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Venezuela locks in UN Security Council seat: diplomat
By Michael Langan
AFP
HAVANA
Petroleumworld.com 09 13 06
After a globe-trotting campaign by virulently anti-US President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has locked in the votes to win a seat on the UN Security Council, a diplomat said Tuesday.
"The numbers (of votes) have been sufficiently evaluated and the numbers give us a victory," Venezuelan deputy foreign minister Jorge Valero told reporters on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana.
He made the announcement as Chavez lashed out at the United States in Caracas, charging it may have planned and carried out the September 11 terror strikes against itself to justify its war on terror.
"We are going to use our voice in the Security Council ... in favor of the democratization of the United Nations," Valero said. "We are going to raise our voice whenever someone tries to use the international system's agencies to subjugate peoples" around the world, Valero pledged.
"We can now assure the world that Venezuela will have a seat on the (UN) Security Council as a non-permanent member," Valero said.
The United States, which accuses Chavez of seeking to destabilize democracies in Latin America, has backed Guatemala's rival bid for one of the seats reserved for a Latin American nation.
But "the votes in favor have exceeded our expectations. (We have) enough votes for Venezuela to win a seat on the Security Council," Valero stressed.
If neither country drops its candidacy the Latin American group in the world body would endorse no one and the decision would be made by the General Assembly.
New non-permanent members are due to be designated in October.
Chavez's Venezuela is Cuba's most important political and economic ally. Its oil shipments to Cuba at preferential credit rates have been key to keeping Cuba's battered economy afloat in the wake of the collapse of the former East bloc.
Fidel Castro, 80, is Chavez's close friend and political mentor; Chavez has imported Cuban literacy programs and health care workers, and imitated Cuba's high-octane rhetoric and confrontational clashes with the United States, despite the fact the United States is a key buyer of Venezuelan oil.
In a draft final document the NAM summit voices concern at new US action aimed at affecting the stability of Venezuela, including establishment of an office to increase spying on Venezuela and Cuba.
In Caracas, Chavez -- who in the past has accused the US government of trying to kill him and trying to topple his elected leftist-populist government -- said "the hypothesis that is gaining strength is that it was the US imperial power itself that planned and carried out this terrible terrorist deed against its own people and against citizens of the entire world."
"What for? To justify its aggressions that promptly ensued against Afghanistan, Iraq and the threats against all of us, against Venezuela," Chavez in an address carried live on Venezuelan state television.
"The towers fell in nine seconds, so the hypothesis that the towers were blown up, that there were groups of explosives, is not so outlandish," Chavez told a group of women supporters.
The events gave "the excuse to the US empire to lash out with more wrath and fury against the world, to bomb cities to threaten the entire world," Chavez charged in remarks unlikely to ease tensions between the two countries.
AFP 12 2150 GMT 09 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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