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CARACAS - Within hours of President Hugo Chavez's re-election on Monday, Washington made overtures to open dialogue with Venezuela - Chavez's answer was "No".
Asked if he would take up the US offer of engagement, the leftist leader, who because of Venezuela's oil wealth controls 12 per cent of US oil imports, recounted his first dealings with Washington to explain his answer.
Chavez said the top US diplomat for Latin America, Peter Romero, visited him after he was first elected in 1998 and shared a Venezuelan dish wrapped in banana-tree leaves.
Shortly after those pleasantries, the American telephoned and asked Chavez if he was set to make a trip to US antagonist Cuba.
"I hung up on him," Chavez said.
Eight years later, the communication line between Washington and Caracas remains dead -- and is unlikely to be resurrected.
The self-styled socialist revolutionary, who since 1998 has forged a close relationship with Cuba and its leader Fidel Castro, said he was "not very gentlemanly" because Romero tried to influence the "president of a free and independent country."
Now the US ambassador, an influential bipartisan American think-tank and some Venezuelan and foreign newspapers have advocated some engagement between the governments to take advantage of a typical post-vote honeymoon.
"My government has clearly indicated our disposition to talk," Ambassador William Brownfield said in an interview a leading Venezuelan daily put on its front page today.
The remarks from an ambassador who rarely meets Venezuelan officials were the latest in a series of generally conciliatory comments from Washington since Chavez's landslide win that sought to open the way to an improving bilateral tone.
"I doubt the US government is sincere. I doubt it, I really do. I have a lot of reasons to doubt it," Chavez said at a news conference on Wednesday.
He said his scepticism was drawn from the memory of a brief coup against him in 2002 when the United States was the only country in the hemisphere that failed to issue an immediate condemnation of the putsch.
Chavez is flush with oil money and has just won a stronger majority than in his past elections for socialist reforms that are rejected by Washington, such as increasing control over oil firms.
Far from being open to talks, Chavez said his re-election empowered him to seek an anti-US alliance of Latin American leftists.
If there were ever a time to keep a winning formula, it is after polling 63 per cent of the vote, Larry Birns of the US-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs said.
"Chavez's social message is antithesis to Washington," Birns said, noting both US Democrats and Republicans have given Chavez labels such as "thug" and "two-bit dictator."
"The two countries simply have an irreconcilable dispute," he added.
Chavez fills the communication void with Washington by baiting Bush with his insults such as Mr Danger, drunkard and, most notoriously, in a UN speech in September, Satan.
The Bush administration has countered by blocking some credit lines and arms sales as well as blacklisting Chavez for refusing to co-operate with the US anti-narcotics fight.
Washington has tussled with Chavez over everything from Opec pricing to free trade to Iran's nuclear programs and says he is a threat to regional stability.
But with the No 1 energy consumer needing to buy Venezuelan oil, Chavez has shown little appetite for improving ties, especially because he is popular for standing up against what he says is US imperialist interference.
His accusations that Bush has plans to invade -- denied by Washington -- resonate with his supporters, particularly among the majority poor.
A poll asked Venezuelans last month if the United States is a military threat to the Opec nation. A majority said, "Yes."
- REUTERS
