Pot Calls Kettle Black: Rumsfeld Muses on Venezuelan Military Purchases

During a visit to Brazil last month, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld challenged a recent Venezuelan announcement of pending military purchases, stating that they would destabilize Latin America. He questioned Venezuela’s decision to purchase 100,000 Russian-made rifles. “I can’t imagine why Venezuela needs 100,000 AK-47s,” Rumsfeld said during a news conference in Brasilia on March 23. “I just personally hope that it doesn’t happen … I can’t image that if it did happen, that it would be good for the hemisphere,” he told reporters.

Responding to Rumsfeld’s comments, Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel noted that Venezuela is acquiring military equipment of a defensive nature; he also expressed his concern about the burgeoning U.S. defence budget. “Military spending by the United States stands at around $450 billion,” Vicente pointed out in a statement. “What do they fear to justify such high military spending? The whole world is worried.” Vicente’s statement also pointed out that the U.S. is responsible for 36 per cent of military spending in the world.

The U.S. has been implicated in three separate attempts to remove the democratically-elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, from power. An April 2002 coup attempt was backed by the Americans, as was a strike in the country’s oil industry in December 2002. The U.S. also funded anti-Chavez groups participating in last year’s referendum with the aim of removing the president from power. Chavez won the referendum with a decisive majority.

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