Venezuela, an oil-rich nation the size of France and Spain, has one of the most unequal land ownerships in the world. Many Choroni residents still remember the last attempt at reform. At the birth of its modern democratic era, the government of Romulo Betancourt launched an ambitious agrarian reform amid the leftist euphoria of the early 1960s in Latin America.
``They sent leaders from outside the village to encourage people to invade the land,'' said Haydee Machado amid the dusty grandeur of her colonial villa set in an overgrown cacao farm. ``Most of the estates were bought for land reform, but the new owners collected only one harvest. They never sowed any more crops and they sold they land to outsiders,'' she said.
Betancourt's agrarian reform failed as much of the land redistributed was poor quality, and estate owners promptly repurchased good land using generous indemnity from the government. Many Venezuelans were also reluctant to leave prosperous cities during an oil boom to toil in the fields.
Chavez has blamed the breakdown of reform on corrupt political parties and apathy within the National Agrarian Institute (IAN), which now owns half Venezuela's fallow land. But he faces the same challenge encouraging his country's largely urban and coastal population back to the land.
In the wake of mudslides which ravaged the coastal Vargas state in 1999 killing up to 20,000 people, Chavez called on his poor supporters to abandon precarious hillside slums and move to new farming communities. Few Venezuelans have embraced the president's dream and many victims of Vargas have even trickled back to Caracas' shanty towns. ``We are not going to leave here. We cannot live in the country, there are no jobs there,'' said Leon, beside a road the squatters have painted with the slogan ``We are willing to die for our land.'' [End Excerpt]