Chavez taunts Bush

2006-01-29 16:45

Caracas - As Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Friday stepped up his attacks on what he called the "genocidal" US administration, new figures showed that bilateral trade has surged, thanks largely to high oil prices.

To cheers from thousands of anti-globalisation activists, Chavez called US President George W Bush "the world's biggest terrorist" and his administration "the most perverse, murderous, genocidal, immoral empire" in history.

In his address to participants in the six-day World Social Forum in Caracas, Chavez repeatedly called Bush "Mr Danger", a reference to a blue-eyed American in a 1929 novel who robs land from unwary Venezuelan peasants.

"Mr Danger talks of human rights, but there are people in Guantanamo who are tortured, and people who disappear in the CIA jails in Europe and elsewhere in the world," Chavez told a crowd of about 10 000, which included a large Cuban delegation and many of his supporters.

Chavez said he would head within hours to Havana, and hailed Cuba's communist President Fidel Castro, his friend and ally.

"Chavez and Fidel are crazies, the crazy left - they can call us what they want, we will inflict the greatest defeat in a thousand years of right-wingers in this continent," Chavez said.

Trade surges 35%

In a reference to claims Venezuelan navy officers passed secrets to the US, Chavez warned he would arrest any US official trying to get hold of such information.

Chavez has accused Washington of backing a 2002 coup in which he was ousted for 47 hours, and claims the US is still scheming against him.

Washington, in turn, accuses Chavez of destabilising the region, and recently prevented Spain from selling to Venezuela military planes containing US parts.

Still, trade between the US and Venezuela has grown steadily for the past four years, and reached about $39bn in 2005, an increase of 35% over the previous year, according to official figures out this week.

Venezuela's exports to the US were valued at $21bn, largely as a result of high oil prices. The US imports 1.5 million barrels a day from Venezuela, almost half the South American country's total output.

The commercial attache at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington urged US and other companies to take advantage of what he called a favourable investment climate in the South American country.

Favourable investment climate

"Those who do not invest now will be pushed out by other potential investors interested in Venezuela," said Jose Sojo Reyes, adding that trade between the two countries could rise a further 15% this year.

The statements contrasted with Chavez's fierce rhetoric against the Bush administration, which analysts say has boosted the Venezuelan leader's popularity in Latin America at a time when opinion polls show a rise in anti-US sentiment in the region.

At the same time, Chavez has been cautious to direct his attacks at the administration, and not the American people.

In a major public relations coup, his government recently provided cheap heating oil to needy residents of the Bronx, New York, and other parts of the northeastern US.

Analysts pointed out that Caracas needs the US market and Washington needs Venezuela's oil.

"The two countries are locked in a situation of mutual dependence at an economic level because of oil, while being locked in a massive clash, a lot of rhetoric," said Michael Shifter, of the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank.

- AFP