MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez picks on Holland for a verbal exchange; The Hague demands clarification

Chavez accused Holland of collusion with the US “to target” Venezuela from Caribbean Netherlands

The Netherlands government on Friday described as “groundless” the claims made by President Hugo Chávez in a speech on Thursday, when the Venezuelan ruler said that the Netherlands was plotting with United States “to target” Venezuela from the islands of Aruba and Curacao.

Bart Rijs, a Dutch foreign ministry spokesman, said that none of the territories in the Kingdom of the Netherlands - including Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean Sea - had acted “aggressively”.

“The sea borders between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Venezuela have been established by treaty between the countries and The Netherlands ... will respect that treaty,” the spokesman said.

Rijs said that Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister, had asked Venezuela's ambassador to clarify the claims made by Chavez in a speech at the climate summit in Copenhagen on Thursday.

Chavez told an audience of environmental activists that an agreement between the Dutch and the US permits Washington to keep 250 air force crew and ground staff just 24km off the Venezuelan coast.

“I am accusing the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Yankee empire [the United States], of preparing aggression against Venezuela”, the president said in remarks broadcast by Venezuelan state television.

US air crews are officially involved in counter-narcotics and surveillance operations, and operations are undertaken from the air by unarmed planes only, the Dutch foreign ministry spokesman said.

Chavez also pointed to the reactivation of the US Navy's Fourth Fleet, which had been disbanded in 1950 but began to patrol the coast of South America earlier this year, as further evidence of a conspiracy to surround his country