WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States faced growing challenges Friday in Latin America after Venezuela received what the US called "Cold War era" bombers from Russia and joined Bolivia in ordering out the US ambassador.
At a time of rising US-Russian tensions over Georgia, the United States voiced wariness about Russia's aims in Latin America, even if both sides denied any link with the month-long crisis back in eastern Europe.
"It is something that we will watch very closely, as we have with the movements of other military assets for the stated purpose of this joint exercise," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said here Thursday.
Besides the warplanes, Russia also plans to send warships to Venezuela for joint war games in November.
"I would just note, for example, that our military assets in the region of the Black Sea, for example, are there to deliver humanitarian assistance," McCormack said.
"I will leave it to the Russians and the Venezuelans to describe the purpose of their activities," he added.
The United States dispatched warships to the Black Sea to deliver humanitarian aid to its ally Georgia after Russia launched a military incursion there last month that has inflamed US-Russian tensions.
Russia cast doubt on Washington's humanitarian intentions.
Asked if he was linking events on both continents, McCormack replied: "I am making no linkage whatsoever. I am just pointing out an interesting data point."
With its European Union allies, Washington is pressing for Moscow to fully carry out a truce by scaling back its forces to levels it had before the August 7 incursion into Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
McCormack deferred to the Russians when asked whether the bombers were capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
"These are Cold War era assets and I will leave it to the Russians to describe their capabilities and how they might be equipped," he said.
Russian officials have said that neither of the two TU-160 strategic bombers is carrying nuclear weapons. They have also said the November war games were planned in July and were not linked to events in Georgia.
In Caracas, Venezuela's leftist anti-American President Hugo Chavez has thrown his weight behind Russia's incursion into Georgia while accusing the United States of trying "to encircle Russia."
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has backed the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including eventual membership of former Soviet states Georgia and Ukraine.
As for the bombers landing in Venezuela, "it is a warning," Chavez said. "Russia is with us ... we are strategic allies. It is a message to the empire. Venezuela is no longer poor and alone."
Though he did not elaborate, Chavez threatened on Thursday to halt the supply of oil to the United States, its main client, "if there is any aggression towards Venezuela" from Washington.
Chavez also announced Thursday that US ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy had 72 hours to leave the country. "Go to hell, Yankees!" he thundered in an invective-laced speech against the United States.
Noel Clay, a US State Department spokesman, told AFP that US officials had seen the reports of the latest ordered expulsion "but we have not received any communication through appropriate diplomatic channels."
Chavez said expelling Duddy was "in solidarity" with Bolivia, which on Wednesday ordered the US ambassador to La Paz, Philip Goldberg, to leave.
In a tit-for-tat move, Washington ordered the expulsion of Bolivia's ambassador to Washington, Gustavo Guzman, after saying that Bolivian President Evo Morales made a "grave error that has seriously damaged" ties.
Against a backdrop of escalating Bolivian unrest, Morales accused Goldberg of contributing to divisions in the country which the government warned was headed towards "civil war."
The State Department's McCormack rejected the charges against Goldberg as "baseless."
The expulsion, he said, "will prejudice the interests of both countries, undermine the ongoing fight against drug trafficking, and will have serious regional implications."
Challenges to Washington's influence in the region were also coming from Argentina, angry over a court case linked to alleged campaign cash from Venezuela for President Cristina Kirchner, and Nicaragua, which has aligned with Russia in recognizing the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
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