Posted on 03/13/2005 6:21:39 PM PST by nypokerface
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela plans this week to take land from four private farms, including a British-owned cattle ranch and an eco-tourism reserve, as part of President Hugo Chavez's agrarian reforms for the poor, authorities said on Sunday.
National Land Institute director Eliezer Otaiza told Reuters the government would take parts of El Charcote farm, run by British meat producer Vestey, and the Hato Pinero reserve to develop state-sponsored agriculture projects.
"The land is going to pass over to us now," Otaiza said in an interview. "Tomorrow starts the rescue process."
Chavez says the agrarian reform campaign will respect private property rights, but his aggressive call for land redistribution has stirred fears that authorities will ignore due process and carry out illegal land grabs.
Otaiza said the state would take control of the land, because the four farms had failed to prove ownership, but they had 60 days to appeal to the courts.
Agroflora, the local Vestey representatives, were unavailable for comment, and the owners of Hato Pinero could not be contacted.
The 2001 land law allows the government to take land ruled as belonging to the state and expropriate private farmland judged idle or unproductive.
The land law was one of several reforms that triggered three years of conflict between the populist Chavez and his opponents, who say he wants to copy Cuba's Communist model.
The decision on the four farms follows weeks of land inspections, begun at the start of this year when Chavez ordered regional authorities to speed up the agrarian reform after he won an August referendum.
Otaiza said the state would take around 12,350 acres of the 32,000-acre (13,000-hectare) El Charcote farm and "80 to 90 percent" of the 198,123-acre (80,212-hectare) Hato Pinero farm reserve.
But he said the measures were not expropriations because the land was public. The government must pay compensation at market price for any land it expropriates, but not if the land is judged to belong to the state.
Chavez, a former army officer elected in 1998 promising to use the country's oil revenues to fight poverty, has said he wants to redistribute hundreds of acres of idle farmland nationwide to farm cooperatives.
Cities do this all the time in the US. They "condemn" a city block by claiming it is a blight, so they can give the land to a developer to build a hirise hotel. That's what a redevelopment zone is, generally.
Communism hasn't worked ANYWHERE (a leftist would say the right people weren't in charge, or not enough of the intellectuals were killed, or there wasn't enough money).
Chavez and Castro are anachronisms. Hopefully Fidel will die from a bullet, and Hugo will be exiled to Iran.
5.56mm
It's about time to see how many chin ups the fat little pointy toothed cannibal can do hanging off the skid of a Huey, about a thousand feet AGL. Rather than selling oil to all takers at the world price, he wants to play the vandal against us. He is playing footsie with the worlds most dangerous thugs, the mainland chicommies and sundry drug peddlers closer to home. Not a good career move. Apparently no one has told the little pointy toothed cannibal about the Monroe Doctrine. Soon he'll be learning all about it, the hard way.
If 1989 and the last 6 weeks have taught us anything it is that totalitarian (not to mention incompetent) regimes like Chavez' are doomed to failure. The Venezuelan people will ultimately get rid of this guy, just like all the other lefty leaders recently elected in So America will eventually be turfed out. The only real survivor is Castro - because we validate his propaganda with our pointless blockade.
On another note, I'll be interested to see if the Euro- and American greenies get upset over his turning an eco reserve into a bunch of subsistance farms.
IMHO, Jimmuh was only the worst president in the latter half of the 20th century. He wasn't the worst person to be president, either; that dishonor goes to Clinton.
But, without a doubt, Carter is the worst ex-president of all times.
Scary stuff........and our attention is in the Middle East right now. This guys a friggin' clown.
I mean, really....?
I can't imagine the navy pushing this...unless some of the perfumed princes in the DOD had something to do with it.
I don't think any real patriotic military personnel could even come up with the idea.
I was in Groton, Electric Boat about 2 years ago and saw this amazing boat near completion. Truly a masterpiece of engineering and shipbuilding skill.
Sounds like creeping Zimbabwe-ism.
Yes, and then after the predictable starvation and disease in Venezuela, you can bet they will come here and say "save us, America."
Probably, but they will come here - You know, to 'Take the jobs no American will do'. :-)
The Monroe Doctrine was formulated by patriots who put American first. There are no such politicians in Washington, D.C., as far as I can tell.
RE: "The Monroe Doctrine was formulated by patriots who put American first. There are no such politicians in Washington, D.C., as far as I can tell."
Ditto on that, but history has proven that the Monroe Doctrine will survive this lull to see the light of a future presidency. Sooner or later, Chavez is going to force us to take action, and it won't be pretty. Between his increasingly open funding and support of the violent, drug-running FARC guerillas in Colombia and the fact that he is using his control of the world's largest non-Arab oil reserves to subsidise his communist mentor's despotic regime, Something tells me this fat little commie murderer won't live to reach Fidel's ripe old age.
Like Daniel Ortega and Pineapple face Noriega, Chavez will push the wrong President too far. I hope that Bush has the guts to be that man. The CIA IS there for a reason, you know? USE IT!
Out in the Pacific Northwest, where I live, Dubya is one step ahead of the Left in implementing the Left's agenda, but perhaps that's the price we pay for living in a blue state.
Mugabe with crude oil.
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