From both sides of the Pan-American Highway, in what is popularly known as the South of the Lake, you can see large tracts of the country’s best lands, called A1 in the Law of Lands and Agrarian Development. The denomination refers to the degrees of aptitude of the land. A1, A2, A3, N1, N2, highly suitable land, moderately suitable, marginally suitable, temporarily unsuitable and permanently unsuitable, respectively.
A1 is highly suitable for agricultural production. For this reason, the struggle for the productive reactivation of the countryside takes on great importance in the area. The La Chapala farm, located in the municipality of Obispo Ramos de Lora in the state of Mérida, is no exception.
Since October 2018, 78 peasant families have joined the 600 hectare farm. The families have begun to produce approximately 150 hectares.
The specific feature is that the farm already had a rescue because of unproductiveness in the hands of its former landowner. The rescue in favour of Agropecuaria de la Fuerza Armada (Agrofanb) did not reverse the conditions of unproductivity or low productivity. It is the hands of the peasants who are reversing this situation of land abandonment. For this reason, they propose the necessity for a rescue over the previous one. Their objective is for the National Land Institute to revoke (in part) the agrarian law in favour of Agrofanb and deliver it to the peasant community. In order to achieve this, they have begun to carry out the necessary procedures, making the corresponding denunciation accompanied by current images that show the state of the farm.
Unlike other properties in the area, where peasants have faced organized land violence, expressed in the form of killings, threats from armed groups, destruction of crops, in the case of La Chapala fortunately there were no situations of this kind. There is, however, judicial persecution of peasant leaders by the Acting Assistant Prosecutor of the Mérida District Public Prosecutor’s Office, Dr. Jesús Leonardo Ojeda Coronel. An investigation based on the denunciation of a civilian on an Agrofanb property, a denunciation that does not even include the identity of the denouncer. It is not the first time that this prosecutor has attacked the peasant community, we must remember his actions weeks ago in Montecarlo, where he accused Adelis García of not caring about the death of his son, murdered by hired killers a little less than a year ago.
The peasant community of La Chapala, which is forming its peasant councils, is facing an extremely difficult situation: the flooding of the land in the face of persistent rains and overflowing of the rivers of the property. Dozens and dozens of hectares remain under the water, thus causing the loss of crops (mainly bananas) and months of work. In order to appreciate the arduous work of the families, we must take up again the words of the peasant José Gregorio Salcedo, who commented that it took them 42 days to clear the access to reach the plots. 42 days of manual labour, with only a few machetes. More than a month of weeding the land given the situation of abandonment in which it found itself. Then came the time for preparing the land and sowing. Which in many cases was ruined by overflowing rivers and rains.
However, these difficulties due to inclement weather can be easily resolved if the production carried out by peasant families is supported: channelling of the river, backhoes, machinery to open ditches and necessary drainage. These are simple requests from peasant families who carry out these tasks manually, with more will than tools.
The peasant community is clear that they are struggling to produce. They do it together with organizations that support this fight, as is the case of the Revolutionary Current Bolívar and Zamora, even though authorities of the National Land Institute of El Vigía have asked the peasants to stay away from these organizations, as happened when the coordinators presented the denunciation of unproductiveness to the institution.
But the peasants are firm in their willingness to fight for the reactivation of production in the countryside, they are clear that the more they sow, the closer they are to achieving the desired objective of achieving the agrarian charter. It is their way of supporting the path towards food sovereignty that the country needs in times of siege and economic blockade.
Prensa Corriente Revolucionaria Bolívar y Zamora
Translation by Internationalist 360°
