Venezuelan Leader Lashes at US in UN Speech
By Agence France-Presse
16 September 2005
Venezuela's President
Hugo Chavez called the United States a "terrorist state" and said the
United Nations headquarters should be moved away from New York.
The outspoken Chavez
littered his speech to the UN world summit with anti-US comments which
were applauded. The ally of Cuba's President Fidel Castro followed this up
with a press conference at which he accused the US administration of
supporting terrorism.
Tensions have been
mounting between the United States and Venezuela for months.
President George W.
Bush's government has accused Chavez of becoming a destabilizing influence
in Latin America. Chavez has in turn threatened to cut off his country's
valuable oil supplies to the United States.
Their dispute has
been spiced up by a call from US
conservative evangelist, Pat Robertson, for the
United States to assassinate Chavez, a
comment he later apologized for.
Chavez told the UN
General Assembly that the United
States was "a country that does not
respect the resolutions of this assembly."
To loud applause he
took up the call of Latin American revolutionary Simon Bolivar for the UN
headquarters to be moved to "an international city" in the southern
hemisphere.
"It is time to think
about an international city," he said, just before being told that his
speech had gone beyond the allotted 15 minutes for each of the 170 heads
of state and government leaders at the summit.
Chavez took the
opportunity to fire a new assault at the US leader, claiming that Bush had
been given 20 minutes.
At a press conference
after his speech, Chavez said that the United States was a "terrorist
state" because of its actions in Iraq, Robertson's assassination call and
for harboring Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted for the bombing of a
Cuban airliner.
"It is a terrorist
state. It is a government that violates all rules and behaves
shamelessly," he said.
"The United States is
the champion of double standards. The United States' government defends
terrorism. They talk of the fight against the terrorism, but they commit
terrorism, state terrorism," said Chavez.
The Venezuelan
president said the United States had used napalm in Iraq and protects
Posada Carriles, who is being held in the United States on immigration
charges.
The Venezuelan leader
arrived in New York on Thursday morning having kept in doubt whether he
would attend the summit at all.
Chavez charged
Tuesday that the United States had denied visas to his security and
medical teams. He also complained that his presidential jet had been
ordered to an airport far from the UN building.
Stepping up the
diplomatic hostilities, as Chavez arrived, the US administration released
a report saying that Venezuela had "failed demonstrably" to meet its
counter-narcotics obligations over the past year.
Posted by
Bulatlat
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