President Hugo Chavez accused the United States on Sunday of sending Colombian right-wing paramilitary forces into Venezuela to destabilize border areas and arm shantytown gangs in the capital Caracas. With his most concrete charge to date in a months-old diplomatic dispute with Colombia, Chavez said the US ally supported the campaign that also included selling cocaine to buy support in slums. The anti-US, leftist president often charges Washington with plotting his ouster. He rarely provides any evidence for the accusations, which the United States routinely denies. “They (paramilitaries) are working in shantytowns selling cocaine below market prices to win over crime gangs and arm them with military arms,” Chavez said on his weekly TV show. He vowed to take to international bodies his charge that the two nations are “filling Venezuela with paramilitaries.” |