Posted on 01/08/2005 2:37:53 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Venezuelan government officials escorted by around 200 troops and police arrived at a cattle ranch run by a British-owned company today and to assess whether some lands may be turned over to poor farmers as part of an agrarian reform effort.
Poor farmers handed over a proposal through which they could make use of the lands on El Charcote Ranch, owned by a subsidiary of British-owned beef producer Vestey Group Ltd.
Representatives of El Charcote said they were negotiating the matter and handed over documents which they claimed show rightful ownership.
Cojedes state governor Johnny Yanez Rangel, addressing supporters who gathered at the ranch along with heavily armed National Guard troops and police, said “private property ... is a right, but not absolute” and that “the collective interest” must be considered.
“We didn’t come to expropriate, but to do justice,” Mr Yanez said as helicopters, which will be used to survey lands from the air, hovered overhead.
The vast ranch is one of many across Venezuela being eyed by authorities as they move forward on a sweeping plan to re-evaluate uses of agricultural lands.
Hundreds of squatters have moved onto El Charcote and planted crops in hopes the land will one day be declared their own. Most of the estimated 600 squatters settled there in the four years since President Hugo Chavez signed a law clearing the way for agrarian reform.
The owner, Agropecuaria Flora, insists it can prove ownership back to 1830 and that the 32,000-acre ranch is not “idle” as officials have said but has simply been invaded by squatters.
One manager, Miguel Espana, has said the ranch 125 miles south west of Caracas boasted 11,000 cattle four years ago. Now there are fewer than 5,000, and the work force has been cut from about 50 to 30 as squatters’ farms have expanded.
Government officials say property titles were obtained illegally and much of the property really belongs to the state.
“Today is a historic day ... We didn’t come to run over (the rights) of anybody. We come to do away with the anarchy, to give spaces to those who need them,” said Mr Yanez, a Chavez ally.
Officials said the evaluation will take 90 days and will determine whether the ranch lands are properly being put to use and whether the owner has rightful claims to the land.
Carl Phawder, a duty officer at the British Embassy, said diplomats were maintaining “close contact with the company”.
He said: “We believe that the issue should be solved within domestic and international laws.”
A 1998 census found that 60% of Venezuelan farmland was owned by less than 1% of the population. It also said 90% of farmland given to the poor under a 1960 agrarian reform had since returned to large landholders.
The Land Law of 2001 allows the state to expropriate and grant to the poor “idle” farmlands that are not put to adequate use, or properties that owners are unable to show they obtained legally.
You can teach a man to fish, but he'd rather be given a free fish.
From each according to his ability to each according to his need....by force if necessary..
Marxists make their money the old fashioned way............they liberate it steal it.......
FMCDH(BITS)
I fear the Venzs have had their last free election.
Gawd the Orwellian language. Unbelievable. And the helicopters chup chup chupping overhead. The real tinpot thing.
Maybe that says something about the inefficiency of small land holdings.
Boy, we haven't heard that before in a few places.
Remember, under practicle Marx, all are created equal, some just have a lot more means then others.
Venezuela will survive for a few years on its oil income and then slowly fizzle away like Rhodesia. In the mean time Chavez will become the new darling of the Left as Fidel slowly revolves up his own $$shole.
come on CIA..pop this guy in the back of the head already
Good point! She didnt allow the Argentines to take the Falklands, and she sure as hell wouldnt have allowed a leftest pinko like Chavez to walk all over British interests.
Same place we've heard "Property is theft."
I don't think Mrs Thatcher would have gone to war with Venezuela for reneging on contracts. She wouldn't have had to. The laws of the market have never been repealed.
If you rule by reneging on contracts your state is a kleptocracy. You are rewarding corruption and greed rather than merit. Investors will take their losses and simply divest.
Venezuela's economy is doomed. It will become Zimbabwe.
Usually said by people who have never owned property. I had a friend of mine in Russia tell me that when I was speaking to him in reference to Putin putting 20% of Russian land for private sale and ownership.
I told him to go buy a lot and we'll see if in one year he still thinks the same way.
Semper Fi
Tommie
<< It also said 90% of farmland given to the poor under a 1960 agrarian reform had since returned to large landholders.
Maybe that says something about the inefficiency of small land holdings. >>
Agreed, it does.
And that the quicker America's new welfare rich -- the 'owners' of our heavily feral-gummint-subsidised and otherwise unviable smallholdings -- are purchased by more efficient owners and consolidated into economically-sustainable largeholdings, the better off all Americans -- and our Western world allies -- Australia's incredibly-more-efficient wheat farmers and New Zealand's similarly-skilled dairy farmers, for just a couple of examples -- will all be.
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