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Venezuelan aid outdoes US: Chavez

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday said Venezuelan financial aid to Latin America had surpassed US commitments in the region.

His comments follow a tour by US President George W. Bush widely seen as an attempt to curtail the fiery Venezuelan leader's spreading influence in the region.

Chavez, who argues that Latin America has long suffered from US domination, has used his government's booming oil revenues to finance infrastructure projects, oil shipments and donations in what he describes as a bid toward greater regional sovereignty.

Chavez provided for the first time on Wednesday the estimated value of oil deals with 17 Caribbean and Latin American countries.

Venezuela is now sending some 200,000 barrels a day of oil under the deals, which provide low-cost, long-term financing, and allow recipients to settle part of the bill in non-cash payments like nutmeg and bananas, according to Chavez.

Calculated at an average oil price of US$60 a barrel -- because much of it includes more costly refined products than crude, Chavez said -- that amounts to US$4.8 million a day in financial assistance solely through oil shipments, or US$1.6 billion a year.

"Venezuela, as modest as it is, is helping Latin America much more than the United States," Chavez said on his weekday radio address.

Bush, before embarking on his tour of Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico last week, said that aid to Latin America last year from the US -- which has an economy 90 times the size of Venezuela's -- was US$1.6 billion.

The White House said Bush's trip was aimed at underlining the US government's commitment to Latin America, but Chavez repeatedly accused his US foe of coming to divide the region and isolate his government.

"It's true they scorn Latin America because they have always considered us their backyard," Chavez said. "We're sick of being ... the backyard where they toss their garbage. That's over."

A bulk of US aid to the region is military and counter-drug trafficking assistance. Chavez contrasted that to recent Venezuelan commitments like donations for flood victims in Bolivia.

Critics at home say Chavez's generosity is excessive because about a third of Venezuelans live in poverty.

Meanwhile, the Chavez administration's purchases of some US$3.5 billion in Argentine bonds have helped cover that government's deficits but have also allowed Venezuela to profit handsomely by reselling the bonds through its own banks.
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