MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

President Chavez on private “political” visit to London

Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez begins Sunday a three days “private” visit to London with a complete agenda of political events but no contacts with Primer Minister Tony Blair or his administration.

Officials at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that Mr. Chavez was on a private visit, similar to other world leaders who come to London for shopping trips or medical treatment.

The difference this time, however, is that the Venezuelan head of state will hardly be keeping a low profile as he attends an exhausting round of public engagements, many of them only a short distance from Downing Street.

On Sunday he is scheduled to address supporters in Westminster; Monday he meets the Trade Unions Congress and gives a press conference at City Hall with Mayor Ken Livingstone and visits MPs at the House of Commons. On Tuesday he opens a museum and makes a speech in Whitehall.

Venezuelan officials said that the trip had been made at request of President Chavez to thank his supporters in Britain, many of them on the left of the Labour Party. The visit is in contrast to his first, in 2001, when he was welcomed by Prime Minister Blair, dined with Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and had an audience with Queen Elizabeth.

Relations between both countries soured following Britain's involvement in Iraq and London's growing criticism of President Chavez, who has used Venezuela's oil wealth to promote left-wing political movements across Latin America that he has nicknamed the "axis of good".

In 2002 Denis MacShane, a junior Foreign Office minister compared Chavez to Mussolini and described him as a "ranting, populist demagogue". But in February this year Mr Blair advised the President to "abide by the rules of the international community".

Next day Chavez demanded that Britain return the Falkland Islands to Argentina and stop behaving as an imperialist power.

"Tony Blair, you have no moral right to tell anyone to respect international laws, as you have shown no respect for them, aligning yourself with ?Mr Danger' [President Bush] and trampling on the people of Iraq," he said. "Do you think we still live in the times of the British Empire or colonialism?"

"There are many areas where we can benefit from the Venezuelan experience including energy and environmental policies, democratic participation and, of course, his Government's remarkable achievements in eliminating illiteracy, widening access to education and extending free healthcare to the majority of the population for the first time" said London Mayor Livingstone.

Colin Burgon, MP for Elmet and chairman of Labour Friends of Venezuela, said that Chávez had an important message to deliver in Britain and that the Prime Minister was wrong to criticise him.

"When one considers that Hugo Chávez won an electoral majority in 2002, survived an attempted coup thanks to massive public protests and was the resounding winner of a referendum on his administration in 2004, the implied accusation seems inaccurate" he said.

"Our party should support the mobilisation of wide-reaching free healthcare and education schemes aimed at the reversal of decades of social inequality in South and Central America. It is time that the UK re-engaged with Latin America and offered moral support to regimes intent on social justice and redistribution of wealth."