Caracas – Venezuela called a U.S. report on Cuba, which also alludes in harsh terms to this Andean nation’s support for the regime in Havana, “anachronistic … (and) interventionist” on Tuesday.
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush announced on Monday that it would provide more funds to help hasten the end of the Fidel Castro dictatorship and offered economic incentives to a future transition government on the Communist-ruled island.
Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said in a communique that the “immoral and contradictory” document about Cuba “confirms the open and flagrant interventionism of the government of President Bush in the name of principles it does not respect.”
He said that “while the Bush administration denounces alleged interventions of other governments of the region, a high official in the State Department, Thomas Shannon, spent a week in Nicaragua participating in the election campaign of that nation and encouraging the presidential candidates of the right.”
The document about Cuba “contains, in addition, several allusions to Venezuela,” a fact that “confirms the obsession of U.S. policy with the government of President Hugo Chavez, which should not be underestimated and forces us to be alert,” Rangel said.
The report, which was prepared by the so-called Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, urges Washington to discourage third countries from blocking “the will of the Cuban people.”
The coordinator of the Commission, Caleb McCarry, said upon presenting the document that Venezuela was providing support aimed at continuing the dictatorship in Cuba or encouraging succession within the Cuban regime when the aging leader steps down or dies.
Rangel said that U.S. foreign policy “perseveres in error and continues to be marked by a deplorable incapacity to renew itself,” but he warned that “neither Cuba, Venezuela, nor any other country in the region will be coerced with the old imperial language and the usual threats.”
Over the past several years, diplomatic relations between Venezuela and the United States have been marked by regular and mutual accusations, with Caracas calling Washington “imperialist and interventionist” and the latter replying that Caracas has “totalitarian intentions … (and displays an) anti-American” spirit.
In contrast, Chavez and Castro have expressed mutual admiration for one another, call each other “brother” and tout socialism as the “salvation of the world.”
