Chavez threatens US
2004-03-01 11:25
Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday told some 60 000 cheering supporters he would block US access to Venezuela's oil resources if Washington moves against his government.
In a three-hour anti-American diatribe that singled out US President George W Bush as an illegitimate leader, Chavez said "if Mr. Bush is possessed with the madness of trying to blockade Venezuela, or worse for them, to invade Venezuela in response to the desperate song of his lackeys ... sadly not a drop of petroleum with come to them from Venezuela."
Chavez spoke a day before Venezuela's election council was due to release its preliminary judgment on opposition petitions for a recall referendum on his government.
Chavez has long accused Washington of backing the opposition, which has tried to oust Chavez twice - once in a nationwide strike that ended last year and in an aborted 2002 coup.
The United States is keenly interested in Venezuela, its fourth-largest oil supplier and the only Latin American member of the Organisation of Oil Producing Countries.
US interest in Caribbean stability peaked this week as an armed rebellion led to the resignation on Sunday of Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide.
- AFP