Venezuela to seize aristocrat's cattle ranch

The Financial Times ^ | Jan. 8, 2005 | Andy Webb-Vidal and Henry Tricks

[Kitten Festival]

Venezuelan authorities backed by troops are on Saturday expected to seize a 32,000-acre ranch owned by Lord Vestey, an English aristocrat and meat tycoon.

The move, the first in what is likely to be a number of Zimbabwe-style expropriations of big estates, appears to signal a renewed radicalisation in the leftwing government of President Hugo Chávez.

Lord Vestey, known as “Spam” to friends because his family's wealth comes from the meat trade, is one of Britain's richest men and a close friend of Prince Charles.

With interests that have ranged from overseas cattle ranches to a chain of butchers' shops, his fortune was estimated last year at £750m ($1.4bn, €1.07bn).

But the value of the Vestey Group has declined recently, and it has written down Venezuelan assets. The company had net assets of £78m in the last published set of accounts in 2003, down from £105m in 2002.

[Kitten Festival]

This is scary stuff. They are literally stealing this ranch that has been in the hands of this family since 1830. They are brutal leftist thugs.

[7.62 x 51mm]

Chavez & Co = leftist-liberal-progressive-socialist-commie-nazi-fascists. Business as usual. It'll get a whole lot worse, very shortly.

[ProudVet77]

One bullet - end of problem.

[miltonim]

       "Your turn."

[Kitten Festival]

Eeeeeuw!

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[Finalapproach29er]

It's time to take sides down there - PRONTO!

The heck with democracy; freedom is more important,and it is vanishing under this Facist. I bet there will be no term limits for this crook.

[hedgetrimmer]

Hu Jintao and Hugo Chavez

[neb52]

A friend of mine works for this company in Dallas. Where the eccentric million owner was in the process of starting a new business in Vene. He had purchased the land and started construction on the building before Chavez was elected. After Chavez's election the company was harassed and eventually the land and assets was confiscated with no compensation. So this is nothing new.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[prairiebreeze]

President Peanut is grinning broadly at the development.

[Kitten Festival]

I wonder what is happening there right this moment.

[ZeitgeistSurfer]

The path to slavery and impoverishment starts with a single expropriation from "the rich".

[OKIEDOC]

Having lived in that area of the world I can tell you Chavez is another Fidel Castro.

Chavez will soon turn Venezuela into a socialist state. I would say that in five years or less he will invade Colombia trying to unite the two countries.

Chavez is supporting several terrorist groups in South America.

I just hope America wakes up before it is to late. Chavez is trying to do what the Dimoratic party has tried to do in America for years so personified by John Edwards two Americas campaign. That is turn the poor against the rich and middle class.

[Ben Ficklin]

The article inaccurately mentions that the confisticated land will be given to the peons.

Actually. the lands will be converted into ag collectives in which the govt retains ownership and the peons are allowed to "work it".

Compare this to Mexico where those ag collectives known as the "ejidos" which came about as a result of the Revolution are being converted into private property and the peons recieve title to the land.

[sergeantdave]

Thank you Jimmy Carter, you Marxist creep. It appears that the good people in Venezuala will need to take up arms to rid themselves of this communist dictator.

[M Kehoe]

I am at a loss. With more than 70+ years of direct evidence that the philosophy of communism is bankrupt, why do people still believe it will work?

Oh, I forgot, the right people weren't in charge.

Sheesh.

5.56mm

[penowa]

This looks like we've come full circle again in S.A. In the late '60's I did some traveling in Columbia and Venezuela. I was surprised to see 4-lane concrete divided highways that looked like our interstates, going from nowhere to nowhere and used by mostly donkey carts. When I asked, I was told that US cos. started to build the highways to get goods to market when they were invested there. Once the govt. seized their lands and sent them packing, the roads were never finished since there was nothing to market with the govt. running the businesses into the ground in short order.

[cyborg]

more of the same ping