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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - Source: Reuters -
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Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez accused the United States of
using the earthquake in Haiti as a pretext to occupy the devastated
Caribbean country and offered to send fuel from his OPEC
nation.
"I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they
were going to war. There is not a shortage of guns there, my God.
Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that's what the United
States should send," Chavez said on his weekly television show.
"They are occupying Haiti undercover."
"On top of that, you don't see them in the streets. Are they
picking up bodies? ... Are they looking for the injured? You don't
see them. I haven't seen them. Where are they?"
Chavez promised to send as much gasoline as Haiti needs for
electricity generation and transport.
A perennial foe of US "imperialism," Chavez said he did not wish to
diminish the humanitarian effort made by the United States and was
only questioning the need for so many troops.
The United States is sending more than 5,000 Marines and soldiers
to Haiti, and a hospital ship is due to arrive later this
week.
The country's president said US troops would help keep order on
Haiti's increasingly lawless streets.
Venezuela has sent several planes to Haiti with doctors, aid and
some soldiers.
A Russia-Venezuela mission was set to leave Venezuela carrying
aid on Russian planes.
Chavez said Venezuela's planes were the first to land in Haiti
after Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake, which wrecked the capital
Port-Au-Prince and killed as many as 200,000 people.
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