Peruvian president rails against Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's foreign policyPeruvian President Alan Garcia railed against Venezuela's foreign policy and the country's president, Hugo Chavez, saying the leftist leader has used a mix of petrodollars, blackmail and insults to divide rather than unite Latin America.
Garcia told the Venezuelan daily El Universal in an interview published Sunday that Chavez "exercises power with a club or bag of money, blackmail and seduction."
Chavez — a sharp critic of U.S. President George W. Bush and Latin American leaders close to Washington — says his government's foreign policy is based on solidarity and denies Venezuela is using its immense oil wealth to buy influence abroad.
Opponents say Chavez — a close ally of Fidel Castro — is trying to spread his revolutionary agenda beyond Venezuela's borders by offering oil at preferential rates and spending billions of dollars (euros) to fund projects ranging from hospitals to highways throughout the region.
Venezuela has divided South America by using a carrot-and-stick approach to foreign policy, while trying to ostracize any country refusing to adhere to Chavez's leftist, anti-American political agenda, Garcia said.
"When the continent is split with a sword — 'you are with me or with the United States' — a simplistic, offensive and anti-integrationist vision is expressed," he told El Universal.
Chavez and Garcia traded verbal barbs earlier this year after the Venezuelan leader openly backed leftist candidate Ollanta Humala against Garcia in Peruvian presidential elections. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been tense ever since.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro on Saturday called Garcia's government a puppet of the Bush administration, which he said is working behind the scenes to undermine efforts toward Latin American integration.
"They are a piece that the empire tries to use to create intrigue, divide (and) destroy the new South American and Latin American integration project," Maduro said.
For more on this flap, and the latest on the upcoming Venezuelan elections, check out Publius Pundit.
Recent Comments