More than 100 peasant men and women gathered at the headquarters of the National Land Institute (INTi) in Caracas to demand that President Nicolás Maduro’s instructions regarding the situation in the countryside be complied with.
During the action, spokespersons attended and listened including Luis Soteldo, president of INTi, together with other members of INTi’s technical commission. Jesus Osorio, leader of the Platform of Peasant Struggle and participant in the meeting, announced it.
According to Osorio, Soteldo ordered the handing over of ownership of the Bolivarian Bolivarian land in the state of Zulia, Bella Vista in Ciudad Bolivar, Cacho e´ Venao in Portuguesa and La Mata and Araguato in Guárico.
The president of the INTi ordered the inspection of the lands of Valle Bermejo in Lara, La Fortuna in Zulia and El Banco in Guárico for later regularization.
According to Osorio, Luis Soteldo said that he could not hand over the title to Los Tramojos, a property of more than 4800 hectares, located in the Camaguan estuaries of the state of Guárico, since the case is in the hands of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), specifically Judge Maryori Calderón. However, he indicated that he would establish a meeting between the Vice Presidency of the Republic and the TSJ to move the case forward.
It is important to note that Los Tramojos are Venezuelan state lands which were handed over by Commander Hugo Chávez to several peasant families in 2010. During José Ávila’s term as president of INTi, in 2016, a businessman by the name of José Elías Chirimelli was granted ownership and, together with the state security forces, carried out a violent eviction.
Last week more than 40 families tried to recover their land in Los Tramojos, but were violently evicted by the Special Actions Front (FAES) of the Bolivarian National Police, who in turn took the equipment from a TV presenter and an Alba TV contributor, and subsequently erased all recorded content.
The president of INTi offered other vacant lands located near the town of Calabozo in the same state of Guárico, as a confession of his unwillingness to return the land, a proposal that the delegation of Los Tramojos that was present rejected in full.
For Eumari Henríquez, peasant leader, this was not a defeat, but a small setback. He pointed out that the producers spent the night at the INTi headquarters sleeping in hammocks, according to Eumari this is to ensure that, notwithstanding the promise, the land titles actually begin to be delivered; he pointed out that “we will be in vigil, until we see that printed titles we stay”.
