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Chávez defies US over Spanish arms deals
President Hugo Chávez has yet again thumbed his nose at the Bush Administration. This time, the issue at stake was warships and other weaponry and Venezuela’s intention to acquire them from countries other than the United States.

The United States, he said, and its “lackeys� in Venezuela were “hurt� that his government was buying arms from Spain instead of from the “empire� – an epithet Chávez frequently uses in reference to Vene-zuela’s powerful northern neighbor.

Spain is to supply four corvettes, patrol boats and other weapons including military transport aircraft to Venezuela under an agreement forged when Spanish Premier José Luis RodrÃÂ*guez Zapatero visited Caracas earlier this year. Venezuelan officials have also revealed plans for this country to acquire military helicopters and 100,000 assault rifles from suppliers in Russia.

In the past, Venezuela has tended to rely on suppliers in the United States for the sort of weaponry that cannot be produced in this country. Chávez’ latest rebuke to Washington came after the United States ambassador in Madrid, Eduardo Aguirre, said it might not be possible for the Spanish deliveries to go ahead. Aguirre expressed the hope that this “huge sale� would be dropped because it could develop into “a destabilizing factor in the region� as Chávez tried to export his “revolution� to other Latin American countries.

Pointedly, the ambassador noted that some of the weaponry in question included technology from the United States, and he pointed out that the deal might yet be blocked. The United States, he continued, had not yet decided whether or not to authorize the sale of defense equipment it had supplied to another country.

Venezuela’s ambassador in Ma-drid, Arévalo Méndez, quickly responded to this point. He said the inclusion of United States components would only have implications for some types of navigation systems in aircraft – and in any case there was “sufficient technology in Europe to substitute them.� Chávez remained unbowed. “There’s no need to export the Bolivarian Revolution because it’s already there among all the peoples of these lands,� he declared. The ambassador he dismissed as a “little gentleman throwing stones.�

Foreign Minister AlÃÂ* RodrÃÂ*guez Araque echoed his leader’s defiance, and in the process derided the Bush Administration’s attitude towards the Chávez regime. The United States, he said, thought Venezuela “has to ask permission to go to the restroom.â€? This was, he said, the “natural behavior of great powers, of the grand empires throughout history, and this is nothing more than a small but significant expression of such behavior.â€?

Chávez, who regularly emphasizes Venezuela’s rights to act independently as a sovereign country, announced that Spanish Defense Minister José Bono would visit Caracas next week to sign agreements under which Spanish companies will supply some of the weapons.