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<font size=3>Venezuela: Land Reform Conflict Arises Around Strategic
Water Source <br>
<a href="http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1433/1/" eudora="autourl">
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1433/1/<br><br>
<br>
</a>Written by James Suggett <br>
Wednesday, 20 August 2008 <br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=3>Source:
<a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3708">Venezuela
Analysis</a><br><br>
Cooperativist ecological farmers supported by the Venezuelan government’s
land reform programs were attacked on August 7th by armed and masked men
who, the farmers say, were hired by large estate owners in the area to
cut short the changes heralded by the “Bolivarian Revolution” in their
rural Andean Mountain valley.<br><br>
“I sat with my daughter in my arms in our tent so they could not burn our
things. They used obscene words and said they did not want people like us
here and they would kill us and burn everything if we did not get off the
lands,” reported Yuly Barrios to the state Attorney General last
Friday.<br><br>
Approximately 30 aggressors used machetes, metal pipes, and gasoline to
rip apart the large tents in which the farmers live, sabotage the motor
and wheels of the tractor they had obtained from the government’s
Socialist Agrarian Fund (FONDAS), steal video and photographic equipment,
and loot the small settlements, while the state police observed passively
from a distance. <br><br>
The assaults occurred in a forested valley called El Vallecito, which
hugs an offshoot of the Mucujún River, a principal water source for the
nearby city of Mérida and the entire Andean region. <br><br>
Despite the quaint setting, the clash between politically opposed
residents, like a pinched nerve shooting through the national nervous
system, exemplifies the complex interplay of national priorities
regarding food, natural resources, property, and citizen security, and is
a reminder of the fierce tactics opposition forces are willing to use to
destabilize government initiatives. <br><br>
The dominant families in the valley, waving the banner of water
conservation, have supported candidates from the United Socialist Party
of Venezuela (PSUV) as well as opposition parties in the upcoming
regional elections, urging them to fully restrict access to the area and
otherwise leave the valley alone. <br><br>
The cooperativists, on the other hand, seek to transform the valley and
“construct a society free of privilege and exclusion” by building a local
network of state-funded social services, re-distributing idle lands to
small organic farmers, reforesting the riverbanks, and providing
ecological education to the community.<br><br>
Mitigation of the conflict has been waterlogged by an indecisive,
bureaucratic state government notorious for siding with landed elites
while professing solidarity with both reformers and revolutionaries.
While the Agriculture and Land Ministry has been a consistent ally of the
cooperative farmers, the Environment Ministry has been slow to respond,
and the red-shirted state governor, a major property owner in El
Vallecito, has “neutrally” left the cooperativists to fend for
themselves. <br><br>
“We want to see a sign that here government exists, that there is
organization here, that a state of law exists in this country,”
cooperative member Gustavo González declared in a public meeting with
state officials last Wednesday.<br><br>
Background of the Conflict<br><br>
For many years, the Chávez administration has confiscated idle farmland
from semi-feudal plantations and converted it into cooperative farms run
by community assemblies, industrialized food factories run by the state,
and national parks. The Agriculture and Land Ministry estimates that 2
million hectares were re-distributed as of 2007, and 4 million more
hectares are projected to be confiscated in coming years. <br><br>
Hoping to be incorporated into these efforts, revolutionaries in Mérida
began using vacant land lent to them by the state water company in El
Vallecito to revitalize the community four years ago. They erected a
vibrant community center equipped with a free computer lab, subsidized
food market, community radio, multi-purpose meeting rooms, a pool, and
sports facilities, with funding contributed by federal social programs
known as “missions”.<br><br>
Much of the valley’s poor population has gladly accepted the services
provided by the community center. Others, however, are hesitant to
embrace the new neighbors who are not well-liked by the zone’s most
powerful and wealthy families.<br><br>
The vision of the cooperativists is to take the project a step further
and construct a Nucleus of Endogenous Development (NUDE) in El Vallecito.
Their fledgling NUDE, called Mocaqueteos, is an alternative communal
structure in which integral solutions to food, environment, education,
and social issues are constructed by local assemblies.<br><br>
Mocaquetoes gained legal title to nearly 40 hectares of land in the
valley in 2007, when national food shortages and worldwide food price
inflation spurred the National Land Institute (INTI) to step up its
confiscation efforts. Despite this, however, the dominant families of El
Vallecito continue to demand that the “invaders” leave. <br><br>
“In El Vallecito, there are rich property owners from Portugal, France,
and the United States, but when Venezuelan creoles who are not from their
family or class wish to cultivate the valley, those fascists reject us!”
exclaimed cooperativist Franklin Mendoza in the meeting Wednesday.
<br><br>
Mocaqueteos organizers allege that the valley’s elite are reacting to a
breach of their longstanding class privileges. Indeed, a large portion of
the confiscated lands were granted to family members of the estate owners
more than two decades ago with the official purpose of building houses
for workers in the local electricity plant. However, these lands were
only used as a landing strip for model airplanes and other exclusive
recreational activities of the owners.<br><br>
Environmental Concerns<br><br>
According to the wealthy families, the health of the region’s chief water
source is at stake. The zone around the river has been legally protected
from environmentally unsustainable development for more than two decades,
and thus cannot be conceded to the cooperativists, according to the
federal land law, they say.<br><br>
“We are not fighting for land, but for the water of Mérida,” José
Espinoza, a spokesperson for the big landowners, told the local press in
late 2007. “It is not that we are against endogenous development, but it
should grow from the community and not from outside.”<br><br>
In response, Mocaqueteos organizers cite the law protecting the Mucujún,
which says sustainable agriculture, eco-tourism, reforestation, and
educational projects are permitted in the protected zone if approved by
the Environment Ministry. <br><br>
The cooperativists also brandish copies of Environment Ministry impact
studies showing that 17 hectares of the lands granted to them are
destined for re-forestation, and the NUDES intends to employ
non-pollutive, water-saving agricultural techniques such as
drip-irrigation. <br><br>
Although the lands have been legally granted to the cooperativists, the
Environment Ministry’s official stamp of approval still has not been
granted.<br><br>
“If you wish to cancel our project because you have proof of substantial
environmental dangers, ok, we can understand that,” a Mocaqueteos member
told the Environment Ministry representative in charge of the Mucujún
River on Wednesday. “But we have made clear that we do not believe in
agro-chemicals, and several of us including myself were trained in
ecological farming in Cuba.”<br><br>
The Environment Ministry official replied that the matter is not his
fault because he came to his post as a replacement just three months ago.
Betraying his lack of knowledge of the conflict, he accused Mocaqueteos
of “improvising” and “provoking” the estate owners in Vallecito, even
though the cooperativists have diligently abstained from violent recourse
and carefully planned every step of their collective project.<br><br>
Then, what seemed like a relic of the deeper problem at hand was
unearthed. “Within the ministry, there is resistance to really
participate with communities,” said the official. This admission revealed
what had already been evident in state-level ministry’s bureaucratic
bumbling.<br><br>
Deeper Ideological Clash<br><br>
Overall, the revolutionaries are convinced that the real issue is
ideological and transcends local property and environmental disputes.
They note that the estate owners and some state government officials have
consistently opposed, boycotted, and sabotaged efforts that in any small
way fell into line with President Chávez’s “Bolivarian” initiatives, even
when public authorities explained that the cooperativists have legal
title to the land. <br><br>
Also, when the cooperativists formed community councils (a two year-old
government initiative to deliver funds directly to organized
communities), to address urgent problems such as run-down public lighting
infrastructure in El Vallecito, the begrudged estate owners refused to
participate. <br><br>
Instead, they formed their own community council to defend their
interests against the other community councils. Spokespeople for the
elite community council widely denounced the “invaders” in the name of
the whole “community” of the valley, attempting to divide and conquer the
valley using a tool meant for community integration. <br><br>
Prominent local newspapers, all four of which are aligned with the
anti-Chávez opposition, have been all too willing to emphasize the plight
of the dons of El Vallecito persecuted by revolutionary
encroachers. <br><br>
In this hostile media atmosphere, Mocaqueteos has counted on support from
Venezuela’s growing alternative media network, especially the webpage
Aporrea.org. In July 2007, President Chávez himself answered the
accusations made by local alternative media reporters. On national
television, the president called on functionaries of federal ministries
in Mérida to concretize the projects proposed by cooperatives in El
Vallecito.<br><br>
The struggle of the cooperativists was also reinforced last May when the
well-known radical farmer self-defense group called the Ezequiel Zamora
National Farmers Front (FNCEZ) wrote a letter to Environment Minister
Yubirí Ortega, who has been focused mainly on Venezuela’s complex mining
issues recently, to vouch for Mocaqueteos. <br><br>
Mocaqueteos “has proven social, political, and community work, has
obtained legal title to the aforementioned lands, and its productive
projects have an agro-ecological focus and comply with the regulations of
use of the Mucujún River bank,” the FNCEZ wrote.<br><br>
Local environmental groups in Mérida who are critical supporters of the
Bolivarian Revolution have not taken a public stance on whether
Mocaqueteos should continue its project in el Vallecito. In late 2007,
these groups vehemently opposed the construction of a scientific research
facility proposed by the state oil company PDVSA on the bank of a nearby
offshoot of the Mucujún River, on the basis that the river is protected
by law.<br><br>
Instead, these local groups have limited their solidarity to
denunciations of the violent sabotage to which the rich landowners have
turned to preserve their control of the valley. <br><br>
Paramilitary Activity<br><br>
This incident of paramilitary tactics used by elites to protect their
property and carry out what the FNCEZ calls “social cleansing” is not
isolated. Since the agrarian reform law favorable to rural workers was
decreed by President Chávez in 2001, paramilitary hitmen have murdered
more than 190 rural community organizers who dared to stand up to the
local patriarchs, according to the farmer defense group. <br><br>
The frequency of such murders in border states with Colombia, many of
which are supplied with water originating from the Mucujún River,
indicate possible connections among estate owners committed to defending
their privileges. Mocaqueteos organizers say the geo-politically
strategic nature of el Vallecito is a good reason to construct a NUDES in
the zone to be vigilant in case local elites plan to exercise their
control of the region’s chief water source to fortify anti-Chávez
destabilization efforts. <br><br>
The paramilitary issue also raises questions about whether the lack of
law enforcement and hesitance of state officials to take political risks
in places like El Vallecito is purely the result of local negligence or
connected to a larger breach in the government’s monopoly on the use of
force. <br><br>
In the end, the true risk-takers are the relatively powerless victims of
last Thurday’s assaults, but the valiant organizers of NUDES Mocaqueteos
show no signs that their convictions may be weakening. Despite the
rockiness of their path, Mocaqueteos advances with firm resolve.
<br><br>
<br><br>
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