Guarico Peasants Evicted by Police from Their Rightful Lands
Producers in Guárico state, organized in the Ezequiel Zamora Peasant Council, tried to recover Los Tramojos, 4800 hectares of land that were granted by the national government to this group of peasants in 2010 and then transfered in 2016, by the National Land Institute (INTI), to a landowner named José Elias Chirimelli.
Chirimelli is a right wing landowner and anti-chavista activist in total compliance with US intervention in Venezuela as can be seen in his retweet below posted by the Venezuelan outlet “La Tabla”:
El terrateniente José Chirimelli Hurtado, presunto propietario de Hato Los Tramojos #Guarico, en conflicto con colectivo campesino chavista, es activista opositor y apoya intervención de EEUU contra #Venezuela. Véanlo en su cuenta @josechirimelli pic.twitter.com/o5ueOPpVDY
— La Tabla (@latablablog) June 19, 2019
The action was handled by the municipal police of Camaguán who proceeded to remove the banners, the Zamoran flags and those of Venezuela that the peasants had posted at the entrance of the property.
Later they were evicted, under threat, by the Special Actions Force (FAES), Bolivarian National Police (PNB) unit, who also confiscated media equipment from two popular communicators who recorded the peasant action.
The Tramojos are productive lands of the state, located in the Municipality of Esteros de Camaguán. They were handed over, in 2010, by the very commander Hugo Chávez to those now evicted, who were dedicated to the production of cattle and conucos.
According to Andrés Eleazar Ochoa, a campesino participant in the seizure, in 2016 they were for the first time evicted by order of the agrarian judge María Margarita Salazar, later, under the management of José Ávila, the INTI handed over the ownership to the lawyer José Elias Chirimelli who executed the eviction with the support of the agrarian court, the Camaguan mayor’s office, at that time under the management of the current governor of Guarico, Jose Vásquez, and the security forces of the “llanero” state.
“Even though we were prosperous, we took our harvest and meat to the people, that dispossession of land (in 2016) was very violent: they tied our feet and hands, women, elders and children alike, destroyed the conucos and took the cattle” said Ochoa.
It was thus that they undertook a route to request by different means the return of the lands and to denounce the irregularity with the ownership of the same, even during the meeting of the Admirable peasant march with President Nicolás Maduro in August of last year.
In spite of President Maduro’s instruction to return the land dispossessed to the agricultural producers, before the silence and the absence of answers, the Peasant Council decided to recover the land.
Jesús Osorio, campesino leader who was briefly detained yesterday, addresses a message to @maduro_en denouncing repression of campesinos by security forces in Guarico State, and warning that the president’s instructions aren’t being followed https://t.co/JAQjVX88As
— venezuelanalysis.com (@venanalysis) June 19, 2019
“We are desperate nobody gives an answer, the cattle we have grazing on the roadside, skinny and in danger of accidents,” said the agricultural producer and member of the Peasant Council, Andrés Ochoa.
In this sense, 40 families tried to recover, on Tuesday, June 18, Los Tramojos and witnessed the security forces shaking hands, with smiles and complacent postures, with the landowner Chirimelli who was present.
This is how the FAES evicts the peasants later, threatening them and intimidating them with their weapons, while holding the peasant leader Jesús Osorio, leader of the Platform for Peasant Struggle, an organization that was always supportive of the action.
It is important to note that the FAES, in addition to retaining the media equipment of popular communicators on the ground, erased the recording they had been making, and then returned the equipment to ensure that there was no evidence.
Once Osorio was out of Los Tramojos, the leaders of the recovery proceeded to hold an assembly to plan the next actions to recover their right and duty with dignity, the lands of Los Tramojos that are currently in the hands of Chirimelli.
Source URL: AlbaTV with OT content
Translated by JRE/EF
