Pig on the way to the slaughterhouse...

He comes to London on a private visit – as Downing Street says – and he has been termed a terrorist by Washington and yesterday in the Camden centre his supporters backed him for a new world order

As the Guardian reported, for three and a half hours yesterday Hugo Chavez could do no wrong.
The report added:

“An adoring audience of British left-wingers and the Latin American diaspora
cheered, clapped, sang and laughed as Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez denounced President Bush and capitalism and praised Ken Livingstone and the Pope.”

The Times said he attracted “an eclectic group of supporters ranging from elderly CND activists to young anti-globalisation campaigners, members of the Socialist Workers’ Party and even the the odd Palestinian protester”.

And he did not fail them. He said that socialism was rejuvenated in his country Venezuela and gaining strength everywhere else.

In this tour that has taken him to Austria and next to Libya, he also predicts an imminent end of the US empire, calling it the paper tiger and likening it to a pig on its way to the slaughterhouse.

He said:

“The final hours of empire have arrived. Now we have to say to the empire 'We are not afraid of you, you are a paper tiger'."

And as if to prove that point, Senor Chavez has offered to provide cheap heating oil for poor Europeans.