Chavez is full of praise for ‘well-informed’ Penn

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has praised Sean Penn for his critical stance against the war in Iraq, saying the two chatted by phone and soon plan to meet in person.

Mr Chavez said Penn travelled to Venezuela this week wanting to learn more about the situation in the country and walked around some of Caracas’ poor barrios on his own.

“Welcome to Venezuela, Mr Penn. What drives him is consciousness, the search for new paths,” Mr Chavez said in a televised speech. “He’s one of the greatest opponents of the Iraq invasion.”

Mr Chavez read aloud from a recent open letter by Penn to US President George W Bush in which the actor condemned the Iraq war and called for Mr Bush to be impeached, saying the president along with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are “criminally obscene people”.

The socialist president said he and Penn talked by phone — “with my bad English, but we understood each other more or less”. He called the actor “well-informed about what is happening in the US and the world, in spite of being in Hollywood”.

For his part, Penn toured Venezuela’s new film studios on the outskirts of Caracas. Penn, whose visit was unannounced, did not speak publicly.