CHAVEZ Says Obama Must Prove Change After Handshake

[magbana]

"Chavez says Obama must prove change after handshake

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday that Barack Obama must prove he wants to improve ties with South America after the two leaders shook hands at a summit last month.

Chavez, a strident U.S. critic, has reduced the frequency of tirades against what he calls the "empire" since Obama took office as U.S. president in January, but he returned to the theme in a speech at a workers' march on Friday.

"He says he is here to make changes ... this is not about speeches or smiles, it's about realities," said Chavez, who shook hands warmly with Obama at a meeting of leaders from the Americas.

Chavez, who expelled the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela last year, approached Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the summit to discuss restoring normal ties between the two countries. Chavez has proposed sending a new ambassador to Washington.
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He said on Friday that Obama must end a trade embargo Washington imposed on communist-ruled Cuba in 1962.

"If President Obama does not dismantle this savage blockade of the Cuban people, then it is all a lie, it will all be a great farce and the U.S. empire will be alive and well, threatening us," Chavez said.

Obama has already loosened travel restrictions to Cuba, a close ally of Venezuela.

Clinton said on Friday the new administration wanted to build closer ties with Latin American countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia that are governed by leftist leaders critical of Washington.

Clinton said she was worried that Bush administration policies of isolating leaders from those countries and supporting opposition groups had allowed China, Russia and Iran to make inroads into the region.

Chavez also criticized the annual U.S. terrorism report published on Thursday that said his "ideological sympathy" with Colombian guerrilla groups obstructed the fight against terrorism. The report also highlighted what it called lax Venezuelan controls on flights to Iran and Syria.

Chavez has repeatedly denied supporting armed groups in any part of the world.

(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Editing by Peter Cooney)

"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050103481.html

[rabs]

1. magbana, have you found this report.?

Chavez also criticized the annual U.S. terrorism report published on Thursday that said his "ideological sympathy" with Colombian guerrilla groups obstructed the fight against terrorism. The report also highlighted what it called lax Venezuelan controls on flights to Iran and Syria.

(I have not been able to find it, and it is what apparently upset Chavez.)

[Peace Patriot]

2. This is a slightly more artfully constructed hit piece on Chavez than usual,

but hit piece it is.

For instance, let me undisinform the information in this sentence, and fill in the black holes where information should have been given and wasn't:

"Chavez, a strident U.S. critic, has reduced the frequency of tirades against what he calls the 'empire' since Obama took office as U.S. president in January, but he returned to the theme in a speech at a workers' march on Friday."

"Chavez, a strident U.S. critic" as the result of U.S./Bushwhack support for kidnapping him, removing him from his rightfully gained office of president and killing him, in 2002--a fascist coup that was only averted by the vigilance, courage and alertness of the Venezuelan people; and as a result of numerous other nefarious U.S./Buswhack plots and funding of rightwing groups to destroy democracy in Venezuela and in Latin America; and as a result of a recent (9/08) fascist coup attempt in Bolivia, with fascist rioters and murderers funded and organized right out of the U.S. embassy, and as the result of a long bloody history of this kind of warfare by the U.S. on the people of Latin America, "has reduced the frequency of" justifiable "tirades"--not really tirades at all, just reactions to the facts of U.S. bloodyhanded hostility to democracy in Venezuela--"against what he calls the 'empire'--and what IS an empire (no other word for it)--"since Obama took office as U.S. president in January..."--um, since the corpo/fascists running the U.S. decided to install "a good king" who only "looks forward, not backward" to help people forget who caused all their troubles (and have the power to install bad king or good king with far rightwing corporate control of the entirely privatized vote counting system in the U.S., run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code with virtually no audit/recount controls)...

"...but he returned to the theme in a speech at a workers' march on Friday"--as the result of a new report from Obama's State Department continuing the Bushwhack bullshit propaganda about Chavez, among other things lying that he is a "terrorist lover." Chavez has repeatedly told the FARC guerrillas in Colombia to disarm and make peace--so has Fidel Castro, as a matter of fact--and Chavez worked hard, at great risk, and at the request of Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, to negotiate FARC hostage releases last year, as part one of an effort to bring peace to Colombia's 40+ year civil war--only to have the U.S./Colombian military sabotage those efforts with treachery and violence, including a bombing/raid on a temporary FARC hostage release camp inside Ecuador's border, killing 25 people in their sleep, and almost starting a war with Ecuador/Venezuela.

The Bushwhack bullshit propaganda against Chavez and other leftist leaders in South America was psyops preliminary to hostile action--just as their bullshit about WMDs in Iraq was the preliminary to the slaughter of one hundred thousand innocent people in Iraq to get their oil. But we should "look forward not backward," according to our new "good king." That is empire. That is what empire does. It kills lots and lots of people to steal their resources, and then enforces forgetting.

Chavez knows well what this kind of propaganda--hot from the "new" State Department--is for. He and Latin America have every reason and right to be skeptical of Obama's intentions until his proves, by his actions, that he intends peace, respect and cooperation.

Washington Post articles are deep, deep black holes of missing and dis-information. It is the shit rag of the Empire. I don't have time to analyze every sentence, but virtually every sentence in this article needs such analysis, and is constructed to reaffirm corporate resource wars, war profiteering, torture, social mayhem and "dog eat dog" ethics ("free trade"), and massive looting of the U.S. government and its citizens and any other governments and citizens that it can get its clutches into--and to demonize anyone who calls our Empire on its bullshit and puts up resistance to it. Our own true rulers--the global corporate predators who have launched themselves from our shores--are profoundly anti-democratic. That is why the U.S. State Department hates Chavez and the people who elected him, and hates the many other leftist leaders in Latin America and the people who elected them, with such relentless venom, and why the Washington Post produces articles like this, leaving out all the many solid reasons that Chavez has to be skeptical of this Empire, and making him seem like a hostile nutball who is aggravated at the U.S. for no reason.

[EFerrari]

3. The State Department doesn't have the moral authority

to issue such a report about anybody or anything in the first place. And the WaHo is usually their fax machine in these matters.

I had to laugh when I saw State criticized Cuba for hosting guerillas from different parts of the world for peace talks.