Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez said on Friday he has proof of a United States plan to invade his county at the end of a visit to the US for the United Nations General Assembly packed with diplomatic fireworks.
”I have evidence that there are plans to invade Venezuela,” the left-wing leader, an outspoken critic of the US administration, told ABC television in an interview.
Since arriving in New York on Thursday morning, Chávez has said the US is a ”terrorist state” and called for the UN headquarters to be moved to another country. The US has, in turn, taken Venezuela off its list of countries deemed to be cooperating in the campaign against the drugs trade.
Amid mounting rancour, the Venezuelan leader has in the past accused the US of having plans to assassinate him — a move denied by the US administration. But the US authorities were embarrassed recently after a conservative evangelist, Pat Robertson, called for the US to have Chávez killed.
Washington has said that Chávez, a close ally of Cuba’s communist leader Fidel Castro, is a destabilising influence in Latin America.
In the television interview, Chávez said that since US President George Bush came to power in January 2001, ”Venezuela has been subjected to permanent aggression against us and against me personally”.
Chávez has threatened to cut off oil supplies to the US. But he said that, for the moment, the supplies are safe. Venezuela is the fourth-biggest oil source for the US.
Chávez said: ”We have no plans to alter in any way the supply of oil to the United States.”
He highlighted how Venezuela is donating gasoline, through its state-owned Citgo stations, at a cut rate or free in American areas hurt by Hurricane Katrina.
Citgo has also put up hundreds of people on the grounds of a refinery outside New Orleans, he said.
”You hit me on one cheek, and I’ll try to respond by helping you, I don’t care. We’re not doing this for the administration. We’re doing it for the people of the United States. So that’s how I respond,” Chávez told ABC.
”Today or tomorrow, a Venezuelan ship with 300 000 barrels of gasoline should be arriving. It’s the first of four or five additional ships that we have sent to help,” he told ABC.
”I have friends throughout the entire world, kings, princes, presidents, prime ministers,” Chávez said. ”The only country, the only administration, with whom we don’t have good relations on the face of the earth is the administration of Mr Bush.”
The Venezuelan leader made several attacks on the US at the UN World Summit in New York this week, calling the United States a ”terrorist” state for its war in Iraq and for harbouring Luis Posada Carriles, whom Venezuela wants to try for a 1976 downing of a Cuban airliner, killing everyone aboard.
”It is a terrorist state. It is a government that violates all rules and behaves shamelessly,” he said on Thursday.
Chávez said that a 2002 coup, in which he was removed from power for two days, was the Bush administration’s fault.
”This administration has truly broken with all protocols of democracy and respect for people. The coup d’état against Venezuela was manufactured in Washington. My death was ordered. And it was ordered recently,” he told ABC.
Venezuela was among countries that objected to the main document for the UN World Summit.
Venezuela’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Rodriguez asked to speak just as world leaders were to endorse a plan for UN reform. He said not enough countries had been involved in the process. Cuba also joined the attack. — AFP
