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VENEZUELA-US

Chavez: I'll respond if Bush slights Venezuelan gov't at summit
Caracas, Nov 2 (EFE).- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an increasingly vocal antagonist of the United States, says he once let slide a disparaging comment by George W. Bush about the South American nation's government but that if the U.S. leader tries it again at a summit this week, the slight will not go unanswered.

Chavez, a leftist admirer of Cuba's Fidel Castro, said that Bush "will get an immediate response" from him if the U.S. president implies he is not a democrat at the 4th Summit of the Americas to be held on Friday and Saturday in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

After recalling Bush's remark at a past summit that his government would push for "democracy in Haiti, Bolivia and Venezuela," Chavez said that he looked at the U.S. leader "out of the corner of my eye" but decided not to say anything.
"If President Bush says it again, he's going to get an immedite response from me, because (the Venezuelan) people are honorable and I'm not going to accept it if he runs over us," Chavez said, according to a Communications Ministry transcription of an interview he gave Tuesday night to the new international regional television channel Telesur.

He also said that he would give "a blunt response and an invitation to debate" if Bush insists on reviving the U.S. proposal for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, known as the FTAA, which the Venezuelan leader said was "imperialist," as well as "dead." "Bush will push for free trade and I will encourage him to debate. I don't care what they say," he remarked.

Regarding reports that U.S. authorities had asked Argentina to see to it that "nobody is disrespectful of Bush, and that (Chavez) does not interrupt him," the Venezuelan leader said that Washington had made the same request of former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso shortly before the 2nd Summit of the Americas held in Canada four years ago.

"You're not going to believe me, but Bush is afraid of you," Chavez said Cardoso told him at the time.

"Those who feel powerful don't like others to debate them. I don't care if they debate me. I like to incite debate," said Chavez, who the Bush administration has criticized as having autocratic tendencies.

"Sometimes I interrupt, but respectfully, because I believe that debates should be like that and that someone should not come, read a speech, finish and then we applaud them ... What a nuisance! It's better to interrupt!" he exclaimed.
Regarding his participation in a march to a Mar del Plata stadium to demonstrate opposition to Bush, a protest being organized by leftist Argentine groups, Chavez said that he had been invited but that his security team was still evaluating whether or not he would participate.

"I don't want to cause problems. It's true I'm going (to Argentina) with much humility to talk about my ideas. I'm very grateful for the invitation to that great gathering (i.e. the march). I know it's going to be really big and peaceful. If I can't go, fine, I won't go. But the important thing is that the people go to that funeral march for the FTAA," Chavez said.

"I want to go. I've said so," he continued, adding that "they've walled off part of the city and the stadium is a little outside the wall. So they told me that my being there, and (trying to) come back inside the wall - which seems like it's higher than the Great Wall of China - could create problems." EFE ar/bp