[Marxism] Murder of working farmer sparks protests in Venezuela's Yarucay state

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Murder of Small Farmer Rights Organizer Sparks Protests in Yaracuy,
Venezuela 
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4235


Mérida, February 20th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- Small farmer
rights groups plan to march across the city of San Felipe in
Venezuela?s Yaracuy state this Saturday to demand that the hired
assassins of Nelson López, a small farmer rights organizer, be brought
to justice.

López, who was shot fifteen times in the back last Thursday, is the
213th small farmer (campesino) to be murdered since 2001, the year the
government of President Hugo Chávez passed a sweeping land reform law
which set the conditions for re-distribution of idle sections of large
estates to small farmers, according to the Ezequiel Zamora National
Farmers? Front (FNCEZ), one of the groups convoking Saturday?s marches.

According to Braulio Álvarez, a National Assembly deputy and farmer
rights organizer from Yaracuy state, the directors of the National
Cattle Ranchers Association and the National Federation of Cattle
Ranchers (FEDENAGAS), along with two powerful landowners, were
responsible for planning López?s murder. 

?How much longer will the murder of small farmers at the hands of
Colombian paramilitaries and hired assassins, financed by large estate
owners and FEDENAGAS, remain in impunity?? Álvarez asked during a town
hall meeting organized by the Unified Regional Agrarian Command (CRAU)
in Yaracuy on Thursday.

FEDENAGAS and the other implicated cattle ranchers associations have not
issued a response to the accusations.

The FNCEZ, Venezuela?s Culture Ministry, the regional director of the
Agriculture and Lands Ministry, three leaders of the small farmer
rights movement, and several members of the National Association of
Free, Alternative, Community Media (ANMCLA) were also present at the
town hall meeting. 

These organizations demanded that the Venezuelan Attorney General
dismiss Yaracuy District Attorney Alejandro Márquez for having accused
Nelson López of being an ?invader? of private property, and District
Judge Linda Lugo for having served the interests of large estate owners
and FEDENAGAS against small farmers in Yaracuy. 

The organizations also spoke of the ?historical debt? owed to small
farmers, based on the oppression experienced by small farmers at the
hands of the Spanish oligarchy for several centuries.




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