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Farms Are Latest Target In Venezuelan Upheaval
wsj.com ^ | May 17, 2007 | JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA

Posted on 05/17/2007 5:35:08 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

SAN FELIPE, Venezuela -- Vicente Lecuna jabs a wall map of his Santa Isabel ranch so angrily that the map crashes to the floor. "I used to produce 10,000 tons of sugar cane a year," says the 67-year-old Venezuelan cattleman. "Now it's zero! Zero!" he shouts.

Two years ago, squatters seized about half of Mr. Lecuna's 3,000-acre ranch, setting up a cooperative named "Re-Founding the Fatherland." Far from being evicted, the squatters got loans and tractors from the government of President Hugo Chávez. They then uprooted the sugar cane and decided to try their hand at growing plantains.

"We are building socialism and fighting capitalism!" says co-op leader Juan Nava, standing amid wooden shacks on what used to be Mr. Lecuna's land. The rancher's efforts to fight the takeover in court have gone nowhere.

If the rhetoric smacks of the 1960s, it's because Mr. Chávez dreams of transforming Venezuela just as Fidel Castro did Cuba. Mr. Chávez has already sharply cut private companies' role in Venezuela's lucrative oil industry, and uses the state oil company to funnel billions of dollars to his social projects. He has nationalized the leading telephone company and the main electric utility. He speaks of wanting to drive a stake through the heart of capitalism, limiting the role of money and installing a barter system.

Now Mr. Chávez is taking his revolution to the Venezuelan countryside. "We must end latifundios," he said in a televised speech in March, referring to large agrarian estates. "The people order it, and we will do it, whatever the cost." Then he announced the seizure of a land area larger than the state of Rhode Island.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: chavez; landreform; venezuela
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To: Tailgunner Joe

First, our govt. need to STOP paying farmers NOT to grow things.
Second, I think ALL our farms should be gearing up for the massive world food shortages that are coming, particularly the shortages in countries who are, ahem, not very NICE to us.
Third, we should treat our food exports the way the freaking muzzies and Chavez treats their oil. Make them pay through the nose. Food for oil. Kim Jong, you play nice or NO SOUP FOR YOU!


41 posted on 05/17/2007 9:02:24 AM PDT by Muzzle_em (A proud warrior of the Pajamahadeen)
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To: dfwgator

I was thinking more along the lines of turning people into fertilizer by murdering them.


42 posted on 05/17/2007 9:36:33 AM PDT by statered ("And you know what I mean.")
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