A gathering of community members at the El Maizal Commune in Lara state, Venezuela. Photo credit: Comuna El Maizal/file photo.
The El Maizal commune, located in the Simón Planas municipality in Lara state, near Barquisimeto, will celebrate its sixteenth anniversary on March 5, 2025. As part of the anniversary festivities, they will honor the emotional passing of Commander President Hugo Chávez twelve years ago with cultural events.
The event will take place on the premises of the commune near the Simón Planas toll booth throughout the day, starting in the morning with a communal assembly titled “16 Years Creating a Commune and Building Humanity.” Participants will include the Minister of Communes, Social Movements, and Agriculture, Ángel Prado; Roxana Fernández; Juan Lenzo; Elías Sánchez; and other guests.
In the afternoon, community members will march from the entrance of the El Maizal commune to the “Samán Comunero,” a symbolic tree where they met with Commander Chávez on March 5, 2009. Songs and cultural activities will pay homage to the promoter of the communes, President Hugo Chávez.
The sixteenth-anniversary activities will conclude with a concert titled “For Chávez, for Ali, and for the Commune,” beginning at five in the afternoon. Performers will include Sandino Primera, Amaranta, Comemaíz, Campesinos RAP, Agua Sala, the Argimiro Gabaldón Cultural Collective, the Cantoría of the Ruta Cigarrón Foundation, Ali Primera from Yaracuy, and Raíces Nuestras from Montalbán.
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The El Maizal commune emerged as a model in the implementation of the plan against Venezuelan latifundia, promoted by President Hugo Chávez in March 2009. The commune rescued more than 2,000 hectares of land, transferring it to peasants who formed Social Production Units (UPS). In record time, they planted 146 hectares of beans and other agricultural products on land that had previously been underutilized.
On November 29, 2009, from the communal saman tree, then-President Hugo Chávez broadcast his notable program Aló Presidente number 344. During the broadcast, he congratulated the commune for demonstrating its capacity for agricultural management and reiterated his denunciation of “capitalism and slave labor,” which he argued only benefited a few.
(Últimas Noticias) by Carmen Luzardo
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SH
