Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says his US counterpart is clueless about the 'reality of Latin America', urging him to 'read and study'. Chavez described Barack Obama as a 'poor ignoramus' during a televised national address on Sunday after saying that the US president had accused him of 'exporting terrorism'.
"He goes and accuses me of exporting terrorism: the least I can say is that he's a poor ignoramus; he should read and study a little to understand reality," Chavez said.
The socialist president was referring to Obama's January interview with Spanish-language US network Univision, during which he accused Chavez of exporting terrorist activities, supporting Colombian guerrillas and hindering progress in Latin America.
"Such ignorance," Chavez said adding that "the real obstacle has been the empire that he today presides over, which has exported terrorism for nearly 200 years, has launched atomic bombs on innocent cities, has bombarded, invaded and issued orders to kill whenever they have taken the notion."
Chavez's remarks come after a Thursday meeting with US Democratic congressman William Delahunt, who is testing the water for a normalization of relations between the two countries.
The already tense relations between Caracas and Washington further strained in September when Chavez expelled the US ambassador in a dispute over US activities in Bolivia, which also expelled its US ambassador.
Chavez, who had repeatedly expressed his indifference towards Obama, is expected to meet face-to-face with the US president for the first time at a summit of leaders from across the Americas in April in Trinidad.