CARACAS, Monday May 15, 2006 | Update
Former Peruvian President and current presidential candidate
Alan García warned that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
has launched a strategy to dominate South America, by supporting
a number of presidential hopefuls in the region.
"A strategy to dominate South American countries is under
way based on Venezuelan oil, the political model of Mr. Chávez,
who in some countries uses his active and verbal support for
some candidates as an instrument," García told radio
station RPP.
In García's view, Chávez' political model "can
only take us to a violent setback in the possibility to join
world markets and the possibility to build important works
such as the Inter-oceanic way."
He also rejected the fact that Bolivian ruler Evo Morales
branded the salutation of his Peruvian counterpart Alejandro
Toledo during a summit in Vienna over the weekend as "part
of a buffoonery," AP reported.
"Both Chávez and Morales commonly use exaggerated terms
at all times just to draw the attention," García added.
04:17 PM. Western Hemisphere. "Damned empire; I curse you one thousand times; some day you will be finished off and wrecked. I curse you one thousand times, empire." This is the least that President Hugo Chávez has uttered to refer to the US government. In urging the Bolivarian Armed Forces to prepare for war, he said that a US raid on Venezuela through Colombia would trigger and spread over the region "the 100-year war."