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Chavez scoffs at US `fascist' elements
( 2001-05-24 09:48 ) (9 )

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' government reacted angrily on Wednesday to an advertisement in a Washington newspaper which attacked it as inept and corrupt and influenced by ``Communist'' China and Cuba.

The advert, which called for the immediate resignation of Chavez, appeared in the Washington Times and was signed by a hitherto unknown group, the National Emergency Coalition.

Senior Venezuelan officials said they had never heard of the group and one linked it to what he called an anti-Chavez campaign being waged by "recalcitrant, fascist sectors."

Addressed to "The People of Venezuela and the International Community", the notice condemned the Chavez administration for "manifest incapacity, intolerance, demagoguery, deceit, arrogance, abuse of power, unfulfilled promises (and) constant violation of the constitution."

The litany of complaints, which also cited "the involvement and invasion by Chinese and Cuban Communists in our internal affairs", echoed recent sharp criticism of Venezuela's outspoken paratrooper-turned-president by his domestic foes.

In Caracas, Venezuelan Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel said the message, which was also circulating in Spanish on the Internet, was an attempt to damage the image abroad of his country, which is a major oil supplier to the United States.

"They want to create a climate hostile to the nation ... to torpedo investments and give the impression of instability," Rangel told reporters.

CHAVEZ SCOFFS AT COUP RUMORS

Venezuela's ambassador to the Organization of American States, Jorge Valero, told Venezuelan radio the advertisement was a "list of lies".

He blamed it on "recalcitrant, fascist sectors," but did not identify them.

Before leaving on a three-week, seven-nation foreign tour on May 12, Chavez triggered a storm of controversy by announcing he was considering assuming emergency powers to tackle corruption, poverty and financial speculation in the oil-rich South American country.

Critics accused the president, who won a landslide election in 1998 of adopting increasingly authoritarian methods to bolster what they claimed was a "corrupt, ineffective government".

In a televised address recorded at the end of a visit to Iran and broadcast in Venezuela late on Tuesday, Chavez delivered a long-distance pep talk to his fellow citizens in which he scolded his opponents and scoffed at coup rumors.

Since Chavez departed more than a week ago, Rangel and Interior Minister Luis Miquilena have been forced to issue almost daily denials of reports, carried in opposition-dominated media, of coup threats and labor crises.

The president, speaking from the Venezuelan Embassy, brushed aside the coup talk. He accused his opponents of using his absence to whip up hostile "noise and rumors."

He has visited Russia, Iran, India and Bangladesh so far on his tour, which will include China, Malaysia and Indonesia.