[Marxism] Venezuela land reform

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, January 30, 2005
Venezuela Land Reform Looks to Seize Idle Farmland
By JUAN FORERO

EL CHARCOTE, Venezuela - There may be no more explosive issue in Latin 
American politics than land reform, or how to address the problem of too 
much land in the hands of so few people.

In Latin America land reform has been met with mostly dire results in 
recent decades - failure and widespread violence in Colombia and Brazil, 
coups and revolutions in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. In Africa, 
President Robert G. Mugabe has all but plunged Zimbabwe's economy into ruin 
in the effort to redistribute vast - and vastly unequal - colonial-era 
holdings.

Now comes President Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's left-leaning populist, who has 
promised to end what his government calls "latifundios," estates of at 
least 5,000 hectares, or about 12,350 acres, that remain idle, as part of a 
fast-moving land reform that is being closely watched across the region and 
in Washington, where Mr. Chávez is no favorite of the Bush administration.

Initially, the effort, which began with a land-reform law passed in 2001, 
was met with few complaints as the government redistributed some five 
million acres of public land to peasants. But now, as Mr. Chávez's 
government trains its sights on 6.6 million acres of private holdings, 
farmers are increasingly worried that it will recklessly seize private 
property.

So far, disputes over the distribution of public land have been relatively 
rare, with farmers making complaints in about 5 percent of the cases that 
land they held title to was taken away. But violence is not unheard of, and 
about 80 peasant land invaders have been killed by landowners, most of them 
during Mr. Chávez's six years in office.

Critics say Mr. Chávez's often super-heated language is encouraging land 
invasions in several regions, including here on El Charcote, a 32,000-acre 
spread in Venezuela's northern plains that has been occupied by squatters 
and has become a test case in what Mr. Chávez calls "a peaceful revolution."

With the government ignoring demands to dislodge them, the number of 
squatters has grown from a few dozen four years ago to hundreds today. They 
have built houses, and planted crops that include yucca, corn and sesame seeds.

The vast and verdant expanse of what was once grazing land that they have 
taken over is one where the Vestey Group of Britain had for years operated 
what company officials say was one of Venezuela's most efficient, 
productive ranches, producing three million pounds of beef a year.

The ranch, one of 14 Vestey properties in Venezuela, had been a vital part 
of a century-old empire famous for its string of international ranches in 
Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela, a shipping line and the chain of butcher 
shops in Britain.

But government officials say they believe that much of El Charcote lies 
unnecessarily idle and that the Vestey Group lacks proper title to the 
land, something Vestey contests.

On Jan. 8, the governor of Cojedes State, Jhonny Yánez, a Chávez supporter, 
sent 200 troops to the farm and announced that El Charcote would be 
"intervened," with Vestey's legal status and productivity to be determined 
by April.

"We are here to do justice," Mr. Yánez said during the inspection.

El Charcote continues to raise cattle, but if the government rules against 
Vestey, swaths of the ranch could be expropriated and redistributed to poor 
farmers, including some of those who have already occupied much of the farm.

Mr. Chávez and peasant farmers across Venezuela say such steps are needed 
because a small minority of landowners control a vast majority of arable 
lands, leaving most of the peasantry landless and impoverished and 
Venezuela importing most of its food.

"Any self-respecting revolution cannot permit such a situation," Mr. Chávez 
said earlier this month as he signed a decree forming a national commission 
that will evaluate farms' productivity and the legitimacy of their ownership.

Mr. Chávez's government says its priority is not to expropriate, but rather 
to tax farms into productivity, by levying stiff penalties against land 
that is not being put to use. The plan gives farmers with idle fields two 
years to make them productive.

"We are trying to make a country where agriculture was abandoned into one 
where it is revived," said Marisol Plaza, Venezuela's solicitor general.

The only lands to be seized, the government says, are those that were 
illegally obtained. Other, unproductive lands will be expropriated with 
compensation.

"Those lands that are not productive, we rescue," said Eliezer Otaiza, a 
former army captain and secret police chief who now heads the government's 
National Land Institute. "If they're private, we'll level a tax. Or we can 
expropriate."

Marino Alvarado, a lawyer who studies land issues for the human rights 
group Provea, says Venezuela has been in dire need of agrarian reform since 
a 1960's-era program fell short.

But he says the government's plans are hampered because the authorities do 
not have a registry of land ownership or even know how much arable land 
Venezuela has.

The other serious problem, one even the president's supporters acknowledge, 
is that credits and technical help for poor farmers who have received land 
has not been quickly forthcoming.

"They have already carried out a great land distribution," Mr. Alvarado 
said. "What they need to make sure of now is that the land does become 
productive."

Some of the squatters at El Charcote are plowing over fields with tractors 
bought with government credit. Though they technically have no right to 
farm before the government determines the legality of the Vestey Group's 
title, they seem mostly at ease, playing boccie when the sun is too bright 
to work and hunting for rabbits at night.

"I will not abandon this land," said Félix Rodríguez, 41, as a group of 
squatter farmers nodded in agreement. "We have been working the land here. 
We are not robbing."

Those activities make Anthony Richards, the British-born manager of El 
Charcote, shake his head in frustration.

"It's obviously extremely difficult to work under these conditions," Mr. 
Richards said.

Mr. Richards, who has been working on Vestey properties in Venezuela for 18 
years, says the presence of squatters has forced the farm to cut the size 
of its herd to a little more than 6,000 from 13,500 in 1999. Instead of 
producing 3.3 million pounds of meat a year, the farm now produces about a 
third of that amount, and the work force has fallen to 30 full-time 
employees, down from 70.

Mr. Richards said that the company had provided the authorities with the 
paperwork necessary to prove the farm was productive, and that Vestey's 
ownership was authentic.

"It's like that," Mr. Richards said of the ownership papers, holding his 
hands about two feet apart for effect. "It's that big. It's a book."

But the Vestey Group's opponents are equally adamant that the British firm 
has few rights when it comes to the farm.

"They are the invaders," José Pimentel, a leader of peasants here, said of 
the British company. Indeed, Mr. Pimentel carries a briefcase full of 
government documents challenging Vestey's claims. "They are on land that is 
not theirs."

The sentiment has emboldened people like Rosendo Moreno, 46. He has been 
here with his wife and five children for four years, has built a small 
house and plows with a battered tractor purchased on government credit.

"There are many latifundios with lots of land that isn't used," he said. 
"They do not use it at all. What Chávez wants is to recuperate those fields."

Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org 


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