[R-G] Sales surge for Chavez gift to Obama

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.theage.com.au/world/sales-surge-for-chavez-gift-to-obama-20090419-abe3.html

Sales surge for Chavez gift to Obama

     * Matthew Walter, Port Of Spain
     * April 20, 2009


US President Barack Obama is given a copy of 'Open Veins of Latin  
America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent' by Venezuela's  
Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. gives US President Barack Obama a copy of  
'Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a  
Continent'.

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has vowed to seek closer ties with  
the US and is considering taking steps to send an ambassador to  
Washington after the countries expelled each others' envoys last year.

Mr Chavez said he spoke with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,  
marking a change from his approach to diplomacy with the  
administration of George Bush, whom Mr Chavez once likened to the devil.
Obama gets friendly with Chavez

US President receives a gift from one of the United States' fiercest  
critics, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

"I feel great optimism, and the best goodwill to move forward," Mr  
Chavez said after a meeting between US President Barack Obama and  
presidents from the Union of South American Nations in Port of Spain,  
Trinidad and Tobago.

"I have no doubt that there will be, going forward, greater closeness."

Acting State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Mr Chavez had  
approached Mrs Clinton at the meeting and they discussed returning  
ambassadors to their respective posts in Caracas and Washington.

"This is a positive development that will help advance US interests,  
and the State Department will now work to further this shared goal,"  
Mr Wood said.

Venezuela, the fourth-biggest foreign supplier of crude oil to the US,  
has repeatedly accused Americans of aiding the political opposition to  
Mr Chavez, a former paratrooper.

In 2002, Mr Chavez charged the Central Intelligence Agency with  
masterminding a brief coup against him.

Mr Chavez, who last month called Mr Obama an "ignoramus" when it comes  
to Latin America, gave Mr Obama a copy of Uruguayan historian Eduardo  
Galeano's book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the  
Pillage of a Continent.

When asked by reporters at the Fifth Summit of the Americas whether he  
planned to read the book, Mr Obama, who doesn't speak Spanish, joked:  
"I thought it was one of Chavez's. I was going to give him one of mine."

In an astounding jump, Open Veins of Latin America, first published in  
1971, has since shot from the 54,295 spot on Amazon.com to become the  
online retailer's No. 2 selling title.

The English hardcover edition is listed as out of print. Galeano's  
book documents how foreign interests have dominated and afflicted  
Latin America since the Spanish conquest. It's a favourite among  
leftists.

Mr Chavez regularly accused former president Bush of trying to  
destabilise his Government, and in a 2006 speech to the United Nations  
called him "the devil". In September, Mr Chavez expelled US ambassador  
Patrick Duddy to show solidarity with Bolivia, which had also kicked  
out its US envoy.

Mr Obama said he recognised that it would take time to improve  
relations with Latin America, which he said felt neglected by the Bush  
administration.

Other Latin American critics of the US were less enthusiastic about  
the nation's new President.

Bolivia's Evo Morales, a former coca grower who has clashed with the  
US since taking office in 2006, said "policies of conspiracy" had not  
changed under Mr Obama.

"If there is a real change, a change in economic policy, and if there  
are relations based on mutual respect, it will be better," Mr Morales  
said. "We can't go back to the past."

Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega two days ago greeted Mr Obama with a 50- 
minute speech that included harangues about "Yankee troops" and the  
1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Mr Ortega said Mr Obama wasn't responsible  
for President John Kennedy's misadventure.

"I'm grateful that President Ortega didn't blame me for things that  
happened when I was three months old," Mr Obama said.

Agencies