SANTIAGO (AFP) — Spain's King Juan Carlos won praise back home on Sunday after telling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to "just shut up" before storming out of an Ibero-American summit.
Spain's monarch was applauded by Spanish media for his angry reprimand Saturday of Chavez, after the Venezuelan leader described a former Spanish prime minister as a "fascist" and launched into a wide-ranging tirade.
"The king has put Chavez in his place in the name of all Spaniards," the centrist El Mundo newspaper said, noting that it was "an act without precedence."
It said the monarch's rebuke was "something that should have been said to him (Chavez) a long time ago."
The Venezuelan president responded Sunday by challenging the king, asking if he had advance knowledge of a failed coup against Chavez in 2002.
"The debate is now under way, Mr. King," Chavez told journalists here, relating remarks he said he told Juan Carlos.
"Were you aware (in advance) of the coup ... against the legitimate, elected, democratic government of Venezuela in 2002?" he told journalists he asked.
The fireworks made for a dramatic finale to the 17th meeting of the heads of state and government of Spain, Portugal and their former colonies in the Americas, which started Thursday.
Chavez, known for his fiery anti-US, leftist rhetoric, is seeking to leverage his country's oil wealth to win influence over other South American nations.
His mentor, ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, hailed Chavez for his critique of European governments in a commentary published Sunday in Juventud Rebelde.
"The criticism of Europe by Chavez was devastating," said the commentary, which made no reference to the heated exchange Saturday which apparently took place before his remarks.
Chavez earned the ire of the Spanish delegation upon his arrival on Friday.
His portrayal of Spain's former conservative prime minister Jose Maria Aznar as a "fascist" prompted current Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a Socialist, to call on Chavez to show more "respect."
But Chavez forged on, and on Saturday he repeated the contentious word in relation to Aznar, adding: "A fascist isn't human, a snake is more human than a fascist."
An irate King Juan Carlos then stepped in, demanding of Chavez: "Why don't you just shut up?"
But the Venezuelan leader carried on, attacking the United States (a favorite target of his), the Catholic Church in Venezuela and the pope. He also accused the United States and Europe of having approved of the failed coup against him in 2002.
Spain's king then stormed out of the conference as Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega stepped up to support Chavez.
Aznar, whose conservative People's Party ruled Spain from 1996 to 2004, telephoned Zapatero and the king Saturday thanking them for defending him. But his party blamed Chavez' tirade on Zapatero's "negligence" for having organized the summit in the first place.
Since leaving office, Aznar has taught courswork on politics at Georgetown University in Washington DC, in addition to serving on various corporate boards.
Chavez's outburst and King Juan Carlos' admonition to "shut up" was replayed again and again late Saturday on Spanish television news programs to the delight of viewers.
Newspapers in Spain on Sunday praised the regal rebuke, with the right-wing press in particular relishing the outburst from the king.
The left-leaning El Pais newspaper said Chavez's diatribe had "surpassed all tolerable limits in a relationship between two countries."
The row in Santiago overshadowed attempts by the summit's participants to come up with a joint effort to overcome wealth and social inequality in Latin America, in the face of deep ideological differences.
Chavez led a bloc of hardline leftists, backed by Ortega, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa and Carlos Lage, a Cuban vice president, critical of other participating nations seen as too economically liberal.
Lage was among the few who seemed to seek to calm the clash, telling Juventud Relbede newspaper in Havana "we should not interpret Venezuela's right to defend itself as an attack on the king, the current government of Spain or the Spanish people."
The members of that bloc were to address a "people's summit" of 10,000 left-wing sympathizers on Sunday.
Tensions are running high in Venezuela over a referendum next month that could pave the way for Chavez to stay in power indefinitely. Chavez, popular among his country's many poor, is seeking changes that would extend his term of office, and allow him to seek re-election as often as he wants.
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