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Venezuela says US drug criticism is political ploy

Posted on: Friday, 16 September 2005, 21:51 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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