The Story of an Infamous Montana Rancher in Bolivia Painted as One of Cowboys, Indians

When Time Magazine wrote the story of Ron Larsen, a cattleman in the crosshairs of Bolivian land reform, Jean Friedman-Rudovsky in Le Paz started with a cowboy tale. “In his native Montana, Ronald Larsen’s current legal straits might be the stuff of an old-fashioned Western movie: A cattle rancher who believes the government and its allies are unfairly trying to seize his land, and picks up a rifle to signal his displeasure. But in contemporary Bolivia, where Larsen makes his home, his recent clash with the authorities is but another instance of rising tension over land-ownership between, on the one hand, left-wing President Evo Morales and his supporters among Bolivia’s indigenous population, and on the other, political opponents backed by the country’s wealthy eastern elite. But the romance for this particular cattleman is over, punctuated this week by a court decision that upholds the Bolivian government’s plan to seize Larsen’s land under charges he treated his indigenous employees like indentured servants...more