Venezuela angry over evangelist's assassination call

Financial Times
Aug. 24, 2005

Venezuela's government reacted angrily on Tuesday to calls by Pat Robertson, the US televangelist, for President Hugo Chávez to be assassinated.

José Vicente Rangel, vice-president, said that how US authorities responded would demonstrate their commitment to fighting terrorism. “It's deeply hypocritical to talk about fighting terrorism while at the same time, within that country, there are obvious terrorist statements,” he said.

Mr Robertson made his comments on Monday on The 700 Club, a programme broadcast by his Christian Broadcasting Network. The preacher said killing Mr Chávez would prevent Venezuela becoming a “launching pad” for extremism.

“If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,” Mr Robertson said in reference to a claim Mr Chávez made in June that he had evidence that the US wanted him dead. “This is a dangerous enemy to our south controlling a huge pool of oil.”

Sean McCormack, US State Department spokesman, said in Washington on Tuesday: “We don't share his view and his comments are inappropriate.

“Any allegations that we are planning to take hostile action against the Venezuela government are completely baseless and without fact.”

In Caracas, Desire Santos Amaral, a pro-Chávez politician, called Mr Robertson a “fascist” whose opinions were “part of the policies of aggression from the rightwing in the North”.

Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela's ambassador to the US, urged the Bush administration to condemn Mr Robertson's comments “in the strongest terms”. “It's essential that the US government guarantee [Mr Chávez's] safety when he visits this country in the future, including his scheduled visits to the United Nations in New York,” Mr Alvarez said.

The US government has explicitly banned assassinations since 1976.

The Bush administration has not tried to hide its concern about the ambitions of Mr Chávez, a radical nationalist, to increase his influence in the region. US officials have frequently expressed worries that the Venezuelan president is using his oil wealth to meddle in unstable South American countries such as Ecuador and Bolivia.

In Paraguay last week, Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, said Venezuela and Cuba had been influencing Bolivia “in unhelpful ways”.

Analysts said yesterday the incident would help to strengthen Mr Chávez's profile in the region as a leader who provides a political alternative to US power.

Mr Chávez frequently attacks Washington. In a radio address from Havana on Sunday, Mr Chávez, sitting alongside Fidel Castro, said: “The grand destroyer of the world, and the greatest threat . . . is represented by US imperialism.”