Charallave airport west of Caracas
Source: Globovision

I am getting weary of the words ‘expropriation’ or ‘confiscation’ – what’s going on in Venezuela right now is outright stealing.

Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez stole himself an airport today, taking over the Charallave small airplane airport well outside Caracas, which is where all the small planes in Venezuela were diverted after Chavez helped himself to Carlota airport in the center of the city in 2004 or so. Of course he has no intention of paying – he didn’t pay any of the oil companies for his thefts and there’s no way he’s going to pay any of these ‘capitalists’ who own and keep this nice airport in good shape so that people can travel through Venezuela on something other than its bad roads, or visit other countries.

I was at this little airport when I visited Caracas last year. It was a nice airport. It was efficient, friendly, attractive, well-designed, trash-free and had a pleasant cafe for a bite to eat ahead of a flight. Now, it’s about to be ripped off by communists and turned into a Soviet-style air-strip, full of incompetent third-world chavistas only there for their political loyalty, with absolutely no service or efficiency, let alone access to the public.

Chavez is stealing this airport not only because he likes to steal but because he wants to impede freedom of movement in Venezuela. He is beginning to shut the gates to escape. With more and more Venezuelans seeking to emigrate, and asylum applications at record highs right now, Chavez knows he’s losing national talent and seeks to force Venezuelans to accept his communist way without choices. He doesn’t like the dynamic new Venezuelan-American community that is blossoming in Houston, Calgary and Miami. He wants to force Venezuelans to stay inside the carcel of socialism he’s creating and if they do not accept his expropriations, then to simply suffer or be punished, as he goes about creating his hell on earth.

It’s getting very bad in Venezuela right now. The future is black.