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US Plans to Overthrow Venezuela President?
(PRAVDA, January 14, 2004)
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez believes that the US is preparing to overthrow him. The leader of the South American country stated that in his traditional TV and radio appearance on Sunday called Hello, President! . . . According to Chavez, the United States may even support his assassination if a referendum on pre-term resignation of the president is not conducted in Venezuela. . . . On Saturday, Venezuela's National Council for Elections started checkup of over 3.4 million signatures collected by the opposition 1.5 months ago to support the referendum idea. . . . Hugo Chavez is sure that over half of the signatures are falsified. He says that if the checkup turns them down, Washington may treat him as an enemy of democracy who has sabotaged the referendum and thus must be overthrown. . . . The Venezuela president emphasizes he will draw attention of the world to the problem at the summit of the American continent presidents that started in Mexico on Monday. . . . Hugo Chavez made the statement when on Friday US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice recommended the Venezuela president to demonstrate devotion to democratic principles and allow the referendum in the country. In response to the statement, Chavez said Condoleezza Rice was "ignorant".

posted by LoZo 4:10 PM

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Venezuela's Chavez Says U.S. Seeking His Overthrow
Published on Monday, January 12, 2004 by Reuters
Venezuela's Chavez Says U.S. Seeking His Overthrow
by Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the United States on Sunday of plotting his overthrow through a coup or assassination should his opponents fail to secure a referendum vote against him this year. . . . Speaking on the eve of a regional summit in Mexico, the left-wing leader, for the second day running, delivered a furious tirade against senior U.S officials who have criticized his five-year presidency. . . . Venezuela is a major supplier of oil to the United States. . . . The Venezuelan president said recent statements by U.S. officials urging him to submit to a constitutional referendum were "preparing the ground" for his possible violent ouster, either through a military coup or an assassin's bullet. . . . He repeated his conviction that Venezuela's opposition had failed to gather enough pro-vote signatures to trigger a referendum in April or May. Electoral authorities are due to start checking the signatures next week to see if they fulfill the 2.4 million required. . . . "If in the end they don't have enough signatures, and the National Electoral Council declares this, then I can see them there in Washington saying I'm an enemy of democracy," Chavez said during his "Hello President" television and radio show. . . . "(They'll say) that Chavez sabotaged the referendum, and so we have to get rid of him, it's worth toppling him ... that the armed forces should take up arms against me, or that someone should shoot me," he added. . . . Chavez, who has clashed with Washington in the past, accused critics like Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice of having publicly supported a 2002 coup that briefly overthrew him. . . . On Saturday, rebuffing condemnation from Rice of his friendship with Cuba's Communist President Fidel Castro, Chavez told the U.S. government to stop "sticking its nose" in Venezuela's affairs. . . . He attacked Rice again Sunday. "Am I not right to call her a meddling illiterate?" Chavez asked. . . . He again rejected U.S. accusations that he and Castro were working together to overthrow Latin American governments through popular revolts, like the one in Bolivia in October that toppled pro-U.S. President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. . . . "What's the cause of the fall of Sanchez de Lozada in Bolivia? Is it Chavez? Is it Fidel (Castro)? No ... the cause comes from Washington, which designed the new international economic order," Chavez said. He, like Castro, argues that U.S. free-market capitalism causes poverty and inequality. . . . Chavez, a former paratrooper whose foes accuse of trying to implant Cuba-style communism, compared himself with the U.S. civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. . . . "We have ... the same dream of freedom and equality," said Chavez, whose audience included a group of African-American social activists, among them actor Danny Glover.

posted by LoZo 3:32 PM