[News] Venezuela - Campesinos Defending Chavez’s Project

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14638


  Campesinos Defending Chavez’s Project: A Conversation with Andres Alayo

By Cira Pascual Marquina – August 27, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

/For more than two months now, members of the Campesino Struggle 
Platform (Plataforma de Lucha Campesina), a Chavista organization 
bringing together small producers fighting for land rights, have been 
camping out in front of the Venezuelan Land Institute (INTI) in Caracas. 
There dozens of campesinos are engaged in ongoing conversations about 
the situation of the country and the injustices that they face in rural 
areas. The activists also work on documents, organize marches and 
meetings before retreating to their hammocks at the end of the day. 
Andres Alayo is one of the key leaders of the Campesino Struggle 
Platform. In this exclusive Venezuelanalysis interview, we talk to him 
about the history of the Chavista agrarian revolution./

*I would like us to begin with the Venezuelan Land Law of 2001 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1310>, which marks a turning 
point in the Bolivarian Revolution. The law sought to improve and 
preserve the lives of Venezuela's small agricultural producers. However, 
it also met with a furious response from the landowning class, which 
reacted with an astonishing degree of violence.*

The Land Law was a powerful attempt to guarantee people’s lives in the 
rural areas. The Independence Wars [1810 to 1823], the Federal War led 
by Zamora [1859 to 1863], and the Bolivarian Process are the key 
milestones in our struggle to build a sovereign nation and achieve 
social justice. The Land Law got the Bolivarian Revolution going, but at 
the same time, along with the Hydrocarbons Law and the Fishing Law, it 
provoked the 2002 coup <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11924>. 
That’s the case because the Land Law impacted the rural oligarchy’s 
interests. It opened the way for a new understanding of property.

Not surprisingly, implementing the Land Law unleashed terrible violence 
from the landowning class, which was allied with the most reactionary 
sectors of our society and also with Colombian landowners… it marks the 
beginning of a series of bloody practices that, little by little, begin 
to enter Venezuela’s rural areas, leading to hundreds of campesino deaths.

The law brought with it a profound change in land tenancy in Venezuela. 
For the first time, thousands of previously landless /campesinos/ had 
access to the land. The Land Law represents an enormous step forward in 
the process of democratizing the land, which until then had been in the 
hands of a handful of families.

The spiral of violence began in November 2001, when FEDENAGA [national 
association of large livestock owners] President Jose Luis Betancourt 
publically tore up the law in a symbolic gesture. It was a war cry. The 
first campesino to fall was Licino Lago, from the Caño Caiman homestead 
in Sur del Lago [in Zulia State]. To date, oligarchic violence has led 
to the deaths of some 350 to 400 /campesinos/.

But for those of us who are /campesinos/, we don’t give up. Our calling 
is to produce, and Venezuela’s landscape began to be reconfigured during 
the revolution. At that time, [because of the previous oil booms] the 
country imagined itself as the “Saudi Venezuela.” It was the country of 
“plenty” which nevertheless expelled millions of /campesinos/ from the 
rural areas and forced them into the growing slums of the large cities. 
However, in the early years of the 21st-century, the situation began to 
change and people started to go back to the rural areas. They began to 
occupy unused land, making thousands of small homesteads. In villages, 
/campesinos/ gradually constructed their humble homes, their /caneys/ 
[open bungalows with thatched roofs], and they shared production spaces. 
Thus there emerged a culture that puts life at the center of things.

So, on the one hand, we have a wager for life and for the 
democratization of the land and, on the other hand, we have the 
landlords' culture of death and terror.

*To understand the agrarian revolution as it has developed within the 
Bolivarian Process, it is important to consider the different periods 
that have shaped that struggle, from the enacting of the Land Law right 
up to the present.*

The process of democratization of the land can be periodized. The first 
years were characterized by an enormous popular momentum. Hundreds of 
campesino cooperatives were formed, and the Venezuelan people witnessed 
thousands of cases of vacant land being occupied, and we celebrated it.

It was at this time – beginning in 2002 but especially in 2003 and 2004 
– that the true enemies of the people begin to show their faces. They 
are the landowning class, but also the nation’s courts, the judges who 
make common cause with landlords, and the local police... These latter 
groups and institutions were quick to collaborate in the eviction of 
/campesinos/. That was a time when the popular movement was advancing, 
but it was also a period characterized by a great deal of repression 
that favored the oligarchy.

By 2006, they had killed dozens of /campesinos/. The law was there, 
bestowing rights upon us, but the repression was on the rise and 
impunity was rampant. In those circumstances, we organized the march, 
“Zamora Toma Caracas” (Zamora Takes Over Caracas) in partnership with 
the Ezequiel Zamora Campesino Front. The goal was to denounce the 
landowners’ rampant violence, on the one hand, and the state’s inaction, 
on the other. On that summer day, tens of thousands of /campesinos/ 
(many of them on horseback) took over Caracas.

The truth is that the state’s institutions – the Prosecutor’s Office, 
the Office of the Ombudsman, the courthouses, the judges, and the 
justice system as a whole – never showed much willingness to bring to 
justice those responsible for murdering /campesinos/. That is something 
that, even today, pains us and makes us indignant! The period when the 
popular movement was on the offensive closes with the march in Caracas.

Around 2006 or 2007 a new period begins, with a change in the 
government's policies toward the rural areas. Around that time, state 
businesses begin to emerge, and these enterprises begin to directly 
assume control of occupied lands. The peak of this period is around 2008 
and 2009, and it lasts through 2012.

Here we are talking about a time when the grassroots initiative is no 
longer centerstage. Instead, the state takes the lead, recovering many 
vacant farming estates. This includes (to mention just a few): Hato El 
Frío and Hato El Cedral in Apure; La Compañia Inglesa in Apure, Guárico 
and Falcón; La Vergareña in Bolívar State; Hacienda Bolívar-La 
Bolivariana and Oya Grande in Sur del Lago, Zulia; the whole Valley of 
the Turbio in Lara; and La Productora in Portuguesa.

All these estates passed over to the direct control of the Agriculture 
Ministry. Thus, as an outcome of the process of recuperating vacant and 
underproductive lands, the Venezuelan state became the largest 
agricultural landholder. We are no longer talking about vacant land 
being occupied by /campesinos/. We are talking about public, 
state-operated enterprises.

In this process, a large contingent of /campesinos/ became wage workers 
for the state enterprises.

This is the period when the oil bonanza reached its peak. Oil prices 
rose to historical records, and that means that a lot of resources 
became available, an important part of it being invested in agriculture. 
During this time, for instance, the Pedro Camejo plant for farm 
machinery was founded, and thousands of tractors, harvesters, and other 
heavy machinery were imported into the country.

The AgroVenezuela <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5976> Mission was 
also created during this phase, while enormous resources were earmarked 
for rural investment. The budgets of CVAL [state agriculture 
corporation] and other state enterprises figured in millions of US 
dollars, with the object of developing an infrastructure to support 
production. This is also the time when Chavez ordered the (compensated) 
expropriation of Agroisleña [seed and agricultural input corporation], 
which then became AgroPatria <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6578>.

So we could say that 2006 through 2010 are the years that bring to an 
end the scenario defined by the 19th-century plantation.

*Would it be correct to say that this last period you refer to closes 
with Chavez’s illness?*

Yes, this period comes to an end when Chavez’s illness begins. Around 
2012 we begin to witness the dwindling of the state agricultural 
enterprises and, shortly after, a process of gradually dismantling them 
begins.

The truth is that between 2011 and 2016, the state had vastly reduced 
resources, and the government chose to privilege other sectors [that 
were not agriculture]. Investment and credit for /campesinos/ plummeted, 
and the building and maintenance of rural infrastructure came to a halt. 
It was a period of evident decay and was accompanied by the active 
dismantling of the large agrarian state enterprises such as CVAL. These 
state businesses had been the result of enormous human effort and huge 
investments, so it was a serious setback for agricultural production.

This period’s dynamic became even harsher over the last couple of years. 
Around 2016, the imperialist attack on Venezuela became more aggressive. 
During this time, the nation’s food security became a public issue, and 
the contradictions between reform and revolution became more obvious – 
side by side with the more evident revolution‐counterrevolution 
contradiction.

As far as the reform versus revolution contradiction is concerned, we 
find sectors of the government that are overtly aiming to restructure 
land ownership based on “strategic” partnerships with private capital, 
be it national or international. These sectors claim that /campesinos/ 
don’t know how to produce, that they are lazy by nature, that the 
stilted agrarian development is the fault of the small producers themselves.

According to this group, the /campesinos/ received millions of dollars 
in credits, machinery, land, etc., but they weren’t able to operate 
efficiently with those resources. To state the obvious, that is false, 
since the bulk of those resources didn’t go to the /campesinos/ 
directly, but rather to the enterprises that we mentioned earlier or 
even to the private sector.

These sectors believe that the Land Law should be abrogated and the 
struggle against large plantations needs to stop. They are against 
/campesinos/ occupying idle land. All this is no secret! They publicly 
affirm that it is necessary to ally with private interests to be able to 
produce.

What characterizes the government’s agricultural policy today is that it 
works to consolidate an agroindustrial model led by supposedly patriotic 
business people. In our time, private businesses with a lot of resources 
(of unknown origin) are beginning to pop up, and they are on the fast 
track. To mention just a few of these businesses: El Tunal, JHS, 
Ebenezer Group, and Los Tres Grandes. All are private agro-industrial 
enterprises, and they have become powerhouses extraordinarily rapidly.

On the flip side of the coin, small producers and communards are 
witnessing the disappearance of the state’s social and productive 
presence in the /campo/. We should explain here that the state has a 
monopoly on seeds, machinery and other inputs, even agricultural 
credits. It is the state that administers them, but its presence in the 
rural areas is practically null, leaving /campesinos/ exposed to 
dangerous mafias that buy supplies.

The priority in agriculture is now large capital – both new and old. As 
it turns out, the government is casting its lot with those producers 
whose aim is exporting, not with the /campesinos/ who provide produce 
for urban, internal markets in Venezuela.

One of the heroes in this “special period” in Venezuela – the period 
characterized by imperialist attacks – is the campesino, the small 
producer in the rural areas. Even now ocumo, yuca, ñame, plantain, 
topocho, and fruits are always available in the markets, and they are 
produced in terrible conditions. That is to say, there are crop thefts, 
skyrocketing prices of agrarian inputs (which are managed by the state 
but sold in black market channels), scarcity of fertilizers, mafias that 
operate in the rural areas, and police repression. In fact, small 
producers have supplied the cities with food when there were no other 
sources of staple foods. In doing so /campesinos/, with their hard work, 
have hampered the possibility of a social explosion, which is one of the 
US State Department’s aims.

Many of the state’s “productive partners” are active in the longstanding 
counterrevolution (whereas others are newcomers). Who are the new owners 
of Hato Garza in Barinas State, an enormous pig farm which was formerly 
the state’s property? They are the same people who in November of last 
year, killed Tomas Ribas, a campesino activist, who was safeguarding the 
infrastructure from pillage and privatization… These are the state’s 
“productive partners”!

The state has given preferential treatment to Alejo Hernandez, owner of 
El Tunal, who is known as “El Tornillo.” Recently a video showing him 
calling for an uprising against Nicolas Maduro went viral… He is the 
“spoiled child” of the current wave of these “productive alliances”! The 
government had awarded him 5000 hectares in Portuguesa.

This is a huge contradiction. The small producer and the communard have 
demonstrated that they can produce and deliver, and they have also 
proved their commitment to the revolution. That being the case, why is 
it that the state is privileging large private capital? Why is the state 
channeling resources, almost exclusively, to the agrarian capitalist 
sector? And through what channels have these private “investors” 
accumulated their fortunes?

We are facing a covert politics of restoration [of the old order]. The 
discourse goes as follows: the state is not able to maintain public 
enterprises due to the economic crisis. That means we have to turn over 
the state’s enterprises to private “investors,” since they have capital, 
knowledge, relationships, and professionals who can guarantee that the 
businesses come back to life. But we must ask: what is the cost of all 
these resources that we are handing over to the private sector?

One of Chavez’s most important legacies was that he opened the path to 
building a sovereign economy in a strategic alliance with the 
/campesinos/ and the communards. Chavez’s stated objective was to build 
the communal state, but with these alliances that are taking shape, we 
are getting further and further from that objective every day!

So this period we are in is a very dark one, not only due to the 
imperialist blockade – which itself creates serious problems – but also 
because the policies that are supposed to foster internal production 
contradict the objective of attaining collective sovereignty. The 
government has chosen the agroindustrial model, which has many 
limitations if we consider that the aim is to satisfy the needs of the 
majority in a time of imperialist siege.

In this period, our main slogan should be: “Produce to resist.” That’s 
because there is no possible resistance and no fighting army if it 
doesn’t have food. And the food for an army must be produced in a 
sovereign way here in Venezuela. Only the small producer, the campesino, 
and the communard can guarantee that. To resist the imperialist attack 
and the internal restorationist tendencies, we must guarantee 
agricultural practices that are also capable of resistance. To be 
honest, there is no other way.

*Just a few days ago, hundreds of people from the Plataforma de Lucha 
Campesina and other organizations gathered in Caracas. They marched with 
the slogan “Against assassinations, plantations, and paramilitarism.” 
The march also sought to defend the /campesinos/’ right to the land and 
to have access to agricultural supplies, which is all the more important 
in the face of the imperialist blockade. Can you tell us something about 
this march and what was at stake in it?*

On August 6 <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14620>, we marched 
against paramilitarism and the targeted assassinations of /campesinos/, 
to bring an end to impunity, and in defense of campesino and communal life.

This march happened one year after the meeting between President Nicolas 
Maduro <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13975> and the Admirable 
Campesino March <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14142>. Twelve 
months ago, dozens of /campesinos/ came by foot from Portuguesa State to 
Caracas to protest the grave conditions in rural Venezuela. Even though 
the media sought to criminalize the march (and despite the lies 
disseminated even by state media), we arrived in Caracas on August 1, 2018.

Thousands of committed Chavistas came out to greet us. But we were also 
received by a huge contingent of riot policemen as if we were the worst 
/guarimberos/ [violent, right-wing protestors] – as if our intention was 
to assault Miraflores!

We met with President Maduro on August 2, 2018, and there we reached 
some important agreements, which in turn became presidential orders.

The first point concerns the land. All the land that has been taken from 
/campesinos/ should be returned. That was a clear order that the 
president issued. However, out of 111 cases that we brought before the 
president, only 28 were resolved, while another 15 are in a process of 
review for the granting of the titles. The rest are still in a process 
of investigation.

The second agreement was about justice for the victims of targeted 
assassinations. Between 350 to 400 /campesinos/ have been killed since 
the Land Law was signed in 2001, and their killers enjoy absolute impunity.

Since we began the Admirable March on May 12, 2018, there have been 
assassinations of 19 /campesinos/. Most recently, six members of the 
CRBZ <https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/crbz> were killed in Ticoporo 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/images/14612>. We expect to learn the 
truth and to have justice for all our dead! Impunity must cease to be 
the state’s policy. A revolution cannot live side by side with impunity. 
Justice is a synonym of revolution.

The third agreement – which was backed up by a presidential order – was 
to put an end to the judicial persecution of /campesinos/. Hundreds of 
/campesinos/ are facing legal cases, because they produce in lands 
desired by people who are more powerful or have better connections. 
Maduro assured us that the day after the meeting, Supreme Court Justice 
Maikel Moreno would initiate a process that would eliminate all the 
cases involving judicial persecution of /campesinos/. We are still 
waiting for that process to begin, and a growing number of /campesinos/ 
have been criminalized since.

The fourth point of agreement was the “Crop to Crop Sowing Plan.” The 
plan was for cultivating 45 thousand hectares during the “Summer Growing 
Season” [the Venezuelan summer coincides with the dry season that begins 
in October], but nothing came out of that promise. For the Winter Season 
[beginning with the May rains], we presented a plan for cultivating 37 
thousand hectares. The government approved 12 thousand hectares for 
planting beans, corn, and rice but it was later reduced to seven 
thousand. Of that, we received seeds and inputs for 1700 hectares.

The fifth point concerns the making of a campesino congress. The idea is 
to hold a congress to build unity within the campesino movement and to 
develop plans to face the challenges that the current war scenario 
presents. The Agriculture Ministry, National Constituent Assembly, and 
the Vice Presidency were to coordinate this project with us, but there 
was never an agreement about how to proceed.

Now there is a new (more grassroots) effort to organize the congress. We 
hope that this effort will succeed. The aim is to build a large 
campesino movement that will guarantee, on a local level, the defense of 
the revolution, making the rural areas into a socialist vanguard.

The August 6 march in Caracas was organized to defend those agreements, 
on the first anniversary of the presidential orders. The Admirable 
Campesino March last year ran into a number of hurdles before it reached 
its destination, and the same could be said for the recent march in Caracas.

The police attempted to prevent our march from advancing. There were 
confrontations with the police, where the willingness of the campesino 
movement to struggle became clear. The marchers were indignant because 
the impunity [enjoyed by those who have killed campesinos] makes us 
angry, as does the judicial harassment of /campesinos/, and the state’s 
neglect of the rural areas.

They wanted to prohibit a peaceful march! To that we said, “Nobody will 
prevent our advance!” So we advanced through Caracas, and we broke 
through three police barricades. Our initial aim was to get to 
Miraflores, but to avoid conflict we ended the march in front of the 
National Constitutive Assembly, where we delivered a document to 
Diosdado Cabello, its president. In that document, we made a balance 
sheet of all the agreements struck earlier with the president. It was a 
kind of status report. We also delivered the report to the office of the 
president.

There, in front of the ANC, we had a political act. We sang, danced, and 
shouted our slogans. We also read our report in public. In doing so, we 
were defending Chavez’s legacy and the orders that President Nicolas 
Maduro gave on August 2, 2018.

There are institutional actors that don't like to see the pueblo 
expressing itself. They are the same people who want to make the country 
believe that all is well... We say to them and to President Maduro: 
“Take a tour around Sur del Lago, around the Andean paramo, talk to the 
producers in Trujillo, go to the Portuguesa plains, get yourself to 
Barinas and listen to the /campesinos/. Go to the street, Mr. 
President!” Maduro himself told his ministers to visit the /campesinos/, 
to talk directly to producers in the rural areas, and to do so without 
cameras and without mediation. Anybody who visits the rural areas in 
Venezuela will find very difficult conditions, on the one hand, and a 
tremendous willingness to defend Chavismo, on the other.


-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20190827/526f14a9/attachment.htm>