The Bush Plan on Cuba is a new aggression against Venezuela
• Communiqué from Venezuelan Foreign Ministry

CARACAS.—The U.S. report on Cuba is a "new aggression against Venezuela," whose name is quoted on nine occasions in it, according to the Venezuelan Foreign Minister.

"It is evident that the plan of the current U.S. government is to utilize the constant hostility and terrorism characteristic of its relations with the sister Cuban people in order to extend actions of that kind against our country as well," the minister noted in a communiqué quoted by EFE.

The note refers to the report drawn up by the so-called Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba that the U.S. State Department presented to the president of that country, George W. Bush.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry maintains that the insistent mention of Venezuela in the document seeks place it as a target of aggression which, it adds, roundly negates recent statements by William Brownfield, the UN ambassador in Caracas, that his country will not attack Venezuela.

The plan presented against the Cuban people is a plan that also takes in Venezuela, as is evident in this report," it notes.

The Foreign Ministry refuted the claim that Venezuela is "a negative influence and a destabilizing factor in the region," and stated that evidence of that is "the excellent relations it maintains with the overwhelming majority of the countries of the world and very particularly those of the continent.

It points out that the document gives "meaning to the brazen protection that the government of President Bush is granting to the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for killing 73 innocent people traveling from Caracas on a Cubana Aviation flight."

"The same thing can be said of terrorists that who attacked the diplomatic delegations of Spain and Colombia in our country, who have been absolved and protected by that government," it adds.

It affirms that the report "will not isolate Venezuela" or "suspend the cooperation programs" that exist as part of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), being promoted by the Venezuelan government.