Venezuela says US drug criticism is political ploy

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuela said on Friday
that Washington’s criticism of its anti-narcotics effort was
“false” and politically motivated and did not reflect the
country’s successes fighting illegal drugs.

The U.S. government said on Thursday Venezuela had failed
to stop illegal drug shipments to the United States last year
in a judgment likely to worsen deteriorating political ties
between Washington and the world’s fifth-biggest oil exporter.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of U.S.
foreign policy, dismissed the classification as part of a
campaign by Washington to discredit his government.

“Absolutely false. We have broken records this year in
confiscation of cocaine in the fight against drug trafficking,”
he told ABC’s “Nightline.” “Those are the false aggressions,
the false signals we’ve been receiving,” he said in New York.

The White House said Venezuela would not face sanctions
usually associated with the designation and that Washington
would maintain programs to help Venezuela’s institutions and
strengthen its political parties.

Venezuela said the waiver allowed Washington to keep
funding opponents of Chavez, a self-styled revolutionary whom
U.S. officials accuse of eroding democracy at home and menacing
regional stability in alliance with Cuban President Fidel
Castro.

“This is a capricious and absolutely political judgment,
that is completely at odds with the position of other
governments involved in the fight against drugs,” Venezuelan
Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said.

Venezuelan government officials cite their anti-narcotics
cooperation with European countries and recent successes in
halting cocaine shipments to the Caribbean.

Venezuela joined Burma as the only countries on a list of
major drug-producing or drug-transit countries the White House
says “failed demonstrably” to adhere to international narcotics
cooperation accords.

The failing grade from the White House followed Chavez’s
suspension of cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration earlier this year after accusing its agents of
spying on his left-wing government.

Soon after that suspension, U.S. officials revoked the U.S.
visas of three top Venezuelan military officers on suspicion
they were involved in drug trafficking, including the head of
the National Guard anti-narcotics unit.