Miranda, August 1, 2023 (Mincomunas Press) – This Tuesday, authorities of the Bolivarian Government and the National Assembly, alongside former Bolivian President Evo Morales, attended the Summit of Social Movements and Peasant Organizations “Agrarian Experiences in the Construction of the Socialism of the 21st Century”, celebrated at the “Ezequiel Zamora” Zamorano Farm, in Quebrada Seca sector of Cua parish, Urdaneta municipality of Miranda state.
The event focused on celebrating Commander Hugo Chavez’s thinking, his validity and contributions to the peasant struggle and the Venezuelan Agrarian revolution, and how he strengthened the resistance of the organized peasant people.
The activity summoned representatives of peasant organizations, the platform of the Peasant March, the National Network of Producers of the Zamorano Farms, the Communal Union, the Rebel Youth, and the Landless Movement of Brazil, among other structures dedicated to guaranteeing the food sovereignty of the people through cultivation and production in the countryside.
President Nicolas Maduro’s ministerial team was represented by Jorge Arreaza, Minister of Communes and Social Movements; Greicys Barrios, Minister of Urban Agriculture; and Ernesto Villegas, Minister of Culture.
Minister Arreaza greeted the presence of the Latin American indigenous leader and recalled the deep friendship he cultivated with Comandante Chavez.
He highlighted that “land tenure, land ownership, has been a deep and underlying force in the great social conflicts, in the struggle for justice, in the struggle for equality,” explaining that it was present in the war of independence led by the Liberator Simon Bolivar and the Federal War when the peasants formed an army under the command of Ezequiel Zamora. He specified that in both conflicts the oligarchy betrayed the land tenure principles.
The Minister of Communes emphasized that Chavez established that “the lands belong to those who work them”. Therefore, the “imperial sanctions are part of the struggle for this land and what is underneath, such as oil and gas,” and the peasant people resist the blockade.
Peasant Unity
The former president of Bolivia pointed out the importance of unity and stressed that “to be revolutionaries is to be anti-imperialists” and “each revolution has its particularity”. He commented on his experience in the Agrarian unionism in his country with the native community, thanking Chavez for inviting him to participate in the XIII Iberoamerican Summit in 2003 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, which served to project his political leadership and reach the presidency two years later.
He spoke about their struggle to get Congress to approve the agrarian reform law. They acknowledged that the Movement Towards Socialism-Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (MAS-IPSP), his political organization, was born out of the peasant movement in Bolivia.
Congresswoman Blanca Eekhout, president of the Permanent Commission for the Development of the Communes of the National Assembly, expressed pride in having Evo Morales in the lands of the Communes because “with him, we have the history of resistance of the original peoples and the struggle to forge Latin American unity.”
He shared that “the great fatherland lives because we live in community, we are forging unity with the Commune” and made a recognition to the Zamorano farm, the venue of the meeting because it did not stop producing even in the most critical moments of the criminal coercive measures imposed by the United States: “when there is an organized people, which exercises government in the territory, the revolution is invincible”.
The spokesman of the Peasant March Platform, Andres Alayo, indicated that Chavez comes to signify the great democratization of the land in Venezuela, more than 9 million hectares delivered to thousands of peasants, which came to overcome a historical debt of those who betrayed Bolivar, Zamora and thousands who continued fighting anonymously and were assassinated by the oligarchy.
He said that tomorrow will be five years since Maduro received them in Miraflores as the Admirable Farmer March and listened to their proposals while he thanked Minister Arreaza for opening paths of dialogue.
