By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 22, 2006
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaks at the Mount Olive Baptist Church in
Harlem yesterday. (AP)
NEW YORK -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took his Bush-bashing to Harlem yesterday and earned a stiff rebuke from the New York district's congressman, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, who is no fan of President Bush.
"You don't come into my country, you don't come into my congressional district and criticize my president," Mr. Rangel, a Democrat, told stunned reporters on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Rangel, who is one of Mr. Bush's harshest critics, said no foreign official should assume that "Americans do not feel offended when you offend our chief of state."
At Harlem's Mount Olivet Baptist Church yesterday, Mr. Chavez referred to the insults that he delivered at the United Nations' General Assembly a day earlier.
"They told me that I should be careful after I called [Mr. Bush] the devil -- and I think he is the devil -- because he might kill me" Mr. Chavez told an overflow crowd.
He also called Mr. Bush "an alcoholic and a very sick man."
In his remarks to the annual U.N. General Assembly debate Wednesday, the Venezuelan president first called Mr. Bush the devil and said "it still smells of sulfur" at the podium, where Mr. Bush had spoken a day earlier.
Mr. Chavez repeated his devil remarks for reporters later Wednesday and also called Mr. Bush "the genocide president."
He spoke at the Harlem church yesterday for nearly two hours, in which he mocked Mr. Bush by mimicking a cowboy's gun-slinging stance.
Mr. Chavez's performance in New York this week also offended several prominent Democrats on Capitol Hill, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.
"Hugo Chavez fancies himself a modern-day Simon Bolivar, but all he is an everyday thug," Mrs. Pelosi said.
She added that Mr. Chavez had "demeaned himself, and he demeaned Venezuela."
Chavez to Discount Oil for U.S. Poor
NEW YORK (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited a Harlem church Thursday and promised to more than double the amount
of discounted heating oil his country ships to needy Americans. He also took another swipe at President Bush.
A day after he called Bush "the devil" in a speech to the United Nations, Chavez said of the president: "He's an alcoholic and a sick man."
Bush has acknowledged that he had a drinking problem when he was young but says he gave up alcohol 20 years ago.
Chavez received a round of applause from the crowd at Mount Olivet Baptist Church, which included activists and other supporters as well as actor Danny Glover. Some laughed and applauded when Chavez compared Bush to cowboy movie icon John Wayne.
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He called Bush's policies in Iraq criminal, adding he hopes Americans will soon "awaken" and elect a better president. While he opposes Bush, Chavez said the American people "are our friends."
He announced that Citgo, the U.S.-based refining arm of Venezuela's state-run oil company, plans to more than double the amount of heating oil it is making available under the program for low-income families to 100 million gallons this winter, up from 40 million gallons.
Chavez started the heating oil program last winter, accusing Bush of neglecting the poor.
Insults have increasingly flown between Caracas and Washington since 2002, when the U.S. swiftly recognized leaders who briefly ousted Chavez in a coup, before Chavez returned to power amid massive street protests.
The Venezuelan leader repeated his warning that if the U.S. tries to oust him, he country would halt oil shipments. He added that he'd like to see a U.S. president "who you could talk with."
Chavez said some people have warned him about his safety after he called Bush "the devil."
"They've told me since last night, because I said he was a devil ... to be careful, because they could kill me," Chavez said, without elaborating. "I'm in the hands of God. I'm not afraid."
House majority leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, called Chavez a "power-hungry autocrat" and said his speech was "an embarrassment and an insult to the American people."
U.S. officials regularly call the Venezuelan leader a destabilizing force, and Bush has said he sees Chavez as a threat to democracy. Chavez has called Bush a "devil" before in speeches at home.
The American civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson met with Chavez Thursday night, saying he was concerned by the name-calling and believed both sides need to tone down their rhetoric.
"Of course he feels that the U.S. government is part of trying to pull a coup on him... But my appeal to him is get beyond the anger," Jackson said.
"I think that he should not be calling President Bush 'devil.' President Bush should not be calling him 'evil' or calling him 'tyrant," Jackson said. "We must cease these hostilities."
The United States continues to be the top buyer of Venezuelan oil, bringing the South American country billions of dollars in earnings that help fund Chavez's popular social programs.
Chavez's opponents accuse him of squandering Venezuela's oil wealth through preferential oil deals overseas. But Chavez said he is giving away nothing, and that Venezuela also gains by receiving everything from cattle to medical equipment in exchange for oil shipments to Latin American countries.
Citgo said its discounted heating oil will benefit some 1.2 million Americans in 17 U.S. states this winter, including Indians in Alaska, some of whom were flown to New York and attended the ceremony in traditional dress. They performed a dance and offered Chavez a walrus figurine carved out of whale bone as a gift.
"This will go a long way for a lot of families," said Ian Erlich, a leader of the Alaska Intertribal Council who said many struggle to afford heating oil where he lives in Kotzebue, Alaska, north of the Artic Circle.
While the program started mainly in the Northeast last winter, this winter it is being expanded to Alaska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, Maryland, and the cities of Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, Pa
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