Chavez as the next target

President Hugo Chavez (right) decorates U.S. civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson with the Liberator's Order at the presidential palace in Caracas on August 29. Jackson described Pat Robertson's (below) statement as "repugnant, immoral and illegal". - ANDREW ALVAREZ/AFP

An evangelist's televised statement that the U.S. should consider assassinating Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez causes widespread consternation but the Bush administration has not condemned it.

THE statement by the Rev. Pat Robertson on a widely watched American television show in the third week of August that the United States government should consider assassinating Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has caused widespread consternation. The 75-year-old Robertson is no ordinary preacher; he is an influential figure in the resurgent Christian Right and the founder of the Christian Coalition of America, which played a key role in the victories of George W. Bush in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Chavez has been alleging that the Bush administration is conspiring to eliminate him physically. In 2002, the Bush administration tried to remove him from the Venezuelan political scene by backing a military coup which, unfortunately for the Bush administration, fizzled out within two days in the face of massive street protests in Caracas in favour of the President.

Robertson told his listeners that the American government has the "ability to take him [Chavez] out, and I think that the time has come to exercise that ability." He went on say that the U.S. did not need another $200 billion war to get rid of another "strong-arm dictator". He was referring to the ongoing American occupation of Iraq.

The fundamentalist Christian preacher, who had seriously bid for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 1988, also made the claim that Chavez was using Venezuela as a "launching pad for Communist influence and Muslim extremism" in the region. Robertson also said that oil supplies from Venezuela to the U.S. - the biggest consumer of Venezuelan oil - would not be disrupted if Chavez was eliminated.

Ten per cent of America's oil imports are from Venezuela. The Venezuelan oil company, PDVSA, owns a chain of petrol pumps in the U.S. Chavez recently offered to help impoverished Americans with their fuel needs. He said that unscrupulous middlemen were exploiting the poor in America by pushing up the prices of fuel. American and other Western oil companies have raked in record profits as global oil prices have escalated. "We could also help some poor communities in America by directly selling them gasoline," Chavez told the media during a recent trip to Cuba. The Venezuelan government has, at the same time, made it clear that it aims to decrease the country's dependence on the U.S. as the main market for its oil.

In recent months, the Venezuelan government has signed big contracts with Chinese firms. A move that has further irritated Washington is the Venezuelan government's decision to start selling oil at a subsidised rate - at $40 a barrel - to poor Caribbean and Latin American countries. The economies of these countries would have been devastated if they had to buy oil from the international market, where prices have been hovering above $60 for most of this year.

From the beginning of this year Chavez, who won a referendum on his rule last year with a massive majority, has been saying that if anything untoward happens to him, then the U.S. can forget about Venezuelan oil. According to independent polls, Chavez's popularity among Venezuelans is over 70 per cent, and he has emerged as an iconic figure in Latin America.

Pat Robertson apologised following widespread condemnation of his speech, but maintained that he had been "misrepresented" by the media. The Bush administration has so far refused to condemn the statement of the high-profile preacher, though it distanced itself from the statement saying that it was the remark of a "private citizen".

Previous American administrations have been involved in many assassination attempts. There have been at least nine abortive attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro. A U.S. Senate Committee in the mid-1970s concluded that the U.S. government either was involved in or supported many assassination plots across the world.

The countries involved were the Dominican Republic, the Congo, South Vietnam, Cuba and Chile. Patrice Lumumba of the Congo met with a brutal death at the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-sponsored Mobutu Sese Seko. The CIA's role in Chile is well documented. American planes targeted Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi twice. Gaddafi's residence was bombed and among those killed was his daughter. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was targeted many times. The last well-known attempt was just before the beginning of the American invasion of Iraq when U.S. planes used 1,000-kg bombs targeting a bunker where Saddam was supposedly hiding.

For Venezuelans and other Latin Americans, September 11 is also highly symbolical. It was on September 11, 1972, that Chilean President Salvadore Allende was killed in an American-backed coup. All progressive leaders in Latin America live under the shadow of a potential American-backed September 11.

THE Venezuelan government has said that the Bush administration's refusal to take action against, or at least condemn, Robertson highlights its double standards on terrorism. "It is huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time allow in the heart of that country entirely terrorist statements like these to be made," said Venezuelan Vice-President Jose Vincent Rangel in Caracas. Venezuela has been demanding that the Bush administration crack down on the anti-Venezuelan terrorists operating in Florida. The Venezuelan Ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, said that the tele-evangelist was one of President Bush's staunchest political allies. "His statement deserves the strongest condemnation by the White House," said Alvarez.

Chavez upped the ante in the last week of August by issuing a warning that he would take the issue to the United Nations and other international bodies if the Bush administration failed to take action against Robertson for calling for his assassination. He told reporters in Caracas that by failing to act against Robertson the U.S. was "giving protection to a terrorist who is demanding the assassination of a legitimate President". Chavez said that Robertson "should be sent to prison to serve as an example for the entire world". The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the veteran American civil rights leader who was in Caracas to meet Chavez, said that Robertson's remarks were "repugnant, immoral and illegal". In an address to the Venezuelan National Assembly, Jackson demanded that President Bush issue a "swift rejection" of Robertson's statement.

The Bush administration has more reasons to be unhappy with Chavez. In the first week of August, the Venezuelan government suspended cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, accusing its agents of espionage. Washington is also unhappy that he has opened up Latin America's crude reserves to countries such as China and India. Chavez has been vociferously opposing the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas in favour of the MERCOSUR, a common market of the South created by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. In his recent speeches, Chavez has also not minced words while criticising the American- and International Monetary Fund-inspired model of development for Latin America. He said that President Bush represented the greatest threat to world peace and stability. In his speeches these days, he refers to the U.S. President as "Mr. Danger" and U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as "Mr. Danger Number Two". Bush, Rumsfeld and the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have accused the Venezuelan leader of "destabilising" other Latin American countries. They have, of course, not produced any credible evidence to back their assertions.