Analysis: Land Reform

“Where was the United States and the international human rights organizations when they were trying to kill us and steal our land?” said Braulio Álvarez, of Yaracuy, Venezuela. He said 6,000 people were killed from the 1950s to the 1980s by paramilitaries and security forces loyal to the right-wing governments that preceded Chávez. The U.S. and international human rights organizations, he said, “only started caring about human rights when Chávez came to power.”

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From within the collectives we are provoking a grassroots constituent debate for a new revolutionary seed law, built from the bottom by the legislating people, in defense of a free, criolla, indigenous,peasant, Afro-descendant and sovereign seed, which is under threat by the advances of transnational authorities who would like to control political stability in the country. 

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Over the past two months, efforts to introduce a bill in the Venezuelan National Assembly that could have paved the way for the entrance of transgenic seeds into the country met stiff opposition from the agroecology and ecosocialist movements, stopping Monsanto and other GM firms from getting a foothold in the country.

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A combination of government support and community food growing initiatives is changing the face of the Venezuela’s food sustainability. Miriam Ross shares a taste of the results.

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Jacob Foucault writes his personal experience of a grassroots land occupation in a wealthy area of the city of Barquisimeto, in Lara state to the west of Venezuela.   

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It is not Hugo Chavez who endangers Venezuelans, but the greedy landowners killing peasant farmers with impunity.

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In this interview with the Ministry of Communication and Information in April, Venezuelan Vice-president Elias Jaua discusses the opposition, the dynamics of the PSUV party and his time as Minister of Agriculture. Jaua has recently been granted some presidential authorities, such as the right to approve expropriations, and would assume the presidency should Chávez become unable to continue governing.

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