APRIL 2010: Chávez Steps Up Relentless Pressure on Private Sector
April 31, 2010
April 30: Chávez seizes land from Empresas Polar, orders takeover of three sugar mills. During a late-night Cabinet meeting broadcast in live TV, the Venezuelan president signed a decree ordering the expropriation of five plots of land owned by Empresas Polar, Venezuela’s leading beer and food company, as well as the take over of three sugar mills.
April 29: Chávez orders crackdown on dozens of butchers in Caracas. Venezuela’s Attorney General launched an investigation of 38 Caracas butchers for allegedly violating government-imposed price controls on foods. The butchers under investigation have been prohibited from traveling while they await trial; some of them have been illegally detained by soldiers.
April 26: “No private property is sacred” according to Chávez’s government. During a press conference, Diosdado Cabello, a senior member of Chávez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela, declared that Venezuela’s government is indeed “anti-capitalist” and that “no private property is sacred because the Constitution doesn’t say so.”
April 25: Chávez’s War on Private Property Destroys Venezuelan Mining Sector. Chávez threatened to nationalize gold mining concessions in Venezuela, calling the mining companies leadership “crazy people” driven by capitalist greed. Chávez’s statements came on the heels of a survey by Canada’s Fraser Institute, which measured how the public policies of 72 governments affect their respective mining industries. Venezuela ranked dead last.
April 21: Venezuela’s Economy to Decline While Most Others Grow in South America. Economic forecast reports by both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund conclude that while almost every country in the Western Hemisphere will see modest to substantial economic growth in 2010, Venezuela’s economy will continue to deteriorate.
April 19: Chávez Shuts Down McDonald’s and Wendy’s. Chávez ordered to close down the Caracas McDonald’s and Wendy’s restaurants because “it is an ideological inconsistency to have two businesses identified with the U.S. empire in Bicentennial Boulevard…it is not xenophobia,” explained Gerson Pérez, leader of Chávez’s ruling party.
April 13: Chávez Rallies Government-Organized Militias, Advocates Violence. Chávez hosted a military-style parade, where he armed 35,000 young militias to defend his socialist revolution and mark the anniversary of the 2002 failed coup against him.
April 12: Chávez Intensifies Threats to Polar. Chávez hints that Empresas Polar Owner Lorenzo Mendoza is on the fast track to hell as a result of all his hard-earned success. In remarks directed at Mendoza, Chávez asked, “If you want to go to heaven, do you know what Jesus said? Sell everything you have and distribute it to the poor.”
April 8: Polar Fights back. Empresas Polar filed a motion with the Supreme Court to nullify the government’s expropriation of two company warehouses in Barquisimeto.
April 7: Venezuela’s Strongman Splurges on Russian Weapons. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin boasted he had sold Chávez another $5 billion in weapons – a huge sum for a Latin American country that is deep in recession and busy rationing its water, electricity and hard currency.