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Farmers Murdered in Attempt to
Destabilize Venezuela
Violence against farm leaders,
some one hundred killed in the
last six years, is part of a
plan to destabilize Venezuela,
rural leaders denounced
Thursday.
The denunciation by sources from
the Venezuela Farm Federation
coincided with recent warnings
from national authorities of
destabilizing activity involving
Miami opposition and ex
soldiers, both accusations
implicating Pedro Carmona,
self-styled president during the
April 2002 coup, now residing in
Colombia.
Farm leaders told VEA daily that
the murder of farmers is
intended to "sterilize" areas of
supporters of President Hugo
Chavez´s government by alleged
Colombian paramilitary groups to
give the United States a pretext
to invade Colombia during a
"civil war".
The large estate owners, five
percent of the population owning
75 percent of the land, have
traditionally used assassins
with impunity and are incensed
by government actions to
recuperate lands illegally
acquired and violating land
tenancy regulations.
To prevent official conveyance
of these lands to farm
cooperatives, the landowners
have turned to the Colombian
self-defense forces
(paramilitary) in process of
demobilization in that country,
the Venezuelan farm leaders
charged.
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