Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned he will lodge a complaint against the US at the UN and other international bodies if the US government fails to act against television evangelist Pat Robertson, who has called for Chavez's assassination.
"If the US government does not take action that it must take, we will go to the UN and Organization of American States to denounce the US government," the Venezuelan leader said Sunday as he addressed participants at talks on a social charter for the Americas.
He added he believed that by failing to act against Robertson, the US was "giving protection to a terrorist, who is demanding the assassination of a legitimate president."
PHOTO: AP
Robertson caused a diplomatic stir last Monday when he said on the air that if Chavez believed the US was trying to kill him, "I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."
Robertson apologized Wednesday, but then went on to compare Chavez to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and to suggest the US could one day be at war with his oil-rich country.
Chavez, a twice-elected leftist and close ally of Cuban President Fidel Castro, has often said Washington would like to assassinate him, and accuses the Bush administration of involvement in a coup d'etat that toppled him for 47 hours in April 2002. US officials last week distanced themselves from Robertson's comments.
The Venezuela president said he had already instructed his foreign minister and the country's ambassador to Washington to begin the process in the international bodies.
He said Venezuela could use international treaties and conventions to demand the extradition of the television preacher.
Chavez said he believed Robertson "should be sent to prison to serve as an example for the entire world."
Meanwhile, visiting US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson lent his support to Chavez, saying Robertson's remarks were "repugnant, immoral, illegal." Addressing the Venezuelan National Assembly, Jackson called for the US Justice Department to investigate the statement. Jackson, on a three-day visit to Venezuela to meet Chavez, politicians and community leaders, also called on US President George W. Bush to issue "a swift rejection" of Robertson's statement.
"It must be unequivocally clear that such a heinous act is not desirable nor designed nor planned. We must use power to reduce tensions, reduce the rhetoric of our threats," Jackson said.
The US State Department sought to distance itself from Robertson last week, calling his remarks "inappropriate" but said the evangelist spoke as a "private citizen."
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS