Cuckoo of Caracas at it again

If it's Sunday, it must be more crazy talk from Venezuelan wannabe dictator Hugo Chavez:

CARACAS, Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez said his government is redoubling efforts to detect assassination plots, calling U.S. diplomat John Negroponte a "professional killer" and saying he believes enemies — including the CIA — are out to kill him.

Chavez said Sunday that Venezuelan officials have intelligence that associates of jailed Cuban anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles also are involved in plotting to assassinate him.

He said the death plot idea has "gained weight" due to various factors, including the recent appointment of Negroponte, the former director of national intelligence, as deputy to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"Who did they swear in ... there at the White House as deputy secretary of state? A professional killer: John Negroponte," Chavez said.

Chavez's government has accused Negroponte of playing a key role in the Contra war against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua when he served as U.S. ambassador to Honduras — a haven for clandestine Contra bases — from 1981 to 1985.

U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but in the past U.S. officials have denied Chavez's accusations that they are plotting to oust him.

Chavez's comments came during a televised interview Sunday with his former Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel, who has returned to his old job of hosting a talk show on the channel Televen since he was replaced in January.

"They have assigned special units of the CIA, true assassins, who go around not only here in Venezuela, in Central America, in South America," Chavez said, without elaborating.

He added that while Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative, remains jailed in the U.S. on immigration charges, "Posada Carriles' people are very active in Central America and searching for contacts in Venezuela... They are going around searching for explosives in large quantities, thinking about a sort of car bombing or searching for ground-to-air missiles, thinking about the presidential plane."

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