Golfers begone

last updated 8 January 2015

Caracas, Venezuela

Caracas Mayor Juan Barreto says he will expropriate two private golf courses in a wealthy enclave of the city and build low-cost housing on them. Barreto, an ally of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, says it is “obscene” for the members of the Caracas Country Club and Valle Arriba Golf Club to play golf within sight of the Venezuelan capital’s slums. He has ordered the “forced acquisition” of the clubs, which, he says, cover enough land to house 10,000 people. The Chavez government has seized large farms and redistributed parcels to the poor, but the seizure of the golf courses would be the first expropriation of urban land. Barreto’s political opponents called the move “electoral demagoguery.”