Here, in the capital of Sucre, about 300 miles west of Caracas, fishing is the main industry. Large companies--most owned by European and other capitalist monopolies--dominate the deep seas and, until recently, most of the fishing just off shore. At the same time, thousands of independent fishermen live in tin-roof shacks or other poor housing by the water and struggle to repair boats and other equipment and to market their catch above cost.

Tomás Blanca, a local leader of the National Bolivarian Command of Artisan Fishermen, invited Militant reporters to visit the area to learn about the struggles of fishermen after meeting them in the capital Caracas.

The organization is the largest of those representing small fishermen in Venezuela today, Blanca said. Over the last two years, it has largely replaced the old union of fishermen in the leadership of the some 40,000 working fishermen nationwide. The latter group is controlled by the social democratic Democratic Action party, which alternated with a smaller conservative party, COPEI, in the federal government for decades until Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998.

Blanca and a dozen other leaders of his organization from around the country were in Caracas for a July 16 meeting at the headquarters of what is called the "political command of the revolution." That’s where the Bolivarian Circles--loose formations in neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools that carry out social and political tasks and organize defense guards--are nationally coordinated from.

The fishermen had gone there to voice their demand that a recently adopted law on fishing be carried out. The legislation was approved by the Chávez regime last November. The Law on Fishing and Aquaculture grants independent fishermen exclusive fishing rights up to six nautical miles offshore and grants small fishermen exclusive rights for the fishing of sardines and some other seafood and of all fishing in rivers and lakes inland. The measure sets guidelines for financial assistance to these exploited producers so they can get a living income. It also imposes higher taxes on capitalist fishing companies and standards that could improve conditions for workers employed on the industrial fishing boats.

Along with the Law on Land and Agricultural Development, the new law on fishing has been one of the most contentious measures of the Chávez regime. Democratic Action, COPEI, and other opposition parties in the country’s National Assembly have spearheaded a campaign to "reform" these measures since the failed military coup against Chávez in April. Representatives of capitalist fishing concerns have complained that the law is "discriminatory" against them, reacting most strongly to the unambiguous establishment of zones with exclusive fishing rights for independent fishermen.  
 
Up to 50 percent unemployment
Luis Díaz Villaroel, national coordinator of the Bolivarian Command of Artisan Fishermen, said in a July 16 interview in Caracas that unemployment of up to 50 percent plagues small fishermen. "Nothing can be done to solve this to the end," he stated, "as long as capitalism reigns." Some 80 percent of these fishermen are illiterate, Villaroel added. His organization is demanding that students be mobilized to go to the villages, towns, and barrios in coastal cities to help teach people how to read and write. Such a project could also help establish a culture among youth of attending school to eliminate illiteracy. The government has not heeded this call so far, he said.

These conditions, and the struggle to change them, became more concrete during a July 20 visit to Cumaná. More than 1,500 fishermen and their families live in the San Carlos neighborhood, by the shore, on the eastern end of this city.

Most houses have tin roofs and are built a few feet away from the water, with many fishing boats pulled up on the sand. Most of these fishermen have been unable to work over the last year or so because they can’t get loans to repair boat motors. Without motors, net fishing is mostly ruled out. Those whose boats are in good enough shape go line fishing.

"We are also squeezed by the middlemen," said Yorbanis Bermudez, 22, one of a fishing family of eight living in a three-room, tin-roof house. "We sell a 10-kilogram case (about 22 pounds) of striped mullet for 2,000 bolivars to these people on the market. That same case goes for 20,000 bolivars retail." That was verified with a trip to the local fish market. [$1=1,300 bolivars]. "We do all the work and the middlemen profit," he said.

In the past, the larger fishing companies or the middlemen would lend the fishermen motors in exchange for receiving virtually the entire catch until they were paid off. "It costs 800,000 bolivars just to repair a motor," said Tomás Blanca. "So we were slaves to these people, who would basically rob the fish for a year or more, with the help of the Coast Guard when needed. By the time we would pay off the motors, they would often be broken or in serious need of maintenance and parts, and no funds exist for repairs." Blanca’s main fishing boat has been idled for the last year because of such a broken motor.  
 
New limits for fishing offshore
The large fishing companies--about 30 of them in the Cumaná area, mostly owned by Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian companies, we were told--were also allowed by law to operate as close as three nautical miles off the coast. They often came as close as one mile offshore by paying off the Coast Guard, Blanca said. With their high-tech equipment they would often scoop up all the fish and leave almost nothing behind for the working fishermen.

"That’s why almost all the fishermen are Chavistas," said Rommel Bermudez, referring to those who support the president. Rommel is Yorbanis’s older brother and makes a living fishing part time and working construction jobs as well.

"The Coast Guard is not turning as much of a blind eye to their incursions at night closer to the coast line as they used to do," Rommel Bermudez added, "so there is now enough fish for us."

The trouble is that nothing has been done to alleviate the squeeze on prices and lack of credit at interest rates that are tolerable, Blanca said. Under the new law, the government is supposed to provide 800 billion bolivars (about $40 million) this year to allow the small fishermen to form cooperatives. The cooperatives would help provide financing for motors, refrigeration units, and other equipment so they can market their catch directly rather than having to sell through intermediaries.

"We are fighting here for such a co-op to be founded in this neighborhood," Blanca said. He wasn’t sure whether this will materialize.  
 
Workers employed on big boats
The fishermen said their support for the new fishing law is also based on measures it outlines to force the large fishing companies to pay the minimum wage of 175,000 bolivars per month (about $150) and provide health coverage and other benefits to workers on the industrial boats.

"I have a brother-in-law who worked for one of those companies and used to make 50,000 bolivars per month," said Marco Mutonari, another fisherman in the San Carlos barrio. "Now he makes triple that because of the new law. And he has health insurance."

Many militant workers on these boats are still being fired indiscriminately when they speak up, these fishermen said. There can’t be great universal progress until they can form a union, which the bosses have been successful in preventing so far.

Blanca said bloody confrontations can be expected down the road as many of the promises in the new laws and government decrees remain words on paper and attempts to implement them are resisted violently by los esqualidos--"the squalid ones," the popular designation for the bourgeois opposition to Chávez.

"With Chávez, or without Chávez, the process that we started in 1998 must go on," said Villaroel.

The Bermudez brothers said the illiteracy problem presents a big challenge in organizing the fishermen and in their everyday life. Their father, Francisco Roque, is among those who never learned how to read or write. This is not just a problem that keeps the cultural level down, these fishermen pointed out, but has a practical impact. "We never let Francisco go to the market to sell the fish we catch," Rommel Bermudez said. "The sharks on the fish market know he can’t read and will rob him more when they do the accounting."

But the problem extends to younger generations. While all four Bermudez brothers had gone to school, many other kids in the fishing communities are forced to skip classes. These children grow up working at sea. Their energy is needed to row the boats, especially in the absence of working motors, so there is no time for school.  
 
Learning about the Cuban Revolution
Delia Bermudez, Rommel and Yorbanis’s mother, said she has heard from several Cuban physical education teachers and doctors who have been living in the area the last two years that Cuba eliminated illiteracy quickly after the 1959 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

"I don’t know exactly how they did it, but that’s what we need here," she said. These Cuban volunteers are in the country as part of an assistance program by the Cuban government to Venezuela and many other semicolonial countries. A strikingly high number of fishermen and other rural toilers spoke highly of the Cuban volunteers. Tomás Blanca and many other leaders of his organization said they have concluded that what they are fighting for cannot be realized without a social revolution. Ana Bejarano is an economist who works with the national leadership of Blanca’s group in Caracas. She had recently been to Cuba on the invitation of the Federation of University Students. "I am convinced," she said in a July 16 interview, reflecting statements made by other leaders of the fishermen’s struggle, "that what we need here is a revolution like in Cuba."  
 
 
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