- CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters)
-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday his country was forging
an alliance with Argentina and Brazil to lead Latin America's opposition
to U.S. free trade plans for the region.
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- "Clearly, an axis can be seen ... -- and it's not
an axis of evil as some people say -- .. that passes from Caracas, through
Brasilia and reaches Buenos Aires," the left-wing Venezuelan leader
said in a state of the nation speech to parliament.
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- Chavez spoke a day after returning from a summit of regional
leaders in Monterrey, Mexico in which he, President Nestor Kirchner of
Argentina and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva sharply criticized
Washington's plans for a hemisphere-wide free trade zone.
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- President Bush tried to rally Latin American support
at the summit for the U.S. project to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas
by Jan. 1, 2005.
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- Chavez, an outspoken former paratrooper elected in 1998,
on Thursday hailed Kirchner and Lula as like-minded leaders spearheading
a Latin American continent that is increasingly shying away from U.S. polices.
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- "There is a new America present, a new voice,"
he said.
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- He has campaigned vehemently against the proposed FTAA,
arguing that Latin America's weaker economies cannot compete with powerful
U.S. corporations. He says the region should first strengthen its own trade
ties.
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- Chavez, who held talks with Cuban President Fidel Castro
in Havana on the way back from Mexico, also called for communist-run Cuba
to be allowed to participate in any future Summit of the Americas.
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- Castro is barred from these summits because the United
States shuns his one-party government as undemocratic.
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- "I think it would be good if we consulted all the
countries of Latin America about whether it's right that Cuba should be
excluded. Yes or no?" Chavez said.
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- The Venezuelan president said the growing cooperation
between Cuba and Venezuela, in which more than 10,000 Cuban doctors are
participating in Venezuelan government health projects, was a model of
social and economic collaboration.
-
- "Yes, we are de-stabilizers ... Fidel and Chavez
... against death, against injustice, against hunger, sickness and inequality,"
Chavez said. He faces a bid by foes to hold a referendum this year to try
to vote him out of office.
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