VenEconomy // Bolivarian "revolutionaries" grabbing what belongs to others

VenEconomy: The Bolivarian "revolutionaries" seem to be stepping up their efforts to grab what belongs to others.

It all started with the government's eagerness to appropriate agricultural land that was fully productive based on the unconstitutional Lands Law and on the grounds of the ill-named "rescuing" of properties, both large and small, such as La Marquesena, El Frio, Pinero, El Cedral, and El Charcote, the sugarcane fields in the Quibor Valley, and, more recently, La Carolina, a farm belonging to Diego Arria.

Then the government started to take over urban properties, among them, buildings, land used by small and medium industries, and shopping malls.

Now the National Lands Institute (INTI) is turning its attention to land on which homes have been built, denying the owners their constitutional property rights.

On July 2, the INTI published a notification in the local press in Nueva Esparta, declaring 521 hectares of populated plots of land in Arismendi, Maneiro, and Diaz municipalities to be "uncultivated or idle land," even though the majority of them have been built on.

The unbelievable part of this story is that this declaration is based on a decree issued in 1987 by the then-President, Jaime Lusinchi, who determined that those 521 hectares had agricultural potential. When dusting off this obsolete decree, the INTI failed to take account of the fact that the State itself had developed those plots of land for housing, installing basic services and infrastructure, and later sold them to private individuals.

Today, that land is the home of the populations of La Ceiba, Atamo North and South, Catalan, Chinguirito, Sabana de Guacuco, El Hato, Agua de Vaca, and Los Cerritos.

Nor did the Executive take account of the fact that more than 6,000 families (approximately 30,000 people) have lived in those communities for 20 years or more, and that all those people would be affected by this measure.

The precautionary measure that now prevents the sale and disposal of the properties on this land also ignores the fact that the majority of these residents have their documents in order, pay municipal taxes, and that the Constitution protects their ownership rights.

After causing widespread anxiety among the local inhabitants, the Ministry of Agriculture "clarified" that only 300 hectares would be affected on the grounds of being "idle," and that there was no danger of expropriation. However, people are still worried because, on the one hand, more than 80% of the plots of land are inhabited and, on the other, the Executive has still not lifted the precautionary measure that forbids them to sell, rent, remodel or mortgage their properties or otherwise use them for performing transactions of any type.

This is just one example of how the government is stepping up its attacks on private property in its determination to impose a communist regime, where there is no private property of any kind.