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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Rebellious Sugarcane Growers: Voices from Cinco Fortalezas Commune (Part I)</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Cira Pascual Marquina and Chris Gilbert – Venezuelanalysis</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">April 29, 2022<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p><em>“Las
Cinco Fortalezas de la Revolución Bolivariana” – that is the full name
of a marvelous commune in eastern Venezuela, in the sugarcane growing
Cumanacoa township. Led mainly by women, this commune has had a history
of intense struggle. It consolidated around 2016, when a group of the
region’s day-laborers seized the land from the original landowner. Six
years later, the communards found themselves in a second battle, after a
businessman scammed the local producers by taking their crops without
payment. </em></p>
<p><em>The recent scam – along with the crisis and sanctions – are
important hurdles along the way, but the Cinco Fortalezas communards are
willing to work hard and fight. With 57 collectivized hectares devoted
to growing sugarcane and a powerful commitment to communalizing life,
Cinco Fortalezas is set to be a breeding ground for socialism. In Part I
of this interview we learn about the commune’s recent history and its
various communal production enterprises. In Part II, the communards will
tell us about the impact of the crisis and the blockade on their lives,
as well as the creative ways in which they are overcoming those
obstacles.</em></p>
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<p><a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/5_fortalezas_i.png" title="Yusmeli Domínguez is the secretary of the communal parliament and part of the planning council in the Bloque Productivo la Esperanza. Oswaldo Noguera is a spokesperson for the commune. Vanessa Pérez is a communal parliamentarian and part of the national direction of the Communard Union. Wilfredo Enrique is a member of the planning committee at the Cinco Fortalezas Commune and runs, with his partner María Romero, the Red Tilapia Lab. José Luis Gamboa is a communal parliamentarian. Carlos Andrade is part of the directive of the sugarcane growers association in the Montes municipality (Cumanacoa) and a spokesperson for the Río San Juan Commune. (Voces Urgentes)"><img src="https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/styles/full_content/public/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/5_fortalezas_i.png?itok=5jGewrwL" alt="Yusmeli Domínguez is the secretary of the communal parliament and part of the planning council in the Bloque Productivo la Esperanza. Oswaldo Noguera is a spokesperson for the commune. Vanessa Pérez is a communal parliamentarian and part of the national direction of the Communard Union. Wilfredo Enrique is a member of the planning committee at the Cinco Fortalezas Commune and runs, with his partner María Romero, the Red Tilapia Lab. José Luis Gamboa is a communal parliamentarian. Carlos Andrade is part of the directive of the sugarcane growers association in the Montes municipality (Cumanacoa) and a spokesperson for the Río San Juan Commune. (Voces Urgentes)" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="395" height="198"></a></p><div>
<p>Yusmeli Domínguez is the secretary of the communal
parliament and part of the planning council in the Bloque Productivo la
Esperanza. Oswaldo Noguera is a spokesperson for the commune. Vanessa
Pérez is a communal parliamentarian and part of the national direction
of the Communard Union. Wilfredo Enrique is a member of the planning
committee at the Cinco Fortalezas Commune and runs, with his partner
María Romero, the Red Tilapia Lab. José Luis Gamboa is a communal
parliamentarian. Carlos Andrade is part of the directive of the
sugarcane growers association in the Montes municipality (Cumanacoa) and
a spokesperson for the Río San Juan Commune. (Voces Urgentes)</p>
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<h2>Recent History</h2>
<p><em>Cinco Fortalezas may be a relatively young commune, but the
rebelliousness of people in this region has a long history. The commune
lies on a beautiful valley long inhabited by the Kari’ña and Chaima
peoples, who fiercely resisted the Spanish incursions into the zone
since in the early seventeenth century. Centuries later, the zone would
form an important rearguard base for the Venezuelan guerrilleros
inspired by the Cuban revolution.</em></p>
<p><strong>Vanessa Pérez: </strong>We took the first steps towards
building a commune six or seven years ago. At that time we were also
struggling to take over the lands of the Rosario Hacienda, which
eventually became the epicenter of our commune.</p>
<p><strong>Oswaldo Noguera:</strong> The land that is now the seat of
the commune once belonged to Asunción Rodríguez. Back then, it was
called the Rosario Hacienda. Rodríguez controlled the good lands, while
the <em>campesinos</em> could only cultivate in the higher altitude lands, where they had no access to water and were far away from the roads.</p>
<p><strong>Yusmeli Domínguez:</strong> I was born here. When I was a child, my parents had no land and they worked for the <em>terrateniente</em> [landowner]<em>. </em>We saw him getting richer and richer, while we had nothing. They gave him their lives, and he gave them nothing in return.</p>
<p>When Chávez’s land reform got started, we began to organize so that
those who worked the land wouldn't be landless. Around 2007, the INTI
[Venezuela’s land institute] began to monitor these lands with the idea
of recovering them. By that time, production had dropped.</p>
<p>In 2011 a group of ten <em>campesinos</em> settled in some of the
abandoned lands. The “company” [a state-owned industrial sugar mill]
went against them and destroyed their crops. This caused a great deal of
outrage. After all, they were poor people who had no objective other
than producing.</p>
<p>Then, in 2016, the sugar mill tried to take over 80 hectares of the
land for growing sugarcane, but they were blocked by resistance from the
<em>campesino </em>settlers. A few months later we began to work on the
land collectively. Around the same time the INTI came to us and told us
that the land would be distributed among the township, the state, and
the people. That was very unjust, and we let it be known. What about the
500 families who worked and struggled for the land for decades, if not
centuries?</p>
<p>Around that time, we went to talk to the landowner<em>. </em>We told him that we were organizing and were going to take over the land... and that is what we did.</p>
<p>The INTI didn’t immediately recognize our use of the land as
legitimate. In fact, there was much friction and many conflicts. The
INTI even tried to mobilize the people of Cumanacoa against the commune.</p>
<p>In any case, we continued organizing and working. After all, we were motivated by the idea that <em>the land belongs to those who work it</em>. What we were doing was a step towards historical justice and it was inspired by Chávez himself.</p>
<p>Finally, in 2018, we went to Caracas and demanded that the land title [<em>carta agraria</em>] be granted to the commune… We succeeded!</p>
<h2>Communal Production</h2>
<p><em>Cinco Fortalezas is blessed with fertile land and a natural
spring that irrigates the more than 60 communal hectares of land it has
under till. The commune, however, lacks farm machinery for harvesting
its sugarcane crop. The harvesting is still being done with machetes and
then hefted on the communards’ shoulders. For this reason,
mechanization is one of the commune’s main objectives.</em></p>
<p><strong>Vanessa Pérez: </strong>We have two registered social
property enterprises [EPSs] belonging to the commune: the sugarcane
project and the tilapia farm. We will soon have a sugarcane processing
plant [a new EPS], and we are planning to form another EPS to take over
commercialization and distribution.</p>
<p>The sugarcane project, which is called “Bloque Productivo La
Esperanza,” is in charge of the whole process, from planting to
harvesting. The trapiche EPS will process the sugarcane into brown sugar
<em>panelas</em>, crystalline sugar, and sugarcane juice. We are moving
toward autonomy in our production: we want to go beyond producing raw
materials and move to controlling the full production and distribution
cycle.</p>
<p>The commune also has two Family Production Units [henceforth UPF], a tilapia UPF and a brick-making UPF.</p>
<p><strong>Oswaldo Noguera: </strong>In addition to growing sugar, we
also grow short-cycle crops such as corn, pumpkin, black beans, yuca,
and other vegetables in our communal land. We have six hectares devoted
to such short-cycle crops.</p>
<p><strong>SUGARCANE COMMUNAL ENTERPRISE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE</strong></p>
<p><em>The Central Sucre in Cumanacoa is a state-owned sugar-refining
enterprise. In 2020 a contract was signed with an entrepreneur, Juan
Ramírez, so that TecnoAgro, Ramírez’s private company, would run the
sugar mill. </em></p>
<p><strong>Vanessa Pérez: </strong>The commune's main enterprise is La
Esperanza Productive Bloc. The project involves the collective
production of 1700 tons of sugarcane annually in 57 hectares.</p>
<p>La Esperanza is our “PDVSA.” Why? Because the surplus produced by the
sugarcane allows us to do work in the territory, from fixing the school
or the roads, to public lighting, to getting medicine for those who
need it, etc.</p>
<p>This past year, however, the EPS – and the commune as a whole – has
been struggling because of a scam carried out at the sugar central
[industrial sugar mill].</p>
<p><strong>Carlos Andrade: </strong>In 2021 Juan Ramírez scammed all the
sugarcane producers in the area: he “bought” our crops but never paid
for them. The debt to the producers is around 300 thousand USD.</p>
<p><strong>Yusmeli Domínguez: </strong>The Central Sucre belongs to
CorpoSucre [regional government entity], but it is now in the hands of
TecnoAgro, Juan Ramírez’s enterprise. In 2020 an agreement was reached
for the purchase of the sugarcane crop in the area. We did our part,
turning over our entire crop in 2021. His unpaid debt with this commune
alone is 14,000 dollars.</p>
<p>This has hurt our production and our lives a great deal, but Mr.
Ramírez has debts with everyone, including other communes in the area
and many family producers. The situation has been devastating for many
people in the Cumanacoa area.</p>
<p>On top of that, Mr. Ramírez is remiss in paying the plant’s 80 workers: he hasn’t paid their salaries for five months!</p>
<p>Of course, we didn’t just sit around and do nothing. We went to the
seat of the Sucre state government and to the National Assembly to make
our voices heard. We also introduced a claim at the Attorney General’s
Office. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard anything back.</p>
<p>More recently, we had a meeting with Gilberto Pinto, Sucre’s
Governor, along with Juan Ramírez. Most of the producers went to the
meeting,and we reached a new agreement. However, we are still waiting
for Mr. Ramírez to fulfill the terms.</p>
<p><strong>Carlos Andrade:</strong> The consequences of the fraud have
been devastating and have had a ripple effect. Some people have died
because they couldn't get their medicines and others have left.
Meanwhile, two thousand sugarcane tons have not been harvested this
year. We had always sold our crop to the Sucre Central, but now that is
not an option. That is why we are holding up the harvest.</p>
<p><strong>Yusmeli Domínguez: </strong>Mr. Ramírez is a criminal… and
yet, this year, the state extended his contract to run the sugar mill!
Why? Unfortunately, as Chávez would remind us, the bureaucratic
bourgeois state is alive and well, and that is why it’s on the side of
private interests over collective ones.</p>
<p>One of our proposals is that the Central Sucre be transferred to the
commune. After all, we are the ones who produce the sugarcane, we are
familiar with the process, and some of us have worked in the central.
There are people here who have technical preparation to take over the
administration of the plant.</p>
<p>Since private capital has proved to be both inefficient and thuggish,
it’s time to open the door to popular power. In fact, this is becoming
all the more urgent now, because they are adapting the plant to be able
refine sugar base brought from Argentina!</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s necessary to explain how absurd this is. After
all, the central was nationalized in 2005 by the Venezuelan state to
process Venezuelan sugarcane in a sugarcane-producing territory!</p>
<p><strong>THE ALTERNATIVE: A COMMUNAL SUGAR MILL</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jose Luis Gamboa:</strong> When Mr. Ramírez scammed us, it
became all the more clear that we have to work towards having full
control of the sugar production cycle. So we decided to reactivate a <em>trapiche</em> [a small, artisanal sugar mill] that had been abandoned<em>. </em>It’s a very old mill, but it can process 30 tons of sugarcane per day.</p>
<p>We have evaluated the condition of the <em>trapiche</em>, and to get
it going we need an investment of some two to three thousand US dollars.
As soon as Mr. Ramírez pays what he owes us, we will get the mill
operative. In the meantime, we are also seeking institutional support.
We are committed to activating the mill one way or another.</p>
<p><strong>Vanessa Pérez: </strong>We want to be able to process the
sugarcane produced by the commune and by other Cumanacoa producers. Ours
would not be the only trapiche in the area, but the other mills around
here are significantly smaller. Also, we have the advantage of our
location, since the commune is in the flatlands and it’s easy to get
here.</p>
<p>We plan to work with the local producers to turn their sugarcane into <em>papelón</em>
[brown sugar blocks], crystalline sugar, and sugarcane juice. We will
do the same with our own production, and we hope to do barter trade with
other communes. The potential here is huge: there are 13 communes in
the township [nine that legally registered], and they all produce
sugarcane.</p>
<p>Ours is not going to be a capitalist enterprise: the cost to process
sugarcane here will be below the market, and the income will be invested
in social and productive initiatives.</p>
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<p><a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/fish_pond.png" title="Pisciculture pond at the Cinco Fortalezas Commune. (Voces Urgentes)"><img src="https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/styles/full_content/public/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/fish_pond.png?itok=5VdSAbc-" alt="Pisciculture pond at the Cinco Fortalezas Commune. (Voces Urgentes)" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="395" height="204"></a></p><div>
<p>Pisciculture pond at the Cinco Fortalezas Commune. (Voces Urgentes) </p>
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<p><strong>SMALL-SCALE PRODUCTION</strong></p>
<p><strong>Vanessa Pérez: </strong>There are other smaller productive
initiatives in the commune. There is a small brick-making plant, which
is active, and there is a fish farm that is rapidly growing. It was
financed by SUFONAPP [institution associated with the Ministry of
Communes]. We are farming red tilapias, and we are learning a lot from
the experience. The main bottleneck is the fish food, which is very
expensive.</p>
<p><strong>Wilfredo Enrique: </strong>The fish farming initiative began
some three years ago with a small credit [about 20 USD] to buy tilapia
minnows. We then set up the Red Tilapia Lab, where we care for the
minnows and the mothers. When they grow up, we take them to the Amaguto
lagoon on our communal land.</p>
<p>Right now, between the lab and the lagoon, we have some 30 thousand
tilapias. We think of it as an incubator project: we hope to send
minnows to other communes, while some of the harvested tilapia will go
for the school lunches and to the popular canteen [which offers free
meals to those in need]. In other words, this will not be a capitalist
enterprise. We think of it as a new initiative to satisfy the needs of
the commune.</p>
<p><strong>Yusmeli Domínguez: </strong>Chávez conceived a holistic
communal system. Here, at the core of our commune, we have the Bloque
Productivo La Esperanza, our PDVSA. But a commune brings together a
plurality of initiatives. A commune is like a quilt: it brings us all
together.</p>
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