Peasant leader’s murder won’t stop land reform

The class struggle in Venezuela is raging. The workers and peasants are on one side, while the landlords and capitalists are on the other. The rich are aided and abetted by the imperialist powers, particularly the United States.

Under President Hugo Chávez, everything the people do to advance the Bolivarian process of putting people’s needs before corporations’ is met with unimaginable pressure, threats, sabotage, torture and murder.

March 19 was one of those days. On that morning, Luis Enrique Perez, a peasant leader of the National Peasant Front Ezequiel Zamora, was murdered by hired thugs in Barinas state, close to the Colombian border. The killers used machete blows to do the job.

According to the National Front and other peasant accounts, the bloody hands belong to a notorious local landowner, Armando Javier Mogollon, who has threatened to kill peasants in the past. He is known for his connections with the drug cartels and the Colombian paramilitaries.

Luis Enrique Perez was working on the edge of the Caparo River when he was killed. A few minutes after his compañeros found his body, an airplane with paramilitaries was seen leaving Mogollon’s Agualinda Ranch.

Under the new Land Act, implemented in 2001, large tracts of idle land have been allocated to those wanting to operate them. Eighteen thousand hectares of Agualinda Ranch fall into this category. The peasants, organized into the Agua linda 6 Cooperative, expect a final decree any day now that would give legality to lands they have been fighting for years to get.

The struggle cannot be decided in legal terms alone, however, as Perez’ murder demonstrates. There have been many cases of peasant murders, threats and persecution. What happens on the ground in the struggle between the classes is decisive.

For example, peasants accuse Gen. Oswaldo Bracho, headquartered near the town of Zamora Levic, where the murder took place, of gross violations against them. The mayor of the town agrees that the general has come down on the side of the landowners by intimidating and arresting the peasants, while ignoring the paramilitary forces amassed by the landowners. Mayor Emilio Mendez is a member of Chávez’ party, the Fifth Column, and has been unable to control Bracho.

The oligarchy still owns the land. The struggle for state power, including land redistribution, has not been played out in Venezuela. This is why there can be contradictions like a military leader and a civilian official ending up on opposite sides of the barricades.

In the past seven years, the workers and peasants in Venezuela have gained strength and confidence through their Bolivarian process. President Chávez has been instrumental in bringing this about. On March 20, Chávez called for a deepening of the agrarian revolution in order to deepen the revolutionary process.

The National Peasant Front Ezequiel Zamora, fighting these contradictions on the ground, calls for arming the peasantry so they can defend themselves. They also call for no more impunity for those such as Bracho.

It’s a critical time for Venezuela. The contradictions inherit in class struggle manifest themselves in many forms. The victory of the Bolivarian revolution will be key in solving some of these problems. It will also help advance the world working-class struggle.