Posted on 01/08/2005 1:16:17 PM PST by Kitten Festival
08.01.05 | Various sources report that El Charcote ranch, owned by British Vestey group, was seized this morning by Venezuelan authorities and the army. This is the first illegal seizure that the Chavez regime conducts against private property owned by foreign groups. With this precedent, will anyone be intrepid enough to invest in Venezuela?
(Excerpt) Read more at vcrisis.com ...
sounds like a great self made ingenious outfit.
hope Chavez takes a bullet....sooner the better.
If it's war they want.....
Anyone who believes otherwise is just ignorant ---- it's what most Mexicans themselves will quickly tell you --- and the reason millions a year are leaving the place --- even though the country is one of the world's richest --- it chooses to keep a crappy third world standard of living for most of it's citizens.
Anyone who wants to learn --- just take a trip down to the border --- take a tour of Ciudad Juarez --- not the area where the drug kingpins live --- you'd get the false impression that it's all gaudy mansions, but take a look at the way most have to live --- make sure you take your tour to the outskirts of town and check out the shacks made of discarded wood pallets and cardboard. Notice the lack of roads and plumbing --- open latrines and open sewers. But then remember it's one of the world's wealthiest nations.
Britain has used military assets before over nationalization.
The Seven Years War on this continent comes to mind and some Brit SAS forays after oil nationalization...mostly unsuccessful unlike the SYW.
I don't care who kills Chavez....it could be his grandma for all I care...with her knitting needles.
Yes --- many --- and even on FR --- have taken a trip to that old Mexican town Cancun --- and figured that was what Mexico was like. Luxury hotels and nice beaches and a bunch of friendly helpful waiters and bellhops.
They missed the tin and cardboard shacks that held at least 5000 people outside of Cancun.
LOL!! That's about right. They don't want improvements in Mexico --- exactly because there would go their unlimited supply of dirt cheap workers.
Carter would undoubtedly refer to the victims as exploiters and parasites.
Marxists are the same the world over. Let the looting begin!
They already moved those in? I haven't kept up with Cancun --- last I saw it, they were still in the process of building it, mostly finished ---- a brand new tourist town in an undeveloped area --- carefully planned out to be located where the beaches and weather were best, and no poor people nearby to destroy the image. Supposedly they were going to keep them out --- but then I guess the luxury hotels and restaurants needed dirt poor workers.
This is no different than what is going on here in the US.
State and local governments are using the power of eminent domain to confiscate "unproductive" private property and selling it to Wal-Mart and others that will provide more tax revenue for the government.
I perused that site a bit. Makes me want to vomit. The old boy's done a hell of a job glorifying himself. Everything he puts his hands on goes to crap but you won't find that being said on Mr. Wonderful's website.
If my memory serves, the Venezuelan election was clearly stolen via rigged computers, and Governor Carter was an especially useful idiot and called the election results genuine.
Venezuelan troops grab farms from Lord 'Spam' Vestey
By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter
The Telegraph (UK)
(Filed: 09/01/2005)
Troops were preparing yesterday to seize a 32,000-acre ranch owned by one of Britain's richest men as the Left-wing leaders of Venezuela stepped up their controversial "land grab" policy.
The ranch, which is set in rich cattle-rearing land close to the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, is owned by Lord Vestey, whose personal wealth from his family's food empire is estimated at £750 million.
The peer, who is known as "Spam" to his friends, is said by his associates to be saddened and angered by the threat to his ranch. He is, however, understood to be resigned to the Venezuelan government's "illegal" actions.
This weekend, Lord Vestey, 63, declined to discuss details of the land seizure other than to say: "We've been in Venezuela for over 100 years and we hope to be there for some time yet." Lord Vestey's great grandfather bought the ranch El Charcote in 1903.
Critics of Hugo Chavez, the Left-wing Venezuelan president, have likened his policy to that of President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, but his government has tried to justify its policy by describing the process as one of "agrarian redistribution".
Alfredo Toro Hardy, Venezuela's ambassador in London, said last week that the ranch was considered to be "partly idle", and that its property titles were in disarray, and this prompted an investigation in the farm's affairs and action by the authorities.
The situation for foreign owners deteriorated in 2001, when falling oil prices in Venezuela, the world's fourth-biggest oil producer, led to social unrest. President Chavez announced that he would nationalise any agricultural land not being farmed "in the national interest", to combat "selfish individualism".
Since 2001, illegal squatters have occupied several of Lord Vestey cattle ranches, including El Charcote. His initial response was to boycott a cocktail party for Venezuela's new ambassador to London, standing outside the reception and railing against those who had "done a Zimbabwe".
The Vestey family is used to dealing with personal and political upheaval. The family's food empire, once the biggest family-owned multinational in the world, was founded in 1897, when brothers William and Edmund began importing frozen eggs from China and frozen beef from Australia.
The family became very rich when the business expanded to become an integrated supply chain of ranches, food processors, canning companies, commercial properties and, in Britain, Dewhurst butchers' shops.
Philip Knightley wrote in The Rise And Fall Of The House Of Vestey that "They did not live on their income; they did not live on the interest from their investments; they lived on the interest on the interest."
The family's problems in South America have caused the value of the Vestey Group to fall in recent years. The last published set of accounts in 2003 recorded net assets of £78 million – down from £105 million the previous year.
The Venezuelan authorities disclosed last week that they have identified more than 500 farms, including 56 large estates, as "idle". They plan to inspect a further 40,000 farms, the National Land Institute, a government body, said. Private owners will be paid compensation at market prices for expropriated land, according to the 2001 land law.
El Charcote is run by Agroflora, a subsidiary of the Vestey Group. Last week, Arnoldo Marquez, the Venezuelan agriculture minister, said that the farm's documents "do not guarantee that this is a private land", and has maintained an aggressive attitude towards the Vestey Group.
"You should ask the company when they are going to put their papers in order and hand over the land that is not theirs," he said.
Diana Dos Santos, the president of Agroflora, which operates El Charcote and other farms in Venezuela for the Vestey Group, said yesterday that staff would co-operate with the authorities, even though they rejected the suggestion that they were using state property.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is concerned about land reform in Venezuela, but has made no formal protest. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "The British Embassy is in close contact with the Vestey Group in Venezuela and we are continuing to monitor the situation."
This ain't nothing. Wait 'til the Red Chinese start doing this to American businesses/Joint Ventures in China as they say "Thank guys for your help, we'll take it from here".
That's bad, but there *is* a difference: you have to be paid the appraised Market Value for any land that is taken via Eminent Domain in the U.S.
Chavez ain't paying the Brits for what he just took.
Another difference is that you'll get your day in court in the U.S. Many a land owner has prevailed in such hearings, too.
Again, that's a distinction from Venezuela today.
"That's bad, but there *is* a difference: you have to be paid the appraised Market Value for any land that is taken via Eminent Domain in the U.S."
Appraised value is often not realistic and is confiscation nevertheless. It is an abuse of eminent domain by theives (probably on the take) who call themselves public officials.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.