HAVANA, April 13: Cuba charged on Saturday that the United States was behind the downfall of populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and said it would recall personnel sent to aid his left-wing government.
“The whole world knows the Yankees instigated the coup ... that in this part of the world coups d’etat require the support of the Yankees to succeed,” said Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations.
He spoke at a nationally televised rally outside Havana attended by Cuban President Fidel Castro and other officials. The outdoor rallies are held every Saturday in Cuba to denounce the US government.
Rodriguez provided no proof of his charge, pointing instead to Washington’s tacit approval of events unfolding in Venezuela.
Chavez, a close Castro friend and ally, was deposed by the military early Friday morning after gunmen fired on a massive opposition rally, killing 15 people. Cuba has denounced reports he resigned and expressed concern about the former president’s safety.
“It was a vulgar coup” Rodriguez shouted to the crowd of 30,000. “President Chavez did not resign ... Hugo Chavez is Venezuela’s legitimate president.”
Rodriguez said Cuba had reason to be concerned for Chavez’s safety.
“Reliable sources have told us the coup plan included assassinating the president as the only guarantee the coup could be consolidated,” Rodriguez said.
EVACUATION: Chavez’s fall was a huge political blow for Communist-run Cuba, as the self-styled Venezuelan “peaceful revolutionary” was Havana’s chief ally in the Americas.
Events in Venezuela also looked set to cut off a vital economic supply line Caracas was giving Havana under Chavez with the sale on preferential terms of 53,000 barrels a day of oil, half of the fuel-short island’s oil imports.
Rodriguez sloughed-off threats not “to send a single barrel of oil to Cuba” made by a Venezuelan state-run oil company executive on Friday.
“We paid for the oil to the last cent and can get it somewhere else,” he said.
The oil sales were part of a broader agreement under which Cuba sent hundreds of technicians, doctors, and other medical personnel to Venezuela, charging for their services with the exception of the health workers.
“The orderly and secure evacuation is under way, except the medical personnel,” Rodriguez said, adding the latter would stay if Venezuela’s new government wished.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said on Friday that 1,042 Cubans were in Venezuela providing assistance to the Chavez government, of which around 450 were medical personnel.
RAGE IN SLUMS: The sprawling slums of Venezuela’s capital seethed with rage on Saturday at the military coup that toppled populist President Hugo Chavez as his political backers struggled to regroup and organize protests.
A wildly gesticulating group surrounded a Reuters crew at a market in the grimy working-class neighbourhood of Petare, shouting that they would fight back.
“There’s going to be a civil war here. The people are going to rise up,” yelled Antonio Orellana, 65.
With the fiery former paratrooper in military custody, his supporters said they would try to take their seats in the National Assembly for a scheduled session on Monday even though the new military-backed interim government has decreed the parliament’s abolition.
The armed forces said early on Friday morning that the democratically elected Chavez had resigned at their request after gunmen killed at least 11 unarmed demonstrators participating in a massive anti-government protest in Caracas the day before. Earlier reports had put the death toll at 15.
The interim government, backed by the armed forces and headed by 61-year-old businessman Pedro Carmona, read an announcement on Friday accusing Chavez of multiple violations of the constitution and saying he was responsible for the protesters’ deaths.
ELECTIONS WITHIN A YEAR: The armed forces said they had not staged a coup, because they had been doing their duty by acting to protect the civilian population from a violent government. The interim government said it would call elections for a new Congress and a new president within a year.
Chavez, who was re-elected with 60 per cent of the vote in 2000 and had been due to serve until 2006, had about 35 per cent support in the last opinion poll.
But discontent with him had risen steadily over the past year, with his critics accusing him of trying to turn Venezuela into a dictatorship.—Reuters
