Venezuelan Coup and the US involvement
- Thread starter Makkonnen
- Start date
VENEZUELA SINCE THE COUP
Since the failure of the reactionary coup of 11-13 April and the return to power of President Hugo Chávez, it has become apparent that there are still serious tensions in Venezuela. The right-wing opposition which backed the coup continues to show vigorous hostility to Chávez and to call for a referendum or early elections to force him out of office, and the US continues to push for a neo-liberal reorientation of Venezuelan policy; but the popular base of support for 'chavismo', organised in the Círculos Bolivarianos, is pressing for a radicalisation of the revolutionary process and warning of the danger of a new coup attempt.
US hostility
Immediately after his return Chávez called for reconciliation and dialogue, but the reaction of the right-wing parties, the media and business circles was not encouraging. Although the government has shown commendable respect for constitutional and judicial norms in its investigation of the coup, the conspirators have shown no signs of repentance, and the US State Department recently had the effrontery to ask the Venezuelan government not to issue suggestions that the US may have been involved in the coup, since this "could raise the level of resentment against the US, or anti-Americanism" in the country, which would "not be in the interest" of either country. As if the real cause of growing anti-Americanism in Venezuela was not the fact of blatant US interference and hostility to the country's legitimate government!
The politico-military situation remains complex: Pedro Carmona, the businessman who led the spurious 48-hour regime, was under house arrest and subject to trial, but on 23 May he took refuge in the Colombian ambassador's house, and six days later he was in Bogotá, probably en route to the US. At the same time it was said that over 600 officers were also subject to trial for involvement in the coup, and since new military promotions have to be ratified by Congress on 5 July, Chávez has proposed many promotions but has had to include many Colonels or lower-rank officers, which has not gone down well in the military. Recent weeks have seen growing tensions, with recently retired officers planning to demonstrate in military uniform on 20 June in solidarity with those remanded in custody, and the government declaring this to be illegal. Right-wing civilian groups have also been demonstrating and demanding an anti-Chávez referendum.
Although many on the left fear that Chávez' conciliatory gestures are a sign of weakness, his political astuteness should not be underestimated. The US, in keeping with the blatant hypocrisy of its support for the "democratic" coup, would dearly love to find an excuse to invoke the OAS Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela, but Chávez' strict respect for constitutional norms has made this almost impossible. Thus on Sunday June 2nd, just before a crucial OAS meeting in Barbados, Chávez announced that he had invited the US Congressional Black Caucus to act as observers and mediators in his attempt to foster a national dialogue (the black members of Congress had written to him expressing their support and condemning the coup). In terms of international solidarity, the revolutionary government has also received visits by the French rural activist José Bové, who expressed his support for the land reform struggle, and by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo headed by Hebe de Bonafini.
In a move which many will find perplexing, Chávez recently (in the first week of June) gave a cordial reception to an official of the World Bank, who came away hypocritically praising the Venezuelan leader's efforts to promote social justice and reduce poverty while maintaining fiscal discipline. But Venezuela has not accepted World Bank or IMF diktats - it is preserving financial stability on its own terms, knowing that an Argentinian-type collapse would be catastrophic for the progress of the Bolivarian Revolution. This is not Cuba in 1960 - there is no Soviet Union to bail Chávez out if he burns his boats. In fact, Venezuela is more like the Cuba of today, striving to defend a progressive social policy while recognising the need to participate in a hostile world market (with the difference that in Venezuela the revolution has just begun, unlike Cuba which is defending a 40-year-old revolution under siege).
In this situation, popular mobilisation and military support are crucial, and it is clear that Chávez and his supporters are well aware of this. The círculos bolivarianos continue to grow, and in a recent article the President's brother, Adán Chávez, called for urgent theoretical debate in order to "advance towards the formation of the Party of the Bolivarian Revolution, a party which in addition to having a solid electoral apparatus must become the organic and political force of this new period" and which must overcome narrow group interests to achieve the "consolidation of the Bolivarian Revolution".
This concept of a vanguard party operating in a radically democratic and pluralist system is certainly original, and confirms the international significance of the Venezuelan process. As for Venezuelan relations with Colombia, following the Colombian establishment's support for the coup and the election of Uribe Vélez, they could hardly be worse. If Uribe hopes to solve matters by force and repression, he cannot count on Venezuelan support.
David Raby
Since the failure of the reactionary coup of 11-13 April and the return to power of President Hugo Chávez, it has become apparent that there are still serious tensions in Venezuela. The right-wing opposition which backed the coup continues to show vigorous hostility to Chávez and to call for a referendum or early elections to force him out of office, and the US continues to push for a neo-liberal reorientation of Venezuelan policy; but the popular base of support for 'chavismo', organised in the Círculos Bolivarianos, is pressing for a radicalisation of the revolutionary process and warning of the danger of a new coup attempt.
US hostility
Immediately after his return Chávez called for reconciliation and dialogue, but the reaction of the right-wing parties, the media and business circles was not encouraging. Although the government has shown commendable respect for constitutional and judicial norms in its investigation of the coup, the conspirators have shown no signs of repentance, and the US State Department recently had the effrontery to ask the Venezuelan government not to issue suggestions that the US may have been involved in the coup, since this "could raise the level of resentment against the US, or anti-Americanism" in the country, which would "not be in the interest" of either country. As if the real cause of growing anti-Americanism in Venezuela was not the fact of blatant US interference and hostility to the country's legitimate government!
The politico-military situation remains complex: Pedro Carmona, the businessman who led the spurious 48-hour regime, was under house arrest and subject to trial, but on 23 May he took refuge in the Colombian ambassador's house, and six days later he was in Bogotá, probably en route to the US. At the same time it was said that over 600 officers were also subject to trial for involvement in the coup, and since new military promotions have to be ratified by Congress on 5 July, Chávez has proposed many promotions but has had to include many Colonels or lower-rank officers, which has not gone down well in the military. Recent weeks have seen growing tensions, with recently retired officers planning to demonstrate in military uniform on 20 June in solidarity with those remanded in custody, and the government declaring this to be illegal. Right-wing civilian groups have also been demonstrating and demanding an anti-Chávez referendum.
Although many on the left fear that Chávez' conciliatory gestures are a sign of weakness, his political astuteness should not be underestimated. The US, in keeping with the blatant hypocrisy of its support for the "democratic" coup, would dearly love to find an excuse to invoke the OAS Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela, but Chávez' strict respect for constitutional norms has made this almost impossible. Thus on Sunday June 2nd, just before a crucial OAS meeting in Barbados, Chávez announced that he had invited the US Congressional Black Caucus to act as observers and mediators in his attempt to foster a national dialogue (the black members of Congress had written to him expressing their support and condemning the coup). In terms of international solidarity, the revolutionary government has also received visits by the French rural activist José Bové, who expressed his support for the land reform struggle, and by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo headed by Hebe de Bonafini.
In a move which many will find perplexing, Chávez recently (in the first week of June) gave a cordial reception to an official of the World Bank, who came away hypocritically praising the Venezuelan leader's efforts to promote social justice and reduce poverty while maintaining fiscal discipline. But Venezuela has not accepted World Bank or IMF diktats - it is preserving financial stability on its own terms, knowing that an Argentinian-type collapse would be catastrophic for the progress of the Bolivarian Revolution. This is not Cuba in 1960 - there is no Soviet Union to bail Chávez out if he burns his boats. In fact, Venezuela is more like the Cuba of today, striving to defend a progressive social policy while recognising the need to participate in a hostile world market (with the difference that in Venezuela the revolution has just begun, unlike Cuba which is defending a 40-year-old revolution under siege).
In this situation, popular mobilisation and military support are crucial, and it is clear that Chávez and his supporters are well aware of this. The círculos bolivarianos continue to grow, and in a recent article the President's brother, Adán Chávez, called for urgent theoretical debate in order to "advance towards the formation of the Party of the Bolivarian Revolution, a party which in addition to having a solid electoral apparatus must become the organic and political force of this new period" and which must overcome narrow group interests to achieve the "consolidation of the Bolivarian Revolution".
This concept of a vanguard party operating in a radically democratic and pluralist system is certainly original, and confirms the international significance of the Venezuelan process. As for Venezuelan relations with Colombia, following the Colombian establishment's support for the coup and the election of Uribe Vélez, they could hardly be worse. If Uribe hopes to solve matters by force and repression, he cannot count on Venezuelan support.
David Raby
Venezuela Coup: US Denies Role, No One Buys It
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
[Limping to catch up with news that wasn't fit to print until Hugo
Chavez returned to power, an embarrassed New York Times reports on
April 16ththat US officials met with the Venezuelan coup plotters!
(gasp! No, really!!?). The thugs in Washington, of course, deny all.
Their credibility is about one notch lower than that of the "Times."]
AP - Tue Apr 16, 5:06 PM ET (via Yahoo)
U.S. Denies Wrongdoing in Venezuela
by George Gedda
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration brushed aside suggestions
Tuesday that it quietly encouraged the removal of Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, who was deposed from power last week only to
be reinstated after a brief period.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said that in meetings with
Venezuelan leaders over several months, U.S. officials have delivered
a consistent message.
"The political situation in Venezuela is one for the Venezuelans to
resolve peacefully, democratically and constitutionally," he said.
"We explicitly told opposition leaders the United States would not
support a coup."
Fleischer was bombarded with questions about a New York Times account
that senior Bush administration officials met with members of the
coalition that helped depose Chavez and agreed with them that Chavez
should be removed.
The Times said one senior official suggested that the Venezuelans use
constitutional means to achieve that goal, such as a referendum. It
was not clear whether the official quoted by the Times was reflecting
official policy or speaking for himself.
Fleischer's responses during a sometimes testy news briefing did not
address whether the administration favored a referendum as a means of
ending Chavez's rule.
Attempts to obtain clarification from the White House were not
immediately successful.
The initial State Department response last Friday to Chavez's ouster
suggested that the mercurial leader got what he deserved. It said
that Chavez provoked his own demise by ordering his supporters to
fire on anti-Chavez demonstrators, killing more than 10 and wounding
hundreds.
Fleischer noted that once the situation in Venezuela was clarified
with Chavez's reinstatement, the United States joined with its
colleagues in the Organization of American States and condemned
Friday's "alteration of constitutional order."
The department's initial welcome of Chavez's premature departure just
three years into his term seemed at odds with the position of
successive administrations that constitutional procedures must be
strictly upheld in the hemisphere.
This policy has gained momentum over the past decade. Officials have
frequently expressed pride that the hemisphere is all democratic -
with the exception of Cuba.
Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., the Foreign Relations Committee's top
Republican, suggested that threats to Venezuelan democracy and to its
constitution began long before the events of last weekend.
"I personally urge Mr. Chavez to make good use of this second chance
to raise a little more strongly the principles of democracy than he
has in the past," Helms said.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., noted that in contrast to the United
States, the vast majority of hemispheric governments lived up to
their responsibilities and denounced the unconstitutional efforts to
take power from a government which had been freely elected.
"I am extremely disappointed that rather than leading the effort to
reaffirm the region's commitment to the democratic principles
outlined in the OAS Charter, only belatedly did the United States
join with other OAS members to respond to the Venezuelan crisis,"
Dodd said.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said: "I think it's clear
that Mr. Chavez is not exactly pro-American, and we've got to accept
the ramifications of that. But I don't think we throw out democratic
principles, regardless of circumstance."
Javier Corrales, a Venezuela expert at Amherst College, said the
administration would have been much better off last Friday if its
statement began by stressing that any interruption in democratic
procedures is always regrettable.
Corrales expressed strong doubt that the administration was in any
way involved in the coup and noted that it never endorsed the
unconstitutional successor government that held power briefly before
Chavez's reinstatement.
*
source - JosePertierra@aol.com
The New York Times - April 16, 2002
Bush Officials Met With Venezuelans Who Ousted Leader
by Christopher Marquis
WASHINGTON, April 15--Senior members of the Bush administration metseveral
times in recent months with leaders of a coalition that ousted the Venezuelan
president, Hugo Chavez, for two days last weekend, and agreed with themthat
he should be removed from office, administration officials said today.
But administration officials gave conflicting accounts of what the United
States told those opponents of Mr. Chavez about acceptable ways of ousting
him.
One senior official involved in the discussions insisted that the Venezuelans
use constitutional means, like a referendum, to effect an overthrow.
"They came here to complain," the official said, referring to the anti-Chavez
group. "Our message was very clear: there are constitutional processes. We
did not even wink at anyone."
But a Defense Department official who is involved in the development of
policy toward Venezuela said the administration's message was less
categorical.
"We were not discouraging people," the official said. "We were sending
informal, subtle signals that we don't like this guy. We didn't say, `No,
don't you dare,' and we weren't advocates saying, `Here's some arms; we'll
help you overthrow this guy.' We were not doing that."
The disclosures come as rights advocates, Latin American diplomats and others
accuse the administration of having turned a blind eye to coup plotting
activities, or even encouraged the people who temporarily removed Mr. Chavez.
Such actions would place the United States at odds with its fellow members of
the Organization of American States, whose charter condemns the overthrow of
democratically elected governments.
In the immediate aftermath of the ouster, the White House spokesman, Ari
Fleischer, suggested that the administration was pleased that Mr. Chavez was
gone. "The government suppressed what was a peaceful demonstration of the
people," Mr. Fleischer said, which "led very quickly to a combustible
situation in which Chavez resigned."
That statement contrasted with a clear stand by other nations in the
hemisphere, which all condemned the removal of a democratically elected
leader.
Mr. Chavez has made himself very unpopular with the Bush administrationwith
his pro-Cuban stance and mouthing of revolutionary slogans -- and, most
recently, by threatening the independence of Venezuela's state-owned oil
company, Petraoleos de Venezuela, the third-largest foreign supplier of
American oil.
Whether or not the administration knew about the pending action against Mr.
Chavez, critics note that it was slow to condemn the overthrow and thatit
still refuses to acknowledge that a coup even took place.
One result, according to the critics, is that in its zeal to rid itself of
Mr. Chavez, the administration has damaged its credibility as a chief
defender of democratically elected governments. And even though they deny
having encouraged Mr. Chavez's ouster, administration officials did nothide
their dismay at his restora tion.
Asked whether the administration now recognizes Mr. Chavez as Venezuela's
legitimate president, one administration official replied, "He was
democratically elected," then added, "Legitimacy is something that is
conferred not just by a majority of the voters, however."
A senior administration official said today that the anti-Chavez grouphad
not asked for American backing and that none had been offered. Still, one
American diplomat said, Mr. Chavez was so distressed by his opponents'
lobbying in Washington that he sent officials from his government to plead
his case there.
Mr. Chavez returned to power on Sunday, after two days. The Bush
administration swiftly laid the blame for the episode on him, pointing out
that troops loyal to him had fired on unarmed civilians and wounded more than
100 demonstrators.
Mr. Fleischer, the White House spokesman, stuck to that approach today,
saying Mr. Chavez should heed the message of his opponents and reach out to
"all the democratic forces in Venezuela."
"The people of Venezuela have sent a clear message to President Chavezthat
they want both democracy and reform," he said. "The Chavez administration has
an opportunity to respond to this message by correcting its course and
governing in a fully democratic manner."
On Sunday, President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice,
expressed hopes that Mr. Chavez would deal with his opponents in a less
"highhanded fashion."
But to some critics, it was the Bush administration that had displayed
arrogance in initially bucking the tide of international condemnation of the
action against Mr. Chavez, who was democratically elected in 1998.
Arturo Valenzuela, the Latin America national security aide in the Clinton
administration, accused the Bush administration of running roughshod over
more than a decade of treaties and agreements for the collective defense of
democracy. Since 1990, the United States has repeatedly invoked those
agreements at the Organization of American States to help restore democratic
rule in such countries as Haiti, Guatemala and Peru.
Mr. Valenzuela, who now heads the Latin American studies department at
Georgetown University here, warned that the nations in the region might view
the administration's tepid support of Venezuelan democracy as a green light
to return to 1960's and 1970's, when power was transferred from coup to coup.
"I think it's a very negative development for the principle of constitutional
government in Latin America," Mr. Valenzuela said. "I think it's going to
come back and haunt all of us."
Administration officials insist that they are firmly behind efforts at the
Organization of American States to determine what happened in Venezuela and
restore democratic rule. The secretary general of the O.A.S., Caesar Gaviria,
left today for Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, and the organization is
scheduled to meet in Washington on Thursday.
Still, critics say, there were several signs that the administration was too
quick to rally around the businessman Pedro Carmona Estanga as Mr. Chavez's
successor.
One Democratic foreign policy aide complained that the administration, in
phone calls to Congress on Friday, reported that Mr. Chavez had resigned,
even though officials now concede that they had no evidence of that.
And on Saturday, the administration supported an O.A.S. resolution condemning
"the alteration of constitutional order in Venezuela" only after learning
that Mr. Chavez had regained control, Latin American diplomats said.
One official said political hard-liners in the administration might have
"gone overboard" in proclaiming Mr. Chavez's ouster before the dust settled.
The official said there were competing impulses within the administration,
signaling a disagreement on the extent of trouble posed by Mr. Chavez,who
has thumbed his nose at American officials by maintaining ties with Cuba,
Libya and Iraq.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
[Limping to catch up with news that wasn't fit to print until Hugo
Chavez returned to power, an embarrassed New York Times reports on
April 16ththat US officials met with the Venezuelan coup plotters!
(gasp! No, really!!?). The thugs in Washington, of course, deny all.
Their credibility is about one notch lower than that of the "Times."]
AP - Tue Apr 16, 5:06 PM ET (via Yahoo)
U.S. Denies Wrongdoing in Venezuela
by George Gedda
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration brushed aside suggestions
Tuesday that it quietly encouraged the removal of Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, who was deposed from power last week only to
be reinstated after a brief period.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said that in meetings with
Venezuelan leaders over several months, U.S. officials have delivered
a consistent message.
"The political situation in Venezuela is one for the Venezuelans to
resolve peacefully, democratically and constitutionally," he said.
"We explicitly told opposition leaders the United States would not
support a coup."
Fleischer was bombarded with questions about a New York Times account
that senior Bush administration officials met with members of the
coalition that helped depose Chavez and agreed with them that Chavez
should be removed.
The Times said one senior official suggested that the Venezuelans use
constitutional means to achieve that goal, such as a referendum. It
was not clear whether the official quoted by the Times was reflecting
official policy or speaking for himself.
Fleischer's responses during a sometimes testy news briefing did not
address whether the administration favored a referendum as a means of
ending Chavez's rule.
Attempts to obtain clarification from the White House were not
immediately successful.
The initial State Department response last Friday to Chavez's ouster
suggested that the mercurial leader got what he deserved. It said
that Chavez provoked his own demise by ordering his supporters to
fire on anti-Chavez demonstrators, killing more than 10 and wounding
hundreds.
Fleischer noted that once the situation in Venezuela was clarified
with Chavez's reinstatement, the United States joined with its
colleagues in the Organization of American States and condemned
Friday's "alteration of constitutional order."
The department's initial welcome of Chavez's premature departure just
three years into his term seemed at odds with the position of
successive administrations that constitutional procedures must be
strictly upheld in the hemisphere.
This policy has gained momentum over the past decade. Officials have
frequently expressed pride that the hemisphere is all democratic -
with the exception of Cuba.
Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., the Foreign Relations Committee's top
Republican, suggested that threats to Venezuelan democracy and to its
constitution began long before the events of last weekend.
"I personally urge Mr. Chavez to make good use of this second chance
to raise a little more strongly the principles of democracy than he
has in the past," Helms said.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., noted that in contrast to the United
States, the vast majority of hemispheric governments lived up to
their responsibilities and denounced the unconstitutional efforts to
take power from a government which had been freely elected.
"I am extremely disappointed that rather than leading the effort to
reaffirm the region's commitment to the democratic principles
outlined in the OAS Charter, only belatedly did the United States
join with other OAS members to respond to the Venezuelan crisis,"
Dodd said.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said: "I think it's clear
that Mr. Chavez is not exactly pro-American, and we've got to accept
the ramifications of that. But I don't think we throw out democratic
principles, regardless of circumstance."
Javier Corrales, a Venezuela expert at Amherst College, said the
administration would have been much better off last Friday if its
statement began by stressing that any interruption in democratic
procedures is always regrettable.
Corrales expressed strong doubt that the administration was in any
way involved in the coup and noted that it never endorsed the
unconstitutional successor government that held power briefly before
Chavez's reinstatement.
*
source - JosePertierra@aol.com
The New York Times - April 16, 2002
Bush Officials Met With Venezuelans Who Ousted Leader
by Christopher Marquis
WASHINGTON, April 15--Senior members of the Bush administration metseveral
times in recent months with leaders of a coalition that ousted the Venezuelan
president, Hugo Chavez, for two days last weekend, and agreed with themthat
he should be removed from office, administration officials said today.
But administration officials gave conflicting accounts of what the United
States told those opponents of Mr. Chavez about acceptable ways of ousting
him.
One senior official involved in the discussions insisted that the Venezuelans
use constitutional means, like a referendum, to effect an overthrow.
"They came here to complain," the official said, referring to the anti-Chavez
group. "Our message was very clear: there are constitutional processes. We
did not even wink at anyone."
But a Defense Department official who is involved in the development of
policy toward Venezuela said the administration's message was less
categorical.
"We were not discouraging people," the official said. "We were sending
informal, subtle signals that we don't like this guy. We didn't say, `No,
don't you dare,' and we weren't advocates saying, `Here's some arms; we'll
help you overthrow this guy.' We were not doing that."
The disclosures come as rights advocates, Latin American diplomats and others
accuse the administration of having turned a blind eye to coup plotting
activities, or even encouraged the people who temporarily removed Mr. Chavez.
Such actions would place the United States at odds with its fellow members of
the Organization of American States, whose charter condemns the overthrow of
democratically elected governments.
In the immediate aftermath of the ouster, the White House spokesman, Ari
Fleischer, suggested that the administration was pleased that Mr. Chavez was
gone. "The government suppressed what was a peaceful demonstration of the
people," Mr. Fleischer said, which "led very quickly to a combustible
situation in which Chavez resigned."
That statement contrasted with a clear stand by other nations in the
hemisphere, which all condemned the removal of a democratically elected
leader.
Mr. Chavez has made himself very unpopular with the Bush administrationwith
his pro-Cuban stance and mouthing of revolutionary slogans -- and, most
recently, by threatening the independence of Venezuela's state-owned oil
company, Petraoleos de Venezuela, the third-largest foreign supplier of
American oil.
Whether or not the administration knew about the pending action against Mr.
Chavez, critics note that it was slow to condemn the overthrow and thatit
still refuses to acknowledge that a coup even took place.
One result, according to the critics, is that in its zeal to rid itself of
Mr. Chavez, the administration has damaged its credibility as a chief
defender of democratically elected governments. And even though they deny
having encouraged Mr. Chavez's ouster, administration officials did nothide
their dismay at his restora tion.
Asked whether the administration now recognizes Mr. Chavez as Venezuela's
legitimate president, one administration official replied, "He was
democratically elected," then added, "Legitimacy is something that is
conferred not just by a majority of the voters, however."
A senior administration official said today that the anti-Chavez grouphad
not asked for American backing and that none had been offered. Still, one
American diplomat said, Mr. Chavez was so distressed by his opponents'
lobbying in Washington that he sent officials from his government to plead
his case there.
Mr. Chavez returned to power on Sunday, after two days. The Bush
administration swiftly laid the blame for the episode on him, pointing out
that troops loyal to him had fired on unarmed civilians and wounded more than
100 demonstrators.
Mr. Fleischer, the White House spokesman, stuck to that approach today,
saying Mr. Chavez should heed the message of his opponents and reach out to
"all the democratic forces in Venezuela."
"The people of Venezuela have sent a clear message to President Chavezthat
they want both democracy and reform," he said. "The Chavez administration has
an opportunity to respond to this message by correcting its course and
governing in a fully democratic manner."
On Sunday, President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice,
expressed hopes that Mr. Chavez would deal with his opponents in a less
"highhanded fashion."
But to some critics, it was the Bush administration that had displayed
arrogance in initially bucking the tide of international condemnation of the
action against Mr. Chavez, who was democratically elected in 1998.
Arturo Valenzuela, the Latin America national security aide in the Clinton
administration, accused the Bush administration of running roughshod over
more than a decade of treaties and agreements for the collective defense of
democracy. Since 1990, the United States has repeatedly invoked those
agreements at the Organization of American States to help restore democratic
rule in such countries as Haiti, Guatemala and Peru.
Mr. Valenzuela, who now heads the Latin American studies department at
Georgetown University here, warned that the nations in the region might view
the administration's tepid support of Venezuelan democracy as a green light
to return to 1960's and 1970's, when power was transferred from coup to coup.
"I think it's a very negative development for the principle of constitutional
government in Latin America," Mr. Valenzuela said. "I think it's going to
come back and haunt all of us."
Administration officials insist that they are firmly behind efforts at the
Organization of American States to determine what happened in Venezuela and
restore democratic rule. The secretary general of the O.A.S., Caesar Gaviria,
left today for Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, and the organization is
scheduled to meet in Washington on Thursday.
Still, critics say, there were several signs that the administration was too
quick to rally around the businessman Pedro Carmona Estanga as Mr. Chavez's
successor.
One Democratic foreign policy aide complained that the administration, in
phone calls to Congress on Friday, reported that Mr. Chavez had resigned,
even though officials now concede that they had no evidence of that.
And on Saturday, the administration supported an O.A.S. resolution condemning
"the alteration of constitutional order in Venezuela" only after learning
that Mr. Chavez had regained control, Latin American diplomats said.
One official said political hard-liners in the administration might have
"gone overboard" in proclaiming Mr. Chavez's ouster before the dust settled.
The official said there were competing impulses within the administration,
signaling a disagreement on the extent of trouble posed by Mr. Chavez,who
has thumbed his nose at American officials by maintaining ties with Cuba,
Libya and Iraq.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
Its funny US will never stop trying to kill the economies of its american neighbours and promote a stable government they are always there to screw them over..........they need to pump some more cocain onto the US streets; maybe then they will get something to do apart from being terrorist.......
T
tehuti
Guest
Chavez: U.S. citizens arrested
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that a woman linked to the U.S. military had been arrested while photographing a military installation, and several U.S. citizens were also arrested for taking pictures of a refinery, signs, he added, that Washington may be plotting an invasion of his country.
Chavez's announcement, made during his weekly radio and television show, was thin on details and did not specify the woman's nationality or supposed role in the military.
"We put her where we had to," Chavez said, without giving further details on when the incident took place or whether she had been released. "If she or any other U.S. official does this kind of activity again, they will be imprisoned and face trial in Venezuela."
He also said that the other detained Americans were journalists caught while taking pictures of El Palito refinery, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of Caracas. They were released, Chavez said.
U.S. embassy officials could not be reached for comment Sunday about the incidents.
Two days earlier, the U.S. embassy announced that Venezuela had abruptly suspended a 35-year-old military exchange program between the two countries.
The arrests, coupled with the suspension of the military exchange program, are likely to further strain relations with Washington, which Chavez has repeatedly accused of supporting efforts to destabilize his government and oust him from office.
Chavez said Sunday the military program was canceled because U.S. officers in Venezuela were spreading a negative image of his government to the soldiers they were training and were "sent here to turn our boys against us."
"It's best that they leave, until someday we can have transparent, clear relations and cooperation with the civil and military institutions of the United States, the way we do with almost all governments in the planet," Chavez said.
William Brownfield, the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, said that Venezuela's announcement was a "sovereign decision" and that the five U.S. officers in Venezuela participating in the program had been notified last week by phone and written notifications that the program had been suspended.
Chavez pointed to the arrests of the woman and the other Americans as signs that the United States may be plotting an invasion.
Minutes before announcing the arrests, he aired a video of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, a U.S.-backed effort to topple his close friend, Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Venezuela is a top U.S. oil supplier, but tensions have risen due to U.S. criticism of Venezuela's purchase of 100,000 assault rifles from Russia and to Chavez's criticism of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Chavez accuses Washington of being behind a brief 2002 coup against him and of supporting other plots to oust him. U.S. officials deny the claims.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/04/24/venezuela.us.ap/index.html
April 24, 2005 11:50 PM
Venezuela Military Cooperation with U.S. Stopped
By Pascal Fletcher
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela is ending military operations and exchanges with the United States, President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday, and he ordered out U.S. instructors he said were trying to foment unrest in the barracks against him.
The end of the military cooperation marked a further downgrading of ties between Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter and its main oil customer, the United States.
Warning of a possible U.S. invasion of Venezuela, Chavez said a female U.S. naval officer and some American journalists were temporarily detained in recent separate incidents for photographing a Venezuelan army base and an oil refinery.
The left-wing leader, who often accuses Washington of working to oust him, said a small group of U.S. officers who were teaching and studying in Venezuela had been told to leave. There would be no more joint military exercises, he added.
He was confirming a brief announcement by the U.S. embassy on Friday that five U.S. army, air force and navy officers received orders this week to end their missions in Venezuela.
"Some of them were waging a campaign in the Venezuelan military ... making comments, talking to Venezuelan soldiers, criticizing the president of Venezuela. ... It's better for them to leave," Chavez said in a television broadcast.
The U.S. embassy, which said on Friday it regretted Venezuela's abrupt ending of a 35-year-old military exchange program, did not comment on Sunday about Chavez's comments.
U.S.-Venezuelan ties have turned increasingly sour following a 2002 coup that briefly toppled Chavez and which he says was instigated and backed by Washington.
U.S. officials deny this. But they call the firebrand nationalist leader an anti-U.S. troublemaker and criticize his growing arms purchases and alliances with countries like Cuba and Iran, which are enemies of Washington.
"All exchanges with U.S. officers are suspended until who knows when. ... There'll be no more combined operations, nothing like that," Chavez said.
U.S. WOMAN HELD
He added he did not want U.S. officers "whispering in the ears of our boys, talking to them about communism."
It was not clear whether the move would also end Venezuela's participation in multilateral anti-terrorism and anti-drug smuggling exercises involving U.S. armed forces.
Chavez said a U.S. woman was arrested "a few months ago" taking photos of an army base in Maracay, west of Caracas.
"When her documents were checked -- I have a copy -- she turns out to be a U.S. naval officer," he said, without giving her name.
"If she or any other U.S. officer does this again, they'll be arrested and tried in Venezuela," Chavez said.
He added the journalists, whom he did not identify, were freed after being caught photographing the El Palito oil refinery in Carabobo state.
Other than the Marines who guard the embassy, the United States also has 13 defense attaches in Venezuela.
Ninety Venezuelan officers are attending courses in the United States. Chavez did not say if they would be withdrawn.
Opponents of the president, a former paratrooper who led a failed coup six years before winning a 1998 election, say he has slashed traditional ties with the United States.
"You have to see this from a geopolitical point of view. We're no longer a country allied to the Western hemisphere. We're going to be allied to China or Russia," retired Venezuelan Vice-Admiral Rafael Huizi Clavier told El Universal newspaper on Sunday.
Reuters
-------------------
Venezuela Military Cooperation with U.S. Stopped
By Pascal Fletcher
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela is ending military operations and exchanges with the United States, President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday, and he ordered out U.S. instructors he said were trying to foment unrest in the barracks against him.
The end of the military cooperation marked a further downgrading of ties between Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter and its main oil customer, the United States.
Warning of a possible U.S. invasion of Venezuela, Chavez said a female U.S. naval officer and some American journalists were temporarily detained in recent separate incidents for photographing a Venezuelan army base and an oil refinery.
The left-wing leader, who often accuses Washington of working to oust him, said a small group of U.S. officers who were teaching and studying in Venezuela had been told to leave. There would be no more joint military exercises, he added.
He was confirming a brief announcement by the U.S. embassy on Friday that five U.S. army, air force and navy officers received orders this week to end their missions in Venezuela.
"Some of them were waging a campaign in the Venezuelan military ... making comments, talking to Venezuelan soldiers, criticizing the president of Venezuela. ... It's better for them to leave," Chavez said in a television broadcast.
The U.S. embassy, which said on Friday it regretted Venezuela's abrupt ending of a 35-year-old military exchange program, did not comment on Sunday about Chavez's comments.
U.S.-Venezuelan ties have turned increasingly sour following a 2002 coup that briefly toppled Chavez and which he says was instigated and backed by Washington.
U.S. officials deny this. But they call the firebrand nationalist leader an anti-U.S. troublemaker and criticize his growing arms purchases and alliances with countries like Cuba and Iran, which are enemies of Washington.
"All exchanges with U.S. officers are suspended until who knows when. ... There'll be no more combined operations, nothing like that," Chavez said.
U.S. WOMAN HELD
He added he did not want U.S. officers "whispering in the ears of our boys, talking to them about communism."
It was not clear whether the move would also end Venezuela's participation in multilateral anti-terrorism and anti-drug smuggling exercises involving U.S. armed forces.
Chavez said a U.S. woman was arrested "a few months ago" taking photos of an army base in Maracay, west of Caracas.
"When her documents were checked -- I have a copy -- she turns out to be a U.S. naval officer," he said, without giving her name.
"If she or any other U.S. officer does this again, they'll be arrested and tried in Venezuela," Chavez said.
He added the journalists, whom he did not identify, were freed after being caught photographing the El Palito oil refinery in Carabobo state.
Other than the Marines who guard the embassy, the United States also has 13 defense attaches in Venezuela.
Ninety Venezuelan officers are attending courses in the United States. Chavez did not say if they would be withdrawn.
Opponents of the president, a former paratrooper who led a failed coup six years before winning a 1998 election, say he has slashed traditional ties with the United States.
"You have to see this from a geopolitical point of view. We're no longer a country allied to the Western hemisphere. We're going to be allied to China or Russia," retired Venezuelan Vice-Admiral Rafael Huizi Clavier told El Universal newspaper on Sunday.
Reuters
-------------------
Oil-rich Venezuela and Communist Cuba deepen alliance
24 Apr 2005 14:05:22 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA, April 24 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will visit Cuba this week to promote exports of everything from sardines to chocolate and forge a new bond in the alliance between his oil-rich nation and the Communist-run island.
In the last five years, Venezuela has become the most important economic lifeline for Cuban President Fidel Castro's bankrupt country, filling the void left by the Soviet Union's collapse with vital supplies of oil on preferential terms.
Cuba pays for the oil with medical and educational services. More than 20,000 Cuban doctors, dentists, sports trainers and other technical experts now work in Venezuela.
Cuba watchers say the shipments of crude and refined products have increased beyond the 53,000 barrels per day agreed to in 2000 and are closer to 78,000 bpd, with little evidence of cash payments for the $1 billion-plus oil bill.
"Since 2003, and particularly with the consolidation of Chavez in power, oil has been flowing to Cuba essentially gratis," said Hans de Salas, research associate at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
Venezuelan support for Cuba has gone beyond oil to purchases of dismantled sugar mills and medical supplies, such as cardiovascular diagnostic equipment, de Salas said. He estimated Cuban exports to Venezuela rose to $300 million last year, a boon for Cuba's uncompetitive state enterprises.
Chavez now seeks to export manufactured products to Cuba, whose 11 million people have been deprived of most consumer goods in a decade-old crisis.
"We're going to sell Fidel sardines, chocolates, eiderdowns, toys. We make everything here!" Chavez said last week, when the governments announced they were each setting aside $200 million for credits to boost bilateral trade.
Chavez is to open a trade conference in Havana on Wednesday with 200 Venezuelan manufacturers of food products, textiles, shoes, sports gear and furniture interested in sales to Cuba.
Venezuela is pursuing "compensated trade" with the island, in which goods and services are paid for in kind, not cash, as part of a strategy to create a Latin American alternative to the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas.
AXIS OF SUBVERSION
Chavez shares Castro's antipathy for U.S. free-market policies, which are increasingly unpopular in Latin America. The Bush administration views the alliance between Caracas and Havana as "subversive" and worries that Cuba-styled Communism could take root in Venezuela, the United States' fourth-largest oil supplier.
Venezuelan support, with planned Chinese investment in Cuba's nickel industry, are behind Castro's new confidence in a Cuban economic recovery and the survival of socialism.
In November, Cuba eliminated circulation of the U.S. dollar as legal tender and slapped a 10-percent exchange surcharge on the currency. Cubans swapped their dollar savings, producing an $800 million windfall for depleted state coffers.
Since March, Castro has sought to reduce daily hardships by distributing pressure cookers and rice steamers and promising modern household appliances. He raised pensions and last week increased Cuba's minimum wage, from $4.50 to $10 a month.
Cuba experts believe Venezuelan backing is not enough to overcome a systemic crisis, although it will help.
"Venezuela's economic support is a big help, but it will not solve all the problems of the island," said Paolo Spadoni, an economic researcher at the University of Florida.
De Salas said the government is in a stronger position than in the 1990's, when Cuba neared socio-economic implosion. This has allowed Castro to roll back limited reforms that favored private initiative and declare the beginning of the end of the "special period," or post-Soviet crisis.
"With no viable opposition on the island, all Castro needs to do is stay above water. His short-term strategy is to outlive the second Bush administration," he said.
(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher in Caracas)
24 Apr 2005 14:05:22 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA, April 24 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will visit Cuba this week to promote exports of everything from sardines to chocolate and forge a new bond in the alliance between his oil-rich nation and the Communist-run island.
In the last five years, Venezuela has become the most important economic lifeline for Cuban President Fidel Castro's bankrupt country, filling the void left by the Soviet Union's collapse with vital supplies of oil on preferential terms.
Cuba pays for the oil with medical and educational services. More than 20,000 Cuban doctors, dentists, sports trainers and other technical experts now work in Venezuela.
Cuba watchers say the shipments of crude and refined products have increased beyond the 53,000 barrels per day agreed to in 2000 and are closer to 78,000 bpd, with little evidence of cash payments for the $1 billion-plus oil bill.
"Since 2003, and particularly with the consolidation of Chavez in power, oil has been flowing to Cuba essentially gratis," said Hans de Salas, research associate at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
Venezuelan support for Cuba has gone beyond oil to purchases of dismantled sugar mills and medical supplies, such as cardiovascular diagnostic equipment, de Salas said. He estimated Cuban exports to Venezuela rose to $300 million last year, a boon for Cuba's uncompetitive state enterprises.
Chavez now seeks to export manufactured products to Cuba, whose 11 million people have been deprived of most consumer goods in a decade-old crisis.
"We're going to sell Fidel sardines, chocolates, eiderdowns, toys. We make everything here!" Chavez said last week, when the governments announced they were each setting aside $200 million for credits to boost bilateral trade.
Chavez is to open a trade conference in Havana on Wednesday with 200 Venezuelan manufacturers of food products, textiles, shoes, sports gear and furniture interested in sales to Cuba.
Venezuela is pursuing "compensated trade" with the island, in which goods and services are paid for in kind, not cash, as part of a strategy to create a Latin American alternative to the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas.
AXIS OF SUBVERSION
Chavez shares Castro's antipathy for U.S. free-market policies, which are increasingly unpopular in Latin America. The Bush administration views the alliance between Caracas and Havana as "subversive" and worries that Cuba-styled Communism could take root in Venezuela, the United States' fourth-largest oil supplier.
Venezuelan support, with planned Chinese investment in Cuba's nickel industry, are behind Castro's new confidence in a Cuban economic recovery and the survival of socialism.
In November, Cuba eliminated circulation of the U.S. dollar as legal tender and slapped a 10-percent exchange surcharge on the currency. Cubans swapped their dollar savings, producing an $800 million windfall for depleted state coffers.
Since March, Castro has sought to reduce daily hardships by distributing pressure cookers and rice steamers and promising modern household appliances. He raised pensions and last week increased Cuba's minimum wage, from $4.50 to $10 a month.
Cuba experts believe Venezuelan backing is not enough to overcome a systemic crisis, although it will help.
"Venezuela's economic support is a big help, but it will not solve all the problems of the island," said Paolo Spadoni, an economic researcher at the University of Florida.
De Salas said the government is in a stronger position than in the 1990's, when Cuba neared socio-economic implosion. This has allowed Castro to roll back limited reforms that favored private initiative and declare the beginning of the end of the "special period," or post-Soviet crisis.
"With no viable opposition on the island, all Castro needs to do is stay above water. His short-term strategy is to outlive the second Bush administration," he said.
(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher in Caracas)
Latin America in revolt: Continent defies USA
For over two decades the US has forced neoliberalism — and its accompanying poverty and despair — down Third World throats in order to make the world better for US business. To many, the spreading US economic empire, backed by the point of a gun and a loan, has seemed unassailable. But now, unable to defeat a rag-tag bunch of Iraqi militias, and rapidly losing allies in Latin America, the empire is not looking so strong.
As yet another neoliberal, pro-US government falls in Latin America, Resistance’s Stuart Munckton looks at the continent that might defeat Uncle Sam.
January 1, 2005 was a significant date — not for what happened, but for what didn't. On that day, the Free Trade Area of the Americas was supposed to be signed. The FTAA was one of Washington’s pet projects — it was a major step in removing barriers against US corporate plunder in Latin America. But by late 2004, the FTAA negotiations had been suspended, with governments in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay refusing to negotiate their people’s future away.
The failure of the FTAA negotiations was just another indication of how on the nose Washington is in the continent. A more dramatic indication came on April 21, as embattled Ecuadorian President Luis Gutierrez was forced from office by a Congress faced with mass protests demanding widespread political change. Although elected on an anti-neoliberal platform, Gutierrez abandoned his promises in an attempt to keep Washington happy.
Gutierrez is the latest on a long list of neoliberal Latin American politicians thrown out of office — in elections, or by popular revolt. In the last five years, uprisings have overthrown governments in Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and Bolivia. In Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador and Uruguay, governments have been elected on anti-neoliberal platforms in the last seven years. Left-wing forces are considered a serious chance in upcoming presidential elections in Mexico and Nicaragua.
In Bolivia, even if President Carlos Mesa, himself first brought to power in an upsurge of protest, manages to avoid being overthrown before elections are due in 2007, he looks to be defeated by radical Movement for Socialism leader Evo Morales.
In Colombia, the US-backed government has been unable to destroy a left-wing insurgency, despite staggering amounts of military aid from Washington.
Behind this revolt is a continent that no longer buys the myth of a neoliberal-led drive out of poverty and inequality. Since the 1980s, Washington, and its tame international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, pushed “free trade”, privatisations and redirecting funds to debt repayment from basic services as a way to prosperity. By opening up their economies to “competition” and the “efficiency” of market forces, Latin American countries were promised significant economic growth that would reduce poverty. In fact, what happened was a significant increase in the hold over the economies of Latin America by multinationals, especially US corporations.
Between 1990 and 2002 multinational corporations acquired 4000 banks, telecommunications, transport, petrol and mining interests in Latin America. William I. Robinson, in an article entitled “Storm clouds over Latin America” published in the December 2002 Focus on Trade, wrote that, after a decade of neoliberalism in Argentina, which culminated in an economic collapse in December 2001, the number of people living in poverty increased from one to 14 million.
In a statement to the US Congress House Armed Service Committee on March 5, General Bantz Craddock, explaining the reason for Latin America’s widespread “political instability”, said: “The free market reforms and privatisation of the 1990s have not delivered on the promise of prosperity for Latin America… The richest one tenth of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean earn 48% of the total income, while the poorest tenth earn only 1.6% ... Uruguay has the least economic disparity of Latin American and Caribbean countries, but its unequal income distribution is still far worse than the most unequal country in Eastern Europe and the industrialized countries.”
This increased poverty has brought with it a deep discrediting of the whole neoliberal project. And anger against those who keep implementing the pain has led to huge mobilisations, street protests, factory occupations and militant movements, which in turn have forced many governments to retreat on neoliberal policy in order to maintain control.
In Argentina, Nestor Kirchner was elected president in 2003, after more than a year of crisis, during which the country went through four presidents in less than a week. Kirchner was elected with just over 20% in 2003, in a situation where old-style politics was too discredited to keep control, but the popular movements were not strong enough to take power.
Kirchner, despite emerging from one of the traditional parties of government, has stood up to the international financial institutions, he has managed to renegotiate Argentina's crippling foreign debt down. In a statement on April 5, the Council for Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based think-tank, pointed out that both the US and the IMF have not applied their usual pressure on Argentina to adhere to strict debt repayments — no doubt recognising that any government that attempted to continue with the same policies as before the 2001 uprising would not last very long.
However, the most significant breakthrough for the poor majority searching for an alternative to corporate domination has come in Venezuela. Since the 1998 election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the government has challenged US imperialism and its local allies. Domestically, Venezuela's extensive oil wealth is being used to fund ambitious social programs to improve the lives of the majority who live in poverty. One of the most significant gains has been the mass literacy program, which has succeeded in eradicating illiteracy according to United Nations standards.
An attempted 2002 coup against Chavez, backed by the US, was defeated by mass mobilisation, a part of the organisation of working people that characterises the country’s Bolivarian revolution.
One of the biggest reasons Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution is a threat to the US is because he is seeking to unite Latin American countries, economically and politically, enabling a continent-wide fight back against US economic tyranny.
Chavez has been the most outspoken critic of the FTAA, and his government has worked overtime to promote an alternative — the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), based on economic cooperation and integration amongst Latin American nations. Venezuela has prioritised trade agreements with other Latin American nations with the aim of creating an alternative bloc to that promoted by the US. This includes two significant projects — Petrosur and Telesur.
Petrosur is a proposed Latin America-wide petroleum company, which would unite the state-run oil industries of different governments to create an economic weapon that can challenge US hegemony. Telesur is the Venezuelan-promoted Latin America-wide TV channel that aims to provide news from the perspective of the Latin American people. The only continent-wide TV channel at the moment is CNN In Spanish, which reflects the biases and interests of the US. Argentina, Brazil and the newly elected government in Uruguay are backing both projects.
Chavez has also refused to sign any fresh agreements with the IMF, denouncing them as the “road to hell”. This willingness to stand up to Washington has put enormous pressure on other nations not to meekly submit to whatever Washington insists, or else stand exposed in front of their own people.
This has naturally put Venezuela in Washington's target sights. The US is especially upset with the political and economic ties Venezuela maintains with socialist Cuba.
Since the 1959 Cuban revolution, the US has sought to overthrow — at various times by invasion, assassination, propaganda bombardment and economic terrorism — the Cuban government led by Fidel Castro. The US understands that Cuba is a key threat: not because it has oil or weapons, but because its free education and health care, its world class science and research and development — all are living proof that it is possible for Third World people to live in less than desperate poverty, and to live with dignity. Perhaps more importantly, Cuba provides an example of people taking their destiny into their own hands, and not waiting on politicians.
Cuba is a beacon of hope for the masses of Latin America. Venezuela’s staunch support of revolutionary Cuba is helping ease Cuba's isolation. And, like Cuba, Venezuela is increasingly seen as proof that there is an alternative to neoliberal misery. The resulting popularity of the Bolivarian revolution throughout Latin America has helped protect Chavez from Washington’s wrath.
Despite numerous attempts, Washington has been unable to either overthrow or isolate the Chavez government. The internal opposition to Chavez is now discredited, and the US, which imports 15% of its oil from Venezuela, cannot cut economic ties.
Washington has moved this year instead to try to pressure other nations in the region to diplomatically isolate Venezuela. This campaign has failed dismally — not one country has joined the public condemnations. In recent months, Venezuela has signed far-reaching economic agreements with Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The Brazilian agreement includes selling Venezuela military equipment, at the same time as Washington is attacking what it calls Venezuela’s “arms race”.
In December, in a plot almost certainly involving the US, Colombia kidnapped, from within Venezuela, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which has been waging a decades-long guerrilla war against the right-wing Colombian regime, from within Venezuela. Outraged by the attack on its sovereignty, Venezuela recalled its ambassador and suspended economic ties. Washington promptly backed Colombia, and demanded other American nations “diplomatically isolate” Venezuela. Not only did no other country respond, but Colombia, shaken by the potential loss of lucrative business deals with Venezuela, successfully asked the Cuban government to mediate talks to resolve the crisis.
Then, on April 11, the Organisation of American States, which includes all countries in the hemisphere except Cuba, split down the middle with a tied vote in the election for a new OAS secretary general. The US proved unable to pressure enough nations to win outright support for the candidate it is backing, Mexican foreign minister Luis Ernesto Derbez.
The US is far from out for the count in Latin America. While movements in several countries are threatening to blockade, rally or occupy until there is change, their strength and development varies. However, the concessions forced from the Latin American people, the increased pressure on Latin American governments to take at least some independent stands from Washington, and the support enjoyed by the developing Venezuelan revolution are all signs that the US can no longer force its will on Latin America.
And every time people organise to get rid of a US collaborator, or beat back neoliberal policy — you know that others on the continent are watching and learning.
From Green Left Weekly, April 27, 2005.
For over two decades the US has forced neoliberalism — and its accompanying poverty and despair — down Third World throats in order to make the world better for US business. To many, the spreading US economic empire, backed by the point of a gun and a loan, has seemed unassailable. But now, unable to defeat a rag-tag bunch of Iraqi militias, and rapidly losing allies in Latin America, the empire is not looking so strong.
As yet another neoliberal, pro-US government falls in Latin America, Resistance’s Stuart Munckton looks at the continent that might defeat Uncle Sam.
January 1, 2005 was a significant date — not for what happened, but for what didn't. On that day, the Free Trade Area of the Americas was supposed to be signed. The FTAA was one of Washington’s pet projects — it was a major step in removing barriers against US corporate plunder in Latin America. But by late 2004, the FTAA negotiations had been suspended, with governments in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay refusing to negotiate their people’s future away.
The failure of the FTAA negotiations was just another indication of how on the nose Washington is in the continent. A more dramatic indication came on April 21, as embattled Ecuadorian President Luis Gutierrez was forced from office by a Congress faced with mass protests demanding widespread political change. Although elected on an anti-neoliberal platform, Gutierrez abandoned his promises in an attempt to keep Washington happy.
Gutierrez is the latest on a long list of neoliberal Latin American politicians thrown out of office — in elections, or by popular revolt. In the last five years, uprisings have overthrown governments in Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and Bolivia. In Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador and Uruguay, governments have been elected on anti-neoliberal platforms in the last seven years. Left-wing forces are considered a serious chance in upcoming presidential elections in Mexico and Nicaragua.
In Bolivia, even if President Carlos Mesa, himself first brought to power in an upsurge of protest, manages to avoid being overthrown before elections are due in 2007, he looks to be defeated by radical Movement for Socialism leader Evo Morales.
In Colombia, the US-backed government has been unable to destroy a left-wing insurgency, despite staggering amounts of military aid from Washington.
Behind this revolt is a continent that no longer buys the myth of a neoliberal-led drive out of poverty and inequality. Since the 1980s, Washington, and its tame international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, pushed “free trade”, privatisations and redirecting funds to debt repayment from basic services as a way to prosperity. By opening up their economies to “competition” and the “efficiency” of market forces, Latin American countries were promised significant economic growth that would reduce poverty. In fact, what happened was a significant increase in the hold over the economies of Latin America by multinationals, especially US corporations.
Between 1990 and 2002 multinational corporations acquired 4000 banks, telecommunications, transport, petrol and mining interests in Latin America. William I. Robinson, in an article entitled “Storm clouds over Latin America” published in the December 2002 Focus on Trade, wrote that, after a decade of neoliberalism in Argentina, which culminated in an economic collapse in December 2001, the number of people living in poverty increased from one to 14 million.
In a statement to the US Congress House Armed Service Committee on March 5, General Bantz Craddock, explaining the reason for Latin America’s widespread “political instability”, said: “The free market reforms and privatisation of the 1990s have not delivered on the promise of prosperity for Latin America… The richest one tenth of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean earn 48% of the total income, while the poorest tenth earn only 1.6% ... Uruguay has the least economic disparity of Latin American and Caribbean countries, but its unequal income distribution is still far worse than the most unequal country in Eastern Europe and the industrialized countries.”
This increased poverty has brought with it a deep discrediting of the whole neoliberal project. And anger against those who keep implementing the pain has led to huge mobilisations, street protests, factory occupations and militant movements, which in turn have forced many governments to retreat on neoliberal policy in order to maintain control.
In Argentina, Nestor Kirchner was elected president in 2003, after more than a year of crisis, during which the country went through four presidents in less than a week. Kirchner was elected with just over 20% in 2003, in a situation where old-style politics was too discredited to keep control, but the popular movements were not strong enough to take power.
Kirchner, despite emerging from one of the traditional parties of government, has stood up to the international financial institutions, he has managed to renegotiate Argentina's crippling foreign debt down. In a statement on April 5, the Council for Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based think-tank, pointed out that both the US and the IMF have not applied their usual pressure on Argentina to adhere to strict debt repayments — no doubt recognising that any government that attempted to continue with the same policies as before the 2001 uprising would not last very long.
However, the most significant breakthrough for the poor majority searching for an alternative to corporate domination has come in Venezuela. Since the 1998 election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the government has challenged US imperialism and its local allies. Domestically, Venezuela's extensive oil wealth is being used to fund ambitious social programs to improve the lives of the majority who live in poverty. One of the most significant gains has been the mass literacy program, which has succeeded in eradicating illiteracy according to United Nations standards.
An attempted 2002 coup against Chavez, backed by the US, was defeated by mass mobilisation, a part of the organisation of working people that characterises the country’s Bolivarian revolution.
One of the biggest reasons Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution is a threat to the US is because he is seeking to unite Latin American countries, economically and politically, enabling a continent-wide fight back against US economic tyranny.
Chavez has been the most outspoken critic of the FTAA, and his government has worked overtime to promote an alternative — the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), based on economic cooperation and integration amongst Latin American nations. Venezuela has prioritised trade agreements with other Latin American nations with the aim of creating an alternative bloc to that promoted by the US. This includes two significant projects — Petrosur and Telesur.
Petrosur is a proposed Latin America-wide petroleum company, which would unite the state-run oil industries of different governments to create an economic weapon that can challenge US hegemony. Telesur is the Venezuelan-promoted Latin America-wide TV channel that aims to provide news from the perspective of the Latin American people. The only continent-wide TV channel at the moment is CNN In Spanish, which reflects the biases and interests of the US. Argentina, Brazil and the newly elected government in Uruguay are backing both projects.
Chavez has also refused to sign any fresh agreements with the IMF, denouncing them as the “road to hell”. This willingness to stand up to Washington has put enormous pressure on other nations not to meekly submit to whatever Washington insists, or else stand exposed in front of their own people.
This has naturally put Venezuela in Washington's target sights. The US is especially upset with the political and economic ties Venezuela maintains with socialist Cuba.
Since the 1959 Cuban revolution, the US has sought to overthrow — at various times by invasion, assassination, propaganda bombardment and economic terrorism — the Cuban government led by Fidel Castro. The US understands that Cuba is a key threat: not because it has oil or weapons, but because its free education and health care, its world class science and research and development — all are living proof that it is possible for Third World people to live in less than desperate poverty, and to live with dignity. Perhaps more importantly, Cuba provides an example of people taking their destiny into their own hands, and not waiting on politicians.
Cuba is a beacon of hope for the masses of Latin America. Venezuela’s staunch support of revolutionary Cuba is helping ease Cuba's isolation. And, like Cuba, Venezuela is increasingly seen as proof that there is an alternative to neoliberal misery. The resulting popularity of the Bolivarian revolution throughout Latin America has helped protect Chavez from Washington’s wrath.
Despite numerous attempts, Washington has been unable to either overthrow or isolate the Chavez government. The internal opposition to Chavez is now discredited, and the US, which imports 15% of its oil from Venezuela, cannot cut economic ties.
Washington has moved this year instead to try to pressure other nations in the region to diplomatically isolate Venezuela. This campaign has failed dismally — not one country has joined the public condemnations. In recent months, Venezuela has signed far-reaching economic agreements with Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The Brazilian agreement includes selling Venezuela military equipment, at the same time as Washington is attacking what it calls Venezuela’s “arms race”.
In December, in a plot almost certainly involving the US, Colombia kidnapped, from within Venezuela, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which has been waging a decades-long guerrilla war against the right-wing Colombian regime, from within Venezuela. Outraged by the attack on its sovereignty, Venezuela recalled its ambassador and suspended economic ties. Washington promptly backed Colombia, and demanded other American nations “diplomatically isolate” Venezuela. Not only did no other country respond, but Colombia, shaken by the potential loss of lucrative business deals with Venezuela, successfully asked the Cuban government to mediate talks to resolve the crisis.
Then, on April 11, the Organisation of American States, which includes all countries in the hemisphere except Cuba, split down the middle with a tied vote in the election for a new OAS secretary general. The US proved unable to pressure enough nations to win outright support for the candidate it is backing, Mexican foreign minister Luis Ernesto Derbez.
The US is far from out for the count in Latin America. While movements in several countries are threatening to blockade, rally or occupy until there is change, their strength and development varies. However, the concessions forced from the Latin American people, the increased pressure on Latin American governments to take at least some independent stands from Washington, and the support enjoyed by the developing Venezuelan revolution are all signs that the US can no longer force its will on Latin America.
And every time people organise to get rid of a US collaborator, or beat back neoliberal policy — you know that others on the continent are watching and learning.
From Green Left Weekly, April 27, 2005.
Read this thread too- http://64.255.174.200/board/showthread.php?t=28620
then you will have a greater understanding of the Americas and current political uproars in South America.
then you will have a greater understanding of the Americas and current political uproars in South America.
NY TIMES
June 1, 2005
Opposition to U.S. Makes Chávez a Hero to Many
By JUAN FORERO
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, May 31 - When President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela arrived at the World Social Forum in Brazil in January, he was greeted with thunderous cries of "Here comes the boss!"
At ceremonies in March surrounding the inauguration of Uruguay's president, Tabaré Vázquez, the latest left-of-center leader elected in Latin America, throngs roared their approval as Mr. Chávez gave one of his characteristically rambling talks, full of warnings about American imperialism.
And last week in Buenos Aires, crowds mobbed Mr. Chávez when he showed up to inaugurate Venezuela's first state-owned gas station in the Argentine capital, part of a food-for-oil deal popular with Argentines.
It is the kind of public adoration that brings to mind another Latin American leader, Fidel Castro, who for more than 45 years has drawn accolades wherever he has gone, much to Washington's chagrin. Now, it seems, the torch is being passed, and it is Mr. Chávez who is emerging as this generation's Castro - a charismatic figure and self-styled revolutionary who bearhugs his counterparts on state visits, inspires populist left-wing movements and draws out fervent well-wishers from Havana to Buenos Aires.
Like Mr. Castro, Mr. Chávez is burnishing his image by mining latent anti-American sentiment and capitalizing on Washington's mistakes, like the tacit support the White House gave to a short-lived coup against him in 2002.
He is now getting mileage out of the case of Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban-American exile and anti-Castro warrior accused of bombing a Cuban airliner.
Mr. Chávez has demanded that the United States, which is holding Mr. Posada Carriles, return him to Venezuela, his base of operations at the time of the bombing. Mr. Chávez has repeatedly accused the United States of having a double standard on terrorism, coming down hard on those it perceives as its enemies and pulling its punches with an accused terrorist at war with Washington's longtime nemesis, Mr. Castro.
The strategy is classic Castro, but Mr. Chávez has one great advantage the Cuban leader never had - the richest oil reserves outside the Middle East, a gusher of cash that he is using to weave ever closer diplomatic and commercial ties with Latin American nations.
"He's following his own path, his own destiny, and he's doing it against U.S. opposition, so the Latin Americans support it," said Wayne Smith, a former American diplomat in Cuba and now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, which tracks developments in Latin America. "That's sort of the reaction, and it plays toward his advantage in the region."
Mr. Chávez is also riding a wave of popular reaction in the region against the "Washington consensus" of democracy and open markets that the White House, for the moment, seems unable to dampen. While few leaders in Latin America are as provocatively anti-American as Mr. Chávez, three-quarters of South America is governed by left-of-center presidents, and next year Mexico may well elect a leftist populist of its own, Mexico City's mayor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Meanwhile, Washington's initiatives around the globe receive dour news coverage in Latin America, from the war in Iraq to prisoner abuses in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
In a recent, coordinated set of surveys conducted across Latin America by a consortium of polling firms, President Bush was given a 26 percent approval rating - lower even than the much reviled International Monetary Fund. A yearly poll by Latinobarómetro, a Chilean company that surveys political attitudes around South America, showed that in 2004 more than 60 percent of Latin Americans still had a good opinion of the Untied States. But in some countries, like Argentina and Mexico, the approval rating was below 50 percent.
Marta Lagos, director of Latinobarómetro, attributes much of Mr. Chávez's success to his anti-American oratory, which she said had long worked for Mr. Castro. "Hugo Chávez has adapted that discourse very well," she said. "That's a discourse that sells very well in Latin America."
Already in office longer than any other current Latin American leader save Mr. Castro, Mr. Chávez, who was first elected in 1998, has undeniably become a spokesman for the millions of poor in Latin America who reject globalization in their search for another way.
Flush with oil money, he is remaking his country and spending billions on social programs that have given him a 70 percent popularity rating. Like Mr. Castro, he is also selling a vision of a just political system, one that stands up to El Norte, even as he stands accused of curtailing press freedom and judicial independence.
"The ideals of justice and progress are very much alive, and I think that Chávez somehow embodies that," said Fernando Coronil, a Harvard professor who is writing a book about the 2002 coup. "It's not so much socialism as a system, but it's the hope that someone is offering to care for them and that someone is willing to counter a system that is not working for them."
In the process, Mr. Chávez, like Mr. Castro before him, has become a vocal opponent of nearly every initiative Washington has mounted in the region. Increasingly Mr. Chávez seems to be gaining the upper hand.
Mr. Bush's plan for a hemisphere-wide trade pact, initially planned for this year, is in shambles. Instead it is Mr. Chávez who is busy signing trade deals. The Venezuelan government is spearheading a new continent-wide television station, intended to carry news with a leftist bent, and building Petrosur, a regional energy company that is drawing up further oil and gas accords with Brazil and Argentina.
Mr. Chávez also rails against Washington's aerial spraying of coca crops in Colombia, a $3.3 billion program that has stalled and has little public support. At the Organization of American States, Venezuela's candidate for secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, a Chilean Socialist, was elected on May 2. It was the first time the candidate backed by the United States had lost.
Washington's response to Mr. Chávez, with top officials like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling him a destabilizing force, has attracted little support among Venezuela's neighbors.
In such criticisms there are parallels with Mr. Castro, said Mr. Smith, the former diplomat. "I've always said that Cuba has the same effect on American administrations that the full moon has on werewolves," he said. "That werewolf effect now applies to Chávez also."
June 1, 2005
Opposition to U.S. Makes Chávez a Hero to Many
By JUAN FORERO
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, May 31 - When President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela arrived at the World Social Forum in Brazil in January, he was greeted with thunderous cries of "Here comes the boss!"
At ceremonies in March surrounding the inauguration of Uruguay's president, Tabaré Vázquez, the latest left-of-center leader elected in Latin America, throngs roared their approval as Mr. Chávez gave one of his characteristically rambling talks, full of warnings about American imperialism.
And last week in Buenos Aires, crowds mobbed Mr. Chávez when he showed up to inaugurate Venezuela's first state-owned gas station in the Argentine capital, part of a food-for-oil deal popular with Argentines.
It is the kind of public adoration that brings to mind another Latin American leader, Fidel Castro, who for more than 45 years has drawn accolades wherever he has gone, much to Washington's chagrin. Now, it seems, the torch is being passed, and it is Mr. Chávez who is emerging as this generation's Castro - a charismatic figure and self-styled revolutionary who bearhugs his counterparts on state visits, inspires populist left-wing movements and draws out fervent well-wishers from Havana to Buenos Aires.
Like Mr. Castro, Mr. Chávez is burnishing his image by mining latent anti-American sentiment and capitalizing on Washington's mistakes, like the tacit support the White House gave to a short-lived coup against him in 2002.
He is now getting mileage out of the case of Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban-American exile and anti-Castro warrior accused of bombing a Cuban airliner.
Mr. Chávez has demanded that the United States, which is holding Mr. Posada Carriles, return him to Venezuela, his base of operations at the time of the bombing. Mr. Chávez has repeatedly accused the United States of having a double standard on terrorism, coming down hard on those it perceives as its enemies and pulling its punches with an accused terrorist at war with Washington's longtime nemesis, Mr. Castro.
The strategy is classic Castro, but Mr. Chávez has one great advantage the Cuban leader never had - the richest oil reserves outside the Middle East, a gusher of cash that he is using to weave ever closer diplomatic and commercial ties with Latin American nations.
"He's following his own path, his own destiny, and he's doing it against U.S. opposition, so the Latin Americans support it," said Wayne Smith, a former American diplomat in Cuba and now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, which tracks developments in Latin America. "That's sort of the reaction, and it plays toward his advantage in the region."
Mr. Chávez is also riding a wave of popular reaction in the region against the "Washington consensus" of democracy and open markets that the White House, for the moment, seems unable to dampen. While few leaders in Latin America are as provocatively anti-American as Mr. Chávez, three-quarters of South America is governed by left-of-center presidents, and next year Mexico may well elect a leftist populist of its own, Mexico City's mayor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Meanwhile, Washington's initiatives around the globe receive dour news coverage in Latin America, from the war in Iraq to prisoner abuses in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
In a recent, coordinated set of surveys conducted across Latin America by a consortium of polling firms, President Bush was given a 26 percent approval rating - lower even than the much reviled International Monetary Fund. A yearly poll by Latinobarómetro, a Chilean company that surveys political attitudes around South America, showed that in 2004 more than 60 percent of Latin Americans still had a good opinion of the Untied States. But in some countries, like Argentina and Mexico, the approval rating was below 50 percent.
Marta Lagos, director of Latinobarómetro, attributes much of Mr. Chávez's success to his anti-American oratory, which she said had long worked for Mr. Castro. "Hugo Chávez has adapted that discourse very well," she said. "That's a discourse that sells very well in Latin America."
Already in office longer than any other current Latin American leader save Mr. Castro, Mr. Chávez, who was first elected in 1998, has undeniably become a spokesman for the millions of poor in Latin America who reject globalization in their search for another way.
Flush with oil money, he is remaking his country and spending billions on social programs that have given him a 70 percent popularity rating. Like Mr. Castro, he is also selling a vision of a just political system, one that stands up to El Norte, even as he stands accused of curtailing press freedom and judicial independence.
"The ideals of justice and progress are very much alive, and I think that Chávez somehow embodies that," said Fernando Coronil, a Harvard professor who is writing a book about the 2002 coup. "It's not so much socialism as a system, but it's the hope that someone is offering to care for them and that someone is willing to counter a system that is not working for them."
In the process, Mr. Chávez, like Mr. Castro before him, has become a vocal opponent of nearly every initiative Washington has mounted in the region. Increasingly Mr. Chávez seems to be gaining the upper hand.
Mr. Bush's plan for a hemisphere-wide trade pact, initially planned for this year, is in shambles. Instead it is Mr. Chávez who is busy signing trade deals. The Venezuelan government is spearheading a new continent-wide television station, intended to carry news with a leftist bent, and building Petrosur, a regional energy company that is drawing up further oil and gas accords with Brazil and Argentina.
Mr. Chávez also rails against Washington's aerial spraying of coca crops in Colombia, a $3.3 billion program that has stalled and has little public support. At the Organization of American States, Venezuela's candidate for secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, a Chilean Socialist, was elected on May 2. It was the first time the candidate backed by the United States had lost.
Washington's response to Mr. Chávez, with top officials like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling him a destabilizing force, has attracted little support among Venezuela's neighbors.
In such criticisms there are parallels with Mr. Castro, said Mr. Smith, the former diplomat. "I've always said that Cuba has the same effect on American administrations that the full moon has on werewolves," he said. "That werewolf effect now applies to Chávez also."
So are you suggesting that whichever Ayatollah and the various Presidents are worse than the US' CIA Dictator the Shah? Worse for US Embassy staff maybe. But that is another thread, why don't you start it?gassit said:just make sure someone worse doesnt get in theere like iran
Now that Bechtel and Haliburton's loot is threatened across the board in Latin America Bush and Condi are talking all this save democracy shit especially when their Yes men are being thrown out of office- they didn't say shit when right-wingers had a coup in Venezuela.
Fuckin Hypocrits - luckily that shit they are talking ain't gonna fly especially with 180,000 troops in Iraq.
They are trying to back rich white spainard plays at getting Chile or Brazilian troops to protect the Bolivian Gas Fields as part of their autonomous region now that the indigenous peoples are tired of the bullshit and want real change.
------------------------------------------------
Bush Plans Speech at OAS Meeting
President Bush to Urge Steps to Defend Democracy in Latin America at OAS Meeting
By GEORGE GEDDA
The Associated Press
Jun. 6, 2005 - President Bush is stepping into a debate over how far Western Hemisphere governments should go in rescuing countries where political instability threatens democratic survival.
Bush planned to deliver a speech Monday to an Organization of American States foreign ministers meeting after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told OAS delegates Sunday night the institution must remain faithful to its pro-democracy charter.
"We must act on our charter to support democracy where it is threatened," Rice said. "Wherever a free society is in retreat, a fear society is on the offensive. And the weapon of choice for every authoritarian regime is the organized cruelty of the police state."
She singled out Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti as countries that need help in overcoming chronic instability.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, delivering a radio address to his countrymen, said the U.S. proposal is a ploy to justify U.S. intervention in the hemisphere.
"The times in which the OAS was an instrument of the government in Washington are gone," Chavez said. "Are they going to try, through the OAS, to monitor the Venezuelan government? ... Those who think they can put the peoples of Latin America in a corral are mistaken."
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez was expected to deliver a more extended response to Rice's proposal on Monday.
Although Rice did not mention Venezuela by name in her remarks, the Bush administration believes that Chavez has been engaged in a systematic power grab, putting Venezuelan democracy at risk.
Rice said she hoped to reach agreement with her OAS colleagues on mechanisms to protect endangered democracies.
Brazil and several other countries were working on a counterproposal to an American draft document. "We'd like to strengthen democracy in the region but we'd also like to avoid intruding mechanisms," Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said in a statement.
OAS foreign ministers meet annually, and the gathering here is the first held on U.S. soil since 1974.
At that time, military governments dominated Latin America. During the 1980s, all military regimes returned power to elected governments but Rice acknowledged in her speech that democracy has not benefited many of the region's citizens, contributing to widespread discontent.
Rice plans to return to Washington on Monday night. The deliberations here end on Tuesday.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures
Fuckin Hypocrits - luckily that shit they are talking ain't gonna fly especially with 180,000 troops in Iraq.
They are trying to back rich white spainard plays at getting Chile or Brazilian troops to protect the Bolivian Gas Fields as part of their autonomous region now that the indigenous peoples are tired of the bullshit and want real change.
------------------------------------------------
Bush Plans Speech at OAS Meeting
President Bush to Urge Steps to Defend Democracy in Latin America at OAS Meeting
By GEORGE GEDDA
The Associated Press
Jun. 6, 2005 - President Bush is stepping into a debate over how far Western Hemisphere governments should go in rescuing countries where political instability threatens democratic survival.
Bush planned to deliver a speech Monday to an Organization of American States foreign ministers meeting after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told OAS delegates Sunday night the institution must remain faithful to its pro-democracy charter.
"We must act on our charter to support democracy where it is threatened," Rice said. "Wherever a free society is in retreat, a fear society is on the offensive. And the weapon of choice for every authoritarian regime is the organized cruelty of the police state."
She singled out Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti as countries that need help in overcoming chronic instability.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, delivering a radio address to his countrymen, said the U.S. proposal is a ploy to justify U.S. intervention in the hemisphere.
"The times in which the OAS was an instrument of the government in Washington are gone," Chavez said. "Are they going to try, through the OAS, to monitor the Venezuelan government? ... Those who think they can put the peoples of Latin America in a corral are mistaken."
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez was expected to deliver a more extended response to Rice's proposal on Monday.
Although Rice did not mention Venezuela by name in her remarks, the Bush administration believes that Chavez has been engaged in a systematic power grab, putting Venezuelan democracy at risk.
Rice said she hoped to reach agreement with her OAS colleagues on mechanisms to protect endangered democracies.
Brazil and several other countries were working on a counterproposal to an American draft document. "We'd like to strengthen democracy in the region but we'd also like to avoid intruding mechanisms," Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said in a statement.
OAS foreign ministers meet annually, and the gathering here is the first held on U.S. soil since 1974.
At that time, military governments dominated Latin America. During the 1980s, all military regimes returned power to elected governments but Rice acknowledged in her speech that democracy has not benefited many of the region's citizens, contributing to widespread discontent.
Rice plans to return to Washington on Monday night. The deliberations here end on Tuesday.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures
NY Times
Latin Nations Resist Plan for Monitor of Democracy
By JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: June 6, 2005
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., June 5 - The major nations of Latin America have told the United States that they cannot support an American plan to establish a permanent committee of the Organization of American States that would monitor the exercise of democracy in the hemisphere, Latin American diplomats said Sunday.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who arrived here on Sunday afternoon to serve as chairwoman of an O.A.S. meeting where the American plan is on the agenda, expressed frustration with their view, saying, "We have to have a discussion of how the organization can be effective if it does not have a mechanism that can help at times of crisis."
If the organization fails to approve the American proposal, it would be a significant diplomatic defeat for the United States - from a region that for decades has generally gone along with Washington's requests. The United States is negotiating with the other countries, though diplomats and officials said they made little progress on Sunday.
Last month, senior administration officials said they intended to push for approval of the proposed resolution during the foreign ministers' meeting here, which runs through Monday. But, perhaps anticipating that approval was far from certain, Ms. Rice said to reporters on her plane, "All of the answers are not going to come out of this meeting."
Several ambassadors of Latin American states said last month that they would be unlikely to support the measure because they saw it as a thinly veiled attack on Venezuela, which has been at odds with the United States for several years.
In Caracas on Sunday, President Hugo Chávez clearly had the same view. On Venezuelan television, he said: "So, they're going to monitor the Venezuelan government through the O.A.S.? They must be joking."
"The times in which the O.A.S. was an instrument of the government in Washington are gone," he added.
Latin American ambassadors have been consulting among themselves about the proposal since the United States made it Wednesday at an O.A.S. meeting in Washington. Several said they opposed the idea of forming a committee that could intervene in the internal affairs of nations - perhaps even their own.
Apprised of that, Ms. Rice, said: "Of course, the organization has intervened in the past. It intervened in Peru." In 2000, the O.A.S. declared elections in Peru illegitimate and sent a mission to mediate the crisis.
"This is not somehow a set of ideas that the United States has, and is going to impose on anyone," she added.
The ambassadors from 10 major states, including Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru and Uruguay, met here on Saturday night and decided they could not support the plan as drafted, two of them said Sunday.
The two ambassadors said they particularly opposed a part of the proposal that says the organization should "develop a process to assess, as appropriate, situations that may affect the development of a member state's democratic political institutional process or the legitimate exercise of power."
One ambassador, who declined to be identified because he did not want to offend the United States, noted that the organization's charter emphasized "non-intervention, self-determination and respect for individual personalities" in member states.
The American proposal grew out of a remark that José Miguel Insulza, the newly elected secretary general of the organization, made in April at the urging of the United States. Clearly alluding to Venezuela, he said states that did not govern democratically should be held accountable by the organization.
In the weeks since then, the State Department has been drafting the proposal to create a committee that would listen to testimony from citizens groups that have problems with their governments.
The ambassador who declined to be identified said the nations could not accept that infringement on their sovereignty, but added: "We have a constructive attitude. We will work on language that is more acceptable."
Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, said: "We are in the midst of the process. It is too soon to make a judgment. This is not a process that is going to be finished overnight."
Latin Nations Resist Plan for Monitor of Democracy
By JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: June 6, 2005
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., June 5 - The major nations of Latin America have told the United States that they cannot support an American plan to establish a permanent committee of the Organization of American States that would monitor the exercise of democracy in the hemisphere, Latin American diplomats said Sunday.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who arrived here on Sunday afternoon to serve as chairwoman of an O.A.S. meeting where the American plan is on the agenda, expressed frustration with their view, saying, "We have to have a discussion of how the organization can be effective if it does not have a mechanism that can help at times of crisis."
If the organization fails to approve the American proposal, it would be a significant diplomatic defeat for the United States - from a region that for decades has generally gone along with Washington's requests. The United States is negotiating with the other countries, though diplomats and officials said they made little progress on Sunday.
Last month, senior administration officials said they intended to push for approval of the proposed resolution during the foreign ministers' meeting here, which runs through Monday. But, perhaps anticipating that approval was far from certain, Ms. Rice said to reporters on her plane, "All of the answers are not going to come out of this meeting."
Several ambassadors of Latin American states said last month that they would be unlikely to support the measure because they saw it as a thinly veiled attack on Venezuela, which has been at odds with the United States for several years.
In Caracas on Sunday, President Hugo Chávez clearly had the same view. On Venezuelan television, he said: "So, they're going to monitor the Venezuelan government through the O.A.S.? They must be joking."
"The times in which the O.A.S. was an instrument of the government in Washington are gone," he added.
Latin American ambassadors have been consulting among themselves about the proposal since the United States made it Wednesday at an O.A.S. meeting in Washington. Several said they opposed the idea of forming a committee that could intervene in the internal affairs of nations - perhaps even their own.
Apprised of that, Ms. Rice, said: "Of course, the organization has intervened in the past. It intervened in Peru." In 2000, the O.A.S. declared elections in Peru illegitimate and sent a mission to mediate the crisis.
"This is not somehow a set of ideas that the United States has, and is going to impose on anyone," she added.
The ambassadors from 10 major states, including Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru and Uruguay, met here on Saturday night and decided they could not support the plan as drafted, two of them said Sunday.
The two ambassadors said they particularly opposed a part of the proposal that says the organization should "develop a process to assess, as appropriate, situations that may affect the development of a member state's democratic political institutional process or the legitimate exercise of power."
One ambassador, who declined to be identified because he did not want to offend the United States, noted that the organization's charter emphasized "non-intervention, self-determination and respect for individual personalities" in member states.
The American proposal grew out of a remark that José Miguel Insulza, the newly elected secretary general of the organization, made in April at the urging of the United States. Clearly alluding to Venezuela, he said states that did not govern democratically should be held accountable by the organization.
In the weeks since then, the State Department has been drafting the proposal to create a committee that would listen to testimony from citizens groups that have problems with their governments.
The ambassador who declined to be identified said the nations could not accept that infringement on their sovereignty, but added: "We have a constructive attitude. We will work on language that is more acceptable."
Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, said: "We are in the midst of the process. It is too soon to make a judgment. This is not a process that is going to be finished overnight."
You are an attorney you should explain government confiscation of assets to me.QueEx said:
This move he made is to thwart rich industrialists who have shut down their businesses to try to screw things up. But he has directly took large farms held by foreigners for hundreds of years - cattle ranches etc way before this. I don't have a problem with that, fuck them. They stole the shit years ago now they can get the fuck on. That should be done thoroughout africa too after learning enough to run everything on their own they should expel the muthafuckas and kill all who try to fight it. Let the sins of the fathers be visited on the sons.
Back to the main confiscation thing - The majority of the wealthy in Venezuela have been made rich through years of oppression - Im not upset by Chavez taking shit from them
I dont think he's a latino Stalin. Maybe a Trotsky lol
Pat Robertson calls for Assassination of Chavez
Televangelist Calls for Chavez' Death
Monday, August 22, 2005 11:06 PM EDT
The Associated Press
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson called on Monday for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him a "terrific danger" to the United States.
Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a former presidential candidate, said on "The 700 Club" it was the United States' duty to stop Chavez from making Venezuela a "launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."
Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.
"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."
Electronic pages and a message to a Robertson spokeswoman were not immediately returned Monday evening.
Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier of oil to the United States. The CIA estimates that U.S. markets absorb almost 59 percent of Venezuela's total exports.
Venezuela's government has demanded in the past that the United States crack down on Cuban and Venezuelan "terrorists" in Florida who they say are conspiring against Chavez.
Robertson accused the United States of failing to act when Chavez was briefly overthrown in 2002.
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.
"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
Televangelist Calls for Chavez' Death
Monday, August 22, 2005 11:06 PM EDT
The Associated Press
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson called on Monday for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him a "terrific danger" to the United States.
Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a former presidential candidate, said on "The 700 Club" it was the United States' duty to stop Chavez from making Venezuela a "launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."
Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.
"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."
Electronic pages and a message to a Robertson spokeswoman were not immediately returned Monday evening.
Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier of oil to the United States. The CIA estimates that U.S. markets absorb almost 59 percent of Venezuela's total exports.
Venezuela's government has demanded in the past that the United States crack down on Cuban and Venezuelan "terrorists" in Florida who they say are conspiring against Chavez.
Robertson accused the United States of failing to act when Chavez was briefly overthrown in 2002.
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.
"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
I don't know how to react to his "Eminent Domain" program down there but we do it here in the states saying that if it will do the community more benefit then its ok to take the land. Originally it was started to build roads, dams, etc (mainly government public service stuff) now they are using it to bring large corporations like wallmart to neighborhoods. There is currently a backlash to it as folks are finding that local boards could decide (or are already using it) to take their homes and giving it to corporations (non govenmental entities.
As a capitalist it scares me to think that I could decide after I make my fortunes here to go to a 3rd world country and buy a nice junk of land for whatever legal use I chose and then the government take it from me. It bothers me that some of you feel its ok for the government to take the land of others and reappropriate it. In Tortola BVI what the government did was to buy some land back from foreign owners then make low income housing for its citizens who have never owned a home. This I welcome more than forceable removal.
I like his program to sell oil at a lower price to the Carribbean. He is going to get a lot of support from the carribbean if he actually goes through with it. I would like to know the WIIFM (whats in it for me part) though. I guess this would give him a base market that will not be controlled by the super powers.
Caribbean oil initiative launched
Critics say Chavez uses oil to seek more influence in the region
The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, has launched a regional oil initiative to provide fuel at cheaper prices to 15 Caribbean nations.
Mr Chavez announced the Petrocaribe plan at a regional summit in Venezuela's city of Puerto La Cruz.
He said the region had suffered centuries of imperialism and needed to strike out on its own.
Critics say Mr Chavez is using Venezuela's oil to secure diplomatic influence in the Caribbean.
Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter, producing 3.1 million barrels a day.
It is a leading oil supplier to the US, but Mr Chavez is seeking to develop diversified energy ties with the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia.
The Petrocaribe initiative aims to further cut the preferential prices Venezuela gives to communist Cuba and other nations.
'Regional solidarity'
"Today I propose to the Caribbean that we form an energy alliance," Mr Chavez said at the opening of the summit.
Oil is Venezuela's main source of foreign cash
He said that Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA had already created an affiliate, PDV Caribe, to implement the initiative.
Mr Chavez pledged highly preferential oil prices, with Caracas picking up 40% of the cost if oil was selling at more than $50 a barrel, as it is now.
He promised further concessions to the Petrocaribe signatories if prices hit the $100 a barrel mark.
Venezuela is putting $50m into a fund to kick-start the plan, and Mr Chavez said Caracas would pay for oil shipments and help with setting up storage facilities across the region.
But he insisted all this new business must be between governments, saying that the region could not hand any more over to Texaco and other private companies.
This condition may alarm international oil companies.
Cuban President Fidel Castro - who is also attending the summit - hailed the initiative as an important step toward greater regional solidarity.
Mr Castro said it was "the only method of survival for our countries".
The summit is also attended by delegations from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Surinam and Trinidad and Tobago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4636067.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4636067.stm
As a capitalist it scares me to think that I could decide after I make my fortunes here to go to a 3rd world country and buy a nice junk of land for whatever legal use I chose and then the government take it from me. It bothers me that some of you feel its ok for the government to take the land of others and reappropriate it. In Tortola BVI what the government did was to buy some land back from foreign owners then make low income housing for its citizens who have never owned a home. This I welcome more than forceable removal.
I like his program to sell oil at a lower price to the Carribbean. He is going to get a lot of support from the carribbean if he actually goes through with it. I would like to know the WIIFM (whats in it for me part) though. I guess this would give him a base market that will not be controlled by the super powers.
Caribbean oil initiative launched
Critics say Chavez uses oil to seek more influence in the region
The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, has launched a regional oil initiative to provide fuel at cheaper prices to 15 Caribbean nations.
Mr Chavez announced the Petrocaribe plan at a regional summit in Venezuela's city of Puerto La Cruz.
He said the region had suffered centuries of imperialism and needed to strike out on its own.
Critics say Mr Chavez is using Venezuela's oil to secure diplomatic influence in the Caribbean.
Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter, producing 3.1 million barrels a day.
It is a leading oil supplier to the US, but Mr Chavez is seeking to develop diversified energy ties with the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia.
The Petrocaribe initiative aims to further cut the preferential prices Venezuela gives to communist Cuba and other nations.
'Regional solidarity'
"Today I propose to the Caribbean that we form an energy alliance," Mr Chavez said at the opening of the summit.
Oil is Venezuela's main source of foreign cash
He said that Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA had already created an affiliate, PDV Caribe, to implement the initiative.
Mr Chavez pledged highly preferential oil prices, with Caracas picking up 40% of the cost if oil was selling at more than $50 a barrel, as it is now.
He promised further concessions to the Petrocaribe signatories if prices hit the $100 a barrel mark.
Venezuela is putting $50m into a fund to kick-start the plan, and Mr Chavez said Caracas would pay for oil shipments and help with setting up storage facilities across the region.
But he insisted all this new business must be between governments, saying that the region could not hand any more over to Texaco and other private companies.
This condition may alarm international oil companies.
Cuban President Fidel Castro - who is also attending the summit - hailed the initiative as an important step toward greater regional solidarity.
Mr Castro said it was "the only method of survival for our countries".
The summit is also attended by delegations from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Surinam and Trinidad and Tobago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4636067.stm
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Re: Pat Robertson calls for Assassination of Chavez
According to Pat Robertson's logic:
Kill a leader if the oil won't stop; and
Don't kill a leader if the oil will stop.
Brilliant.
The Christian community, especially the
Evangelical community should denounce
Robertson with a vengeance. Otherwise,
why ask the Muslim press to denounce
their radicals ... ???
QueEx
<font size="3">Dolemite said:
According to Pat Robertson's logic:
Kill a leader if the oil won't stop; and
Don't kill a leader if the oil will stop.
Brilliant.
The Christian community, especially the
Evangelical community should denounce
Robertson with a vengeance. Otherwise,
why ask the Muslim press to denounce
their radicals ... ???
QueEx
Come on yall!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guys all attacking PAT.
He said he was misunderstood. His words were twisted.
He meant just have our guys remove him, there are plenty of ways to do that like KIDNAPPING, he says. AHHHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAHA
Now if somebody muslim said that about bush america would try to arrest their asses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This man was voted in, the people actually want him to stay in longer, they got him back after the coup and pat wants him out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yet if a muslim said the same thing about bush he hates al of us and our freedom!
PAt, like bush and osama, use religion for evil and to justify evil.
You know what, just like dc comics tend to have counterparts in the marvel universe the christian and muslims do to.
We have millions of decent christians in this country yet a few assholes make the all look bad, likewise for muslims.
He said he was misunderstood. His words were twisted.
He meant just have our guys remove him, there are plenty of ways to do that like KIDNAPPING, he says. AHHHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAHA
Now if somebody muslim said that about bush america would try to arrest their asses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This man was voted in, the people actually want him to stay in longer, they got him back after the coup and pat wants him out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yet if a muslim said the same thing about bush he hates al of us and our freedom!
PAt, like bush and osama, use religion for evil and to justify evil.
You know what, just like dc comics tend to have counterparts in the marvel universe the christian and muslims do to.
We have millions of decent christians in this country yet a few assholes make the all look bad, likewise for muslims.
I did not notice you posted the same article, right before my post.
Chávez taunts US with oil offer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,12716,1555970,00.html
Venezuelan president hits back at assassination remarks with offer of cheap petroleum for poor Americans
Duncan Campbell
Thursday August 25, 2005
The Guardian
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela hit back vigorously at calls by an ally of President George Bush for his assassination by offering cheap petrol to the poor of the US at a time of soaring fuel prices.
In a typically robust response to remarks by the US televangelist Pat Robertson, Mr Chávez compared his detractors to the "rather mad dogs with rabies" from Cervantes' Don Quixote, and unveiled his plans to use Venezuela's energy reserves as a political tool.
"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," he said.
Mr Robertson's remarks have threatened to inflame tension between the US and one of its main oil suppliers.
Yesterday the religious broadcaster apologised for his remarks.
"Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologise for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the US is out to kill him," he said.
In a TV broadcast on Monday, he said: "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."
Yesterday Mr Robertson initially said his comments had been misinterpreted, but went on to add that kidnapping Mr Chávez might be a better idea.
"I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things, including kidnapping."
The Bush administration tried to distance itself from Mr Robertson's views without upsetting the large Christian fundamentalist wing which the veteran evangelist represents.
A State Department spokesman said assassination was not part of government policy. "He's a private citizen," Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, said of Mr Robertson. "Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time."
But Mr Robertson's remarks are seen as an embarrassment at a time when the US is calling for a united front against terror.
Democrats have challenged the Bush administration to be more outspoken in its response to Mr Robertson's remarks on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Venezuela's ambassador to the US, Bernardo Alvarez, said: "Mr Robertson has been one of this president's staunchest allies. His statement demands the strongest condemnation by the White House."
The Venezuelan government is asking for assurances from the US government that Mr Chávez will be adequately protected when he visits New York for a special session of the UN next month.
Venezuela's vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, said the possibility of legal action against Mr Robertson for incitement to murder should also be considered.
Venezuela, the world's fifth largest crude exporter, supplies 1.3m barrels of oil a day to the US. It remains unclear how poor Americans might benefit from the cheap petrol offer, but Mr Chávez has set up arrangements with other countries for swapping services in exchange for oil. Cuban doctors are working in the poorer areas of Venezuela in exchange for cheap oil going to Cuba.
Jamaica yesterday became the first Caribbean country to reach an agreement with Venezuela for oil at below-market terms. The Petrocaribe initiative is a plan to offer oil at flexible rates to 13 Caribbean countries. Jamaica will pay $40 a barrel, against a market rate of more than $60.
Mr Chávez said oil importers such as the US could expect no respite from the oil market, predicting the price of a barrel would reach $100 by 2012.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,12716,1555970,00.html
Venezuelan president hits back at assassination remarks with offer of cheap petroleum for poor Americans
Duncan Campbell
Thursday August 25, 2005
The Guardian
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela hit back vigorously at calls by an ally of President George Bush for his assassination by offering cheap petrol to the poor of the US at a time of soaring fuel prices.
In a typically robust response to remarks by the US televangelist Pat Robertson, Mr Chávez compared his detractors to the "rather mad dogs with rabies" from Cervantes' Don Quixote, and unveiled his plans to use Venezuela's energy reserves as a political tool.
"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," he said.
Mr Robertson's remarks have threatened to inflame tension between the US and one of its main oil suppliers.
Yesterday the religious broadcaster apologised for his remarks.
"Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologise for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the US is out to kill him," he said.
In a TV broadcast on Monday, he said: "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."
Yesterday Mr Robertson initially said his comments had been misinterpreted, but went on to add that kidnapping Mr Chávez might be a better idea.
"I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things, including kidnapping."
The Bush administration tried to distance itself from Mr Robertson's views without upsetting the large Christian fundamentalist wing which the veteran evangelist represents.
A State Department spokesman said assassination was not part of government policy. "He's a private citizen," Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, said of Mr Robertson. "Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time."
But Mr Robertson's remarks are seen as an embarrassment at a time when the US is calling for a united front against terror.
Democrats have challenged the Bush administration to be more outspoken in its response to Mr Robertson's remarks on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Venezuela's ambassador to the US, Bernardo Alvarez, said: "Mr Robertson has been one of this president's staunchest allies. His statement demands the strongest condemnation by the White House."
The Venezuelan government is asking for assurances from the US government that Mr Chávez will be adequately protected when he visits New York for a special session of the UN next month.
Venezuela's vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, said the possibility of legal action against Mr Robertson for incitement to murder should also be considered.
Venezuela, the world's fifth largest crude exporter, supplies 1.3m barrels of oil a day to the US. It remains unclear how poor Americans might benefit from the cheap petrol offer, but Mr Chávez has set up arrangements with other countries for swapping services in exchange for oil. Cuban doctors are working in the poorer areas of Venezuela in exchange for cheap oil going to Cuba.
Jamaica yesterday became the first Caribbean country to reach an agreement with Venezuela for oil at below-market terms. The Petrocaribe initiative is a plan to offer oil at flexible rates to 13 Caribbean countries. Jamaica will pay $40 a barrel, against a market rate of more than $60.
Mr Chávez said oil importers such as the US could expect no respite from the oil market, predicting the price of a barrel would reach $100 by 2012.