Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said that "there are important and clear signals" that Hugo Chávez "is putting money from Venezuelan oil" in the Colombian guerrilla FARC, an Argentinean press report claimed on Monday.

In an interview with La Nación newspaper in Argentina, where last week Fox took part in a meeting of former Ibero-American conservative rulers, he warned that "democracy in Latin America is threatened by populism and demagogy."

"I think the signals that Chávez is putting money from Venezuelan oil -the money that belongs to Venezuelans in this (the FARC) are more than important and clear," he replied when asked if he believed that the Venezuelan ruler was funding the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces.

According to Fox, Chávez "is supporting electoral campaigns, sponsoring eye surgeries (...) All of this with a view to win those countries in order to continue to encourage the axis with which he aspires to become the heir (of Cuban leader) Fidel Castro, and become the 21st-century Fidel Castro."