We had the opportunity to meet with an iconic leader of the Venezuelan campesino movement in the city of San Carlos, Cojedes, Venezuela. José Pimentel is a well-known defender of land rights. For this reason Pimentel has been the target of at least three assassination attempts by large landowners.
While there is no consensus on the true number, it said that hundreds of peasants in Venezuela have been assassinated for defending their legally sanctified rights to the land they work. Some estimate that more than 500 peasants have been murdered for their compliance with the land law.
One of the lands recovered by the Cojedes farmers under the leadership of Pimentel was a farm called El Charcote, a 12,950 hectare plot that Agroflora, a subsidiary of the Vestey Group, claims to own. The Vestey Group is a multinational corporation (founded by Lord Vestey, the 56th richest person in the UK) that owns 13 farms in Venezuela alone, as well as land across the entirety of South America.
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