Venezuelanalysis Profile picture
Nov 13, 2021 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
🧵On #13Nov, 2001, Hugo Chávez's historic Land Law was approved to reverse Venezuela's highly unequal land distribution. The law provided conditions for campesinos (peasants) to rescue over 60% of large unproductive estates.

The land for those who work it! 👇
Before Chávez, neoliberal policies and oil dominance made the country dependent on agri-food imports while marginalizing rural peoples. Many migrated to urban areas to escape poverty, resulting in today’s barrios on the outskirts of Caracas and other cities.
With the Land Law there was a rural revitalization with campesinos retaking idle land from the elites. This saw agricultural production ramp up after decades of decline. Small and midsize farmers cover some 70% of Venezuela's food demand presently.
A percentage of idle plots were recovered by communes, self-governed territorial organizations and one of Chávez' key projects for the construction of socialism. Communes like El Maizal (located in Lara and Portuguesa agri-states) have been crucial to achieving food sovereignty.
Venezuela's elites were, of course, bitter enemies to the Land Law. The powerful cattle rancher and landowner guild FEDENAGA was behind the 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chávez. When that failed, bloodshed began in the countryside, with over 350 campesinos killed since then.
An ongoing “landowner offensive” is not the only enemy. Rural areas have been hard-hit by US sanctions blocking seed, fertilizer and machinery imports, even from Colombia-based Venezuelan petrochemical Monómeros, currently under US-backed opposition control.
Diesel shortages have likewise affected Venezuela’s rural communities. The fuel is needed to power tractors and transport crops. Diesel scarcity began after US sanctions against state oil company PDVSA halted refineries before Washington prohibited oil-for-diesel swap deals.
With food imports (and the gov’t CLAP food program in particular) also targeted by US sanctions, Venezuelan rural workers took on the task to supply the cities despite all the obstacles. Their heroic efforts countered the crisis and the bourgeois food speculation.
In recent years, campesinos have also found innovative ways to secure food production without depending on imported industrial inputs. Some strategies have been diversifying crops, exchanging seeds and supplies among communities and repairing their own machinery.
Currently, Venezuelan rural organizations demand justice for the ongoing targeted killing and criminalization cases and more government support to guarantee food production amidst the US blockade.

Read our latest report on campesinos’ struggles: venezuelanalysis.com/news/15366

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More from @venanalysis

Jul 23
🧵When it comes to reporting about Venezuela, there is no corporate outlet even remotely close to the level of dishonesty of the New York Times. Seriously, it's one piece of misrepresented bullsh*t after another. Follow this thread as we break it down Image
This is the piece:

The article is not to be taken seriously b/c it starts from a blatant lie. US "prodding" has nothing to do with Venezuela holding elections. It is dictated by the Constitution that they be held this year and they were never in doubt shorturl.at/LFusR
Image
Anyone not high on Western exceptionalism would actually be ashamed of their government meddling in other countries' affairs. But alas, this is the NYT.

In corporate media spiel, "restoring democracy" just means a US puppet being back in the presidential palace Image
Read 13 tweets
Nov 29, 2023
🧵🧵The border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana has flared up recently, leading to a war of words, increased military deployment and increasing signs of US intervention. We have prepared an infographic to explain the history and context of the controversy (thread) Image
The Essequibo Strip is a sparsely populated, 160,000 square km region spanning to the west of the Essequibo River. It has been the subject of centuries of dispute which, sadly, have never taken into account the indigenous population Image
Instead, it has always been pretty much about resources. Gold mining is what drove British expansion westward (more on this below), and the recent discoveries of massive oil deposits led to Venezuela and Guyana raising tensions too Image
Read 11 tweets
Sep 12, 2023
About time... Spain's @el_pais reports that the $3 billion in frozen Vzlan assets will soon be released. This was agreed to between the Venezuelan govt and opposition last November! But this thread is to point out the dishonest b.s. from the Spanish establishment's mouthpiece 🧵 Image
This is the article in question:

It essentially relies on anonymous sources who say that the funds will soon be released. El País then covers this fairly straightforward report in a cloak of lies and misconceptionsenglish.elpais.com/international/…
So it begins. How dare Maduro want to access Venezuelan funds? Then it's incredibly disingenuous and racist to claim the govt wants to fix schools/hospitals to "polish its image." If a western govt builds a hospital, it's laudable. If Vzla does it it's to fool voters. GTFOH Image
Read 20 tweets
Jul 25, 2023
🧵🧵Worse than a broken clock... Even when it wants to state the obvious, in this case that sanctions are a terrible and wrong policy, the @nytimes remains fully draped in US exceptionalism. The corporate media are an active front of the US empire (thread) Image
The article in question () is instantly off to a bad start. We are supposed to agree that Iran and NK should not have nuclear weapons, unlike the only country to ever use them. And would they also call the Iraq war an "egregious violation of intl laws"? https://t.co/ElNZjjKTlTtinyurl.com/3rmur79p
Image
The end of the first section shows that this editorial is really not going anywhere since it's based on the outrageously false premise that the US should have some kind of god-given ability to impose murderous sanctions on other nations when it so pleases Image
Read 13 tweets
Jun 9, 2023
🧵🧵🧵We just came across an incredible piece from the Financial Times (not in a good way). It has a remarkable blend of fallacious arguments, outright lies, bias, and lack of standards. This is a long thread, so bear with us! Image
This is the article in question from @FT (tinyurl.com/y32pmvtk). You can tell from the off that you're in for a ride because it's based on this assumption that the West "presses for free and fair elections" when this in fact has happened less frequently than Yeti sightings Image
FT "journalists" must get a bonus for every use of the word "authoritarian." It's not often that a piece starts w/ an outright falsehood, b/c "democracy" never left Venezuela, only the US didn't like election results. But this apocalyptic tone is worthy of a good chuckle Image
Read 17 tweets
Jun 7, 2023
The US-backed Venezuelan opposition, which runs an imaginary parliament, wants a US court to declare a Venezuelan bond as invalid to try and soften the disaster brought by their complete bundling when in charge of CITGO

reuters.com/markets/commod…
The strategy haw few chances of success, for several reasons, not least of them that when this National Assembly was actually running it *did not* formally declare the bond issued by the Maduro govt as illegal. A US-backed group was not about to challenge financial investors
.@Reuters will not let a short, straightforward piece get in the way of some outrageous lying. US sanctions have been classified as "collective punishment" against the Vzlan population, and these stenographer clowns write "sanctions against the Maduro govt" #SanctionsKill Image
Read 5 tweets

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