Venezuela banned from US arms buys

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is banning arms sales from the United States to Venezuela, America's fifth-largest source for oil imports, because of what it says is a lack of support by President Hugo Chavez's government for counterterrorism activities.

The US action signals a further deterioration in relations with Venezuela, though Chavez shrugged it off and said he did not plan retaliation. The United States sold Venezuela less than $34 million worth of military equipment last year, mostly for spare parts for cargo planes.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday the United States was concerned about Venezuela's close relations with Iran and Cuba, both of which are on the department's list of state sponsors of terror.

''If you have a reasonable or rational expectation that somehow information that you share with them might make its way to just the groups that you're trying to combat, that's certainly negative," McCormack said.

He said the United States is also concerned about Venezuela's ties with two leftist guerrilla groups in Colombia: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the National Liberation Army, or ELN. Both have been designated foreign terrorist organizations by the United States.

Chavez, on a visit to London, dismissed the US move as irrelevant. ''This doesn't matter to us at all," he said.

Labeling the United States an ''irrational empire," Chavez said it has a ''great capacity to do harm to the countries of the world." Chavez previously has called President Bush a terrorist and has accused the United States of plotting to overthrow him.

Earlier, at a London news conference, Chavez rejected US claims that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing a nuclear bomb. ''I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right . . . to prohibit that a country have nuclear energy," he said.

The arms sale ban affects US sales and licensing for the export of defense articles and services to Venezuela, including the transfer of defense items, said Darla Jordan, a State Department spokeswoman.

State Department figures show Venezuelan purchases of US defense equipment last year came to $33.9 million, of which $30.5 million was for C-130 cargo plane spare parts.

John Pike, director of the defense think tank globalsecurity.org of Alexandria, Va., said the primary impact of the new US ban would be in cutting off spare parts for Venezuela's American-made aircraft, which include F-5 Freedom Fighters, F-16 Falcons, cargo planes and helicopters.

Venezuela's air force has 277 aircraft, of which 177 are US-made, he said. There also are significant numbers of US-made aircraft in Venezuela's army and navy, he said, adding that navy aircraft are almost entirely US-made.

''It would ground a significant fraction of their air force," Pike said.

The State Department has expressed concern in the past about what it contends is an arms buildup by Venezuela, including the purchase of 100,000 rifles from Russia.

The department took note yesterday of Venezuela's ''multibillion-dollar arms acquisition program."

Venezuela has accused the United States of pursuing a double standard on the terrorism issue. It points to the US refusal to extradite Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted in Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger plane.

Posada, an anti-Castro Cuban, has denied involvement in the bombing, which killed 73 people. He has been detained for the past year in Texas for illegally entering the country.