Kerryn Williams
On February 2, Venezuela's socialist president Hugo Chavez announced in a television speech that the US embassy's naval attache Captain John Correa was expelled from Venezuela. According to a February 3 Venezuelanalysis.com report, Chavez said Correa had been receiving information from "traitorous Venezuelan military personnel" and therefore must "leave the country immediately".
A week earlier, Venezuelan Vice-President Jose Rangel announced suspicions that 25 Venezuelan military personnel had been passing secret information to the US embassy, including details of military operations and personal information about Venezuelan army generals.
Chavez warned "the imperialist government of the United States" that if its military "continues to do what that captain was doing, the next step will be to kick out the entire military mission".
Washington retaliated to the expulsion immediately by giving Jeny Figueredo, the chief of staff for Venezuela's ambassador to the US, 72 hours to leave the US. Unlike the spying charge against Correa, Figueredo was not accused of any wrongdoing.
On February 2, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld escalated verbal attacks on Venezuela by comparing Chavez to Hitler. He told the National Press Club: "We've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money. He's a person who was elected legally — just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally — and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with [Cuban President] Fidel Castro and [newly elected Bolivian President Evo] Morales and others."
According to the Prensa Latina news service, Rangel responded by claiming, "US denunciations against Venezuela are part of the desperation of political hawks given the increasing strength of the regional movement". He suggested that Washington is rushing to undermine the Venezuelan government in a desperate attempt to prevent Chavez's re-election in the December presidential elections.
Rangel said "Venezuela is peaceful and democratic, we do not invade nations and we are an example of democracy", and that if any president could be compared to Hitler, it is Bush. "He has stepped on countries, slaughtered peoples, installed prisons around the world."
From Green Left Weekly, February 8, 2006.
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