Venezuela's Chavez to seize ports and sink ships

“Anyone who opposes me should be imprisoned,” said President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela on March 15 after giving orders that the army should seize the ports of Puerto Cabello and Maracaibo despite resistance from the governors of the two states involved. On his popular television program “Aló Presidente”, Chavez announced his order to seize the ports within the next few days, following a reform of the Law of Decentralization that was passed by the Venezuelan congress in the preceding days. Some 90 percent of the national legislature is controlled by Chavez' partisans.

Chavez was apparently incensed by resistance to the measure offered by opposition leaders such as Mayor Antonio Ledezma of Caracas and Governor Henrique Salas Feo of Carabobo – the state in which Puerto Cabellos is located. Ledezma said that he will ignore the new authority conferred upon the central government by the new law, considering it unconstitutional and a usurpation of local authority. Governor Salas Feo, for his part, told the press that Chavez “wants to impose his mobs to control the ports and airports of the country.” Chavez said of Salas Feo, “If the governor of Carabobo tries something funny, arrest him.” Furthemore, said the red-shirted Chavez, Salas Feo “had better have an army because the Navy will go there. He said that he is going to defend Puerto Cabello; very well, but it will be with the Carabobo police because he will be arrested.”

Chavez threatens to seize all the air and seaports in the country. Through the port of Maracaibo in the state of Zulia passes some 60 percent of Venezuelan oil exports, much of it going to the United States. Venezuela’s government controls the CITGO gasoline refinery and distribution company in the U.S.

The Venezuelan president also has threatened to seize or sink privately-owned fishing vessels too. He has ordered the expropriation of 30 of the 267 industrial fishing vessels of Venezuela for not having observed a Venezuela law forbidding the use of dragnets for fishing that only March 14 went into effect. Ship owners have denounced Chavez’ plan to eliminate fishing and put some 25,000 fishermen out of work.

Chavez had to admit that only 10 vessels have so far been refitted according to the new rule. As for the rest, Chavez says “the ships that have opposed the measure we will sink”, and “Those that did not refit, some 208 ships, will be expropriated and we will sink them. There is a lot of scrap metal that can be used at the bottom of the sea to create reefs.” All that the Venezuelan government is offering in exchange is Venezuelan debt paper, which has declined by 60 percent in recent months due to the world financial crisis.