The communist leader was gunned down last Wednesday alongside his brother-in-law for their leading roles in the local land struggle. The ex-landlord has been accused.
Nov 7th 2018
Campesino leaders Luis Fajardo and Javier Aldana, both members of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) who were leading a long-running land dispute in the Sur del Lago region of Merida and Zulia states, were gunned down last Wednesday, provoking outcry from the campesino and revolutionary sectors.
Fajardo was a member of the regional and central committees of the PCV, and the party has pointed the finger at the ex-landlord and corrupt local officials of the National Guard due to numerous death threats which Fajardo had received in the past months, and which the PCV had made public.
Two days after they were murdered, the ex-landlord reportedly torched the makeshift structures which the 250 campesino families had constructed on the occupied land of Cano Rico.
Following their murder, more than forty international solidarity statements have arrived, adding their weight to a series of local actions taken by the campesinos and grassroots movements of the region.
The following is the last interview given by Luis Fajardo August 7 to Alba TV. It was recorded in Caracas following the culmination of the Admirable March which Fajardo participated in.
The 435 kilometre march of revolutionary campesinos managed to draw the attention of President Nicolas Maduro to a series of problems in the countryside, including corruption, inefficiency of state bodies, and most importantly the problem of landlord violence against the organised peasantry, which, bar isolated exceptions, generally goes unpunished.
Video by Alba TV, recorded by Angelè Savino on August 7, 2018, with subtitles by Venezuelanalysis.
Published at https://venezuelanalysis.com/video/14137
