Venezuela's Chavez rejects US rapprochment overture

CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec 7 (Reuters) Within hours of President Hugo Chavez's re-election on Sunday, Washington made overtures to open dialogue with Venezuela. But the man who calls President George W Bush a ''donkey'' ruled out rapprochement.

Asked if he would take up the US offer of engagement, the leftist leader, who because of Venezuela's oil wealth controls 12 per cent of US oil imports, recounted his first dealings with Washington to explain why his answer was ''No.'' Chavez said the top US diplomat for Latin America, Peter Romero, visited him after he was first elected in 1998 and shared a Venezuelan dish wrapped in banana-tree leaves.

Shortly after those pleasantries, the American telephoned and asked Chavez if he was set to make a trip to US antagonist Cuba.

''I hung up on him,'' Chavez said.

Eight years later, the communication line between Washington and Caracas remains dead -- and is unlikely to be resurrected.

The self-styled socialist revolutionary, who since 1998 has forged a close relationship with Cuba and its leader Fidel Castro, said he was ''not very gentlemanly'' because Romero tried to influence the ''president of a free and independent country.'' Now the US ambassador, an influential bipartisan American think-tank and some Venezuelan and foreign newspapers have advocated some engagement between the governments to take advantage of a typical post-vote honeymoon.

''My government has clearly indicated our disposition to talk,'' Ambassador William Brownfield said in an interview a leading Venezuelan daily put on its front page yesterday.

The remarks from an ambassador who rarely meets Venezuelan officials were the latest in a series of generally conciliatory comments from Washington since Chavez's landslide win that sought to open the way to an improving bilateral tone.

''I doubt the US government is sincere. I doubt it, I really do. I have a lot of reasons to doubt it,'' Chavez said at a news conference on Tuesday.

He said his skepticism was drawn from the memory of a brief coup against him in 2002 when the United States was the only country in the hemisphere that failed to issue an immediate condemnation of the putsch.

INSULTS IN THE VOID Chavez is flush with oil money and has just won a stronger majority than in his past elections for socialist reforms that are rejected by Washington, such as increasing control over oil firms.

Far from being open to talks, Chavez said his re-election empowered him to seek an anti-US alliance of Latin American leftists.

If there were ever a time to keep a winning formula, it is after polling 63 per cent of the vote, Larry Birns of the US-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs said.

''Chavez's social message is antithesis to Washington,'' Birns said, noting both US Democrats and Republicans have given Chavez labels such as ''thug'' and ''two-bit dictator.'' ''The two countries simply have an irreconcilable dispute,'' he added.

Chavez fills the communication void with Washington by baiting Bush with his insults such as Mr. Danger, drunkard and, most notoriously, in a UN speech in September, Satan.

The Bush administration has countered by blocking some credit lines and arms sales as well as blacklisting Chavez for refusing to cooperate with the US anti-narcotics fight.

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