[kraken] Venezuela: Squatters Attempt Massive Invasion of Caracas Residential Area

From: doorgeefluik <doorgeefluik_at_xs4all.nl>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:54:45 +0100

 Squatters Attempt Massive Invasion of Caracas Residential Area

 http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=384822&CategoryId=10717

 CARACAS – Activists bearing insignias of President Hugo Chavez’s ruling
 United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or PSUV, attempted Saturday a
 massive invasion of real estate properties in the residential
 municipality of Chacao in Caracas, its mayor, Emilio Grateron, said.

 The encroachment began before dawn this Saturday at 20 properties, both
 in buildings and on vacant lots, but the Chacao police managed to turn
 back 16 of these operations in the areas of El Rosal, Altamira, La
 Castellana, Campo Alegre and Estado Leal, where 37 people were arrested,
 the mayor said.

 The squatters acted in a “well organized” way, Grateron said in
 telephone calls to radio stations, TV channels and the Web pages of the
 capital’s daily newspapers.

 “The attempts were practically simultaneous, and though we made a
 strong response, it was all so well organized that it was beyond the
 capacity of our security forces,” he said in a statement on Globovision
 TV.

 The mayor called it “a coordinated political action,” and said that on
 Thursday “PSUV members were calling for operations of this kind and
 asked people to take over these real estate properties illegally.”

 About 100 squatters occupied the properties, “very well organized and
 in constant contact with one another,” the mayor said, who in a later
 press conference added that only 11 are still being detained, because
 “we respect their right to return home” once they call off the invasion.

 Two police officers were injured in the incident, he said.

 The invasions took place on vacant lots where the owners are still
 waiting for building permits, and in stores and business properties
 already built but not yet operational, he said.

 Humberto Oropeza, who identified himself as a member of a “battle
 chamber” in a community council of the area, said on Globovision that
 the squatters were evacuated “violently” from lands “that are being
 fattened up for capitalist gentlemen” to sell “at high prices” to
 companies that build shopping malls.

 “The owners came by and looked at us with disgust, as if we weren’t
 even human,” he said, and added that they had been empowered by
 “assemblies of urban land committees” that have investigated and found
 that these lands belong “to the people, to the municipality.”

 The properties were subsequently evacuated because of “violent threats
 from fascist officials” commanded by a mayor “whom we ask to forget
 about doing ‘fashion’ stuff,” the activist said.

 The mayor told a later press conference that the police made a
 “proportional use of force.”

 Meanwhile, the government of President Hugo Chavez rejected the
 invasion of real estate property and said that a law that would
 temporarily authorize it has not yet taken effect.

 “We all have to work together with the revolutionary government to
 recover these urban lands and the president is working hard” on it, but
 “he does not authorize their being taken over or invaded by the
 communities,” Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami said.

 Chavez’s order in that sense, El Aissami said in a call to the
 government-run channel VTV, is that communities should identify
 properties that can serve in the future for building popular housing.

 Chavez, who in recent weeks has promoted a massive process of
 expropriations of supposedly unoccupied lands, ask the public to
 identify vacant land, empty buildings and unused areas so they can be
 “recovered,” as a way of dealing with the deficit of 2 million homes in
 the country.

 The invasions came a day after Chavez signed the Organic Emergency Law
 of Housing and Urban Lands, which, among other things, allows the
 government to fix prices on land and construction materials.

 Chavez approved the measure with the special powers of the Enabling Law
 that the National Assembly passed in December as a way of dealing with
 the emergencies caused by the torrential rains affecting the country at
 the time.

 Some 40 people lost their lives in the storms.

 In addition, the Supreme Court, or TSJ, ordered on Jan. 17 the nation’s
 judges “to temporarily limit” every measure that would affect properties
 destined for family or individual dwellings.

 “In virtue of the natural calamities and disasters caused by the
 rains,” judges must avoid the evacuation of homes, “even if a definitive
 order exists” to do so, the TSJ ruling said.
 

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Received on 27 Jan 2011 08:54 uur