CHAVEZWASHINGTON, (Reuters):
VENEZUELA SAID yesterday United States accusations against President Hugo Chavez were a sign of an impending 'attack' against one of its top oil suppliers.
Casting itself as the victim in a spat with Washington, Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez dismissed as "impertinent" charges that Venezuela limits free speech, associates with Colombian guerrillas and is a destabilising force in the region.
But he said the history of Latin America, where the United States is notorious for seeking decades ago to undermine leftist governments, showed such rhetoric was a way of preparing the ground for more drastic moves against Venezuela.
"The absurdity of these accusations against our government would not cause us the least anxiety if it were not for so many facts demonstrating that these signs appear because, sooner or later, there will be an attack," Rodriguez said in a speech at the Organisation of American States in Washington.
ASSASSINATION PLOT
The diplomat did not specify in the speech or at a news conference afterward what sort of attack he was referring to, but he repeated Chavez's assertions that the Bush administration is behind a plot to assassinate the populist president.
The United States brushed aside Rodriguez's speech.
"It was really not anything new. It repeated all these same charges that have been thrown around so blithely," State Department spokesman Rich-ard Boucher told reporters.
The United States has taken a harder line this year toward Venezuela, an OPEC member and one of the top five oil exporters to the United States. Despite the countries' mutual dependence on their oil trade, the governments have become increasingly shrill in airing their differences.
Political analysts said Rodriguez's appearance at the headquarters of the Western Hemisphere's top diplomatic body was part of Venezuela's counteroffensive to win over Latin American governments in its spat with the superpower.
Chavez, who periodically insults top U.S. officials, has angered Washington with his friendship of Cuban President Fidel Castro, hawkish oil price policies in OPEC and fierce opposition to U.S. free trade moves in the region.
