The Honduran Congress urged Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to demand an apology from his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez for offending in public and calling Tegucigalpa Archbishop Oscar Andrés Rodríguez “parrot, imperialist clown.”
The petition was approved by almost all of 128 deputies, except for four representatives of leftwing political Partido Unificación Democrática.
“We urge the president, who constitutionally responsible for the foreign policy, to demand an apology from Mr. Chávez for his insult on the cardinal and the Honduran people,” stated the initiative made Tuesday night by Deputy Juan Hernández, of opposition Partido Nacional, AP quoted.
“Zelaya, who commemorated recently with Chávez the 28th anniversary of the triumph of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, is bound to ask his Venezuelan counterpart to retract his comments,” said Hernández.
Last week, in Salvador, Cardinal Rodríguez stated that Chávez “feels like a god and thinks he has the right to abuse other people with an arrogance that has been seen in other dictators over history and who are remembered as tyrants.”
On Monday, Chávez said during a ceremony held in a Caracas theater, “another empire’s parrot just showed up; this time in Cardinal clothes; that is, another imperialist clown.”
