ASUNCION – Hundreds of peasants from a town in western Paraguay on Tuesday blocked the national highway that runs to Argentina and Bolivia to demand the distribution of land donated by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.

The protesters, who finished a two-week march from Pozo Colorado, located 270 kilometers (about 168 miles) northwest of Asuncion, briefly blocked the Remanso Bridge, which spans the Paraguay River and links the capital to the western region of the country.

Protest organizers said they expected to meet Tuesday with President Fernando Lugo and would ask him to mediate in the dispute over distribution of some 30,000 hectares (74,074 acres).

The protest is the latest in a series staged by peasants from the Puerto Casado region in recent years against Victoria S.A., a company owned by the Moon cult.

The demonstrators, who are backed by some non-governmental organizations and Catholic clergy, said they would await the results of the meeting with Lugo before deciding whether to return home or enter Asuncion and stage protests in the capital.

The Unification Church has huge land holdings in northern Paraguay, on the border with Brazil, and the Paraguayan courts in 2007 returned 52,000 hectares (128,395 acres) to the cult that had been expropriated in 2005 for residents of Puerto Casado.

Victoria S.A., nevertheless, said it would donate the 30,000 hectares to residents of the area.

The Unification Church owns more than 600,000 hectares (1.48 million acres) in northern Paraguay, near other holdings in Brazil.

The cult acquired the land in 2000 for an environmental and tourism project.

The lands were at one time part of a property in the Chaco region sprawling over 5 million hectares (12.3 million acres) purchased by Argentina’s Carlos Casado company in the late 19th century.

Moon, a South Korean who has been barred from entering several countries, is a fervent anti-communist who has been indicted and arrested on tax-evasion charges in the United States, and his church has been banned in several Latin American countries.

The Unification Church, founded in 1954 by Moon, has been accused of human rights violations and questionable financial dealings in several countries.

The church has extensive property holdings around the world, including businesses and land. EFE