Chavez leads anti-Bush rally in Argentina

Buenos Aires, Mar 10: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez led a stadium full of Argentine leftists in screaming ''Gringo go home'' as US President George W Bush arrived in nearby Uruguay today on a tour of Latin America.

While Bush is visiting five countries in the region to counter anti-US sentiment, Chavez launched a rival tour to challenge and taunt his ideological rival.

''The little imperial gentleman from the north must be across the river by now. Let's send him a big shout: Gringo go home,'' Chavez told thousands of people at a soccer stadium in Buenos Aires, across the River Plate from the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.

''We don't even need to make an effort to sabotage his tour.

He's a political cadaver. He exhales the smell of the political dead, and he will soon be cosmic dust that will disappear from the stage,'' he told the crowd of leftist activists.

Bush's fiercest critic in Latin America, Chavez is using Venezuela oil revenues to help friendly leftist governments and spread his socialist vision.

Dressed in a bright red jacket, Chavez was flanked at the Friday night rally by human rights leaders the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who fought Argentina's 1970s dictatorship, wearing their trademark white scarves.

Bush started his tour in Brazil, where he signed a biofuel agreement with moderate leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who Washington hopes will act as a counterweight to Chavez's influence in Latin America.

But Bush was also met by street protests in Brazil and later in Uruguay, where activists smashed windows at two McDonald's restaurants.

US influence in Latin America has waned in recent years as several leftist leaders won power in presidential elections and public opposition to the war in Iraq surged.

Chavez said Latin America was struggling to free itself from US domination and that the region has just recently found its own model for development.

''Look at the moment he chooses to visit, just when there's a new popular uprising,'' Chavez said.

He also mocked Bush's new announcements of aid to combat poverty in the region as too little, too late.

Chavez earlier met with Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, a fellow leftist, and signed energy and agriculture cooperation agreements.

He continues his two-country tour today in Bolivia, where he has pledged millions of dollars in aid after extensive flooding and where President Evo Morales is one of his closest ideological allies.

Bush will continue to Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico after leaving Uruguay, where he hopes to strengthen trade ties.

Kirchner steers clear of anti-Bush rhetoric but also questions US-backed market policies and has allowed Chavez to lead large anti-Bush rallies in Argentina twice before.

Reuters