VENEZUELA:VENEZUELAN ARMED forces have occupied 32 sugar plantations, the latest in a wave of takeovers that some say is a bid by president Hugo Chavez to regain political momentum and reverse his recent popularity slide.
The farms in Lara state were taken over on Thursday by army units at the request of the Chavez government's National Land Institute, or INTI. The institute in recent years has handled takeovers of thousands of acres of underused farmland and turned them over to worker co-operatives.
The government last week said it would seize privately-owned cement manufacturers, and officials said it would "renationalise" Sidor, one of Latin America's largest steel factories. A 1998 privatisation placed Sidor in the control of an Argentine-Italian joint venture. INTI president Juan Carlos Loyo told reporters that the farm seizures were ordered after inspections showed 80 per cent of them were idle. However, the local association of sugar growers said at a news conference that the farms were productive and that they would fight the "militarisation" of their crops.
The seizures are part of Mr Chavez's "socialism for the 21st century", in which he is using Venezuela's oil riches to transform the economy. But they also show the challenges facing him and his Bolivarean revolution, including whether replacing private enterprise with state-financed worker co-operatives and other measures will succeed in turning around his recent polling decline.
Critics said the takeovers appear politically motivated as Mr Chavez strives to shift blame to the private sector for inflation and scarcities of food items and housing. He wants to show strength in advance of state and local elections in November, observers claimed.
The president has seen his popularity plummet to 37 per cent in March from 50 per cent in June and as high as 66 per cent in December 2005, according to Alfredo Keller & Associates of Caracas. He suffered his first setback at the polls in December when he lost a voter referendum that would have expanded his power and enabled him to run indefinitely for re-election.
Inflation last year exceeded 20 per cent, the highest in South America. Basic foodstuffs such as milk, chicken, beans and cooking oil often are hard to buy.
In January and February, he scored public relations coups by brokering the release of six hostages held by Colombian rebel group Farc. But he squandered much of the goodwill by leading a campaign to legitimise the rebels, an idea rejected by many Venezuelans and Chavez allies abroad.
Now, he faces more criticism based on electronic files found on the laptops of a dead Farc commander. Colombian authorities have said the information includes documents indicating Farc received $300 million (€190 million) from Mr Chavez and that the rebels were seeking to acquire uranium, possibly for a weapon.
Mr Chavez last year forced foreign companies including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips to give up control of oil fields in Venezuela. He also nationalised the country's largest telecommunications company and Caracas's principal electric power generator.
The case of Sidor is delicate politically because the majority shareholder in the company is based in Argentina, whose president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is a close ally. But while the Kirchners are strong allies of Mr Chavez, who has bought more than $4 billion in Argentine bonds, it was unclear what the Argentine government could do on behalf of the company.