From British Communist paper Morning Star
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered the nationalisation of major iron and steel firms, accelerating his drive to bolster the country’s industrial base.
Mr Chavez, who has already brought many of Venezuela’s biggest industries into public ownership, announced on Thursday that steel companies Matesi, Consigua, Ceramicas Carabobo and Tavsa would be nationalised.
Addressing jubilant industrial workers in Bolivar state, Mr Chavez said that the latest nationalisations advance plans for the construction of “a single, large integrated industrial complex” that will form a “solid platform of socialism.”
“Venezuelan workers are going to give a lesson to the world on how the working class has been resuscitated to make a revolution,” he declared, before announcing a wage boost for thousands of workers and a cut in managers’ salaries.
From the Communist Party USA’s People’s Weekly World
Bolivian President Evo Morales has approved a decree allowing the state to seize property from citizens suspected of terrorism or separatism.
Mr Morales said on Wednesday that the measure is needed to dissuade right-wing extremists in the conservative eastern lowlands from launching a violent separatist campaign.
In a raid last month on a Santa Cruz hotel, police killed three men who allegedly planned to kill Mr Morales and other officials in a bid to spark a separatist revolt.
Mr Morales accused several opposition leaders of backing the alleged mercenaries and he warned that “businessmen financing separatist activities will be punished.”
Santa Cruz MP Oscar Urenda claimed that the decree, which lets prosecutors freeze bank accounts and seize property belonging to suspects, amounts to “state terrorism.”
But Bolivian government spokesman Juan Ramon Quintana said that it only targets “activities aimed at undermining national unity.”
