Carlos is spokesperson for the National Simon Bolivar Peasant Front, as well as for the Socialist Agrarian Movement of Landless Peasants, which he and his five companions started up. Just in case you might have guessed, Gutierrez is also a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and one of its founding members in Lara State.
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Proudly, the peasant leader declared that he is helping peasants and small landholders in the difficult area of El Tocuyo to organize themselves into socialist agrarian farms.
One of the interesting things I found out about the conversation was the ideological help the farm was getting from an organization calling itself Los Gayones -- which is the name of the aboriginal indigenous people of the region whose language has been lost. Carlos confided that thanks to the organization, he was able in 2000 to discover that one of the main local (gayon) indian resistance figures of the colony was Ana Soto whose name is now reverenced in the farm's title.
Unlike Carlos' generation, who knew nothing about the Gayones, the children on the farm are already well versed in their regional ethnic and cultural history.
For me, it completed the circle that the memory of a Spanish priest in the 80s had started off ... it also set Carlos to remember and neither of us could come up with the clergyman's name.
Conclusion: The Ana Soto farm is producing after having recovered rightful ownership of the land and its historical memory.
Patrick J. O'Donoghue
news.editor@vheadline.com
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