You know the State dept will deny deny deny and that what Chavez is declaring is true true true. Thankfully the Bush admin is nearly dead and that American foreign policy under Obama can take a different turn.
Venezuela to expel U.S. ambassadorVenezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday he is recalling his own ambassador from Washington and expelling the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela.
"He has 72 hours, from this moment, the Yankee ambassador in Caracas, to leave Venezuela," Chavez told a crowd of supporters.
The president said he was making the moves "in solidarity with Bolivia and the people of Bolivia."
Bolivia's Evo Morales accused the United States Thursday of fomenting a coup d'etat by rich eastern department landowners against him, the country's first Indian president.
"We have seen reports about President Chavez's remarks but have not received any official diplomatic communication," said Gordon Duguid, a State Department spokesman. "Our embassy in Caracas is looking into these reports."
Also Thursday, Chavez accused the United States of having backed a coup plot against him.
"When there's a new government in the United States, we'll send an ambassador," he said. "A government that respects Latin America."
Earlier Thursday, Chavez said he has uncovered a U.S.-backed plot to remove him from power.
"It's the empire that's behind this," he told supporters in a nationally televised address. "They go around looking for a way to stop our revolution and, with it, to strike all the processes of change that are occurring in our Americas, in the Caribbean, in Central America."
Chavez then played a four-minute tape of what he said were conversations among current and retired members of the Venezuelan military discussing whom they could count on to support a movement against the presidential palace.
Chavez, who was briefly detained in a failed 2002 coup attempt, said the former plotters "are the same people involved in this coup attempt. Behind them is the American empire."
But he said the presence of two Russian warplanes on Venezuelan soil for a training exercise "is a warning" to the rest of the world that Venezuela's allies include Russia and other countries.
Chavez added that, should any country in Latin America be overthrown, he would interpret that to be "the green light to undertake military operations of any sort in those countries, and restore power back to the people."
And he had a message for President Bush, beseeching him, to "go wherever you have to go and leave the Latin-American people alone."
He added, "If they kill me, my God, I don't fear for me, but for what comes after."
A U.S. State Department spokesman denied involvement in any coup attempts in Venezuela or Bolivia.
I wish the US would be more supportive of Bolivia's Evo Morales. He is the first Indian to be elected there. He supports the poverty stricken masses and is under constant attack from the capitalist elite there. The US fully supports the capitalist elite which is difficult to accept. Hopefully, when the Republican administration is gone we can have improved international relations.
No one can believe this liar...first he said it's to back Bolivia, then he states that the U.S. backed a coup against him in 2002. C'mon, if he believed the latter, the U.S. ambassador wouldn't have been there in the first place. If the first assertion is true, why even mention the second reason?
Had we listened years ago to one of the greatest generals of all time, this would be a mute issue.
Who you ask ? General George S.Patton. His plan to continue on after the war in Europe and take out Russia, would and should have been the way to go.
I laugh at the weakness of so many who comment, you would be the first to cry if you no longer had the freedom to use your cell phones, computers, cars. The list goes on, your idea of hope and change, let's all hold hands with the dictators around the world and sing songs. I'm sure they will stop raping, killing, torturing, just because we ask nice.
I for one am glad I don't have to see my daughters raped in front of me. Or they see there mother and I killed. What gets me is all you who cry get out of this country or that country as soon as we do. Some group in that country starts killing some other group, then you all cry again why isn't the US in helping. We can't win for losing with your sick mind set..
Proud to be an American...
Sure buddy because with war we have accomplished so much more freedom, now we all have to strip down to be able to take a flight, and is going to get worse. Oh yes but these people attack America for no reason, is probably because the envy so much Paris Hilton life style. Wake up!, the more you the U.S keeps it's emperialism the more enemies and the less freedom you are going to have. I don't see Canada or Switzerland using the emergency color alerts because they feel they are going to be attacked by terrorists. Is the greediness of people like you that ultimately is taking away the freedom of the american people.
Randy is right, and it is awfull to see how succesfull he has been on delivering his lies all accross the world.
It is interesting/awfull to see how even the news describe the situation in such a way that can lead people to think chavez has plenty of support from the people on my country.
This situation in Bolivia seems a lot like what happened here in 2002, since it is soon after all polls gave the gov as a clear loser and then magically won some elections. It is hard to believe results when 3/10 people you know voted originally for the guy and then in every single election after that 9/10 are all out against him.
Chavez can gather thousands, but there had been over a million people in several of the protests against the gov back then - the very same day the coup attempt happened there was one of these 1+million people marches on the capital + other going on other parts of the country. Sure some ill minded people took advantage of the situation, but the really is that most of us have wanted him out since them.
After the first one, all type of elections in here has been really fishy, and it took a great deal of coordination nationally on observers on each voting place to get the gov to recognize it lost in the last voting - even when doing so the results didn't seem to match + they never published the final results.
That election was about approval/reject of a constitutional modification ... and guess what, he just put in place plenty of those laws rejected in december through special powers his controlled congress gave him ... and worst, he publicy admitted those were the same laws and he would get out the rest of them.
Oh, and also he has violated so many laws so many times ...
Are you trying to tell me that the US made no attempts to oust Chavez from office?
It does depends a lot with what you mean with that. If it is about US going into the country with its forces or even sending some ops to do so, the answer is no.
Beyond that it is pretty hard to know, there are just so many speculations people are doing... I highly doubt coup attempt was done on US orders - what I can be sure is that 1+million venezuelan citizens protesting against the gov that day wasn't on US orders.
So, they make this big speculations and then come with "proves" after 4 years ... if they would have had real proves, they would have revealed it way sooner. They just revealed what was supposed to be some proves of an attempt coup being planned on these days, but they made a mistake and the video dates were showned as well = it was stuff from jan 2005 - they were saying it was something that was being planned right now.
Also note, chavez isn't on position to critize other administrations -> not only because of the incredible wrong job he has done here but because he likes to interfere a lot with other countries.