MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez rejects Brazilian proposal for Colombian/Venezuelan hot border

Chavez called Uribe a US “lackey”

President Hugo Chavez on Friday rejected a joint border monitoring system with Colombia which was proposed by Brazil. He said he would not allow any “extra-national force” along the Venezuelan border zone with Colombia.

In a recent discussion with an advisor to Brazilian President Lula da Silva, Chavez stated that “we will protect our own border, as Brazil protects its own border ... we will not accept a foreign force taking care of our frontier, Colombia can take care of its own.”

Chavez further declared that “the problem is not the border, the problem is the military bases,” referring to the agreement made public on November 4 in which Colombia will allow US forces access to seven bases throughout the country, reported Bogotá’s Newspaper El Tiempo on Friday.

In a public television broadcast on Friday Chavez said “the US will be in Colombia like Her Majesty's secret agent 007, licensed to kill anyone, anywhere”. He also called Colombian president Alvaro Uribe a US “lackey” who “has delivered Colombia to the empire”

Venezuela froze relations with Colombia in July after claiming that the military agreement represented a threat to the ”sovereignty” of Venezuela and Latin America as a whole. Chavez then closed the border with Colombia and ordered military officials and the Venezuelan people to prepare for a potential war.

However on Wednesday, Chavez changed his aggressive tone and retracted the war declarations, denying that he was promoting armed conflict with Colombia.

“It’s not Venezuela that is threatening Colombia, nor is Colombia threatening Venezuela…It’s the US empire which is threatening Venezuela and using Colombian territory delivered by the lackey of Uribe”.