Time to ‘fight back’ against US

EL ALTO, BOLIVIA – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday vowed to revive a global socialist opposition to the US while continuing his Latin American tour aimed at upstaging President George W Bush’s own visit to the region.

Speaking for over an hour to a packed gymnasium in El Alto – a poor, indigenous city on a cliff above the capital La Paz – Chavez also taunted Bush and repeated accusations that the US was trying to assassinate him and close ally Bolivian President Evo Morales, allegations the US has denied. “The empire is in counterattack, with the head of the empire himself leading the attack,” Chavez said.”And why? Because they realise that the popular Latin American offensive is for real.”Fifteen years ago, the American empire thought they had won the final battle when the Soviet Union fell.”They let out their triumphant cry: ‘Here is Superman!” He said now was the time for Latin America’s newly socialist countries to fight back.”We have resisted for a long time.But no one wins a battle always staying on the defensive,” he said.”This is no longer a time for defence.This is a time for attack.Let loose the charging cavalry!” Chavez said the US embassies in Venezuela and Bolivia were conspiring to overthrow him and Morales, citing as precedent the US-backed 1973 coup in Chile that toppled socialist President Salvador Allende.”Alert: The embassy, the embassies of the United States, continue developing plans for assassinations and coups in our countries,” Chavez said.He also said spies who once infiltrated his government had tried to halt his socialist revolution by not passing along phone messages from Cuban President Fidel Castro.Donning a traditional Andean poncho and a wreath of coca leaves, Chavez tried on a Bolivian miner’s helmet and a traditional Quechua hat looped in neon thread while professing his love for the country named after his idol, the 19th-century South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar.He and Morales signed a series of agreements strengthening ties between the already close nations, pledging closer integration of Bolivia and Venezuela’s petroleum industries and officially naming Bolivia a member of Banco Sur, a South American development bank Chavez sees as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund.Chavez appears intent on spoiling Bush’s tour of Latin America, holding an anti-Bush rally in a soccer stadium on Friday in the Argentine capital, then heading to flood-ravaged Bolivia on Saturday to tout his pledge of $15m in disaster aid – ten times that sent by the USNampa-AP”The empire is in counterattack, with the head of the empire himself leading the attack,” Chavez said.”And why? Because they realise that the popular Latin American offensive is for real.”Fifteen years ago, the American empire thought they had won the final battle when the Soviet Union fell.”They let out their triumphant cry: ‘Here is Superman!” He said now was the time for Latin America’s newly socialist countries to fight back.”We have resisted for a long time.But no one wins a battle always staying on the defensive,” he said.”This is no longer a time for defence.This is a time for attack.Let loose the charging cavalry!” Chavez said the US embassies in Venezuela and Bolivia were conspiring to overthrow him and Morales, citing as precedent the US-backed 1973 coup in Chile that toppled socialist President Salvador Allende.”Alert: The embassy, the embassies of the United States, continue developing plans for assassinations and coups in our countries,” Chavez said.He also said spies who once infiltrated his government had tried to halt his socialist revolution by not passing along phone messages from Cuban President Fidel Castro.Donning a traditional Andean poncho and a wreath of coca leaves, Chavez tried on a Bolivian miner’s helmet and a traditional Quechua hat looped in neon thread while professing his love for the country named after his idol, the 19th-century South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar.He and Morales signed a series of agreements strengthening ties between the already close nations, pledging closer integration of Bolivia and Venezuela’s petroleum industries and officially naming Bolivia a member of Banco Sur, a South American development bank Chavez sees as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund.Chavez appears intent on spoiling Bush’s tour of Latin America, holding an anti-Bush rally in a soccer stadium on Friday in the Argentine capital, then heading to flood-ravaged Bolivia on Saturday to tout his pledge of $15m in disaster aid – ten times that sent by the US Nampa-AP