Chavez hits out at Bush free trade plan

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez blamed free market policies promoted by the US for the crisis in Bolivia, and said Latin America would no longer accept such “poisonous” economic doctrines.

Mr Chavez, an outspoken critic of Washington’s foreign policy, said yesterday that proposals by US President George Bush for a hemisphere-wide free trade agreement would only lead to more poverty.

Speaking before the Organisation of American States, Mr Bush touted the proposal in Florida last week saying it would open the way to peace and prosperity in the Americas.

Mr Chavez called Mr Bush’s free-trade proposal “the medicine of death,” adding that US open market policies that have been applied in Latin America “have led to exclusion, misery... and destabilisation.”

“Look at Bolivia; fortunately the Bolivians opened the door toward a peaceful path, but they were on the verge of a civil war,” said Mr Chavez, speaking during his weekly TV programme Hello President.

Nationwide protests led by highland Indians, labour activists, miners, leftist students and coca-leaf farmers over the last month in Bolivia brought down President Carlos Mesa, who was replaced on Thursday by Eduardo Rodriguez.