Chavez: Return Falklands to Argentina

Already happily playing the role of thorn in the side of the U.S., Hugo Chavez has decided to tweak the Brits as well.

Venezuela’s president has called on Tony Blair to return the Falkland Islands to Argentina, accusing the Prime Minister of being a “pawn” of Washington.

“We have to remember the Malvinas [the Argentine name for the islands]; how they were taken away from the Argentines. Mr Blair, return the Malvinas to Argentina,” said president Hugo Chavez.

The socialist leader has long been the most vocal critic of US president George Bush, but Mr Blair was added to his list of “imperialists” after the Prime Minister said in parliament on Wednesday that if Mr Chavez wanted to be respected, he “should abide by the rules of the international community”.

He responded: “Mr Tony Blair, you have no moral right to tell anyone to respect international laws, as you have shown no respect for them, aligning yourself with ‘Mr Danger’ [president Bush] and trampling on the people of Iraq. Do you think we still live in the times of the British Empire or colonialism?”

The Argentine president, Nestor Kirchner, has vowed that the islands will one day be part of Argentina, but has not aggressively pursued the issue since taking power in 2003.

That lack of Argentinian aggression is certainly based upon a brief but bloody lesson learned almost 24 years ago, a lesson that shows that Chavez’s comments are assuredly going to fall on deaf British ears.