SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia—Smoke from gunpowder and tear gas lingered in the air as rival members of a local farmer’s union engaged in a brutal conflict over the Movement for Socialism (MAS) Party’s distribution of free land to party supporters on Dec. 13. Police arrested three combatants while five were injured in the conflict. For the past 15 years, rural members of the MAS party have relocated to the Santa Cruz department in droves over the offer of free farmland from the government, which began in 2006 after former socialist President Evo Morales declared an “agrarian revolution” and distributed over 6 million acres of land to poor indigenous farmers. However, frustrated local farmers in Santa Cruz are pushing back since the land handouts have primarily gone to supporters of the MAS party who are immigrating from other departments. “These guys [the MAS] only give land to people from the west, but the land is …