Posted on 09/09/2001 2:32:33 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - In the first step toward a radical agrarian reform in Venezuela that might involve property confiscation, President Hugo Chavez presented poor farmers with deeds to thousands of acres of land on Saturday.
At a ceremony in the oil-rich western state of Zulia, the leftist leader exhorted wealthy landowners to donate unused land to the state, or face heavy taxation and even confiscation or eviction under a forthcoming land law.
``Today's act is a step toward the implementation of the Law of Lands and Rural Development by the revolution, so there can finally be justice in the distribution and use of land,'' said former paratrooper Chavez during the ceremony to award some 105,000 acres of property in the hands of the state-owned National Agrarian Institute.
Chavez, who first won a national profile in a failed 1992 coup before storming to power at the ballot box six years later with promises of social justice for Venezuela's poor majority, also announced he would create a new Agriculture Ministry to promote the rural economy.
`` I take this opportunity to call on all those who have a lot of land and are not using it to voluntarily put it at our disposal. And if they do not, we will have no alternative but to turn the screw on them,'' said Chavez, wearing his trademark military fatigues.
Critics of Chavez's two-year-old ``revolutionary'' government have said his radical political agenda, including the land law, have deterred investment in the oil-reliant South American nation, raising unemployment and violent crime.
After taking office in February 1999 pledging to foster private sector activity, Chavez's rhetoric has grown increasingly nationalist and statist in recent months, although the president insists he still believes in democracy, free enterprise and foreign investment.
``The land law will be very severe concerning the appropriate use of property,'' the populist leader said. The measure would regulate land use, he said, making sure that the best quality soils were used for producing crops and not pasture.
Noting a lack of funding undermined previous attempts at agrarian reform in Venezuela dating back to the 1960s, Chavez said his government would provide loans and technical assistance to new farmers.
As part of a ``vast strategic plan'' to develop the central axis of the country, Chavez announced plans to build a new city to the south of the giant Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela's western oil hub.
The president has announced plans for several such new cities to resettle the poor from the precarious shantytowns that cling to hillside and river gorges in the capital Caracas.
Despite overturning Venezuela's corrupt political establishment and rewriting its constitution, Chavez's government has been handicapped by inexperience and administrative inefficiency and has achieved few of its planned reforms to date.
Cuban President Fidel Castro (L) and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez hug in Bolivar city August 11, 2001. Castro, making his first trip abroad since a recent scare over his health, arrived in Venezuela Saturday to enjoy an early 75th birthday celebration with his friend and ally President Hugo Chavez. REUTERS/Kimberly White
Sounds familiar!
Chavez has been busy rewriting the constitution, the school curriculum, setting up government block watches, bringing in Cuban "advisors, etc, etc.
The LINK in post #1 gives a good look at his road to ever increased control.
Zimbabwe?
He would if it served his purpose. Right now he's content to idolized Castro and adopt his way of thinking.
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