Chavez-led ALBA warns against NATO action in Syria

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Latin America’s leftist ALBA  bloc of nations yesterday called NATO’s actions in Libya a  “dangerous precedent” and warned against a similar campaign in  Syria, where protesters pleaded for international protection.
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, a prominent voice in the  bloc, often warns of possible U.S. aggression against his  oil-rich country. He has pointed to the months-long NATO  campaign in Libya as an example of “imperialist” aggression.
After meeting in Caracas, ALBA foreign ministers issued a  statement saying the bloc “expresses its most urgent alarm over  the threat that this same process could be repeated against  Syria, taking advantage of the country’s political problems.”
Taking its inspiration from South American independence  hero Simon Bolivar, the bloc’s full name is the “Bolivarian  Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.”
It was born in 2004 as an initiative of Chavez and Cuba’s  Fidel Castro, both critics of U.S. “hegemonic” influence.
Pro-democracy protesters in Syria meanwhile on Friday  called for international protection after six months of bloody  rebellion.
Syria’s government has responded to the protests, inspired  by Arab popular uprisings that have toppled three autocratic  leaders in North Africa this year, with military assaults in  which the United Nations says 2,200 people have died.
In Libya, fighters launched assaults on the final bastions  of Muammar Gaddafi loyalists on Friday, with battles reported  inside the holdout town of Bani Walid and near the ousted  ruler’s home town of Sirte.
Though Venezuela and Cuba are the loudest voices in ALBA,  the group also comprises Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and the  Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and St.  Vincent and the Grenadines.
“The ministers agree to promote a discussion in the United  Nations General Assembly about the dangerous precedent that has  been set in Libya,” their statement said.
Chavez also said Washington’s blacklisting of four of his  officials this week for alleged links to drug-running Colombian  rebels was a sign that Washington had Venezuela in its sights.
Highly sensitive over persistent allegations of  collaboration with guerrillas in neighboring Colombia, the  Chavez government has reacted with fury at the U.S. Treasury  Department’s measures against the four men.
“Let them present just one bit of proof against us,” Chavez  said, in the latest flare-up between the ideologically-opposed  nations who nevertheless maintain a massive oil trade.