30180: (news) Chamberlain: Bush in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, March 12 (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
shadowed his political foil President Bush on a tour of Western Hemisphere
nations, stopping Monday in Haiti after passing through Jamaica to promote
aid packages and discuss development projects.
   Chavez, who left Nicaragua as crowds greeted Bush in Guatemala, was met
by Haitian President Rene Preval and several thousand cheering supporters
outside the Port-au-Prince airport.
   Many waved Venezuelan flags, while some chanted "Down with Bush, long
live Chavez!"
   Chavez came to discuss a $20 million fund announced last week by
Venezuela's state-run development bank to provide humanitarian aid to Haiti
and develop joint cooperation projects with the hemisphere's poorest
nation.
   Earlier, Chavez made an unannounced stop in Jamaica -- a country that
has taken advantage of Venezuela's Petrocaribe initiative to buy oil under
preferential terms.
   While in the resort city of Montego Bay, he had a "short working visit"
with Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, the country's first
female prime minister, said Wilton Dyer of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
   Haiti similarly benefits from Petrocaribe. The program, widely seen as
an effort by Chavez to make inroads in a region where the United States is
a major trading partner, allows deferred payment and long-term financing
for fuel shipments.
   Preval, a Chavez ally, relies heavily on U.S. aid. The United States,
Haiti's largest donor, last year pledged a $492 million aid package aimed
at helping the country recover from a devastating 2004 revolt that ousted
former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
   Chavez appears intent on spoiling Bush's tour of Latin America. In
Nicaragua on Sunday, Chavez chanted his anti-Bush mantra of "gringo go
home" at a rally with President Daniel Ortega.
   As Bush traveled to Guatemala on Sunday evening, Chavez and Ortega went
to the city of Leon, where they left flowers at the tomb of poet Ruben
Dario and announced that Venezuela would build an oil refinery nearby.
Cheered by thousands, Chavez said Bush's tour was a failure.
   "Latin Americans are telling you: 'Gringo, go home!'" he said.
   On Friday, he held a stadium rally in the Argentine capital of Buenos
Aires and then headed to Bolivia's flood-ravaged lowlands on Saturday to
tout his pledge of $15 million in disaster aid -- 10 times that sent by the
United States.
   While Bush has declined to even mention the Venezuelan leader's name in
public, Chavez has peppered his speeches with gibes at his rival. Sunday's
appearance in El Alto, Bolivia -- 13,100 feet above sea level -- was no
different.
   Bush's plane "doesn't dare" fly over the Andean city, Chavez said,
"because here we are so high up he might think that we were going to reach
up and grab him."