CNSNews.com Chavez, Allies Applaud Obama Victory Thursday, November 06, 2008 By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor
(CNSNews.com) - Two months after expelling the American ambassador as diplomatic ties reached rock-bottom, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has expressed a desire for "new relations" with the United States under an Obama administration. The leftist former paratrooper commander, who has developed close ties with Iran and Russia while using oil revenues to shore up allies across the region, is among the most vocal critics of President Bush and what he calls the U.S. "empire." Chavez joined other left-wing Latin American leaders in calling President-elect Barack Obama's election historic. "The historical election of an Afro-American to lead the most powerful country in the world is a sign that the changing times which originated in South America could be knocking the doors of United States," he said in a statement. Invoking Simon Bolivar, the 19th century South American independence leader, Chavez said, "From every corner of the planet, there is an increasing outcry demanding a change in foreign relations and the construction, as the liberator Simon Bolivar said, of a world of balance, peace, and human coexistence." His government, he said, was ready for "a constructive bilateral agenda for the welfare of Venezuelan and North American peoples." "We are convinced that the time has come to establish a new relation between our countries and with our region based on the principles of respect for sovereignty, equality and real cooperation." On the eve of the election, Chavez said he would be willing to meet with Obama as "equals," while warning that relations would "struggle" in the event of a victory by Republican Sen. John McCain. During the campaign, McCain criticized Obama for expressing a willingness to meet with leaders of hostile states, including Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and North Korea - without preconditions and during his first year in office. Although the U.S. is the largest customer of oil from Venezuela - it was America's fourth biggest supplier during 2007, after Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico - relations between the two countries have been chilly. Chavez notoriously called Bush "the devil" during a speech at the U.N. in 2006, has drawn close to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and will later this month host Russian warships for muscle-flexing joint exercises in the Caribbean. Last September, he expelled U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy and withdrew Venezuela's envoy from Washington, amid accusations of a "yankee" conspiracy to overthrow his and other left-wing governments in the region. One day earlier, Chavez ally Bolivian President Evo Morales had ordered the departure of the American ambassador to Bolivia, alleging U.S. interference in his country. The U.S. denied the accusations. Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, also welcomed Obama's win Wednesday, drawing parallels between himself and the African- American president-elect. He said he was confident relations between Washington and La Paz would improve. Fellow leftis, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua called the election of a black man a "miracle" and said he was "very happy" about the outcome, Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency reported. Ortega's Sandinista government has the distinction of being the only one anywhere to follow Moscow's lead in recognizing the breakaway Georgian republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent. Cubans hail 'meteoric' campaign For the Chavez-led leftist clique, how Obama deals with the Cuban economic embargo will be a key indicator of future relations, and the Venezuelan and Bolivian leaders on Wednesday both urged Obama to end the ban once in office. The embargo against the communist Castro regime was imposed 46 years ago and opposition to it has been growing by the year. In an annual ritual, the U.N. General Assembly votes by overwhelming numbers for a symbolic resolution on lifting the embargo. The most recent vote, a week before the presidential election, saw 185 countries support the measure while only Israel and the tiny Pacific island of Palau voted with the U.S. Obama, who as a Senate candidate in 2003 supported lifting the embargo, said while campaigning for the presidency that it should be eased in stages, with the first step being to allow Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba and to send remittances to Cuba. He also said he would be willing to meet with Cuba's leaders, "but only when we have an opportunity to advance the interests of the United States, and to advance the cause of freedom for the Cuban people." >From Cuba itself there was no official reaction Wednesday to the election outcome, although state-controlled media ran several articles on the subject. In a commentary carried by the official ACN news agency, Cuban writer Marcos Alfonso said it was not by chance that a black man had won the presidency, suggesting that Obama's victory was part of a scheme to save beleaguered capitalism. "The policy led by the [R]epublicans over the past eight years has been so wrong that the U.S. system had no other alternative than making the concession of opening [to] Obama the doors of the White House, in an effort to maintain capitalist rule alive," he argued. "The U.S. presidential history shows that, no matter who takes the presidency, the postulates and principles that Capitalism boasts must prevail." In a more straightforward if someone awestruck analysis, the Communist Party mouthpiece, Granma, ran a piece by Ramon Sanchez-Parodi Montoto, a Cuban diplomat and international relations specialist, who tracked Obama's "meteoric" campaign since his "magisterial" 2004 Democratic Convention speech, expressing admiration for his organization, use of the Internet and fundraising achievements. In his regular "Reflections of Fidel" column, published on election day, Fidel Castro wrote that Obama was "no doubt more intelligent, educated and level-headed" than McCain, who he dismissed as "old, bellicose, uncultured, not very intelligent and not in good health." The reclusive former president also described the U.S. as a "parasitical and rapacious empire." http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=38906 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Black Focus Inc." group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Black-Focus-Inc?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
