Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson apologized Wednesday for calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, after earlier saying his remarks had been misinterpreted.
“Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement,” Robertson said in a posting on his website. “I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him.”
Earlier Wednesday, on the daily broadcast of his Christian news-talk show, “The 700 Club,” Robertson denied that he had suggested killing the leftist Chavez.
“I didn’t say assassination,” Robertson said. “I said our special forces should ‘take him out.’ ‘Take him out’ could be a number of things, including kidnapping.”
On Monday, Robertson said on “The 700 Club”: “I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.”
Wednesday, the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and the conservative pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, prepared to fly to Mexico City to try to arrange, through intermediaries, a meeting with Chavez, a Haggard spokeswoman said.
Haggard, president of the 30-million- member association, said that after he appeared on CNN and ABC on Tuesday to discuss Robertson’s comment, he took a call from a person asking him to meet in Mexico City on Friday with a woman who might be able to set up a meeting with Chavez. Haggard declined to name the woman or explain her connection to Chavez.
“This is not an official meeting,” he said. “This is a casual meeting in a hotel, not in an embassy. We’re going to discuss the president’s (Chavez’s) policies and the role of Christians and evangelicals. We’re going to talk about the president’s politics. Should the meeting go well, then it might lead to a meeting with the president to discuss the same subjects.”
Haggard said he wants to talk to Chavez about creating wealth through free-market policies and individual freedom of speech and religion, which Haggard believes empower the poor.
But first, Haggard said, he “will send an official message from the National Association of Evangelicals to the president apologizing for what happened.” Robertson is a member.
Haggard and other evangelical leaders said they feared that Robertson’s remarks could endanger missionaries in Venezuela.
Denver Post staff writer Jim Spencer contributed to this report.
