Lima – Alan Garcia said Monday that his opponent in this month’s Peruvian presidential runoff, nationalist Ollanta Humala, is being financed by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, another left-leaning former army colonel and failed coup-plotter.
Meanwhile in Caracas, one of Chavez’s Cabinet ministers called incumbent Peruvian head of state Alejandro Toledo an “errand boy” and “ventriloquist’s dummy” for U.S. President George W. Bush.
In comments to RPP radio, Garcia, a center-leftist who was president of Peru from 1985-90, said that Humala “has a contract with Chavez” and urged authorities in Lima to investigate “how many Venezuelan officials have entered Peru in recent times.”
Garcia pledged not to sever Peru’s ties with Caracas if he wins the presidency: “We are not going to declare diplomatic war on Venezuela or the Venezuelans,” he said.
Chavez on Friday said that if Garcia won the May 29 runoff, he would withdraw the Venezuelan ambassador from Lima.
Peru’s envoy to Venezuela returned to Lima Sunday on orders from Toledo, who recalled the diplomat to protest Chavez’s insults to himself and Garcia.
Toledo said Sunday night that he will brook no more interference from Caracas in Peru’s internal affairs and he advised Chavez to learn how “to govern in democracy.”
The current round of exchanges began last Thursday, when Garcia described Chavez as a “scoundrel who asks that no one negotiate with the United States” while oil-rich Venezuela earns “$50 billion a year” selling crude to Washington.
The Peruvian was reacting to Chavez’s announcement that Venezuela was pulling out of the Andean Community – whose other members are Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – because the free-trade pacts Lima and Bogota signed this year with Washington had effectively killed the regional bloc.
Garcia’s remarks elicited Chavez’s threat to yank his ambassador from Peru should this month’s runoff be won by the former president, whom the Venezuelan described with epithets such as “swine” and “thief.”
When Lima filed a formal protest over that outburst, Chavez labeled Toledo and Garcia as “gators from the same pool.”
Fanning the flames on Monday, Venezuelan Information Minister William Lara said, “President Toledo has always been a ventriloquist’s dummy for the U.S.”
With the decision to recall his ambassador from Venezuela, Toledo “again becomes its (the U.S. government’s) ‘errand boy’,” Lara told Venezuelan state television.
Peruvians went to the polls April 9 to choose a successor to Toledo. The top vote-getter was Humala and election officials announced last week that Garcia had edged out conservative Lourdes Flores for the second spot in the runoff.
With Garcia now the only option to stop Humala, the Peruvian right is falling into line behind the ex-president, whose administration was marred by corruption and economic mismanagement.
And Chavez – who makes no secret of his preference for Humala – has begun blasting Garcia, having earlier attacked Flores as the “candidate of the oligarchs.” EFE
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