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Hugo Chavez Responds to Rice’s Medddling Statements
Message to Hugo: worry now that Condi is speaking for the State Department - not a good sign.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Following a week of tense exchanges with Washington, President Hugo Chavez on Saturday said American officials should not "stick their noses" in Venezuela’s affairs. ... Unless it is that Carter guy. Jimmah is there for us evil despots when we need him most.

U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Friday that Chavez should show "that he believes in democratic processes" by allowing the recall referendum on his rule to take place.

The comments followed a week of back-and-forth comments that began when U.S. officials accused Venezuela and Cuba of cooperating to undermine democratic governments in the region.

On Saturday, Chavez said the United States was wrong to comment on Venezuela’s internal affairs.

"It is not up to them to stick their noses here in Venezuela," Chavez said. "What occurs in Venezuela only concerns Venezuelans." Translation - your heckling is disturbing my magic show.

"Venezuela is a repressed satelite of Fidel Castro free, sovereign and independent country," said Chavez, one of Latin America’s most outspoken critics of the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

Caracas’ ties with Washington have been strained over Chavez’s friendly relations with Castro and his opposition to a U.S.-backed hemispheric free trade zone. (Gotta like a guy who is anti-prosperity. He wants our crippling agricultural subsidies to remain in place.) Washington was also slow to condemn a 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez. I’m sure in retrospect that we wish that we had not condemned the coup at all.
Venezuela’s National Elections Council must verify 3.4 million signatures that Chavez opponents submitted on petitions seeking the recall election.

Ezequiel Zamora, vice president of the elections council, said the vote -- if approved -- would be held before August as opposition groups have planned.

Opposition leaders argue Chavez, a former paratrooper elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, would be able to continue governing from behind the scenes if one of his confidants finishes his term.

A fierce critic of alleged U.S. hegemony in world affairs, Chavez praised Latin American leaders like Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, Brazil’s Luiz Ignacio Lula Da Silva and his close Cuban ally Fidel Castro for standing up to Washington. He more quietly supports other great leaders like Sadaam, Yasser, Bin Laden and Bob Mugabe.

Venezuela is a major oil supplier to the United States, but relations have been strained under Chavez. Notice that Venezuala has oil, supports the FARC and is anti-American, but hasn’t appeared on the WOT radar screen. Could it be that the US is not an imperial power bent on controlling oil sources? Could we actually be fighting against radical Islamic terrorists because they killed our citizens?
Posted by: Super Hose 2004-01-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=24149