Hugo Chavez Demands His Own People To Repatriate $10 Billion

In his most direct threat against the private sector yet, Hugo Chavez has warned Venezuelan businesses that unless they repatriate $10 billion in capital flight for his own disposal, he’ll take every last thing they have left in Venezuela.

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Caracas, Jun 10 (EFE).- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez asked the nation’s business leaders to repatriate $10 billion of the dollars they have overseas and invest it in their own country.

“I ask you to bring back the $10 billion you took out over the last 10 years and invest it in this country. If you don’t we will have to take measures after our victory on Dec. 3,” Chavez said at a ceremony in Maracaibo, 700 kilometers (435 miles) west of Caracas.

The leftist-populist president, who refers to Venezuelan business leaders who oppose him as “oligarchs,” gave no clues as to what kind of decisions he might take if there is no return of overseas capital, which the government believes could be as much as $80 billion.

He said, nonetheless, that the measures would be defined after the presidential elections next December which, he predicted, he will win by a “knockout.” Chavez’s address took place at the ceremony of laying the foundation stone for the first Bolivarian Complete Educational City which will cover some 31,500 square meters (339,000 square feet).

The whole thing is horrific, because those Venezuelan investors who cannot move assets out of the country, like farmers and ranchers, are the ones who stand to be destroyed. Urban Venezuelans with cash, investment portfolios and savings, rather than fixed assets like farms, are in much better shape, but they have little reason to repatriate their overseas cash, which was moved in the first place on fears it would be stolen. There is no reason to think it would not be stolen, given the current Chavez threat against farmers. So this Chavez threat could be a move to pit one sector of the private sector against another.

But more likely, it’s a sign that Hugo Chavez is running out of money.