Mind your own business, Chavez tells Blair

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has again let fly at Tony Blair, telling the Prime Minister to keep out of his country’s affairs.

Chavez said he would never criticise the Queen or Britain’s parliamentary system, suggesting Blair should show similar respect.

“I’m not going to criticise the fact that Great Britain has a queen, and that it has a parliamentary system, and that a prime minister there can govern for 50 years. They have no limit,” Chavez said yesterday. “We’re respectful.”

Chavez said Blair’s comments on Venezuela to the House of Commons on Wednesday came like a surprise “cannon blast”. Blair said he would like to see Venezuela’s close ally Cuba as a “functioning democracy” and added that Venezuela “should abide by the rules of the international community”.

Chavez then answered Blair by calling him a “pawn of imperialism” and saying the Falkland Islands – known in Latin America as the Malvinas Islands – rightly belonged to Argentina.

The Venezuelan leader, a fiery nationalist opposed to US dominance in the region, noted his government had long had friendly relations with Britain. He greeted Blair warmly during a 2001 meeting in London and said that he would never forget his visit with the Queen.

“Now, if Blair keeps quiet and respects Venezuela, we will too. If he messes with us again, we’ll respond again,” Chavez said. He said it would depend on Britain whether the two countries would continue their “traditional, normal, good relations”.

Chavez reiterated his view that Britain should turn over the Falkland Islands to Argentina, calling it a “colonialist abuse” that the islands had remained under the Union Jack since Britain repelled Argentine troops in a 1982 war.

He called it an issue of concern for all of South America.

“Those islands are Argentine; all the geographical history says so,” Chavez said. “And the English took them away from Argentina.”

Argentine troops invaded the islands on April 2, 1982, amid claims that the country had inherited the archipelago from the Spanish crown before they were occupied by Britain in 1833.

More than 700 Argentines and 250 British soldiers died before Britain reclaimed the islands, populated currently by about 3,000 people of mostly British ancestry.