A group of armed criminals murdered four workers from the Santomé farm in the Venezuelan state of Zulia last Sunday morning. They were members of a gang called “JL” and had been demanding a millionaire payment from the owner of the hacienda for two weeks.
“They brutally murdered my workers, who made it possible to produce food for Venezuela. I feel a lot of anger, sorrow and impotence. I am outraged,” the owner of that agricultural unit wrote to the press that same day, declaring himself “totally defenseless.”
There have been 14 homicides as part of extortion attempts against ranchers in that municipality alone, La Cañada, one of 21 in Zulia and 335 in the country.
Armando Chacín, president of the National Federation of Ranchers of Venezuela (Fedenaga), stated this Tuesday that criminal groups in the area killed three employees of the Cotuperí farm in the last year; two, in El Carmen; two, in El Carmelo; three custodians of the areas of Petrovenca, an oil company in the municipality; and the four Santomé workers.
The spokesman for the agricultural sector, accompanied by spokesmen for the main business organization in the country, Fedecamaras, denounced the stampede of producers in rural areas of Venezuela due to murders, attacks and extortions.
“These vandals have distributed very important land for production. While the country cries out (for) food, there are areas that are being cleared (of ranchers), because the criminals do not let people work,” she said vehemently.
La Cañada is considered one of the municipalities with the best land for livestock and agricultural production.
It is, however, synonymous with insecurity.
According to cattle ranching leaders in Zulia, the most populous state in Venezuela, which shares borders with eastern Colombia, fear reigns among its members. They prefer not to report extortion attempts and even attacks against them, both on their farms and in their homes.
They warn that two workers from a farm in the Santa Rita municipality have even been missing for two weeks. Armed criminals then kidnapped them from a farm on the Eastern Coast of Lake Maracaibo.
Similar situations occur in livestock areas in other states of the country, such as Barinas, Cojedes, Apure and Anzoátegui, union leaders claimed.
“Runaway” crime
Insecurity in the Venezuelan countryside is not recent, ranchers admit. They have suffered extortion from civilian criminal groups for decades and there have even been reports of gangs associated with the Colombian guerrillas.
Crime in recent months, however, “has run amok” is not in the countryside, but in various productive sectors of the country, the ranchers claim.
“We are vilely assassinated (…) It is not an isolated case. It has been all over the country and we ask that this stop. We ask for security for all, ”said Chacín, the highest representative of Fedenaga, for his part, asking his colleagues to denounce all extortion so that the authorities confront these gangs.
Most of those affected do not want to report, however. They say they have no effect and fear, on the contrary, retaliation from criminal groups.
A rancher from Zulia, on condition of anonymity, told the voice of america that there is an urgent need in Venezuela for there to be “rural peace” in order to continue producing milk, cheese and meat for the homes of tens of thousands of families.
“In order to continue working, we need peace in the countryside, we need the authorities to investigate and act promptly,” he said, asking this medium to reserve his identity for fear of criminal reprisals.
In February 2020, President Nicolás Maduro acknowledged that there are crimes in rural areas of Venezuela and called on his security officials in a public address to “give the highest level of protection to the countryside.”
His government assures that it is fighting a “forceful” battle against crime throughout the country. Maduro emphasizes, for his part, that “enemies of the country” finance criminal organizations to “sow anxiety” in the nation.
Chacín, on the other hand, criticized that “the State does not react” to crimes such as extortion of ranchers and the murders of the Santomé farm in Zulia.
Those 14 murders in a year in La Cañada are, in his opinion, “the tip of the iceberg” of crime, because, he says, there are more deaths, injuries and attacks on farms in Zulia and other regions of Venezuela that are not known because ranchers do not dare or do not want to report even to their unions.
“All of Venezuela is taken over by the underworld and we demand that (the military) leave the barracks to do their job. We are alone, without weapons,” Chacín denounced at Tuesday’s press conference. Since 2012, the Venezuelan government has restricted the use of weapons to the civilian population.
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