Chavez insists that US is using quake to occupy Haiti

Jan 20, 2010, 20:48 GMT

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed Wednesday that the United States is using the devastating quake that hit Haiti last week to occupy the Caribbean nation.

'The United States government is using a humanitarian tragedy to militarily occupy Haiti. I read somewhere that they even occupied the government palace,' Chavez complained as he launched a cable car system for poor neighbourhoods in Caracas.

The left-wing populist Venezuelan, an outspoken critic of US policies, said the United States should be sending more doctors and medicine than soldiers.

'Cuba has more doctors in Haiti than the United States,' he said.

He alleged that the United States tried to do something similar with Venezuela in 1999, after heavy rain caused mudslides that buried whole villages in the coast of the state of Vargas.

Chavez said he found out that 1,000 Marines were on their way, at the request of the Venezuelan Defence minister of the time, Raul Salazar. He himself told the US ambassador that he would not allow them to enter the country, Chavez said of the 1999 incident.

Chavez said Venezuela, one of the world's largest exporters of crude oil, would send oil supplies to Haiti to help the victims of the quake.

'We are willing to do all we can for Haiti, for its people, respecting its sovereignty, its independence. As (former Cuban leader) Fidel (Castro) said in his article, it would be good for us to ask ourselves why Haiti is so poor. Ask the empire that has invaded it as many times as it wished,' he said of the United States.