Chavez Predicts A Challenging Year Ahead For Latin America
Caracas, Dec. 28, 09 (Hamsayeh.Net) - The President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez in an address to the nation for the end of 2009 told his people to prepare for more challenges ahead during 2010.
He singled out the US interventionist policies in Latin America as the main source of trouble in the region. Chavez said he based his predictions on events that happened in Honduras in which a pro-US military junta government ousted the country’s elected President Jose Manuel Zelaya on June 28th, and on the fact that the US will establish its military presence in seven bases inside Colombia.
‘It will not be an easy year. The international rightwing parties are planning to reverse the emancipation process that our America is undergoing,’ he warned. He said nobody should expect changes happening under Barack Obama. ‘The Obama hope is over, and the shameless interventionist policy by the new US administration has proven so,’ Chavez Said.
The Venezuelan President was also critical of rich Western countries’ failure to agree to lower their levels of pollutions during the last summit in Copenhagen. He suggested creation of an international watchdog to oversee the environmental challenges and punish those that are responsible for the current disaster.
Hugo Chavez along most Latin American countries’ leaders is a staunch opponent of US imperialism in a region where the US has long considered being its own back yard. The falling US prestige in that part of the world prompted Washington policy makers to increase US leverage in the region through military presence in recent months.
