Venezuela: Links With
Washington Get Complicated
CARACAS - Relations of Venezuela and the
United Status tend to get complicated today
alter a US intelligence report and a
diplomatic offensive which President Hugo
Chavez considers part of a plan to
destabilize the country.
It is something very sensitive and a
powerful signal from the empire and its
resolution to continue bashing Venezuela,
alerted Chavez this week concerning a report
to the Senate by Director of the US
intelligence sector, Dennos Blair.
The accusations against the Venezuelan
government include limits to freedom of
expression, to harass and repress oppositors
and anti-US alliances with Cuba, Bolivia,
Ecuador and Nicaragua.
For Chavez, the report ratifies denounces
made on the existence of projects to
overthrow him with plans that range from a
coup d'Etat as the one in Honduras, until
magnicide in order to later summon elections
and install a right-wing government.
The offensive includes, according to
authorities here, a virulent attack on
Venezuela also this week by Canadian
representative before the Organization of
American Status (OAS), Pierre Giroux, in a
meeting of that organization. According to
Chavez, the Canadian government takes part
together with Washington in the support of a
violent agenda of the opposition, which over
the last few days led street clashes.
Venezuelan authorities consider the
opposition is manipulating student sectors
to "heat up the streets", create chaos and
promote violently their candidates to
parliamentary elections next September.
The most recent attempt was registered last
February 4, when a gathering pretended to
march in a route where it would confront on
four points, a rally of Chavez followers.
Before the possibility of clashes, the
Mayorship of Caracas did not authorize the
route and asked organizers to change the
route, but opposition groups decided to
concentrate without permission and try to
arrive at the National Assembly.
The summons in opinion of Caracas mayor,
Jorge Rodríguez, was in truth a provocation
and ended in attacks to order-enforcing
forces, one of whose officials was wounded
by a blunt object.
Regarding the illegal concentration and
attempt of non-authorized march, Chavez
denounced this is part of the actions
organized by fascist subversive groups and
not real students.
Before these actions and the preparations
for elections, the President asked his
followers to not surrender to provocations
and take to the streets as an expression of
permanent political activism, call that had
its expression in a giant rally in Chavez
support on February 4.
That is one reason for which we cannot
abandon the streets, there is an imperial
counterattack and the opposition feels
protected, he alerted.
Simultaneously, opposition spokes persons
reinforced the media battle with attempts to
charge the government with energy problems
provoked by the drought, resulting from the
climate phenomenon of El Niño, in a country
depending 70 percent of hydroelectric plants
to produce electricity.
Thus, the assistance offered in this sector
by Cuba, Brazil and Argentina became the
center of attacks with the argument there is
foreign interference, above all in the case
of Cuba.
The Minister of Electricity, Alí Rodríguez,
explained the Cubam support is based in the
technical experience of that country in
energy saving and efficiency, while
Brazilian experts rehabilitate the turbines
of water reservoir El Guri, the largest in
the country.
Meanwhile, Argentina, prepares projects for
the better use of the Caroni river, and
Russia and other countries offered
thermoelectric plants.
In a country polarized before the new
electoral process, not even the phenomenon
of El Niño seems to be alien to politics,
complicated by the active participation of
foreign elements as denounced by
authorities.
The essence of interference, denounced
Chavez, is the lust for oil and an attempt
to stop the marcvh of progressive Latin
American governments, target that in the
opinion of authorities here did not change
with the new administration of the United
States. |
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