Chavez in Moscow lambasts Washington, capitalism

Jun 28, 2007, 15:51 GMT

Moscow - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took aim at US President George W Bush and capitalism in Moscow Thursday, a day after the fiery South American socialist arrived in Russia for a three-day visit.

'Either we will defeat American imperialism, or (it) will destroy the world,' Chavez said during the opening of the Simon Bolivar Cultural Centre for Latin American Integration at Russia's State Foreign Literature Library, Interfax reported.

The left-wing Venezuelan leader added that capitalism had reached its zenith and would soon fall, invoking communists including Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx.

Chavez was echoed by Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who said 'there cannot be on Earth a unipolar world forced on us by one country that aspires to plant its values, its decisions and Hollywood culture.'

He criticized US films for 'not answering to the deep cultural needs of a person.'

On his fifth visit to Russia since 2001, the Venezuelan leader is to address Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, on Friday and travel to the southern city of Rostov-on-Don to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.

Putin is due to meet with Bush in the United States the following day, amid a chill in relations between Russia and the West. Political analysts have said, however, that the timing of Putin's meetings with Chavez and Bush is likely a coincidence.

While opening the centre, which Venezuelan media have called a gift from Chavez, the Venezuelan president spoke of bilateral ties with Russia, adding that 'Russia and Venezuela remain strategic partners in the energy sphere.'

'Thanks to the cooperation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC - of which Venezuela is a member), Russia and Norway, we avoided (having) oil sales at a laughable price,' he said of partnership amid a previous fall in oil prices.

Energy-rich Caracas has nationalized oil fields, forcing US majors ConocoPhillips and Exxon to leave their developments rather than cede control to Venezuela's state oil producer. In Russia, Shell and BP have lost control over large energy projects to state gas monopoly Gazprom in the last six months.

The Venezuelan president, who is also to travel to Belarus and Iran during his trip, affirmed what he said was Tehran's right to 'peaceful nuclear industry' and said Venezuela may someday also 'go farther in that direction.'

Russian-Venezuelan bilateral trade grew to 518 million dollars last year from 77.5 million dollars the previous year. Of that figure, 456.5 million dollars is Russian exports to Venezuela, sparked by a 1 billion-dollar order for Russian fighter jets in 2006.

Chavez has also said he will discuss with Putin a 600-million- dollar submarine tender that Russia, Germany, France, Spain, South Korea and China are bidding for.

But Kremlin sources have sought to play down Chavez's anti- Americanism in the lead-up to the Bush-Putin summit, which is to take place at the US president's family summer home in Maine.

'The main accent will be put on questions of the development of trade (and) economic relations,' an unnamed Kremlin source said of Chavez's meeting with Putin, Interfax reported Thursday.

And the Duma voted Tuesday against letting Chavez address a full session of the legislative body, allowing him instead to meet with less than 100 of the Duma's 450 deputies.