CARACAS, April 10: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to expel the US ambassador and blamed him for triggering protests in which his car was pelted with tomatoes and eggs.
“If you continue making provocations, you’re going to have to pack your bags, mister, because I’m going to throw you out of here, Ambassador (William) Brownfield,” Mr Chavez said on his ‘Hello Mr President!’ weekly broadcast.
Mr Chavez’s threat is just the latest salvo in a long-standing slug-fest between the leftist populist and the administration of US President George Bush.
“If you’re going to continue to provoke the Venezuelan people, you’re going to have to go!” President Chavez declared. The provocation consisted of ‘travelling with armed guards, travelling with security details’, he said.
On Saturday, acting foreign minister Alcides Rondon warned demonstrators against such displays: “The Venezuelan government and people repudiate any act of protest that goes beyond the limits of respect.”
That followed a US government warning after protesters showered Mr Brownfield’s car in a neighbourhood south of Caracas.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, called Caracas last week to protest the incident.
“This action was an outrageous violation of the Vienna Convention,” Mr McCormack quoted Mr Burns, the department’s number-three official, as having told the Venezuelan government.
“Nick told the Venezuelan ambassador that we hold the government of Venezuela responsible for the ambassador’s security, and if such an incident happens again, there will be severe diplomatic consequences between the two countries,” the spokesman said in Washington.
Mr Brownfield met a hostile reception on Friday as he arrived at a sports centre in the working-class suburb of Coche, south of the capital, to present a donation to a youth baseball team, embassy spokeswoman Salome Hernandez said.
She said the US envoy was egged and blocked from attending a charity event at the sports centre.
Video footage aired by Globovision television showed protesters shouting: “Get out, gringo!” “Get out, coup-backer!” “Get out, rubbish!”
Relations between Mr Chavez and President George Bush’s administration have worsened in recent years.
Washington has charged Mr Chavez’s government with restricting the freedom of the press and harassing the opposition, while Mr Chavez frequently criticises Mr Bush for the Iraq invasion and has openly called the US leader a ‘coward’ and a ‘murderer’.
Venezuela, the only Latin American member of the Organisation of the Oil Producing Countries (OPEC), is one of the most important sources of imported US oil.
Mr Chavez accuses the Bush administration of backing an aborted 2002 coup, in which he was removed from power for less than 48 hours, and claims the United States has plans to remove him from power. —AFP
