These comments were made days before the next round of negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) began.
All the countries in the Americas have been invited by the US to take part in the negotiations apart from Cuba.
The FTAA would create a Free Trade area of 800 million people and US$ 13 trillion market dominated by US transnational corporations.
Chavez proposes an alternative to the FTAA called the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas that envisions a Latin-American trade bloc based on the kind of co-operation that has developed between Venezuela and Cuba.
At the FTAA negotiations Chavez replied that the United States should stop "sticking its nose" into Venezuelan affairs. PRESIDENT BUSH mounted a sharp attack on Cuba's Fidel Castro in his address to the opening session of a conference of Latin American leaders in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey in January.
Speaking at a 34-nation summit of leaders across the Americas, Bush conspicuously avoided any similar denunciation of the regime in Haiti, where President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has taken dictatorial powers to repress protests, and where the State Department has now authorised the departure of nonessential U.S. diplomats and family members, and cautioned U.S. citizens against visiting the island. According to the US State Department, "The government of Haiti has not been able to maintain order in Port au Prince or in other cities, and in some instances has assisted in
violently repressing the demonstrations." Bush's President Jean Bertrand Aristide that he "must not allow the opportunity to end the political instability in his country pass by". Colombian troops: US policy has always backed repressive regimes response has been a slap on the wrist, warning Haiti's
American leaders: against Iraq: Bush's focus was exclusively on condemning the Cuban regime, apparently oblivious of the irony of the US in general, and his administration in particular invoking the ideals of "democracy," when he told Latin
"Through our democratic example, we must continue to stand with the brave people of Cuba, who
for nearly half a century have endured the tyran
nies and repression. Dictatorship has no place in
the Americas. We must all work for a rapid,
peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.'"
Washington's consistent support for brutal dicta
torships in Latin America, and opposition to any
progressive or democratic opposition to them,
during the Cold War has left many of today's
rulers distrustful of US leadership, and antiAmerican sentiment surged last year with the war
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