Chavez foes slam land grants

BARINAS, Venezuela — It was not President Hugo Chavez’s inflammatory rhetoric alone that incited opposition against him in Venezuela.

The all-consuming campaign to oust Mr. Chavez was triggered in November 2001, when he approved a series of laws meant to reshape the economy and reduce poverty.

Perhaps none of the laws has been as disputed as an agrarian-reform bill, with which the government plans to hand 5 million acres of idle, state-owned land to as many as 100,000 families.

Land reform historically has been an explosive issue in Latin America.

Mr. Chavez’s program drew fierce resistance from landowners and business groups, and was a major factor behind the sudden emergence in late 2001 of a powerful movement seeking his ouster. The opposition has since engaged in an all-consuming drive to topple the president, including a coup, a two-month lockout by business owners and a strike by oil workers, and, most recently, a campaign to hold a recall election.

Mr. Chavez, however, has hung on to power. In rural states such as Barinas, known for its extensive, lush estates and chronic poverty, the government has proceeded with its agrarian-reform program, propelling an emboldened campesino movement that has clashed with wealthy cattle ranchers who lay claim to the open range.

In this oil-rich and largely urban nation, gaping inequalities in landownership have long been overlooked by the ruling elite. The National Land Institute (INTI), which oversees the distribution of land, says 60 percent of the country’s arable land belongs to 2 percent of the owners, while hundreds of thousands of farmers remain landless or scrape by on small subsistence plots.

“Venezuela right now has the only serious government-administered land reform in Latin America,” said Peter Rosset, co-director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, a San Francisco-based think tank.

“In the U.S., Chavez is often painted as a villain or crazy,” Mr. Rosset said, “but this land reform — small and incipient as it is — shows he is much more on the side of the poor than other presidents in the region.”

The cattle ranchers accuse the government of illegally expropriating privately owned estates in full production without compensating their owners, instead of giving the peasants state-owned land.

“They’re going after the best ranches — not idle land,” said Rogelio Pena, former mayor of Barinas city, who was dining at an upscale steakhouse in Caracas. “Just like Fidel Castro in Cuba, the government wants to take control of the productive sector.”

Mr. Pena said he was running a $1.5 million ranch stocked with 1,700 head of humpbacked Brahma cattle when soldiers forced him off the land in February. Dozens of campesinos moved in and began farming with authorization from the INTI.

Leonardo Patino, the INTI’s legal counsel in Barinas, said the land was given to the campesinos because it was considered public and idle. Mr. Pena’s title to the land was a forgery, he said, adding that Mr. Pena had brought in cattle only recently to give the appearance that the ranch was being used productively.

At the entrance of the ranch is a large iron-barred corral where hundreds of cattle are confined, watched over by a few caretakers who have been allowed to stay. Mr. Pena has sued the government, and the case is before the courts.

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