Author: La Tabla/Data Journalism Platform, FEB 2 2026
Researcher Lilian Alfaro highlights that the persecution of farmers in Venezuela serves a deeper political purpose: it is a direct attack on the land redistribution policies championed by former president Hugo Chávez, which are central to the Bolivarian Revolution.
Incidents involving Glinis Méndez, Nelson Lepesqueur, Rubén Delgado, and Miguel Santamaría, who are farmers imprisoned and reported as tortured in Canaguá, represent spearheads of an offensive against the social transformation project initiated back in 1999.
This criminalization is not an isolated incident. It is directly related to the enforcement of the Land and Agricultural Development Law of 2001, a cornerstone of the Bolivarian shift in the rural sector. This regulation aimed to eliminate large estates and redistribute idle land, redefining the concept of property by establishing its “social function.” Until 2009, this legal framework facilitated the redistribution of around 2.7 million hectares, causing a structural change that directly impacted the historical interests of large landowners.
For this reason, Alfaro argues that targeting and prosecuting small producers and peasants is a strategy to undermine and reverse the Bolivarian doctrine in rural areas. Criminalizing individuals is a tactic to discredit these policies, engendering a climate of fear and legal uncertainty that hinders the Agricultural Revolution. The conflict, therefore, goes beyond the legal realm and into the struggle for the country’s model: farmers are pursued to bury Chávez’s legacy and his efforts to build food sovereignty rooted in social justice and collective land ownership.