Gringo, go home! thundered Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday as he denounced President Bush’s swing through Latin America as an “imperial” excursion, mocking the president and cementing the impression of the White House trip as a battle between the two hemispheric rivals. “Bush today is a political cadaver. He exhales the smell of the political dead, and he will soon be cosmic dust that will disappear from the stage,” Chavez told a rally of at least 30,000 at the soccer stadium in Buenos Aires’ Caballito neighbourhood. The leader’s two-hour speech came shortly after Air Force One touched down in neighbouring Uruguay, 65 km across the muddy Rio de la Plata river. “The little imperial gentleman from the north must be across the river by now. Let’s send him a big shout: Gringo go home.” “If you truly want social justice in the world, order the immediate withdrawal of the troops from Iraq,” Chavez scolded Bush. “Use that gigantic (military) budget for investments in food and health.” Chavez seized upon the presence of Bush, who is widely unpopular in South America, as an opportunity not to be missed. “The visit of Bush forms part of a new advance of imperialism,” said Chavez. “The Bush plan is ridiculous. He thinks he is Columbus, discovering poverty after seven years in power.”Chavez’s close ally, Argentina President Nestor Kirchner, apparently encouraged him to stage his rally here. Argentina, rebounding from a 2001-02 economic meltdown, has been one of Chavez’s major aid beneficiaries. “In Argentina’s most difficult moments, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela was present,” Kirchner told reporters, using Venezuela’s formal name. Chavez labelled Bush “the president with the lowest intellectual level in the history of the United States” and said “He doesn’t even smell of sulphur anymore. He no longer has that virtue.” The rally was organized by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of women who became famous by protesting in the city’s central plaza after the disappearances of their sons and daughters during the military dictatorship of 1976-83. In an interview on a popular morning television programme in Argentina on Saturday Chavez dismissed the ethanol pact that the US signed with Brazil on Friday as “a crazy thing, off the wall.” He accused the United States of trying “to substitute the production of foodstuffs for animals and human beings with the production of foodstuffs for vehicles, to sustain the American way of life.”Despite the agreement, some strains were visible between President da Silva and Bush. Da Silva is hopeful that the United States will reduce its tariff of 54 cents a gallon on Brazilian ethanol. But when da Silva was asked about the possibility of eliminating the tariff, Bush jumped in: “It’s not going to happen.”
