[News] Venezuela’s Campesino Struggle: A Conversation with Kevin Rangel of the Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14079


  Venezuela’s Campesino Struggle: A Conversation with Kevin Rangel of
  the Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current

By Cira Pascual Marquina – October 2, 1018
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/Born in Caracas, Kevin Rangel joined the Bolivar and Zamora 
Revolutionary Current (CRBZ <http://www.crbz.org/>) in 2005. Today he is 
the organization’s national coordinator, working from the city of 
Calabozo, Guarico State, in Venezuela’s rural heartland. The CRBZ has 
been in the forefront of the intense struggles taking place in the 
Caribbean nation’s countryside where a rural population eager to till 
the land confronts an old and new landlord class aiming to expand its 
extensive holdings./

*Two years into the Bolivarian process a new legal framework for the 
land was put in place. The 2001 laws opened the way for a more equitable 
reorganization of the rural areas, redistributing idle land to small and 
mid-size **campesinos**. The Venezuelan oligarchy reacted furiously, 
assassinating **campesinos**who were beginning to produce on once-idle 
land. Could you give us some background on how the Bolivarian Process 
impacted the rural areas?*

The Land and Agricultural Development Law 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5432> [2001] laid out the basis of 
the agricultural revolution as proposed by Chavez at a time when the 
strategic path of the Bolivarian Revolution was being defined. A central 
element of that project is sovereignty. To have sovereignty, of course, 
one has to make the country produce, i.e. stop being a “port” economy.

The first step in making the country productive – producing the food we 
need and raw materials for the country’s industry – involved the land. 
Land tenure has important historical dimensions in Venezuela. Since the 
country’s independence, the latifundio [large estate] was established as 
the model that would dominate rural Venezuela during its whole history. 
That was the cause of the Federal War [1859-63] led by Ezequiel Zamora. 
The interests of the oligarchy, which governed Venezuela for many years, 
were there: in the land. They accumulated a lot of riches, a lot of land…

The campesinos have historically been the most combative sector of our 
population. They were the ones who fought with Bolivar. In fact, Bolivar 
was only able to triumph in the Independence War after he united with 
the Venezuelan peasants, the poor, and the black people. The same with 
Zamora: the main group that accompanied him and carried out the Federal 
War was the peasants. That is because it was for that group that 
injustice and inequality was expressed in the most radical way...

The oligarchy’s response [to the 2001 legislation] was to initiate – and 
continue during all of these 18 years – a whole process of conspiring 
and bringing in paramilitaries as part of a plan to strike at the 
Bolivarian Revolution. Where they did it most was in the rural areas, 
because it was the campesinos who best understood Chavez’s call for a 
total war against the latifundio.

Of course, it wasn’t as if the campesinos weren’t doing anything before 
Chavez arrived. There were conflicts over the land and they had 
developed projects. As an organization, we too date from before Chavez’s 
arrival to power, but it was in the context of the Bolivarian process 
that brought the campesinos into a new scenario of struggle.

A struggle emerged in the rural areas, and the oligarchy responded by 
contracting paramilitaries. The “demobilization” of Colombian 
paramilitaries coincided with the incorporation of paramilitary cells in 
Venezuela. They began to operate in the Sur de Lago [Zulia and Merida 
States]. Thus there began a war, a war against campesinos which today 
has left a body count of more than 300 campesinos murdered. Those 
[killed] were people who were at the front of the land recovery 
struggle. They wanted to make the campesinos afraid, and they hoped our 
movement would stop struggling. Thus, on our end, justice for the fallen 
is one of our most important rallying cries. There must be an end to 
impunity!

*The Bolivarian Revolution once had its epicenter in the urban barrios, 
but now the countryside seems to be more combative. It is there that the 
contradictions of the process seem to be most intense. First, there are 
the longstanding contradictions that pit the small to medium producers 
and the rural communes against the interests of old landowners and 
agribusiness. On top of that, now tensions have intensified between the 
rural communes and the small to medium peasants, on the one side, and 
the state, on the other. Also, it’s no secret that the judicial system 
favors old and new landlords and that Agropatria 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13857>, the state company that 
distributes agricultural inputs, is permeated by an anti-popular logic. 
What do you think is happening?*

Chavez proposed not only a new Land and Agricultural Development Law but 
also a new institutional framework for rural development and food 
sovereignty. That was to be a central goal of those struggles. After the 
lapse of almost 18 years, the struggles have been changing, mutating. 
Elements of the dispute have been broadening. In 2001, we struggled 
against the“Adeco[1] institutional [logic].” We struggled to remove the 
Adecos and Copeyanos[2] from the Land and Agriculture Ministry and to 
get the Venezuelan Agrarian Federation out of the IAN [pre‐revolutionary 
land institute] and later out of the INTI [Chavez‐era land institute] 
and the FONDAS [National Agricultural Fund].

One of the main contradictions of the Bolivarian process is with the 
bureaucracy, bureaucratism, and the corruption that has been penetrating 
all the state’s institutions, even putting at risk the state’s 
functioning is some cases. For us, this is part of what explains the 
economic crisis that Venezuela is now experiencing. It is not only the 
enemy’s actions and not only imperialism’s actions, but also a question 
of corruption and inefficiency in government.

With regard to the campesino and agrarian institutions created by the 
revolution, agrarian mafias have embedded themselves, which is taking 
away force as well as revolutionary and transformative potential from 
those institutions. The logic of the bourgeois state took hold of those 
institutions… We have an outstanding task which is transforming and 
overcoming of capitalist state.

That is precisely something that is entering in the struggle today: the 
struggle against hired killings, against impunity, and also against the 
agrarian mafias. That’s because those mafias have been infiltrating 
institutions, not only in the Ministry of Agriculture and Land but also 
the Supreme Court and the Attorney General’s Office. There are members 
of the security apparatuses, the Attorney General’s Office, the courts, 
and judiciary that protect the landlord class today. We didn’t succeed 
in getting the Adecos and their culture out of our state’s institutions. 
Today, that is one of the main problems we face.

It is necessary to overhaul and restructure the institutions. We need to 
reorganize from the bottom up institutions such as INTI, FONDEN, and 
Agropatria. Agropatria was once the transnational Agroisleña. Elements 
of that transnational stayed there, sabotaging the institution from the 
inside. This is the result of a policy that derives from a lack of 
leadership from those who headed up those institutions – all of them, 
not just the current ones. There are people who, for many years, were at 
the head of the agrarian institutions that are also responsible for not 
having transformed them, and they share responsibility for the situation 
today.

*Sometimes it seems as if we can’t find a popular tendency – one that 
favors the working people – inside the institutions!*

There, public functionaries are totally déclassé. Their raison d’etre – 
the concept of a public servant – has disappeared. There are people in 
the agrarian institutions that are in the service of cattlemen’s 
associations and landlords rather than of the campesinos.

But there is something we need to ask: Who is the main interested party? 
Who has an interest that in this country there should be no production? 
The import sector. We need to identify that sector and make it visible. 
They have been interfering and have lobbies inside the revolution, so 
that nothing works. Then if things don’t work there will be chaos, there 
will be no production, and they will go on importing. So that’s why we 
say there is a need to look a the way funds are assigned, so that our 
first priority becomes agricultural production.

*More than 300 **campesinos**have been killed since 2001 and five since 
May of this year. The most recent victim is a 16-year-old boy in the Sur 
del Lago, which is a hotspot in the dispute between the agrarian 
cooperatives and the new landowning bourgeoisie. The state has been slow 
to act in many of these cases, while in others the institutions 
themselves have become accomplices 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13743>. How should 
**campesinos**organize in these circumstances?*

Class struggle is intensifying in the rural areas. We are facing a new 
wave of violence and threats against landless campesinos who have 
recuperated idle land. The truth is that the situation is even more 
complex than it was before. As opposed to the earlier wave of violence 
[in 2001 to 2003], we are not only facing paramilitarism at the service 
of the old landowners, but also an emerging sector that uses state 
forces and the state’s institutions to protect and further their private 
interests.

For instance, in Barinas State, there have been campesino evictions from 
the land where they produce and other human rights violations. These 
were carried out not by the hired guns of the old landowning class, but 
by the state apparatus. We can even identify a [Barinas] state policy at 
the service of the new sectors that are acquiring land. Additionally, 
there has emerged a practice of criminalizing the campesino bloc, as a 
way of justifying what is happening. Thus, some sectors are implicitly 
granted permission to jail campesinos without due process, and to carry 
out other human rights violations.

There is another element: the historical enemy of the revolution is 
seeking to fuel contradictions between those who are in the government 
and the popular base. Those in the direction of the revolution must 
understand this. There is an active attempt on the part of the old 
oligarchy to generate an internal conflict.

The revolution’s most active and loyal sector is the campesinos. 
Campesinos vote for this project even when they are the victims of 
aggressions from public institutions. Campesinos are committed to the 
revolution and loyal. The livestock oligarchy – and especially 
FEDENAGAS[3] which is associated with FEDECAMARAS[4] – have been working 
with paramilitary leaders. We know that representatives of the landlords 
have been in meetings in the Norte de Santander department of Colombia 
with sectors of uribismo[5].

This bloc is responsible for fueling the violence in Sur del Lago, a 
situation that is near the boiling point, or rather, it has already 
reached it! In that territory there are constant threats, mobilizations, 
and public meetings that the cattle-owning oligarchy has been 
organizing. Intimidation has become quotidian. There have been threats 
against members of our organization to the effect that we must abandon 
our struggle for the land in that territory.

This is serious stuff, since we are talking about more than 10,000 
families who are participating in the struggle in Barinas state and 
almost 11,000 families who are struggling for their right to the land in 
Sur del Lago. Thus, in Sur del Lago, the hottest spot, we are preparing 
our response. We are not going to stay put and let our people die. There 
cannot be more campesino masacres. The people and the Bolivarian 
Revolution have given us the tools to defend ourselves.

The recent assassination of Kender García, a 16-year-old son of some 
campesino leaders, is yet another example of the cattle oligarchy’s 
modus operandi. To paraphrase Sandino: The masses are patient and, for a 
while, will wait for justice to be made, but if that doesn’t happen, 
then the people will take justice into their own hands. We don’t want 
this to happen because the battle that could take shape would be worse 
than the one in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

Campesinos are more conscious and more organized today than they were 
before and they have now many more tools, tools that the revolution gave 
them. In this regard, we have been making a plan so that the people are 
aware of what we may have to do. The government must act in a much more 
forceful manner against the landowning class, both old and new. We 
believe that the revolution, in this moment of struggle, must take 
radical actions in regard to the property of those who threaten 
campesinos, who criminalize them, saying that campesinos are robbing the 
land.

It is urgent that the Bolivarian Revolution close ranks and act in a 
unified manner to confront the growing attacks from the old and new 
landowning class. Regarding the latter – the new landowning class who 
wear red shirts – those have to be expulsed from the Chavista bloc. We 
cannot let them continue in the party and at the head of state institutions!

*In today’s crisis, the law that Chavez put forward in 2001 calling for 
an agrarian revolution, seems more relevant than ever! The CRBZ has been 
promoting self-organization among **campesinos**for years and it has 
many projects, from the Simon Bolivar Communal City in Apure, a project 
in a process of consolidation, to the National Productive Alliance, a 
project that is still being born. Let's conclude the interview by 
talking about these experiences.*

Our organization has a campaign to defend the achievements and advances 
of the revolution and to carry out the revolution’s pending tasks for 
campesinos. We don’t limit ourselves to work among landless campesinos. 
We believe that the revolution must incorporate campesinos with small 
plots of land, the conuqueros[6] and the collectives that have rescued 
land, as it has, but it should also incorporate medium producers who 
aren’t enemies of the people, people who are not conspiring and whose 
only interest is to produce, because the key interest of the nation now 
is to produce, thus satisfying the population’s needs.

Alliances have to be made with these sectors, which joined the right 
because the revolution did not know how to connect with them and didn’t 
know how to keep them with us. With this in mind, and with the objective 
of generating conditions to produce for small and mid‐size‐farmers, we 
are building the National Productive Alliance, which is a space of 
confluence and work. Those midsize farmers that are committed to 
producing and are not conspiring should be incorporated.

The revolution has negotiated with large capitalists who don’t produce 
but just import: groups in line with longstanding logic of corruption 
and who are not going to produce anything. The government sits at the 
table with them and not the real producers: the small and medium 
farmers. Unfortunately the latter are not invited to sit at the table. 
Why? I think it’s obvious!

So we have been developing the National Productive Alliance to boost 
agrarian production. We are committed to building an ample alliance of 
small to medium producers. Our main objective now is to generate 
conditions for production, to organize from below and form territorial 
networks. All of Venezuela's productive potential must be brought 
together and unified.

That is something, which the leadership of the process should do, but 
isn’t doing. The Agriculture Ministry lost its focus. Yet campesinos are 
working from below to unify and generate conditions for agricultural 
production, voicing the sector’s demands. Their demands are many, 
ranging from the landless campesinos’ historical claim to the land to 
access to seeds, agricultural implements, and fuel and machinery parts 
for small to medium sized farmers.

The truth is that the revolution has to build a national majority. It 
cannot be that the revolution has political power and it doesn’t 
represent a national majority. The project of the Bolivarian Revolution 
is a project of societal consensus, and Chavez succeeded at building 
that consensus. Most especially, the foundation of the Bolivarian 
Revolution is participative and protagonic democracy. That should be our 
political focus now and it’s where the CRBZ is working. That is also why 
we are now also in a process of giving new impetus to the “Simon 
Bolivar” Communal City project, which fell by the wayside when the 
communal project became the domain of the Ministry of Communes. We 
believe that the comuneros are the revolutionary subject, and we place 
our hopes in the commune as the path to build socialism in Venezuela.

Now, we see the commune as something that is not ethereal. It shouldn’t 
be a mere slogan or mural. We believe in the commune-as-government, as 
people’s territorial power. It is the revolutionary government that will 
transform the society from below, constituting what Chavez called the 
“new shoots” of socialism.

The “Simon Bolivar” Communal City is just that: a space where 
production, organization, and political revolution take front stage. 
Regarding the latter, it must be clarified that the economic war 
shouldn’t be an excuse to halt the political revolution. That is one of 
the issues that the leadership must come to terms with: the continuation 
of the political revolution. The economic war is an unavoidable feature 
of the present, but the emergence of new values, of new forms of 
organization and of popular empowerment – all these things are more 
important than ever if the Bolivarian Revolution is not to lose its 
transformative force.

As for the CRBZ movement, we are working on the Communal City, on the 
National Productive Alliance, and we are also developing a current 
within the PSUV, a current that will work from within. It is absolutely 
necessary that a revolutionary current take shape within the historical 
party of the revolution, as a force that will help to rebuild Bolivarian 
Revolution’s strategic objectives and reorient us towards them.


    NOTES

[1] “Adeco” refers to the clientist and corrupt logic established during 
the Democratic Action (AD) governments prior to the election of Hugo 
Chavez in 1998.
[2] “Copeyano” refers to the Christian democrat COPEI party, the second 
half of the two‐party system that governed Venezuela between 1958 and 1998.
[3] FEDELAFAS is the national association of large livestock owners.
[4] FEDECAMARAS is the Venezuelan business association or chamber of 
commerce. It is directly responsible for the 2002 coup that ousted 
President Chavez for 47 hours before he was returned to office by a mass 
popular uprising.
[5] The fascistoid current in Colombian politics that continues the 
project of former President Alvaro Uribe Velez.
[6] “Conuquero” refers to subsistence farming or very small campesino 
production.

-- 
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