January 11, 2003

Chavez orders food seizures

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he has ordered the army to seize private food stocks and food production plants that the general strike has rendered idle.

"[The army] must prepare plans to take military control of the food factories and stocks," he told supporters on Friday, according to the news agency AFP.

The president accused the strike organisers - who are calling for new elections - of "seeking to murder the Venezuelan people through hunger".
[...]
But an opposition representative angrily denied responsibility for the food shortages.

"We urge the military to realise that the only culprit for the shortages of food is the government," said Rafael Alfonzo, head of the Cavidea federation of food industry companies.

It's going to be a photo finish, but Chavez is now neck and neck with Kim Jung-Il and Saddam Hussein in the race to be the world's craziest and most despotic dictator (of course, Mogabe of Zimbabwe is the dark horse candidate, if you'll pardon the expression.)