Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is again accusing the Netherlands of being involved in plans to attack his country.
 

By Humberto Márquez in Caracas

He says the Netherlands is offering Curaçao, which lies close to the Venezuelan coast, as a base for US planes. He alleges that American planes take off regularly from the island to spy on Venezuela.

 
F-16 fighter planes
This is the fifth time Mr Chávez has made accusations against the Netherlands. According to him, the latest incident was a provocation by a coastal patrol plane, which entered Venezuelan airspace twice around midday on Friday. As a result, Venezuela was forced to dispatch two F-16 fighter planes in pursuit. Mr Chávez said:

 
"We are accusing the governments of the United States and the Netherlands of carrying out provocative action, in order to find an excuse to attack Venezuela. The plane flew in our airspace for 15 minutes at first, then it disappeared and returned to fly around for another 19 minutes and eventually left for Curaçao."

A few hours later, the US Defense Department denied that a plane had violated Venezuelan airspace under an American flag.

 
Old photo
Venezuela has not published any hard proof of the reported violations of its airspace. The photo of an American P-3 Orion reconnaissance plane shown on Venezuelan television turned out to be one that had been circulating on the Internet for years.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s defence specialist Hans de Vreij says there is no real reason for flights above Venezuela itself. US intelligence has plenty of other ways of gathering militarily relevant information. For instance, there are the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellites and the vast eavesdropping capabilities of the National Security Agency (NSA).

 
Caracas already accused the Netherlands a few weeks ago of allowing the US to use its Caribbean islands for hostile activities. Mr Chávez also called the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao "colonial islands" and said he hoped they would one day become independent republics.

 
Economic misery
The latest accusations coincide with the announcement that Venezuela plans to devalue its currency, the bolívar. The devaluation will be 20 percent for the import of essential goods such as food and medicines, for state spending abroad and for benefits for pensioners and students living abroad.
 
However, the value of the bolívar has halved for all other costs which require foreign currency, such as vehicles, parts, electric and electronic products, holidays and the import of clothing, shoes and alcohol, which will result in high inflation.

 
External enemy
The population of Venezuela is becoming more and more dissatisfied about the increasing power shortages. The introduction of the so-called "revolutionary cuts" are the result of drought and falling income from oil.

 
Maria Teresa Romero, professor of International Studies at the Central University of Venezuela, says she thinks President Chávez's continued accusations against the Netherlands are a distraction to the domestic problems:

 
"I think these attacks by President Chávez on the Netherlands are mainly aimed at the United States. In his strategy to distract Venezuelans from the poor social and economic situation in their country, he always looks for an outside enemy, and the biggest external enemy is Washington. By attacking the Netherlands, he is keeping up the confrontation with America."

 
Impact
Meanwhile thousands of Venezuelans have spent recent days nervously buying electrical gadgets and other goods which are expected to increase sharply in price as a result of the devaluation. On Monday the country woke up to a much more expensive dollar and the uncertainty about the impact of this measure for the coming months. 2010 is after all an election year, with parliamentary elections due in September.

(RNW translation: nc)