Fewer Gringos Like These, Please

When I lived in Germany, the one constant I tried to be aware of was the fact that I was a guest in the country. Imagine what the outcry would be if, for example, a Bolivian moved to Montana, purchased land on the cheap and acted like he was above the law. Unfortunately, it appears that the reverse is true. Meet Ronald Larsen and his son, Duston:

Tensions here erupted one day in February when Alejandro Almaraz, the deputy land minister, arrived before dawn at the entrance to Mr. Larsen’s Hacienda Caraparicito to carry out an inspection, a step usually taken before the government seizes ranches and redistributes them among indigenous farmers.

Both sides differ as to what happened, but everyone agrees that some violence ensued. “I didn’t want this guy making any trouble, so I shut him up with a shot at one of his tires,” Mr. Larsen was quoted as saying last month by La Razón, Bolivia’s main daily newspaper.

Mr. Almaraz said he was kidnapped and held for a day on Mr. Larsen’s ranch. He responded to the incident by identifying the American rancher and his son Duston in a criminal complaint for “sedition, robbery and other crimes.”

Faced with a legal tussle over the standoff, Mr. Larsen now claims that he did not shoot at Mr. Almaraz’s vehicle. “The tires were punched out with sharpened screwdrivers,” Mr. Larsen said. “If I’d have been shooting at people that day, there would have been dead and injured.”

If you want to see the definition of an Ugly American, I think this is it:

“Evo Morales is a symbol of ignorance, having never even finished high school,” Duston Larsen said.

I have always believed that the issue as to where one is in one's life is not where you are, but how far you've come. regardless of how one feels about Evo Morales - and I'm the first to say my feelings about him are mixed, what he has accomplished is striking in and of itself, especially considering where he started.

How this plays out  - and to some extent this seems like a somewhat microcosmal view of the larger issues straining Bolivian society - remains to be seen, of course, but I don't think that the ugly rhetoric helps matters.

Comments

[Tambopaxi]

Larsen´s conduct in puncturing tires is not cool, and his rhetoric is heated, but if I might, Randy:

After having lived in Bolivia for 40 years and with his kids all born there, I don´t think Larsen qualifies as a guest. It´s clear that he´s been there for the long haul and that he´s done well.

Re: treatment of his workers, it´s not clear whether he´s paid them legal wages all this time, but given that some of them have worked on his property for 20 years, I presume that the workers see some good reason for staying there. (Again, this assumes that there´s not some quasi indentured servant or slavery relationship going on.)

Now, assuming that Larsen got his land fair and square and that he´s treated his people decently and legally, I can see why he´d be upset at the prospect of the Morales government dropping by to discuss seizure of his property.

I´ve lived in LA for 30 years, and I´ve seen the same scam go down in several different countries, said scam being that the local power elites let foreigners come in, invest their money in land, businesses, whatever, and then step in and expropriate/confiscate/seize the fruits of the foreigners´ labors on one pretense or another.

Foreigners are favorite targets of people like Morales because they often do better than the locals at productive investment and they make money at it. At the same time, they´re, well, they´re foreigners, and they usually don´t have the local political power base that enables them to successfully resist powerful local elites (like Morales in this case) when these guys come to take away hard-earned assets. To be clear, this happens all the time down here, including, Í´m sure, in Brazil.

To wrap up, using your Bolivian in Montana analogy, can you imagine such a person (assuming he´s been law abiding, etc.) keeping quiet if the BLM suddenly showed up on his doorstep and telling him that they´re taking his land because small farmers aren´t using it? I can´t see that happening, and Larsen can´t see it happening either, apparently....

[Randy Paul]

Given the generally xenophobic nature of our society, I really couldn't see a situation in which a Latino would be allowed to buy large chunks of land around here.

What deeply offended me was his son. He's a bigot and his attitude towards indigenous peoples is odious, more exemplary of the elite whites in so many countries in Latin America.

Also, does his son have dual citizenship? If so he should be grateful that Bolivia only has voluntary military service. I'm sure he'd hate to find himself in a room full of Aymara grunts.