Posted on 11/14/2005 9:49:00 AM PST by NormsRevenge
MEXICO CITY - Mexico said it will sever diplomatic ties with Venezuela if that country's president doesn't apologize Monday for warning Mexican leader Vicente Fox: "Don't mess with me."
Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar said Mexico was demanding an apology because Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's comments showed a "lack of respect for the people of Mexico and the institution of our country's presidency."
If an apology doesn't come by midnight Monday, Fox said he will ask for the immediate withdrawal of Venezuela's ambassador and a recall of the Mexican ambassador from that country.
But Aguilar was quick to add that would not mean Mexico was severing its ties completely with Venezuela because business and cultural relations would remain intact.
Tensions between Fox and Chavez spilled over after this month's Summit of the Americas in Argentina, where Fox defended a U.S.-backed proposal for a Free Trade Area of the Americas while Chavez proclaimed the idea dead.
"President Fox left bleeding from his wound," Chavez said Sunday during his weekly radio and TV show, echoing remarks last week in which he accused Fox of being a "puppy" of the U.S. government for supporting its plans for the free trade zone.
Chavez then warned Fox: "Don't mess with me, sir, because you'll get stung."
A diplomatic dispute with Cuba in 2004 led Mexico to expel the Cuban ambassador and withdraw its own emissary to Havana, a freeze that lasted for several months. Venezuela is a close ally of Cuba.
Chavez has proclaimed the recent summit a victory, noting that Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay also raised opposition to the free trade pact.
Fox, irked by the resistance of Chavez and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, said after the summit that "we have some presidents, fortunately a minority, who blame other countries for all their problems."
The Venezuelan president accused Fox of attacking him and Kirchner, and of violating summit protocol in trying to press for an agreement on the free trade zone when that wasn't on the agenda.
"The only very hard response I've given to any president was ... to President Fox. He disrespected me," Chavez said.
The dispute with Venezuela arose just as Argentina and Mexico had resolved a similar rift caused by an exchange of harsh words between Fox and Kirchner stemming from disagreements over the FTAA, which aims to create the world's largest free trade zone stretching from Alaska to Argentina.
Cave's should be Chavez.
u'r sick (sarcasm)
I've got several Venezuelan friends, they both say that Chavez is NUTS. Chavez countrymen despise him. They're looking to get rid of him one way or another. They say he's a typical dictator...keeping the countries monies for his friends and family. He also solely supports Castro and Cuba.
It's ironic that we worry about Iran when this guy is DEFINITELY nuts....and much closer.
Seems like a bit of an overreaction, but then Mexico does not need Hugo's oil.
bttt
Post 14: It was a natural childbirth. Little Hugito was deleivered rectally.
Street Theater
Mexicos invasion of illegals and other narco terrorists continues...as does the sucking of USDs out of the US and
back to Mexico.
IMO if they have any arguement with each other its over
gang territory rather than righteous political disagreements.
Better double check the actual show title. I feel certain when translated correctly it is "Hello Totalitarian Dictator".
The following article claims that Castro and Chavez have teamed up to get Fox.
Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro lay a trap for Mexico
By John Sweeney
Vcrisis.com
November 14, 2005
Miami – Mexico's Foreign Ministry has confirmed it will recall its Ambassador from Venezuela and request that Venezuela's Ambassador to Mexico return to Caracas immediately if "the government and people of Mexico" do not receive a formal apology from "the very highest levels" of the Venezuelan government before midnight on November 14. Since last week President Hugo Chavez has called Fox "a puppy of the empire," and also threatened Fox personally.
"Do not mess with me," Chavez told the Mexican president on November 13 in a television broadcast that was beamed by satellite via Telesur to all of Latin America. Now the Fox government wants a personal written apology from Chavez.
Mexico's government is about to fall into a geopolitical trap laid by Chavez, Cuban President Fidel Castro and Cuban Foreign Minister Ricardo Alarcon, who is an experienced fabricator of international diplomatic incidents. Chavez and Castro want Fox to freeze, or better yet break off relations with Venezuela. A formal diplomatic break between Venezuela and Mexico would open a strategic trapdoor through which the Chavez/Castro axis likely would seek to destabilize Mexico politically over the coming presidential election year in that country.
This was not an ad hoc rhetorical attack by Chavez, who chose his words carefully to inflict the maximum possible insult and humiliation. From a Mexican perspective, calling President Fox "a puppy of the empire" was an extraordinarily vile and personal insult. The Mexican people are fiercely nationalist and independent, and proud of their rich cultural heritage.
Chavez created the confrontation with Fox with a blueprint very similar to what Castro and Alarcon employed in March 2004 at the Special Summit of the Americas in Monterrey. The meeting at Monterrey was a Fox initiative that sought to bring together President Bush and the heads of state of Latin America and the Caribbean in what ultimately proved a futile effort to improve sagging relations between Washington and the region. Castro was invited to that event by Fox, but the Cuban leader was also asked to leave Monterrey before President Bush arrived. The request insulted and enraged Castro.
The Cuban leader returned to Havana and promptly released tape recordings of telephone conversations between Castro and Fox in which Mexico's president had explicitly asked Castro to leave Monterrey before the arrival of Bush. The Fox government had previously denied reports that the U.S. government had pressured Fox to ask Castro to leave, and Castro's disclosure of the taped conversation with Fox was hugely embarrassing for the Mexican president and his then-Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda.
Now Chavez has employed a similar strategy against Fox. Chavez violated an explicit rule of international diplomacy and protocol related to the FTAA negotiating process by broadcasting edited snippets of the heated discussions between the region's heads of state behind closed doors in Mar del Plata. Chavez broadcast on Telesur footage of Bush, Fox and Canada's prime minister arguing strongly for the inclusion of the FTAA in the text of the final document. Chavez also broadcast footage of himself, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner and Uruguayan President Tabare Vasquez arguing against any mention of the FTAA in the final declaration.
Chavez won't apologize. Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel and Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez Araque both have said that Chavez's description of Fox as "a puppy of the empire" is justified. In effect, Fox asked for it by siding with the United States at the November 4-5 Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, according to both Rangel and Rodriguez.
If the Fox government recalls its ambassador from Caracas and orders the Venezuelan ambassador to depart Mexico immediately, Chavez likely will ratchet up the confrontation with Fox, a lame duck president who is unpopular with many Mexicans. There are many ways that the Chavez/Castro axis can stoke political turmoil in Mexico over the coming electoral year.
For instance, Chavez could continue provoking the Fox government systematically, including frequent (daily) attacks against Fox in his speeches and television broadcasts like he now attacks President Bush and the U.S. government. Chavez would seek to humiliate Fox and goad him into responding publicly in order to create tit-for-tat exchanges that subsequently would be televised hemispherically via Telesur (aka Telechavez), which now broadcasts 24 hours a day by satellite from Canada to Tierra del Fuego, the Iberian Peninsula, western Europe and much of eastern Europe.
The Chavez/Castro axis also could increase its financial and political engagement with radical leftist groups in Mexico through gateways like the Bolivarian Congress of Peoples. Mexico has millions of indigenous citizens living in abject poverty, excluded from mainstream Mexican society. Mexico also has armed militant groups in Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca and other southern states. Mexico's government is also currently engaged in a nearly four-year-old power struggle between rival drug cartels for control of the North American drug trafficking industry.
Over 1,000 people have been killed in Mexico's drug wars since the start of 2005, and the Fox government has been unable to contain the violence. Mexico is simmering with economic exclusion, social resentment, armed militants and organized criminal enterprises with a direct economic stake in stoking instability. Some exogenous clandestine interventionism, like Bolivia and Ecuador have experienced increasingly since 2000, could stir things up in Mexico.
A Mexico in a state of incremental instability has direct geopolitical implications for the national security of the United States. This is the real objective of Chavez's extraordinarily personal attack against Fox. If Mexico destabilizes politically, the U.S. government's focus in Latin America would shift decisively to Mexico, where an unstable political environment or unfriendly government would affect sensitive bilateral economic, migration and security issues that concern Washington very much.
Chavez didn't come up with this strategy by himself. Interestingly, Venezuela's Foreign Minister appears to be out of the loop. Rodriguez spent four days negotiating with his Mexican counterpart to smooth things out, and gave assurances on November 13 that good relations between Venezuela and Mexico are very important. And then Chavez threatened Fox personally. If Rodriguez was not involved in helping Chavez strategize his attack against Fox, who was? Cuban Foreign Minister Alarcon was in Argentina during the summit in Mar del Plata.
I wonder if China and KGB ran Russia have anything to do with this?
Excellent article.
Chavez is a bigger danger to the US than most would believe.
Chavez wants a war to rally the poor of his country.
He wants to pick a country that he can defeat easily.
Chavez is another junior Adolph Hitler.
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