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Chavez haunts Bush
13/03/2007 07:56 - (SA)
Port-Au-Prince - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, shadowing his political foil US President George W Bush on a tour of Western Hemisphere nations, said Bush represents the "most cynical, most murderous empire in all of history" but insisted he had nothing personal against him.
"It's not Chavez against Bush or Bush against Chavez," the Venezuelan leader said late on Monday in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince at the close of a five-nation tour of Latin American and Caribbean nations.
"If this were personal it would have been over a long time ago. But you all know this isn't personal," Chavez said. "The president of the US is the representative of the cruelest, most terrible, most cynical, most murderous empire that has existed in all of history."
Chavez, speaking at a news conference with Haitian President Rene Preval and Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo, said Bush "represents the imperial plan of domination and colonialism. We represent ... the Bolivarian plan for the liberation of our people."
Preval, whose impoverished nation receives more aid from the US than any country, gave no comment or reaction to Chavez's remarks.
'Indescribable feelings'
Chavez, who left Nicaragua earlier on Monday as crowds greeted Bush in Guatemala, arrived in Haiti to a rousing welcome by tens of thousands of cheering supporters who lined dusty streets and stood atop crumbling shanty dwellings. Many waved Venezuelan flags, while some chanted, "Down with Bush, long live Chavez!"
During a stop at the Venezuelan Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Chavez said the welcome to Haiti provoked "indescribable feelings".
"We should begin preparing for ourselves ... to strengthen the unity" between the two countries, he said to Preval. "This is a heroic people, the Haitian people. So heroic but so downtrodden."
Chavez, who flew home later on Monday, also laid a wreath at a statue of Simon Bolivar, the South American independence hero and inspiration for his "Bolivarian Revolution," in a park in front of the embassy.
The leftist firebrand stopped earlier on Monday for a seven-hour visit in Jamaica, where he called for the Caribbean to support his Alternative for the Americas, a pact designed to counter Washington's proposed free trade deals.
Petrocaribe programme
"We've invited and keep inviting the nations of the Caribbean, in this case Jamaica," he said. "Only truly united can we be free, sovereign, really independent."
Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and Chavez also signed a deal under which the South American country will supply Jamaica with liquefied natural gas starting in 2009, said Philip Paulwell, the energy minister for Jamaica.
The agreement comes three weeks after Trinidad's Prime Minister Patrick Manning said his country could not supply Jamaica with 1.1 million metric tons of the gas it needs.
Haiti, like Jamaica, benefits from Petrocaribe - a Venezuelan initiative to purchase oil under preferential terms. The programme, widely seen as an effort by Chavez to make inroads in a region where the US is a major trading partner, allows deferred payment and long-term financing for fuel shipments.
Associated Press writers Filadelfo Aleman in Managua, Nicaragua, and Howard Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica, contributed to this report.
- AP
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