Land Reform Conflict in Venezuela’s Strategic Water Source

Land Reform Conflict in Venezuela’s Strategic Water Source
August, 14 2008

By James Suggett
Source: venezuelanalysis

Mérida, August 8, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- Cooperativist ecological farmers supported by the Venezuelan government's land reform programs were attacked last Thursday by armed and masked men who, the farmers say, were hired by large estate owners in the area to cut short the changes heralded by the "Bolivarian Revolution" in their rural Andean Mountain valley.

"I sat with my daughter in my arms in our tent so they could not burn our things. They used obscene words and said they did not want people like us here and they would kill us and burn everything if we did not get off the lands," reported Yuly Barrios to the state Attorney General last Friday.

Approximately 30 aggressors used machetes, metal pipes, and gasoline to rip apart the large tents in which the farmers live, sabotage the motor and wheels of the tractor they had obtained from the government's Socialist Agrarian Fund (FONDAS), steal video and photographic equipment, and loot the small settlements, while the state police observed passively from a distance.

The assaults occurred in a forested valley called El Vallecito, which hugs an offshoot of the Mucujún River, a principal water source for the nearby city of Mérida and the entire Andean region.

Despite the quaint setting, the clash between politically opposed residents, like a pinched nerve shooting through the national nervous system, exemplifies the complex interplay of national priorities regarding food, natural resources, property, and citizen security, and is a reminder of the fierce tactics opposition forces are willing to use to destabilize government initiatives.

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