August 28, 2005
Jesse Jackson: Venezuelan President is no threat to regional stability

(Reuters) - "U.S. civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson rejected U.S. government claims that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is a threat to regional stability and called on both governments to curb escalating rhetoric to resolve their differences.

Relations between Venezuela and the United States, strained since President Chávez first won office in 1998, have deteriorated in recent weeks after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated accusations during a South American tour that Chávez was fomenting regional instability.

Jackson said the U.S. charges were baseless but that both sides should work to scale back their war of words.

'There is no evidence that is stated and established that this government is in fact a source of instability,' Jackson told reporters at a news conference. 'I hope that we would reduce the rhetoric that exacerbates tensions.'

Jackson compared Rumsfeld's comments to charges used by the Bush administration that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

'Secretary Rumsfeld, in every speech he made in Latin America, said Venezuela is a threat to stability, that they are a menace. This is the same language used about Iraq,' he said.

The civil rights leader called on the United States and Venezuela to work together on regional problems such as the fight against drug trafficking (...)"