Monique Hepburn, Staff Reporter
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Prime Minister P.J. Patterson embrace during a press conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montego Bay on Tuesday. The president was in the island on a one-day working visit during which he met with Prime Minister.
WESTERN BUREAU:
VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT Hugo Chavez has dismissed calls for his assassination by United States televangelist, Pat Robertson, and likened his ravings to that of the mad, rabid dogs in the Miguel de Cervantes novel Don Quixote.
"I really don't know who this person is," Mr. Chavez said. "But I think of the story of Don Quixote, when he and Sancho Panza reached prairie and a group of dogs started barking at them. They were rather mad dogs with rabies and Sancho Panza was scared."
"He said, Master! Master! Speed up. These dogs might bite us' " and Quixote said, " 'Be quiet, when the dogs bark it is because we are working."
"All the time the dogs bark it is because we are advancing," Mr. Chavez stated.
CALL FOR ASSASSINATION
He was speaking at a press conference with Jamaican and international journalists at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montego Bay on Tuesday, where he was on a one-day visit to the island to wrap up arrangements relating to the PetroCaribe oil deal. The initiative will see Jamaica receiving oil at concessionary rates from the South American country.
Earlier this week, Mr. Robertson classified Mr. Chavez as a "terrific danger" to the United States and called for the assassination of the Venezuelan President in lieu of a large scale war to depose him.
Mr. Chavez criticised persons who are not accommodative of other persons with differing opinions and whose aim he said was to destroy the world.
"We have to find the right path and I think we have found it. Those whose purpose it is to destroy the world have gone as far as to ask for the assassination of those who have a different opinion, which is our case. This is no doubt one of the signs of the universal madness. It is madness," he explained.
" In our culture we are favouring life of all of us," President Chavez declared.
During the conference Prime Minister P.J. Patterson said he does not expect any international backlash following the visit of the controversial president.
"We see no reason why the visit of President Chavez to Jamaica at this time or any other time should ruffle any feathers anywhere," said Mr. Patterson.
"He (President Chavez) has been to Jamaica before, for the G15 Conference and he has been to the meeting of the Summit of Americas in Quebec. Why should his presence in Jamaica for us to discuss matters relating to PetroCaribe and other matters pertaining to regional cooperation cause any discomfort anywhere?"
