This is what Pablo Villamizar, a peasant at El Charcote ranch, told the Militant July 9. His comments were typical among dozens of peasants interviewed here. The ranch is part of the Rómulo Gallegos municipality, about 10 miles south of San Carlos, the capital of Cojedes state.

Villamizar’s family is among 800 that have been occupying most of the estate for five years. The 32,000-acre cattle ranch is operated by Agroflora, referred to here as the “English company” because it is owned by the Vesteys, a British capitalist family. The Vestey Group owns 14 ranches in Venezuela spanning 865,000 acres, most of them in Apure state, where the cattle are bred. It has similar investments in Argentina and Brazil.

On January 8, Cojedes governor Jhonny Yánez sent National Guard troops to El Charcote to accompany inspectors who would determine within three months whether the Vesteys had legally obtained title to the ranch. The action coincided with a decree issued by President Hugo Chávez, titled “war on the large estates,” aimed at speeding up land reform.

In March the Cojedes government said Agroflora did not prove legal title to nearly 15,000 acres of El Charcote, which were declared state land. The governor promised to turn over by September titles to peasants tilling those areas and to evict peasants occupying privately owned land.

“The governor intervened to salvage the interests of the landowners,” said José Pimentel, a leader of the occupation and a member of the Ezequiel Zamora National Peasant Front. “He has agreed the remaining land can be held by the English, who are the invaders. Six months after the inspectors went in, not a single peasant has a title yet, and many of us are threatened with removal. Since the beginning of our struggle, the National Guard evicted us once. Hit men of the English company are operating with impunity. Over the last year and a half, one peasant has been killed by the flying squads of the landowners and three have been ‘disappeared.’”

Peasants at El Charcote come from various backgrounds. Pastor Oliveros said in the 1990s he worked in factories and other companies in Valencia, about 80 miles northeast of San Carlos, but could not make a living since he was laid off from one job after another. Others were landless rural workers here.  
 
Half decade of struggle
Some are young. Doris Freite, 21, and her family are growing corn on about 35 acres. “We are fighting for this land,” she said. “I joined the struggle when I was 16.” At that time, some 600 families occupied parts of the ranch that were largely idle. The Law on Land and Agricultural Development, which the government passed in November 2001, encouraged the peasants to persist. That law allowed peasants cultivating idle or unproductive lands to seek legal title.

“Without a title we can’t get loans and have no machinery,” Freite said. “To work the land, we have to use machetes and plant by hand. But at least now we have the right to a plot of land and they haven’t been able to kick us out of here. These days the English don’t mess with us too much. Before they used to come to insult us or let loose their cattle on our children and our crops.”

Now most peasants have fenced in their ranchos (shacks) and surrounding land to prevent cattle from trampling on their produce. About 5,700 head of cattle roam the adjacent pastures, according to ranch manager Anthony Richards, down from 14,000 five years ago.

Local authorities have refused to provide running water or electricity to the peasants here, even in the areas declared state land, citing legal appeals by Agroflora. “That’s for those who have money,” said Ender Pirela, pointing to the electrical lines running parallel to the 10-mile-long road crossing the ranch. Pirela operates a van on that road transporting peasants to nearby towns, in addition to cultivating his 30 acres. “What an injustice,” he said, “to see the electricity posts meters or kilometers away and not to have access to light.” Wood is used for heating water and cooking.

While the lack of farm machinery is nearly universal, some have managed to drill wells and install manual pumps and have diversified production. Ferboss Quintero and his wife Ana Julia grow a variety of hot and sweet peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, yucca, onions, melons, bananas, and other fruits and vegetables. Recently they have also planted cocoa trees. Sesame is another common crop here. “We sell to the Mercals at low prices,” said Ana Julia Quintero. She was referring to government stores that provide basic foodstuffs—like rice, salt, sugar, cooking oil, chicken, canned fish, and dairy products—at prices as low as half the market cost. Mercals are now spreading across the country. “Our goal is not only to survive on the land but to provide food for the country,” Quintero said.

Venezuela imports over 60 percent of its food from Canada, the U.S., Brazil, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, about 5 percent of the population owns 75 percent of the arable land, much of which is idle. According to the government’s National Land Institute, at least 115,000 peasant families have won land titles since 2001. But most rural toilers, some 3 million people, or 13 percent of the population, remain landless. Many, like those here, have been pressing for land and low-interest loans from state banks.  
 
Polarization between social classes
At the same time, polarization between social classes is growing. Big farmers and ranchers and other capitalists—who control the factories, banks, stores, transportation, and most media—are also becoming bolder in defending their interests. They are working with bourgeois forces within the governing Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) and with the U.S.-backed opposition, while using their own hired guns to intimidate peasants.

According to the July 1 El Nacional, one of Venezuela’s main dailies, the owners of El Charcote, Piñero, Paraima, and La Bendicción Ramera ranches have filed suits to reverse National Land Institute (INTi) decisions to declare part of their territory state land. The first week of July, opposition deputies in the National Assembly filed a motion asking the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional the 2001 agrarian reform law. The same week, the Supreme Court agreed to put on hold a 2003 INTi decision granting titles to peasants who had occupied the 13,000-acre Coquito ranch in Altagracia de Orituco, Guárico state.

INTi officials go out of their way to explain the government is not expropriating land. In a July 11 interview, Militant reporters asked Ibelis Vernet, an economist at INTi’s national headquarters in Caracas, whether the takeover of El Charcote was the first such action. Vernet replied the land was not expropriated, it was “rescued.” Since the Vesteys could not prove legal title to that part of the ranch, it became state property, she said. Venezuela’s constitution, she noted, upholds the sanctity of private property.

Peasants at El Charcote said that Governor Yánez, an MVR leader, sent inspectors to help Agroflora keep more than half the ranch. During a July 11 march in Caracas of some 5,000 peasants, Militant reporters found out that Yánez’s actions are not an aberration. In some states the National Guard and police have been repeatedly used to evict peasants from land they’ve occupied (see “Venezuelan peasants demand land, protest thug attacks” in July 25 Militant).  
 
Hired guns of big landowners
The legal offensive by big ranchers and other capitalists is backed by intimidation and killings of peasants. It is succeeding in slowing down land reform and frustrating the efforts of thousands for land and credits. At the Yauqera, a 62,000-acre area near El Charcote that the courts recently awarded to peasants, Julio Emenegildo Rodríguez, 62, was shot dead the night of April 29 while guarding the peasants’ camp. He was one of 138 peasants killed the last six years by thugs of big landowners.

While leaving El Charcote, just before sunset, we saw one of the Vesteys’ “flying squads”—two men riding a motorcycle through the fields. One of them, fairly young, carried a shotgun. Minutes earlier he had fired shots in the air.

“These hit men get on their bikes and come out only in the evenings,” said Ender Pirela. “They are cowards who get paid to intimidate us. But we are not afraid. El Charcote belongs to the peasants. We are tired of being exploited like peons. We will stay.”

Whether the peasants here, and in farms across the country, succeed in this goal or are evicted, however, depends on whether the capitalist class maintains state power.

Olympia Newton contributed to this article.
 
 
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