Politics
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Lech Walesa lambasted on Monday Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for being leftward, and said that his government should learn from the Polish experience about the damages that may be caused by communism.

"The ideas of the government team (in Venezuela) are really bad," said the former president of Poland.

"I am the best evidence that communism collapsed because it was a bad system, and introducing it here (in Venezuela) is the worst mistake made in the region," said in a TV interview, broadcast by AP.

Walesa, 65, resolved not to attend a forum on democracy held this week in Venezuela and hosted by dissenting students, as the authorities told him that no assurances could be given for his security.

Walesa construed it as a non-welcome signal.

"There is upcoming election there and some people are afraid of me." Walesa, also a former trade union leader, said that his voice is heard in Venezuela because a number of opposition members are friends of him and invited him to a forum.

Venezuela's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs for Europe, Alejandro Fleming, denied that Walesa would not be welcome in Venezuela.