MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez tells Venezuela to “prepare for war” and warns Obama and Uribe

Playing the war military option card

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on the military to prepare for war and help train the civilians in the midst of an escalating dispute with neighbouring Colombia which last week ratified a treaty giving United States access to Colombian military bases.

Chavez said the agreement signed with Washington is a direct threat to his oil-exporting country and accused Colombia of “handing sovereignty” to the US with the deal

“Generals of the armed forces, the best way to avoid a war is to prepare for one,” Chavez said in comments on state television during his “Alo Presidente” program over the weekend.

“Colombia handed over their country and is now another state of the union. Don’t make the mistake of attacking: Venezuela is willing to do anything.”

Ties between Venezuela and Colombia have deteriorated this year after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accused Chavez of financing Colombian rebels. Former paratrooper populist Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist revolutionary, said he would stop importing goods from Colombia due to the US military pact.

The two countries are each other’s second-largest trading partners after the US with bilateral trade reaching 7 billion USD in 2008. Colombian exports to Venezuela plunged 45.7% in August from a year earlier, according to data from the Colombian Statistics Institute.

Chavez ordered an increase of troops (15.000) along the more than 2.000 kilometres border between Venezuela and Colombia last week and said he may declare a state of emergency after two officials from the National Guard were shot and killed by supposed Colombian rebels.

“The Yankee military can now move in Colombia as they wish, as if Colombia was another state of the Union; we must be prepared”, said Chavez.

The Venezuelan president also cautioned his US peer Barack Obama about planning an aggression against Venezuela.

“Mr. President Obama, don’t make a mistake and don’t you order an aggression against Venezuela from Colombia…because we are ready for whatever, and you can be sure Venezuela will never become a Yankee colony or nobody’s”.

He added that if the US attacks Venezuela militarily “a 100 year war would commence and expand to the whole continent, from Mexico to Argentina. Nobody be mistaken: a war against Venezuela will not only be a war on Venezuela. We’re not on our own, we have a big group of friends in the world”, he insisted.

“The Colombian government has been transferred to the US; it’s no longer in Bogotá; the government and the Colombian oligarchy have dropped their masks”.

Last month Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister Tarek El-Aissami claimed officers from Colombia’s domestic intelligence agency are operating clandestinely in his country to destabilize the government.

Venezuela is also holding three Colombian citizens accused of spying as agents of the Colombian intelligence agency, known as DAS. Colombia says two of the individuals don’t belong to the agency and that the other was on vacation in Venezuela when arrested.

Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez said that the military deal with the US will help “end drug-trafficking and terrorism in Colombia” during the signing ceremony in Bogotá last week.

Almost daily bridges linking both neighbouring countries are closed several hours a day given the more strict controls and the increasing protests from businessmen and local vendors complaining about the loss of business.

In spite of the consequences of the US/Colombia agreement on military bases, the domestic situation in Venezuela is strained: insecurity is rampant, staple goods are scarce and expensive, inflation is escalating and the millions living in Caracas have been compelled to drastically cut water and power consumption.

Insufficient rainfalls (and lack of necessary investments in the last ten years) have left the country short of water reservoirs and electricity until the return of the rainy season in several months time.