Expropriation

all the facts and news in Venezuela on Expropriation and how it influences all decisions made by Hugo Chavez as president implications for Expropriation of the Venezuelan people

Sep
21
2010
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A Plea for Independent Election Monitoring in Venezuela

This article was originally posted by The Huffington Post

Venezuela will hold National Assembly elections on September 26 and it represents the next best chance to slow totalitarianism’s advance. For this reason, it is imperative for the international community, including the UN and the Organization of American States, to insist on fully independent election monitoring.

Hugo Chavez’s illegal appropriation of Globovision marked the end of independent media in Venezuela. That criminal act, combined with intimidating of the judiciary (most prominently the jailing of independent judges like Maria Lourdes Afiuni, who held his government to the rule of law), adds to the long list of reasons why the world must act.

Clearly, an independent legislature is the last barrier to complete dictatorial rule.

Chavez has been busy issuing decrees to arbitrarily “censor any information, facts or circumstance that it decides should be confidential” according to Human Rights Watch. It is no wonder then, that the Chavez government has also called on an investigation into human rights organizations that are alleged to receive funding from the United States.

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Sep
16
2010
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The Chavez threat

This article was originally posted by Los Angeles Time

Venezuela’s Sept. 26 national parliamentary elections present a major opportunity for strongman Hugo Chavez to cement his grip on power. Despite a tradition of a free press and competitive politics, a cosmopolitan elite and extensive natural resources, Venezuela is increasingly a case study in how to lose political and economic freedom.

The stakes are especially high in light of evidence consistent with an emerging Venezuelan nuclear weapons program. Ironically, Chavez’s frequently clownish behavior protects him, camouflaging the seriousness of his potential threat to U.S. security and to democratic societies throughout Latin America.

Washington, under Republican and Democratic administrations, has proved unable or unwilling to slow Chavez’s descent into authoritarianism. Unlike coups by prior caudillos in the Americas, the situation in Venezuela today is like a slow-motion train wreck, which makes it all the more frustrating. A lack of international outrage is discouraging pro-democracy Venezuelans across the ideological spectrum. They worry they have been forgotten, especially by an Obama administration that finds foreign policy a distraction.

This month’s elections, therefore, may be a last chance for change before Chavez completes his takeover. He has advanced his agenda since taking office in 1999 by fragmenting his domestic opposition, manipulating election rules, closing down opposition news sources and expropriating the considerable assets of businesses and entrepreneurs. He has materially impaired Venezuela’s prosperous petroleum economy by failing to make prudent investments and improvements, while using substantial oil revenues to consolidate his hold on power.

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Sep
15
2010
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VenEconomy: He Sowed Winds and Is Reaping Disasters

This article was originally posted by Latin American Herald Tribune

Since 1999, when Hugo Chávez came to power, there has been a systematic policy of waging war and destruction against the regime’s adversaries and of dividing the country into two large sectors and pitching them one against the other.

This policy of waging war has led to the practice of getting rid of people with the skills and experience for occupying posts that are crucial for Venezuela’s development, for merely political reasons. What is even worse, these people, also for absurd political reasons, have been replaced almost entirely by individuals who have scant knowledge of the area for which they are responsible and are expected to act in accordance with guidelines where revolutionary interests prevail over the proper functioning of the country.

Today, sad to say, Venezuelans are reaping the disasters and the loss of lives and property that those winds of war have sown.

One of the victims of the lack of investment, disregard for maintenance, incompetence, negligence, corruption, and other numerous ills of this revolutionary government is the country’s road system, which is in frank decline to the point of collapse, full of potholes and without street lighting, signposts, or road barriers. In the past week, this situation claimed the life of the Governor of Guárico Willian Lara and left 17 people injured in a pileup on the Caracas-Guarenas freeway, where accidents occur practically every day with injuries and loss of life.

Another victim is the public transportation system, which consists of a collection of units fit for the junk yard, and the Caracas Metro, which is operating in excess of capacity, with rundown facilities and teeming with criminals.

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