Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's decision to invite one of Fidel Castro's leading henchman, Ramiro Valdés, to Caracas is an act of "utter desperation," according to US diplomat Roger Noriega.

"Chavez's decision to invite one of Fidel Castro's principal henchman, Ramiro Valdés, to Caracas to help salvage his regime is an act of utter desperation. One hopes that the world is paying attention, because there are few things more dangerous than a desperate dictator," writes Ambassador Noriega in his article "Hugo Chávez, desperate and dangerous," published on the website http://theamericano.com.

According to Noriega, Chávez's invitation to Valdés for helping the Venezuelan government address the ongoing electricity shortage is like "inviting Jack 'Dr. Death' Kevorkian, to manage a hospice."

"Chávez must know that he's insulting Venezuelans' intelligence and nationalism with the flimsy the notorious foreigner has been invited to tinker with a power shortage that will take decades to fix," he argues.

Chávez had little choice but to turn to a world-class thug (the Cubans would say "esbirro") like Valdés to run roughshod over the Venezuelan military at a time when Chávez is in very serious trouble," adds the diplomat.

Noriega explains in his article published on http://theamericano.com that the purpose of Valdés and other Cubans would to take formal command of the Venezuelan State's internal security apparatus. "That Chávez would press forward with Valdés' apparent rescue mission shows that he does not trust his closest advisors in the face of mounting public dissatisfaction with his regime," Noriega claims.

The diplomat stresses that thousands of Cuban advisors have been in Venezuela for years. "Not only does Castro's bankrupt state depend on Venezuelan charity, the Cuban mentors are amassing small personal fortunes as they skim their share of Chavista corruption."

Chávez's "clear intention since taking power 11 years ago was to lay waste to a proud nation -leaving his opposition without the means to resist. His predicament today is that he has put the country in such a steep dive that he does not have the time or talent to prevent the country from crashing," adds Noriega.

According to Noriega, Chávez controls 94 percent of the media in Venezuela. The diplomat stresses that Chávez has recently responded to an economic crisis "by adopting an ill-conceived devaluation that doctors the government's books but sows chaos in the market place, drives up already rampant inflation, and suffocates production."