The already-icy relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela chilled further Tuesday in the wake of religious broadcaster Pat Robertson’s suggestion that the United States assassinate President Hugo Chavez.
Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel expressed outrage at what he called the “criminal statement” by Robertson, who told his television audience Monday that if Chavez “thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it.”
U.S. officials immediately distanced themselves from Robertson’s suggestion, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying that “our department doesn’t do that kind of thing.” U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described Robertson’s comments as “inappropriate.”
But experts said that despite the U.S. statements, Robertson’s comments were likely to damage the nation’s interests in Latin America and aggravate tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela, a petroleum-rich country that provides about 8 percent of the crude oil used in the U.S.
Robertson’s remarks took note of Venezuela’s oil wealth, saying that an assassination would be “a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”
The U.S. and Venezuela once were close allies, but their relationship deteriorated sharply after the United States appeared to support a brief but bloody coup in 2002 against Chavez.
Since then, Chavez–a charismatic speaker and self-described socialist–has accused American officials of plotting to kill him, and he has opposed almost every U.S. initiative in the region.
Chavez’s close ties to Cuban President Fidel Castro, his opposition to a hemispherewide free-trade accord proposed by the U.S. and Venezuela’s recent weapons purchases have angered the White House, which has tried unsuccessfully to isolate Chavez diplomatically.
In recent weeks, Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials have accused Chavez and Castro of trying to destabilize Bolivia and other Latin American countries. Both leaders denied the charge.
Chavez said in Caracas two weeks ago that he would make the U.S. forces “bite the dust” if they ever invaded Venezuela.
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Sunday in Cuba, Chavez told a national television audience, “The grand destroyer of the world, and the greatest threat … is represented by U.S. imperialism.”
On Tuesday, however, he reacted to Robertson’s comments calmly, saying he didn’t care what the evangelist said and preferred to “talk about life.”
“I don’t even know who that person is,” said the Venezuelan president, who spoke at the Havana airport as he was ending a four-day visit to Cuba.
But Chavez’s aides demanded a firm condemnation from the U.S.
Venezuela’s Rangel said the U.S. war on terrorism would be measured by how the White House responded to the call of a prominent American citizen to kill a democratically elected leader overseas.
“The ball is in the U.S. court … after this criminal statement by a citizen of that country,” Rangel said in Caracas.
Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States, spoke after the U.S. officials made their remarks and said the White House should forcefully condemn Robertson, whom he described as a powerful religious leader and one of President Bush’s “principal supporters.”
Rumsfeld said of Robertson: “He’s a private citizen. Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time.”
Known to stir controversy
But few U.S. citizens are former Republican presidential candidates who appear on “The 700 Club,” a religious television show that claims 1 million viewers daily.
Robertson is no stranger to controversy. Over the years he has made statements opposing the appointment of Muslims as judges, equating feminism with witchcraft and saying the city of Orlando risked a hurricane because it welcomed a gay event. In some cases, he has later apologized or tried to clarify remarks.
On Tuesday, he was unavailable for comment on his statements, which resounded more loudly–and internationally–than many earlier comments.
Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a policy group in Washington, said the fallout from Robertson’s remarks are likely to take U.S.-Venezuelan relations to “a new low.”
Birns said what is at stake in the escalating confrontation is nothing less than the future of Latin America, where the U.S. is often accused of pushing unpopular free-market reforms that fail to bring prosperity to the continent.
“It’s a decisive moment,” said Birns. “It’s not Chavez’s nasty tongue that has earned him Washington’s odium. It is his policies. What he stands for is a declining role for the U.S. in Latin America.”
Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University, said few Latin Americans would differentiate between Robertson’s remarks and the White House’s aggressive policy toward Chavez.
“This is just confirmation about why Latin Americans don’t like the U.S.,” Gamarra said. “They said they respect human rights, and they have Guantanamo. They say they respect sovereignty, and they want to assassinate a leader.”
`Take him out’
Appearing on his Christian Broadcasting Network show, the 75-year-old Robertson–a founder of the Christian Coalition of America–said the United States should “take him [Chavez] out” to prevent Venezuela from “becoming a launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism.”
“We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator,” he said. “It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”
In the wake of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the United States repeatedly tried to kill Castro, but an executive order signed by President Gerald Ford in the mid-1970s outlawed political assassination.
U.S. officials deny ever plotting to assassinate Chavez, but experts say American policymakers are at a loss to contain the popular Venezuelan leader who is taking advantage of record oil prices to spread his influence across the continent.
“It looks like we are headed for a collision,” said Michael Shifter, a vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. “Chavez realizes that the U.S. doesn’t have an idea of how to deal with him.”
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