Goodbye Venezuela
(T)Hugo Chavez has announced that he will nationalize Venezuela's telecommunications and electrical companies and construct Cuba South. He also wants to take over the national bank and to be given authority to legislate by executive decree. So long, Venezuela. You no longer have freedom.
"We're moving toward a socialist republic of Venezuela, and that requires a deep reform of our national constitution," Chavez said in a televised address after swearing in his new Cabinet. "We are in an existential moment of Venezuelan life. We're heading toward socialism, and nothing and no one can prevent it."
Chavez, who will be sworn in Wednesday to a third term that runs through 2013, also said he wanted a constitutional amendment to eliminate the autonomy of the Central Bank and would soon ask the National Assembly, solidly controlled by his allies, to give him greater powers to legislate by presidential decree.
The nationalization appeared likely to affect Electricidad de Caracas, owned by Arlington, Virginia-based AES Corp., and C.A. Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, known as CANTV, the country's largest publicly traded company.
"All of that which was privatized, let it be nationalized," Chavez said, referring to "all of those sectors in an area so important and strategic for all of us as is electricity."
"The nation should recover its ownership of strategic sectors," he said.
Property seizures will undoubtedly soon be followed by secret police. Venezuela is entering a nightmare.
World news | Gaius Monday, 8 January , 2007
