Venezuela nationalises major slaughterhouse and milk company

In a speech given during the swearing in of the new national leadership of the Socialist United Party of Venezuela (PSUV), president Chávez announced the nationalisation of the country's largest chain of slaughterhouses and of a milk company, as part of a plan to struggle against food sabotage.

"We nationalized, through an acquisition, a large chain of (slaughterhouses) that makes up 70% of the installed capacity in Venezuela" Chavez said. "We're also acquiring milk-products company 'Los Andes' that represents 30% of the milk-processing capacity in the country," he added.

In his speech Chavez insisted that one of the lines of attack of imperialism and the bourgeoisie is to generate shortages of food in the country. "Mr Bush himself mentioned this in his speech, when he said that the president of Venezuela is a demagogue who makes his people go hungry", he said.

Chavez explained how powerful private businessmen who are opposed to his government and allied to imperialism are promoting hoarding of food and other products in order to create scarcity and blame the government for it.

The nationalisations announced were part of a campaign to guarantee food sovereignty. The measure is taken after months of problems of scarcity of milk, caused in part by the worldwide increase in demand; smuggling in the border with Colombia and because some producers, seeing their profit margins squeezed, preferred to use milk to produce other products with a higher profit margins like cheese and yoghurt.

Regarding the slaughterhouse, Chavez explained that it was not just a question of taking it over, but of "transforming the capitalist model into a socialist one, together with the workers."