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| Caribbean-Latin America | |
| Chavez says mall to be expropriated in Venezuela | |
| 2008-12-22 | |
| President Hugo Chavez ordered construction halted on a major shopping mall in Caracas on Sunday, saying the government will expropriate the unfinished building. Chavez said the new Sambil mall would severely clog downtown Caracas with traffic and would not be permitted to open its doors. "We're going to expropriate that and turn it into a hospital -- I don't know -- a school, a university," Chavez said to applause during his Sunday television and radio program, "Hello, President." Constructora Sambil, the company building the mall, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It operates Sambil malls in cities across Venezuela, including another vast shopping center in Caracas. Chavez objected to the new mall scheduled to open in Caracas' downtown La Candelaria district next year, saying the area is already so crowded that "not a soul fits." The hulking concrete and brick structure takes up an entire city block and according to the Sambil Web site was to include 273 shops. The Venezuelan leader said it would be out of line with his government's socialist vision to allow such a mall to take up precious urban real estate -- and that unbridled consumerism isn't his idea of progress either. "How are we going to create socialism turning over vital public spaces to Sambil?" said Chavez, who has nationalized Venezuela's largest phone company, electric utilities and oil fields. The president also has urged Venezuelans to shed their materialism and their taste for designer clothes, sport utility vehicles, Scotch whisky and plastic surgery.
The president did not say how much the government might pay the mall's owners in compensation. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 Real Communism.. from the party perspective.... What's yours it mine. What's mine is mine.... Its all mine. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-12-22 10:51 |
| #3 No worries! Gangsta rappers took over Pentagon City Mall. It's all good. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-12-22 09:27 |
| #2 Straight out of the Communist Manifesto hiding behind "socialism". |
| Posted by: hammerhead 2008-12-22 09:26 |
| #1 About Constructora Sambil |
| Posted by: tipper 2008-12-22 09:26 |