BY CHRISTANO KERRILLA
In the poorer districts of Caracas, the Policia Metropolitana (Metropolitan Police — PM) were never looked upon with high regard. There is a local saying in the barrios that it is better to be left with the muggers than with the PM. Since 2002, however, the PM have become an instrument of brutal repression against supporters of the revolutionary pro-poor government of President Hugo Chavez.
Under the authority of the mayor of greater Caracas Alfredo Pena, one of Chavez government's most notorious opponents, the PM was increasingly utilised to violently attack Chavista demonstrations with tear gas and bullets.
In response, the Chavez government has moved to rein in the PM. Caracas police complain that Venezuelan government soldiers now search them as they enter or leave their buildings, and allow them to conduct only limited patrols. The PM have been essentially disarmed — their officers' submachine guns, tear-gas grenades and shotguns have been seized and many police vehicles impounded. Armoured personnel carriers have been stationed outside police precincts to monitor the PM officers' movements.
"They took all of our arms except the .38-calibre revolvers", moaned Pinto, chief of the police department's Phoenix motorcycle brigade, in an April 18 Associated Press report. "We're practically defenceless."
In December, Venezuela's Supreme Court ordered the Chavez government to return control of the city's 9000 police to Pena. However, Chavez has refused, pointing to the PM's involvement in the April 2002 coup attempt against his government. They were "the lance that started the coup", Chavez declared. Three days before the coup, PM cops fired into a protest killing at least three people.
Struggle for land
The struggle between the forces of the poor and the wealthy is also escalating in Venezuela's rural areas. In a small town in northern Venezuela, according to an article by Gregory Wilpert in the May-June issue of New Left Review (see <http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR25505.shtml>), a man wearing a ski mask shot Pedro Doria, a respected surgeon and leader of the local land committee, five times. The committee led by Doria was in the process of claiming title to idle land which, according to government records, belonged to the state. As such, it could be legally transferred to the 50 peasant families that had applied for ownership.
However, a big local landlord (latifundista) had also claimed title to the property, and on several occasions had refused to let Doria and government representatives inspect it. The landowner is a close friend of former Venezuelan president Carlos Andre Perez, who was driven from office for corruption and is said to own more than 60,000 hectares of land through third parties, the vast majority of it idle.
The shooting of Doria was not an isolated case of paramilitary violence against the social movements in Venezuela. According to the NLR, more than 50 peasant leaders were assassinated in the previous year by paramilitaries in the service of Venezuela's landlords and capitalist oligarchy. None of the murderers have been punished as the police forces in most rural regions are heavily corrupted and have links to the elite.
Despite President Chavez's successes in the struggle for control over Venezuela's political and economic institutions, the class war is still being fought intensely at the grassroots level, and many sections of the state remain under the control of the elite.
In response to this repression, Vheadline.com reported on May 4 that National Lands Institute (INTI) president Adan Chavez had announced that government is to set up rural security brigades (BSRs) to protect groups of small farmers and peasants who have applied to work idle land in areas where rural leaders have been murdered.
The land reform that will take place in 2003 and 2004 will be central to the future political direction to be taken by Venezuela. As of April, around 200,000 hectares have been redistributed to 4500 families. The government plans to accelerate the land reform program so that by August, more than 130,000 families will have received a total of 1.5 million hectares — an average of about 10 hectares per family.
Three new institutions have been formed to back up the land redistribution: the INTI, which is responsible for land tenancy; the National Rural Development Institute, which is in charge of technical and infrastructure support to small producers; and the Venezuelan Agricultural Corporation, which provides farmers with marketing assistance.
Urban land redistribution
Land redistribution will also occur in the urban areas. According to the May-June NLR article, 90% of Venezuelans live in towns and cities, with 60% of these people living in informal settlements. The government plans to transfer ownership of state-owned land to squatters, predicting that around 500,000 plots will be handed over by the end of 2003. However, only 33% of the land occupied by squatters belongs to the state, while one-third belongs to private landowners and one-third is contested.
For private land to be redistributed, special legislation is required. Chavez's party, the Fifth Republic Movement, has drawn up the Special Law to Regularise Land Tenancy in Poor Urban Settlements, which is due to be passed after extensive consultations with the affected poor communities, via their Land Committees, which are popular councils elected by communities of up to 200 families.
These consultations have resulted in changes such as a provision to allow for communal property. Once the reform is fully implemented, it could benefit up to 10 million Venezuelans or 40% of the population.
It is estimated around 150,000 people are now involved in Land Committees. The committees also perform a wide variety of tasks apart from seeking property titles and the formulation of land laws, most significantly they include self-government (and "self-transformation") of the barrios.
The land reform process will not only redistribute wealth and property in Venezuela, but it will massively consolidate and raise the mass consciousness in support of the revolutionary process that is underway. It will also seriously undermine the opposition's goal of overthrowing the Chavez government.
According to Chavez supporters, it is the first step in establishing real participatory democracy and self-help. Andres Antillano, an organiser in La Vega, one of Venezuela's largest, oldest and most politicised shantytowns, who has worked with the government on the draft of the new land laws, states that the aim is to "recognise the barrio as a collective subject with legal rights and profound transformative potentials".
This also explains why Venezuela's capitalist ruling class is resorting more and more to extreme violence. If it can slow or stall the revolutionary process, the elite hopes it may still be able to oust Chavez before his government's reforms are implemented and mass support for the revolutionary process becomes irreversible.
From Green Left Weekly, May 21, 2003.
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