Thread: Chavez Calls FTAA a Failure

Jun 26, 2005

Chavez Calls FTAA a Failure, Says Caribbean Oil Initiative Part of Alternative
The Associated Press


CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez called the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas a failure and said Venezuela's plan to create a Caribbean oil company represents a better alternative. Chavez also said Sunday he expects Cuban President Fidel Castro will not attend an oil summit with Caribbean leaders in Venezuela this week and will instead send his vice president, Carlos Lage.

The talks Tuesday and Wednesday in the northeastern city of Puerto La Cruz are to center on Chavez's proposal to create a regional company, called Petrocaribe, to offset high oil prices by distributing Venezuelan crude and refined oil products to the Caribbean at lower prices.

Sixx says: I hear Barbados calling my name.

Speaking during his weekly radio and television show, Chavez called the proposed FTAA "a perverse proposal of the Americans to turn us definitively into a colony."

Sixx says: Bush, you don't have enough troops to make this happen. Tell Goldman-Sachs to get out of our lives. Prosecute your Vice President for rackettering.

"We knew the FTAA was going to fail, because they would have to invade all of us to impose the FTAA on us," said Chavez, who accuses the U.S. government of backing repeated plots to oust him - a charge Washington denies.

The FTAA, which was announced amid much fanfare at a summit in Miami 11 years ago, was supposed to take affect in January but has never gained the full support it needed.

"PetroCaribe is part of the alternative project, an integrating alternative," said Chavez, who along with Castro has proposed a so-called Bolivarian Alternative trade pact that he says would unite the region rather than exacerbate poverty through unbridled free trade.

Chavez's critics have accused him of selling off oil cheaply to Cuba and other Caribbean countries for political reasons. He has defended the preferential oil deals, saying they help both Venezuela and the region.

Sixx says: Wow, a man that actually looks out for HIS country. What a novel idea.

Cuba has sent thousands of doctors to treat Venezuela's poor, and Chavez said countries across the Caribbean have stood by his government in diplomatic disputes.

"Every time the Americans have tried to impose monitoring on us through the OAS, we have counted on the support of solidarity from the Caribbean despite strong pressures by the imperialist U.S. government," Chavez said.

At a meeting this month, the 34-nation Organization of American States watered down a U.S. proposal for monitoring threats to democracy after Venezuela accused the United States of trying to meddle in other nations' affairs.

Chavez said officials from countries ranging from the Dominican Republic to Guyana are invited to this week's oil summit.

Repeating criticism of Puerto Rico's status as a U.S. commonwealth, Chavez said the island cannot be invited.

"Unfortunately Puerto Rico is still - one day it will no longer be - a territory of the United States," Chavez said, calling it a clear case of "colonialism."

Puerto Ricans narrowly rejected U.S. statehood in nonbinding referendums in 1993 and 1998. A small but vocal minority supports making the island an independent country.

Sixx says: Nobody wants to be associated with a LOSER!!!




AP-ES-06-26-05 2057EDT

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBWI3V3GAE.html

SIXX said "Nobody wants to associate with a Loser."

Yep.....and that is what the world sees Bushey Boy as right now. A Big Loser. He's been prancing around like King George IV...and he couldn't even get his little 4% private savings accounts through Congress.

LETS HOPE GOP wakes up by Tuesday and defeats that CAFTA CRAP resoundingly and sends Mr. Donohue of the US Chamber of Commerce back to his worm hole where he busy himself with a new plan for the Chamber Welcome Wagon Program!! That's been slipping, because I didn't get mine here when I moved. I got a very nice little package when I moved to Philly plus a bundt cake!!

I kind of like this Chavez. At least he makes sense, gave his military a big raise, declared FTAA a failure, and earlier opposed CAFTA. We should try to Friends with Him!!

I think WE'ed get along great, don't you?

I am glad to see that there are some leaders who actually look out for their people.

I wish the U.S had the same.