De Spaanse onverkozen ouwbakken lucht genaamd Juan Carlos kon het niet verkroppen dat Chavez even voor de hele wereld de waarheid vertelde, namelijk dat Aznar, een internationaal gezochte terrorist en oorlogsmisdadiger, een "fascist" is.
Juan Carlos, de poulain van dictator Franco, sneerde tegen de grote, democratische leider Chavez: "hou uw mond".
Iemand die geen enkel politiek gezag heeft probeert een staatsman dus het zwijgen op te leggen. Uiteraard tevergeefs.
Chavez heeft daarna rustig en op briljante, zeer humoristische wijze deze oude fascist eens goed op zijn plaats gezet.
Chavez noemde Juan Carlos een "wilde stier die woest en blind" is. Waarop hij zei: "gelukkig ben ik een goede stierenvechter en kan ik dat beestje wel aan. Olé". [Typisch Chavez!].
Maar veel belangrijker: Chavez vroeg Juan Carlos of hij op de hoogte was van de staatsgreep in 2002 tegen de democratisch verkozen leider. Het antwoord is "ja".
Een briljante vraag dus, die
Juan Carlos met een mond vol tanden zette:
Chavez is een genie. Hij kreeg massale steun van alle linkse democratisch verkozen leiders van Latijns-Amerika. De linkse revolutie op het continent is onstuitbaar.
Citaat:
Chavez refuses to be silenced by 'fascist'
The Ibero-American summit in Chile would have been just another meeting of heads of state had it not been for the spat between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Spanish king.
The summit had received little coverage in the regional and Spanish media until the video of the argument was posted online and shown on television.
King Juan Carlos carried some responsibility for the affair, but it was Mr Chavez who set the ball in motion by calling the former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a fascist.
Labelling a Spanish prime minister a fascist carries a serious undertone in Spain, considering the country's bloody civil war and General Franco's 36-year-long military rule that followed.
The row made headlines in Spain and most newspapers highlighted the fact that the king had told Mr Chavez to shut up.
The Latin American press followed the same line, except for the official Venezuela daily, Diario Vea, which ignored the incident, and an article in Juventud Rebelde by Cuban leader Fidel Castro defending his close friend and ally Hugo Chavez.
Left-wing leaders
This is not the first time that Mr Chavez' outbursts at an international summit have overshadowed the issues being discussed.
Last year at the UN's General Assembly he called US President George W Bush "the devil".
None of the other left-wing leaders in Latin America - despite their ideological affinities with Mr Chavez - are as openly critical and controversial as the Venezuelan president.
In the video, Bolivian President Evo Morales, who is also a key ally of Mr Chavez, pokes his head out from the end of the table when the row breaks out, but does not intercede.
Neither does the Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega, who later used his speech to attack Spanish companies doing business in Latin America.
It is interesting to imagine what Mr Castro would have said had he been present at the summit.
No other leader in Latin America except Mr Castro - who has temporarily stepped down as head of state due to his frail health - matches the outspokenness of the Venezuelan president.
Mr Chavez, Mr Morales and Mr Ortega later took part in a people's summit in Santiago, where the Venezuelan president defended his right to criticise Mr Aznar and again attacked the Spanish king.
Business as usual
For a president whose role model is the Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar it was particularly ignominious that a Spanish king treated him like a schoolboy.
Not only has Mr Chavez now told the king to shut up in return, he suggested that perhaps he knew about the 2002 coup that briefly toppled him - the same accusation he threw at Mr Aznar.
But the row is unlikely to hurt relations between the Venezuelan and Spanish governments.
It was an ideological confrontation, not a political one.
|