Free Republic

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela plans this week to take land from four private farms, including a British-owned cattle ranch and an eco-tourism reserve, as part of President Hugo Chavez's agrarian reforms for the poor, authorities said on Sunday. National Land Institute director Eliezer Otaiza told Reuters the government would take parts of El Charcote farm, run by British meat producer Vestey, and the Hato Pinero reserve to develop state-sponsored agriculture projects. "The land is going to pass over to us now," Otaiza said in an interview. "Tomorrow starts the rescue process." Chavez says the agrarian reform campaign will respect...

HATO EL CHARCOTE, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan troops and police have escorted local authorities on to a cattle ranch owned by Britain's Vestey Group in the first government enforcement of a rural land redistribution law that critics say threatens private property. Dozens of national guard soldiers and police lined up under the scorching sun on the edge of the 32,000-acre (13,000-hectare) El Charcote ranch on Saturday as officials ordered land inspections as part of left-wing President Hugo Chavez's agrarian reforms for the poor. Government officials are demanding El Charcote hand over illegally held public land and idle property under a...

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?

The Marxist government of Venezuela expropriated its first cattle ranch this morning, a productive 32,000-hectare estate owned by a British company. This is to be the first in a series of seizures to end in collectivization. The move echoes the seizures of lush farms of Zimbabwe by the Mugabe government, where it's now barren and people are starving. The Financial Times of the U.K. has picked up on the story, because the ranch in question is owned by a British aristocrat, who is a close friend of Prince Charles, and a tycoon in the meat industry. Lord Vestey, charmingly, is...

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,...

Venezuelan tyrant-in-training, Hugo Chavez, has made a significant gambit to nationalize British owned property in Venezuela. The property in question is the El Charcote ranch in western Venezuela. It is owned by Agroflora, a subsidiary of British company Vestey. If Chavez is successful in this illegal land grab, the right to own property of all Venezuelans will be compromised. One of the fundamental requirement of any civil society is the right to own property. If citizens have no property rights, what sense is there for those citizens to work hard, save or build homes when the government can take everything...

"We do not have anything to communicate to the British Embassy. The only territories deemed a part of such country are its diplomatic premises and consulates" - Alexis Ortiz, Solicitor General

The government of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez will expropriate its first farm, taking Venezuela straight down Zimbabwe road. The grab was announced this morning and will happen Saturday. The chavistas' first target is a British-owned cattle ranch. The move is a bold beginning for the chavista communists who will roll out both military and police forces for the seizure, beginning the first in a series. The communists' mendacious rationale is that a British company, Vestey Group, did not have proper title to 3000 hectares of its 13,000-hectare cattle ranch. So they are taking it all. But the owners of the...

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...

"El Charcote," a cattle ranch owned by the British Vestey Group, is to be seized on Saturday "with state machinery, to settle a first group of men participating in the Mission Land and Mission Free Men," said Alexis Ortiz, solicitor general of rich farmland Cojedes State. After a meeting at the Executive Vice President's Office, he explained that the move is to be supported by "the National Armed Force and local police corps, as well as officials from Governor Johnny Yánez Rangel's Office."