Chavez says he will reach out to next U.S. president

Orlando Sentinel

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez says Venezuela’s beef with the United States is all about George Bush, and the government will reach out quickly to the new American president.

In a wide-ranging interview Thursday with a group of visiting American newspaper editors, Chavez said he respects the American people and wishes to “beg for forgiveness if in my speech I have hurt any feelings back in the States.”

He said his criticism is aimed at “the elite that is governing the United States, and not even all the elite.”

Of the American presidential candidates, Chavez said, “It would be a lie to say I have no preference.” But “I shouldn’t say anything that would be used against someone.”

Whoever is elected, Chavez wants to start immediate exchanges. “It is through talking that we can then come closer and share and compare our views and then reach an agreement.”

Chavez said he had been able to talk with President Clinton about many topics, “but after that everything broke to pieces.”

The Venezuelan president said he first met President Bush in Canada and told him, in English, “I want to be your friend.” But his efforts were rebuffed even when other heads of state served as intermediaries, including then-president of Mexico, Vicente Fox. “Even good friends could not get Bush to sit down and talk,” he said.

Sounding his frequent theme of a global war on poverty, Chavez said he wants to work with the United States and other countries on health, food production and education, “forgetting about ideology.”

The rare interview with American journalists took place in an ornate reception room at the presidential palace, Miraflores, where larger-than-life wall paintings of Venzuelan historical heroes, including Simon Bolivar, appeared to be gazing down on the group.

In contrast, Chavez wore a casual khaki jacket and red T-shirt, the signature color of what he terms his “Bolivarian revolution.”