Venezuela rejects visit of U.S. anti-drug chief _English_Xinhua
CARACAS, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) — The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has rejected a visit by John P. Walters, director of the U.S. National Drug Control Policy office, calling the proposed trip useless and ill-timed.

A ministry statement issued Sunday said the American anti-drug chief “would better use his time to control the flourishing drug trafficking and abuse in his own country.”

Venezuelans are displeased with the visit, it added.

The fight against drugs has actually seen “significant progress in Venezuela in the last few years, especially since the Bolivarian government ended the cooperation programs with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),” the statement said.

Venezuela ended cooperation with the DEA in 2006, accusing it of espionage.

The government of President Hugo Chavez reaffirmed Sunday that the DEA operated in an illegal way on Venezuelan territory, and openly conspired against the South American country’s democratic and constitutional order.

The U.S. government has been able to send thousands of soldiers to Iraq and to persecute Latin American countries, yet it was inefficient in the fight against drugs, the ministry statement said.

In his Sunday TV program “Hello President,” Chavez accused the DEA of collaborating with drug dealers.

Now if only US citizens had the power to reject visits by the DEA!