There is lots of concern over the decree by the Governor of Cojedes state Johnny (no misspelling) Yanez Rangel ordering the “intervention of all urban, rural or lands with agricultural vocation, public or private, which are presumably not in use or under the regimen of large estates, which are in conflict of ownership and or with distribution problems”
In this first decree, the regional Government intervenes 16 farms, belonging to private individuals, foreign and local companies, politicians and retired military. It also extends the intervention to other extensions of land that are later determined to be covered by the decree according to technical studies.
The legal counsel for the state backed the decree with this senseless statement:
“Property is going to be respected, the term intervention may be strong, but the intention is to establish order, under no scenario is this an expropriation, what we are looking for is for win-win situation”
Anyone understand that statement? I certainly don’t.
Separately, the Governor himself said:
“What we are looking for is to end anarchy…the idea is to coordinate and find out about the lands and define which ones are agricultural, and which ones are private or public…the land not in use in private hands must be used, if not, we will expropriate them…we are intervening 120 Hectares, we will study the condition in which they are today and will apply legal regulations, to make them produce, sustained under the framework of endogenous development”
In 2001, Chavez had approved under the framework of an enabling law, a land Bill that allowed the Government to expropriate land that was not being used and regulating the use of land. However, the law itself said that it could not begin to be enforced until a national land registry of farm land was completed and it gave the power to implement the law to the Institute for Lands. That law did not give regional Governors the power to implement the Bill.
There are conflicting reports about the purpose of the decree. To some, it is trial balloons to have Chavze implement similar interventions nationwide. to others, it is a dispute between the use of land for raising cattle or for agriculture. Finally, others say that the Cojedes Government has been trying to start a sugar processing plant and needs the land being intervened in order to carry out his project that has been planned jointly with Cuban “experts”.
The Devil's Excrement 
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