Posted on 03/14/2009 8:53:04 PM PDT by coloradan
LA PAZ (Reuters) – Emboldened by a new leftist constitution, Bolivia President Evo Morales on Saturday handed over ownership of farmland seized by the state from wealthy estate holders to poor indigenous people.
Morales handed out around 94,000 acres of lands recently confiscated from five big ranches in Bolivia's wealthy eastern lowlands, a stronghold of his conservative political opponents. The ranchers have been accused of employing workers in conditions of semi-slavery.
[...]
"It is not that these lands were not in production, but that they were the site of human rights violations against the Guarani, who will now be their new owners," Morales said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“Rich” = “productive” and I’m going to hazard a guess that “poor” = “nonproductive”. Expect famine in a few years. And a currency collapse.
Obama/ACORN is doing the same thing by stealing foreclosed houses.
How long will it be before Zero tries that crap here?
Yes, the makings of a South American Zimbabwe.
Truly amazing how governments learn nothing from history and keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
Oldest commie trick in the book, claim to give the land from the rich to the poor, then collectivize the land.
Morales learned his lesson perfectly well: Mugabe is still in power.
Brazil had better be ready for waves of refugees. Poor people are too dense and lazy to be handed land. They just wreck or let it go to seed while they suckle at the government teat.
MacArthur did it.
Seems the “rich” ought to be spending some money on hiring an army to take care of the problem.
Bolivia is destined to be a poor nation. The left covers its actions with claims to be helping the poor, but in fact is damning them to even more poverty.
“Yes, the makings of a South American Zimbabwe.”
Or Cuba to go back a few more years. This is nothing new. I’m sure we’ll see equally stellar results...
Great - won’t be long until Zero thinks this idea sounds good.
[”It is not that these lands were not in production, but that they were the site of human rights violations against the Guarani, who will now be their new owners,” Morales said.]
I wonder if Morales will offer these new farmers loans for coca refining labs.
Lest we forget South Africa...where an “oppressed” people now starve, die of AIDS and cholera...
Collectivism = death.
MacArthur gave the land to people who were already farming it. That was OK since he wasn’t turning over the land to people who didn’t live there and didn’t know what to do with it. However, he also permitted import restrictions, and he allowed the government to monopolize control of the sale of rice.
I would like to predict that in 6 months there will be a shortage of communists in Bolivia. One can hope, can’t they?
I think this is closer to a feudal system than Zimbabwe’s situation. Here, I found this quote from some other article talking about the region where this is taking place:
“A study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) found that in this region, just 100 families own 25 million hectares, while two million families of small farmers have barely five million hectares.”
As much as the government seizing private land bothers me, this ain’t exactly like the stupid situation in Venezuela. 100 families owning 100,000 square miles of land is closer to medieval europe (and doesn’t exactly foster a good economic environment).
That worked so well in Zimbabwe, let’s try it again somewhere else (!)
beat me to it:)
so why does morales thinkit failed in zimbabwe?
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