[News] Venezuela: Land Reform Conflict Arises Around Strategic Water Source

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Venezuela: Land Reform Conflict Arises Around Strategic Water Source
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1433/1/


Written by James Suggett
Wednesday, 20 August 2008

Source: <http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3708>Venezuela Analysis

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

Background of the Conflict

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

Environmental Concerns

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

Although the lands have been legally granted to 
the cooperativists, the Environment Ministry’s 
official stamp of approval still has not been granted.

“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.”

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.

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.

Deeper Ideological Clash

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Paramilitary Activity

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.

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.

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.

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.





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