[Marxism] land reform in Venezuela

[Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

_www.veninfo.org_ (http://www.veninfo.org)   -
 
 
Property tug of war hits Venezuela
By Danna Harman
The  Christian Science Monitor
Thurs., June 2,  2005.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0602/p06s01-woam.html


HATO  PIÃERO, VENEZUELA â Jaime Branger's great-great-grandfather was the
first in  his family to reach the shores of Venezuela. It was the end of
the 19th  century, and he had set off from Corsica to Panama to partake in
building the  canal - but got sidetracked and ended up here. He married a
local woman,  saved pennies working as a mapmaker, and soon began buying
plots of land: a  few acres here, a small farm there.

In time, the acres added up, and  when, in 1950, "Don" Antonio Julio,
Branger's great-uncle, inherited several  of the family holdings, he became
one of the biggest landowners in the  country. He created a successful
cattle ranch with 11,000 cows, along with a  private nature reserve that
has become a mecca for bird-watchers from around  the world.

Now the government wants to take it all away.

"He loved  this place," says Jaime, the Don's strapping nephew, who today
oversees the  family's 200,000-acre cattle farm, called Hato PiÃero. "He
would be  heartbroken now."

If President Hugo ChÃvez has his way, Hato PiÃero  (www.hatopinero.com),
along with other large private land holdings across the  country, will soon
be parceled out as part of Venezuela's "revolution for the  poor." Mr.
ChÃvez's land-reform program envisions impoverished peasants and  families
from city slums coming to the countryside to farm expropriated land  the
government has deemed underutilized.

The plan, depending on one's  perspective, makes ChÃvez either Robert
Mugabe - the Zimbabwean leader who  took land from wealthy farmers and gave
it to the poor, only to see the  country's agricultural sector and economy
take a nosedive - or Abraham  Lincoln, who through the 1862 Homestead Act
turned the dream of property  ownership into a reality for the masses.

Either way, says Steve Ellner, a  professor of politics at Venezuela's
University of the East, "What is clear  is the old system needs changing.
But whether this is a viable new model is  unclear."

Much land in few hands

In this oil-rich country of 25  million, just 3 million people live in
rural areas, and most food - including  staples like beans, corn, milk,
sugar, beef, and chicken - is imported. The  government says 97 percent of
rural land is owned by just 10 percent of the  population.

When ChÃvez's land-reform bill was passed in November 2001,  it helped
trigger massive protests by opposition groups, paralyzing the  country that
winter. The issue then died down, as the government began  redistributing
its own massive land holdings first. All told, 5.4 million  acres - of some
27 million acres - of unused government land was handed out  to 135,000
poor families.

Then last January, private landowners were  told their land was next.
Letters were sent to medium and large landowners  demanding property titles
be produced dating back to 1848 (the year private  land holdings were first
registered). Inspectors from the National Land  Institute (INTI) fanned out
across the country to "investigate" what the  lands were being used for and
by whom.

At Hato PiÃero, two-dozen men  showed up with maps and GPS devices and
stayed for a month: measuring,  surveying, eating, and sleeping at the
ranch. Meanwhile, Mr. Branger put  together a seven-person team of lawyers
and historians to prove his family's  ties to the ranch. So far, his team
has handed over transfer-of-ownership  documents dating back to 1884, but
have not been able to get earlier records  certified because they are in
the National Archive where there is one lone  transcriber.

In mid-March, INTI made its assessment: Five ranches,  including PiÃero and
nearby Charcote - one of Venezuela's top beef-producing  ranches, owned by
Vestey Group, a British food company - were to be  redistributed. The lands
were deemed public property and "mostly  unproductive," according to the
INTI statement. The owners had two months to  respond before action was
taken.

"We believe that the land agency has  been badly advised," Diana Dos
Santos, president of the Vestey subsidiary  here, said at a press
conference last month.

Days before the May  deadline, Branger and others appealed INTI's decision
in the courts,  temporarily slowing down any action against them. "At the
end of the day, the  government can do whatever they want to us and our
land," admits Branger,  "but we will not give them any excuse to catch us
[napping]." The Vestey  Group, meanwhile, may take the case to
international arbitration under a  Venezuela-British investment-protection
agreement.

In Hato PiÃero's  case, there is an additional element at play. As Branger
explains, 75 percent  of the land is gallery forests and flood plains that
cannot be used for  ranching and are maintained as a reserve. Nature lovers
from around the world  come here, paying $100 a night, to catch a glimpse
of tapirs, yellow-knobbed  curassows, and jaguars. Branger and other
environmentalists are concerned  that a government takeover of the land
would lead to the depredation of areas  in need of protection.

ChÃvez supporters argue, in turn, that the  Brangers are using their
conservation efforts as a ruse to protect privilege  rather than the
ecosystem. "No private owner can manage the biological and  forest reserves
for their own benefit, exploiting as a tourist business this  resource that
belongs to the whole country," INTI President EliÃcer Otaiza  said last
month. "This land belongs to all of us."

The Abraham Lincoln  of Venezuela?

Unlike other, unsuccessful, land-reform programs in the  1970s, the
Venezuelan government this time is promising to form  cooperatives,
instruct the new farmers, and forbid resale of the land.  Initially, at
least, the government will be the legal owner of the land.  Because of
this, says Seth DeLong of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs  in
Washington, the proper historical parallel with what ChÃvez is doing  is
Lincoln during the Civil War.

"As with the Homestead Act, the  ChÃvez government retains ownership of the
land until such time as the land  is deemed productive by the country's
Land Institute," he says.

Far  away from Hato PiÃero, in Caracas's poor Pinto Salina neighborhood,
Manuel  Romero has heard about the government offer of land to the poor.
Though he is  not sure exactly how or what he would farm, he is vaguely
interested, he  says, in "anything that will bring in more money." He
currently makes about  $80 a month - more than most Venzeualans, 60 percent
of whom live on $2 a day  or less, according to government statistics.

His eldest daughter, Nuri,  laughs at the idea. "What us? Ranchers?" she
teases. "Perhaps ChÃvez can work  such magic."

â Ms. Harman is Latin America bureau chief for the Monitor  and USA Today.


Venezuela Information Office
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Washington, DC 20005
t. 202-347-8081
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