| Chavez warns Colombia over US base
Al Jazeera English - News - Chavez Warns Colombia Over Us Base Quote:
Venezuela's president has warned Colombia against building a US military base on the countries shared border, saying he would consider such a move an act of "aggression".
Hugo Chavez said on Thursday that he would not allow a US military base to be established in La Guajira, a region spanning northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela.
"We will not allow the Colombian government to give La Guajira to the empire," Chavez said, referring to the US during a speech to a packed auditorium of uniformed soldiers.
"Colombia is launching a threat of war at us."
The Venezuelan leader said that if Colombia built the base, his government would revive a decades-old territorial conflict and stake a claim to the entire region.
The US maintains a military base at the Pacific port of Manta in Ecuador, but Rafael Correa, Ecuador's president and an ally of Chavez, has repeatedly said he will not renew the 10-year leases when it runs out next year.
Chavez said that William Brownfield, the US Ambassador to Colombia, had suggested that the Ecuador base could be moved to La Guajira.
| Call me crazy but I think Bush wants to start a third war while he still can. Unlike heckling Iran he might actually succeed here because Chavez is more of a dingbat than Ahmadinejad.
Destroying America one Volconvo post at a time.
Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. |