Free Republic

NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY.N: Quote, Profile, Research) is seeking damages totaling more than $1 billion as part of an arbitration claim against the Ecuadorean government for seizing its assets, a company spokesman said on Thursday. The U.S. oil producer has also terminated all local employees in Ecuador and is relocating its expatriate staff, the spokesman said.

Latin America: Ecuador's government deserves all the trouble it's got coming now that it's decided expropriation is the way to get rich. But the trouble won't come from the U.S. It's headed their way from Ecuadoreans....The loss of Ecuador's hard-won free-trade pact with the U.S., something it was on the razor's edge of signing, is virtually guaranteed. Ecuador also will probably lose all practical access to U.S. markets when its 2006 Andean trade preferences expire.Two free-trade-pact neighbors, Peru and Colombia, will gladly help themselves to Ecuador's market share in exports of flowers, shrimp and other regional specialties. About 60% of...

The war to the death against big estates decreed by President Chávez in the Poliedro put paid to the illusions held by many who still believed that the government was going to act rationally and within the confines of the law. ... This Commission will have a “constitutional mandate” to incorporate the land it considers “idle, abandoned or underused” into “the productive process of the country,” according to the Decree on the Reorganization of the Ownership and Use of Land Suitable for Agricultural Use. The land so considered will be handed over to groups of the population and organized communities...

These past days have been rich in demonstrations that the Venezuelan state is sinking fast into some type of tribal units ruled by weapons. Sunday's papers reflected the marvelous contradictions in which we live, making Gabriel Garcia Marquez an illuminated amateur. I wanted to start with the latest on the seizure of El Charcote, that X-thousand acres ranch in Cojedes part of a group of ranches owned by British interests. I use the X as a number since the true extent of the land owned, and by whom, has become the mystery du jour. And the source of quite a...

The land-grabbing ranch expropriators in Venezuela are doing their stealing of lands in Che Guevara tee shirts! Che's not just a nostalgic relic of the past, he is the live image of the recrudescence of communism in action. The Financial Times of the U.K. is doing by far the best job of covering the descent of Venezuela into a Marxist hell. The United States media seemingly couldn't care less about the fate of a very important neighbor. Their performance so far mocks any claim to serve the public with necessary information.

Countries the world over jockey hard to attract foreign investment. They care about it enough to make it a national priority, to send spies against their competitors, to build infrastructure, and to change laws to make their investment climate attractive. Most know of the economy-developing potential of foreign capital. The United States itself was developed this way, largely on British capital which built its great railroads, mining ventures, universities and corporations. China is now the giant of this game opf attractring foreign investment, aptly offering favorable business conditions and great opportunities to businesses the world over. But it's not just...

Venezuela's Marxist dictator, Hugo Chavez, has begun confiscating farms and ranches, a violent act worthy of Zimbabwe’s ethinc cleansing, marauding socialist tyrant Robert Mugabe. Like Mugabe, his made his first target a wealthy British aristocrat. But unlike Mugabe, who openly reveled in barbarism, Chavez is using stagecraft calculated to create a melodrama that will excite his supporters, while putting the rest of the world to sleep. And he's doing it to conceal reality Staged with troops, cameras, peasants waving machetes, circling helicopters, Chavez's cow drama aligns “the people” against the 32,000-hectare cattle ranch of Lord Sam Vestey, a British-accented villain...

Land interventions in Cojedes State will continue next Wednesday. In this way, the decree issued by Cojedes Governor Johnny Yánez Rangel with regard to 16 estates will be enforced. Following the effective intervention of El Charcote farm last Saturday, regional authorities plan to seize several properties of the Boulton family in Cojedes, such as Gavinero, Yaguara, San José and La Flecha. Rafael Alemán, the Cojedes State Secretary-General, said under this schedule of interventions, Paraima and Piñero -both properties of the Branger family- will be intervened next January 13th and 14th, respectively.

I have mentioned Carlos Machado Allison in this blog before. He is retired from Universidad Central de Venezuela, was President of the Venezuelan National Fund for Agrarian Research .... He is just finishing a book called “Agriculture in Venezuela”. Today he is interviewed in page 3 of El Nacional ... here are some excerpts: “The agricultural states are the poorest of the country” On the state being the biggest landowner: “This is true; it has so much that it does not even know what it has. Some say it has 8 million hectares, other say 20 million. But there is...

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...

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?

Maruja Tarre, who probably does not remember that we met too many years ago in Boston and who I understand is a stealth reader of this blog, wrote this very funny article in today’s El Universal which I thought had to be translated. Life may get tough, but one needs to keep a positive attitude at all times, humor, especially intelligent humor helps in this goal. >>Good Ideas for 2005 by Maruja Tarre I have been told that, as resolution for the New Year, many people have decided to “collaborate” in enthusiastic fashion with the revolution. Behind are left the...

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,...

The Governor of the State of Cojedes announced yesterday that on Saturday they will begin the “intervention” of the Hato El Charcote farm, owned by British company Vestey, under the decree issued by that Governor in mid-December. The concept of “intervention” does not exist in Venezuelan jurisprudence, so that it is unclear exactly what it means. According to the Governor: “The intervention will be performed with all of the machinery of the State to establish the first beachhead of the “Free land and Men Mission…With the aid of all of the Armed Forces and police forces and the authorities of...

A cattle ranch that Venezuela’s government has targeted for expropriation under a land reform programme. Agroflora, a Vestey Venezuelan subsidiary, said it can prove rightful ownership of the El Charcote ranch in western Venezuela. Under a Land Law enacted by President Hugo Chavez in 2001, the government can seize land if it deems property is not being used productively for agriculture or was obtained illegally. Eliezer Otaiza, director of the National Land Institute, said the ranch sits on land previously owned by the government and Vestey has failed to prove it legally acquired all the land.

Many thought there would at least be political calm after Chavez’ victory in the recall vote and the regional elections. No such luck, that is simply not the style. Chavez thrives on conflict, on pushing people to see how far he may go. When the Governor of Cojedes decreed the intervention of some farms in that state, many thought it was another footnote in the revolution, something even reasonable. I didn’t. That is simply not the style, Chavez was in China when this happened, but few of these Governors act alone or even have a mind of their own, they...