Chávez launches farm offensive

Guardian Weekly, January 21 - 27, 2005

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President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela signed a decree on the "reorganisation of property and use of farmland" last week. The first target of the new measure is the huge 32,000-acre (13,000 hectares) estate of El Charcote, the property of the Vestey family since 1903.

The authorities are disputing the property right for 8,600 acres of the ranch. Earlier this month the governor of Cojedes sent in a large force of police and troops.

Peasant farmers who have been occupying part of the ranch for four years are afraid they may be ousted. "The governor cannot force us to leave," one of them said. "We want to rescue El Charcote from the English. They're the ones who invaded the land."

Mr Chávez said: "The war on oversized estates is central to the Bolivarian revolution. We need to reorganise the ownership of land, which should be given to small farmers, the people actually doing the work."

The disputed land law, originally passed in 2001, has never before come into force. The decree aims to take advantage of initiatives by the pro- Chávez governors of three states - Cojedes, Monagas and Yaracuy - to enforce the law. Chavez has called on 19 other states to endorse the decree.

Manuel Rosales opposition governor of the oil-rich sate of Zulia said that the priority was not "to hand out land like Santa Claus, but to apply Venezuela's agricultural policy and principles of social justice to farming."

The government claims to have identified 500 properties not being farmed and 56 oversized estates, totalling 25 million acres.

Previous welfare programmes have focused on the urban poor, Chávez's key electorate. But, as he explained: "We have started a big leap forward. Hold tight, because it's going to be a giant leap."

Paulo A Paranagua, Le Monde