Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez:Expressing
disapproval
of
the U.S. Fourth Fleet.
Clarin,
Argentina
Resurrected U.S.
Fourth Fleet Worries Hugo Chavez
"I have no doubt that this is
a threat, a vast operation to extend control over the Orinoco, the Amazon,
Paraná, and we must be prepared and pay attention to what they want to do here.
… Should we not ask the U.S. to cease its gross and violent interference in our
countries?"
-- President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela speaking at Mercusor
Rear Admiral Joseph D. Kernan, recently commander,
Naval Special Warfare Command, is the new commander of the reborn Fourth Fleet. He will be responsible, according
to the U.S. Navy, for ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the
Caribbean, and Central and South America.
It's a well known fact: no
address given by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez can
avoid condemning in some way or another, the foreign policy of his archenemy,
U.S. president George W. Bush. The new twist this time, at the Mercosur summit [a regional trading group
]
in Tucumán [Argentina], was to upbraid the policy of the U.S. State Department
cited in an article published on Monday in Clarín,
which announced the return of the U.S. Fourth Fleet to Latin American waters.
Strictly speaking, Chávez read excerpts of yesterday’s note by the former
President of Cuba, Fidel Castro, who based his denunciations of imperialism on
the article from Clarin.
The self-styled Bolívarian quoted his source five times during his speech,
along the lines of "it's not I who says this, it’s Clarín
…", and with a certain irony ("our good friend, the daily Clarín), while exchanging knowing glances with
Argentine President Cristina Fernández, who in turn
praised the programs of the [State-run] Venezuelan TV channel Telesur, as well as the decision by the College of
Journalists of Chile punish its members who collaborated with the
military dictatorship [of Salvador Allende].
Chávez extensively reviewed the report written by the
journalist TelmaLuzzani
[now being translated by WORLDMEETS.US]. In
particular, "reports Clarín,"
Chávez focused on the figure of Rear Admiral Joseph Kernan, soon to become the commander of the Fourth Fleet of
the Southern Command .
He verbatim: "Kernan’s plan is no less worrying.
He's a Marine who belongs to a group called the SEALS …";
and he paused to ask [Venezuelan] Foreign Minister NicolásMaduro: "How do you pronounce SEAL - You who
speak English so well?" He then continued reading: "It's a command of
elite men selected for tough special operations to act under the most adverse
and exacting conditions … They operated in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos …"
HUGO CHAVEZ CALLS PRESIDENT BUSH
A 'DONKEY'
Chavez, after reading of few more paragraphs, declared that he,
"has no doubt" of the hidden intentions of the U.S. naval mission:
securing access to the region’s natural resources. And he asked the
"political Mercosur" to ask the United
States about the route that the fleet will take: "I have no doubt that
this is a threat, a vast operation to extend control over the Orinoco, the
Amazon, Paraná, and we must be prepared and pay attention to what they want to
do here." The Venezuelan also said, alluding to the pressure being exerted
on the Bolivian government of Evo Morales:
"Should we not ask the U.S. to cease its gross and violent interference in
our countries?" [The United States is accused of inciting unrest against
Morales, who us the first indigenous President in that nation's history - and
who has embraced widespread nationalization of that nation's natural resources.
The United States denies these charges].
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Evo, whose electoral triumph in 2005 was hailed by
Brazilian president Lula da Silva as "the most
important" in our region, also spoke of the North American military
presence in the area. "From Perú (referring to
his counterpart Alan García, absent from the meeting)
I've gotten a message to shut up; it's lamentable that a president wants to
silence anyone. It is for each country to decide whether to host a base of the
United States, but the problems such a base raises are shared by the entire
region," he said. The base in Manta, Ecuador, is to be closed by order of
President Rafael Correa, and the U.S. is looking for another Andean country to
position itself in the region .
"This," Evo said, "is not us intruding
into the decisions of others; it's about informing our people about the
significance of such decisions."
