In the next few days, for the first time in over a year, workers will enter the mill at the centre of Hacienda Luisita, one of the Philippines' biggest sugar plantations. As they do, they will pass a memorial to seven of their colleagues, killed last year during an attempt by the army and police to disperse the picket line that blocked its gates. The workers are returning to the fields of the 6,000-hectare (14,800-acre) property, to cut the cane that stretches in long rows toward the horizon of dark volcanoes. An agreement to reinstate sacked workers and pay back-wages ended the strike, which had pitted the plantation's 6,000-odd employees against its owners, the family of a former president, Corazon Aquino. But the questions raised by the dispute-about the conduct of the army, the impartiality of the bureaucracy and, above all, about the effectiveness of land reform—remain unanswered.
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