U.S. threatens, but Venezuela doesn’t flinch

Every step the Bolivarian government in Venezuela takes to assert its sovereignty is met with frantic charges from right-wing U.S. officials. As of Aug. 8, Washington has provided no evidence to back up any of its wild charges against the government of President Hugo Chávez.

In a July 27 letter to anti-Cuban U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen of Florida, Mat thew Reynolds, the State Depart ment’s leading congressional affairs official, claimed to have found “mounting evidence” that Venezuela was using oil money to fund “anti-democratic groups” in Bolivia, Ecuador and elsewhere in order to destabilize the region.

The Venezuelans quickly denied the charges. Venezuelan Ambassador Álvarez said: “There is no evidence whatsoever. We have good relations with all the countries of the region.”

He mentioned Bolivia, Brazil, Colom bia, Ecuador and Peru, and the Caribbean. “We are using energy as a way of promoting real integration of the continent,” he said.

The Chávez government has used increased revenues from high oil prices to fund social services at home. It has also offered oil at good rates to promote trade among the Latin American countries and in the Caribbean.

Many suspect that Chávez’ program, which helps Latin America be more independent from U.S. and other imperialist control, is what really irks Washington.

The State Department cited no evidence for its charges.

Chávez also angered the U.S. government recently by purchasing 100,000 AK-47 rifles from Russia for Venezuela’s army. This upsets Washington in two ways. First, it means Venezuela is no longer dependent on U.S.-built weapons systems. Second, these are weapons for a people’s army that can become a guerrilla resistance in case there is an invasion by an army with superior arms and technology. This is what the Pentagon, to its dismay, found out in Iraq.

Through Plan Colombia, Washington has turned the pro-fascist government of President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia into one of its biggest recipients of arms, includ ing helicopters and jet fighters. There are rumors that Washington is looking to the Colombian army as a possible force to enter Venezuela and overthrow the Chávez government.

So it is a normal use of the Big Lie for Washington to charge that Chávez bought the 100,000 rifles to help arm the FARC guerrillas in neighboring Colombia.

Chávez denied the U.S. charges emphatically on Aug. 4. “They accuse us of buying arms to give them to the guerrillas—no, they’re for our troops,” Chávez said. “They are a terrorist state, but they accuse us of being terrorists.”

An Aug. 7 report in Ireland Online said that Venezuela’s defense minister has signed a deal to buy Chinese radar systems for use with Venezuela’s air force. On Aug. 8, Chávez accused agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency of spying on his country, and broke all relations with the DEA. He said the DEA was using its cover as drug-trafficking investigators to “carry out intelligence” on the president and Venezuelan government.

Along with buying arms for Venezuela’s military, the Chávez government is also shoring up popular support worldwide for the government there. On Aug. 8, the World Youth Festival opened in Caracas, Venezuela, with 15,000 to 20,000 young people from over 140 countries getting an opportunity to experience a part of Venezuela’s revolution. And recently Tele Sur, an alternate news source to the imperialist-dominated media, opened up for Latin America with Venezuelan support.

While the threats from Washington are apparent and come without justification, Chávez’ response shows that he and Bolivarian Venezuela refuse to submit to these threats.