CARACAS, Friday April 07, 2006 | Update
An alleged official of the Metropolitan Mayoralty asked US
Ambassador William Browfield to leave a ceremony of donations
for a junior baseball team in Coche, a development located
in southwestern Caracas.
The diplomat was making a donation for a team backed by the
Baltimore Orioles at Miranda Sports Center, when a group of
people refused his participation, calling him persona non
grata.
A presumed security chief of the Metropolitan Mayoralty showed
up and argued that the ambassador was not authorized to stay
there.
The National Guard went to the premises to safeguard Brownfield
and cleared the exits of Coche market to help the diplomat
leave the area.
However, a group of 20 motorcyclists chased the diplomatic
caravan across the Valle-Coche highway in an attempt at harassment.
04:17 PM. Western Hemisphere. "Damned empire; I curse you one thousand times; some day you will be finished off and wrecked. I curse you one thousand times, empire." This is the least that President Hugo Chávez has uttered to refer to the US government. In urging the Bolivarian Armed Forces to prepare for war, he said that a US raid on Venezuela through Colombia would trigger and spread over the region "the 100-year war."