MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez threatens to cut relations with Washington

President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Venezuela would break relations with the United States if Washington did not extradite “assassin and terrorist” Luis Posada Carriles to Caracas who was arrested last Tuesday in Miami.

However President Chavez pointed out that sixty days must elapse according to the 1922 bilateral extradition treaty before undertaking any action.

During his weekly show that Mr. Chavez said "it's extremely difficult to have diplomatic relations that way ... we're going to do a full review of relations, because we're not willing to continue ..." Embassies? What for, particularly with a country that unashamedly protects international terrorism?" Chavez asked, after banging on his desk. "We're going to have to evaluate whether it's worth it to have an embassy open there (the United States) and them here".

Mr. Posada Carriles who was arrested last Tuesday in Miami by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, is being held by U.S. authorities pending an immigration hearing June 13.

Venezuela, where Posada Carriles took citizenship and had a high post in the national intelligence services in the 1970s, has requested his extradition for retrial for his alleged role in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.

Posada Carriles, a 77-year-old long time anti-communist militant who says he crossed the border from Mexico in March and took a bus to Miami, is under arrest in El Paso, Texas, where he was taken last Wednesday.

"We're really very concerned about the first reply that the government of the United States has given us," Chavez said, adding that he had proof that Posada Carriles took part in a short-lived coup against him three years ago.

Posada Carriles "killed, tortured and made disappear" Venezuelan citizens during his time working for the intelligence services, and "also participated in repeated attempts to destabilize Venezuela," highlighted Chavez.

Posada Carriles lawyers have said they will request political asylum, a process that could keep him in the United States, though probably arrested for months. The former CIA agent and U.S. Army officer was arrested after several weeks of only semi-clandestine residence in Miami following his illegal entry.

If Posada is extradited for trial abroad on terrorism charges, the Bush administration stands to lose some support among staunch anti-Castro elements of the South Florida Cuban exile community.

But if it offers him asylum or fails to provide for his prosecution, Washington would expose itself to charges of hypocrisy in the way it pursues its much-proclaimed "war on terrorism". ICE said "it usually does not send anyone to Cuba or to countries it believes act as Cuba's intermediaries." Chavez's government is Cuba's closest ally in the Western Hemisphere.