MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelans blast assassination call

Conservative US evangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, saying the leftist leader wanted to turn his country into ”the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.

The founder of the Christian Coalition and a former Republican presidential candidate, said during the Monday night television broadcast of his religious programme, "The 700 Club", that Chavez, one the most vocal critics of President George W. Bush, was a "terrific danger" to the United States.

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said. We don't need another $200 billion (US) war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

The United States swiftly distanced itself yesterday from a suggestion by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson that US agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, long at odds with Bush's foreign policy.

Secretary of Defence Donald H. Rumsfeld, appearing at a Pentagon news conference, said when asked: ??Our department doesn't do that kind of thing. It's against the law. He's a private citizen. Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time.''

Acknowledging differences with the Caracas government, and saying it should be promoting democracy in the Western Hemisphere, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Robertson's remarks ??inappropriate.''

??This is not the policy of the United States government. We do not share his views,'' McCormack said in a flat refutation of Robertson's suggestion that the United States ??take out'' Chavez to stop Venezuela from becoming a ??launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism.''

In Caracas, legislator Desire Santos Amaral said Robertson's comments outraged her, adding: "This man cannot be a true Christian."

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said Venezuela would be watching how Washington responds to Robertson's comments.

"The ball is in the U.S. court, after this criminal statement by a citizen of that country," Rangel told reporters. "It's huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time, in the heart of that country, there are entirely terrorist statements like those."