MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelan president Chavez campaigns in Hispanic Bronx

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez campaigned during the weekend among Hispanics in New York and ordered his aides to draft a project to clean the waterway in the Bronx.
Chavez made the announcement while visiting a community centre in the Bronx which is dedicated to improving living conditions in the heavily Hispanic neighbourhood.

"I want to help", said Chavez and instructed Felix Rodriguez, CITGO president, (the Venezuelan government owned company branch in United States) to finance the "viability plan" for such a project.

President Chavez who was in New York for the United Nations general assembly also gave a speech in a local church next to Jesse Jackson a renowned political leader.

On Saturday he visited The Point, guest of US Democrat Representative Jose Serrano promising to work with Latinamerican immigrants in United States.

"We're going to save the world, not for those of us who are 51, but for you," Chavez told a young woman, adding that she reminded him of his daughters, who are 6 and 20.

Serrano said the Bush administration's criticism of Venezuela for being undemocratic was unfounded and politically motivated.

"Chavez won a referendum (in August 2004), overcame a coup attempt (in April 2002), and won several democratic elections (in 1998 and 2000)" the U.S. congressman said.

Serrano added that said the Bush administration's antagonism toward Caracas was due to its close links with Florida's conservative Cuban exile community, a very powerful Republican constituency which virtually dominates politics in that state.

Chavez underlined he would work with immigrants in the United States from different parts of Latin America because they were "the salvation seed for the planet".

"Life in the planet is threatened by the capitalist model, which attacks the people and submerges the majority in poverty for the benefit of a minority", blasted Chavez. The solution is "socialism or however you want to call it: Christianity, socialism, humanism, any of these principles that privilege man".