Western Hemisphere
Alí Rodríguez Araque, the vice-president of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) for the Andean region of the country, said they do not want an armed conflict with the United States or Colombia, but added that for reasons of "security and sovereignty" they had "a duty" to denounce the installation of US military bases in Colombia.

Rodríguez Araque, who is also the Minister of Finance, stressed that the first strategy to ignite a conflict between Venezuela and Colombia has been "a brutal and massive campaign of misleading information about the events taking place in Venezuela, which is enthusiastically echoed by a widely known group of news outlets. Two drastic events illustrate what we are saying, namely the coup d'etat of April 2002 and the so-called oil strike against the Venezuelan society."

He dismissed the claims that the US military bases in Colombia are intended to fight terrorism or drug traffic. "What is the purpose of the military forces in any country? Is it fighting against drug traffic? Did not they have Plan Colombia? Does not the (the installation of the US military bases in Colombia) amounts to acknowledge a resounding failure of such plan?"

"We want no armed conflict with the United States, let alone with Colombia. Nobody wins at war, except for the so-called dogs of war. Besides that, everything else are losses, in any country. We have a duty, for the national sovereignty, to say these things."