was chopping the woods for his lands. To the north, pushed by the frantic energy needs of Brazil's industrializing Sao Pailo. giant bulldozers had begun shoving away the earth for the largest dam and hydroelectric project in the world. To the east, rapidly rising world soya were one-sixt- h Relatively Prosperous Zacariilaz is relatively pushing Brazilians to sell their farms in Brazil at huge prices and then buy much larger lots in Paraguay. To the west, the Japanese government was helping K.tXKi Japanese settlers buy farming cooperatives and establish efficient and complex marketing systems for their produce. From every direction, multinational corporations the sharecroppers for the incompanies. There were newsoaper reports that Gulf and Western at one point destroyed colonists fields with tractors and used armed groups to keep them from expanding their holdings. But at least these colonists now seem to be assured of staying where they are, unlike the hundreds of other families who have been forced off private lands, or have paid for titles that turned out to be fakes. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the government it ternational self encouraged colonization projects on public in eastern Paraguay, homesteading lands flourished even on privately owned lands that had been held for many years by the dame owner. Alto Parana was forestry and cattleraising country then, the eastern flank of a slow and semifeudal country, and colonists were often either ignored or welcomed as potential new loggers in the woods. But that was before soy prices shot up and the first gravel was poured for Itaipu, the massive dam Paraguay is building with Brazil. Land prices have risen from $9 an acre in 1973 to $135 or more, and one of the companies to get in early was Gulf and Western, which in 1974 bought 22,400 acres of Alto Para- eosas'nfflCE KITCHEN SHOPS Murray-lv- 4700 South 900 East 263-189- na for an undisclosed price from its longtime previous owner. Of course we knew there were occupants, said Gabriel Malvetti, general manager of Agriex, the company to which Gulf transferred its Paraguayan holdings in 1979. Place y B-3- Reg. 36.98 SALE 1 Set 14" Set S29" Sugar House 1227 East 2100 South 486-299- 8 5 The Little Ads that pay off BIG! Call Want Ads are for the BOAT market! to 237-200- 0 Want Ads are for buying CARS! place your Want Ad by prosperous colonists Paraguayan standards he has 400 orange trees on his and he homestead said, possibly feeling constrained in front of a North American stranger, that although he thought the price at first was very high, he has come to believe he will be able to pay it eventually. If they knew me, I think they would want me to stay, he said. The land may belong to Agriex, but everything you see on it is mine. From the reports of the Paraguayan church organization working with families like Zacaril-lazs- , there are others among the thousands of eastern DAY fcftnrtflfc fifffo dm Qte my sm un aim' Leather classics with an accent on savings Every leather glove in stock Choose from famous maker gloves in seasonal colors. Paraguayan Assorted styles with Antron nylon lining. Fashion Accessories, 41 Were 22.00 to 40.00, 16.50 to 30.00 16.99 with In Paraguayan troops. atmosthe boom-towphere near the Brazilian border, with land prices soaring and speculators hovering and agribusiness complexes sending huge machines out to knock down the trees, Zacariilaz is part of a special purchase Fashion leather shoulder bags Small unconstructed styles in assorted colors. Some faciles with shirred details and Va flap. Some with zip tops and outside All have long, thin shoulder straps. pockets. n Paraguayan OFF 25 pioneers who are not so philosophical about the corporate claims to their land, and their reactions have ranged from fear to occasional armed among and many working-clas- s poor people. A bilingual prices North Americans, the Germans, the Italians had begun snapping to attention at the investment potential of the eastern Paraguay state called Alto Parana. And that is how Ramon Zacariilaz has come to owe the Agriex Co., a Paraguayan firm which is managed and partly owned by Gulf and Western, $78.55 per acre for land that Gulf and Western bought when land was worth about that price. 1 SALE5 Peasants Tame Paraguayan Wilds By Cynthia Gomey B-- $18.76 Junior Handbags, 144 tradition that is desperately trying not to get stampeded in the rush. Accepted Practice is what Spanish- Breakfast with Santa? Sure. Ffe's making an early trip from the North Pole just to meet you for breakfast. He's even bringing special gifts, loin Santa December 12, 19, 21, 22, 23, or 24. Make your reservations with our restaurant manager or cashier; Crossroads Plaza, 524-266ext. 677 Fashion Place, ext. 677 Breakfast starts at 9 a.m. and is 2.50 for children, 3.50 for adults. He speaking Paraguayans call a colono, a homesteader, one of the landless peasants who have d made it a practice to clear unoccupied lands, either publicly or privately owned, for subsistence farms. long-accepte- "The Paraguayans 263-666- have always believed property belonged to the person who worked it, said Carlos Alberto Benitez., an Alto Parana-base- d church worker. It is a tradition that, Benitez. said, has roots among the indigenous people of Paraguay, who were nomadic hunters and subsistence farmers. ' In Paraguay only 22 or 23 percent of the peasants have title to their land," added Tomas Palau, who works with Benitez on the rapid-l.- v multiplying land-titlin- g problems of both Paraguayan colonists and the Brazilian peasants who have been crossing the border to join them. "So you can understand the importance of occupation " Comparatively Lucky By Alto Parana standards, said Benitez and Palau, Zacariilaz. and his neighbors are comparatively lucky. It may take them a long time to pay for their land, and many may have to pay with their produce, turning them into temporary WSinSTOCK-Shop Crossroads Plua, Monday through Saturday !' nil ') Sunday noon till 6. Shop Fashion Place, Mondav through Saturday 263-666- Sunday noon till 6. Order by mail or call 10 till 9, 6 S 524-266- 6 toll-fre- e 24 hours a day |
