Diplomatic Street Theater
I seems that the little "ruckus" that supposedly occurred at Kennedy Airport involving the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, may have been substantially less that Hugo Chavez made it out to be. All the reports I read over the weekend about this incident quoted extensively from Chavez and the FM. John Bolton today told reporters that what they had been told was not at all what happened.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro was detained for a short time at John F. Kennedy airport on his way home after attending the U.N. General Assembly, where President Hugo Chavez called President Bush "the devil."
Speaking on Venezuelan television, Maduro denounced the U.S. government for "violating international law," and a U.S. State Department spokesman apologized on Saturday.
But U.S. envoy John Bolton made no apologies on Monday when asked about the detention: "There was no incident at the airport. This was Venezuelan street theater," he told reporters.
"He did not request the courtesies we would have extended to get him through the airport," Bolton said.
"He purchased his ticket at a time and in a manner and with funding such that he was asked to go to secondary screening and he objected to that, and the first thing he did was call the press and speak to them in Spanish."
Something about the whole incident as reported earlier sounded wrong since authorities at Kennedy are very well versed in handling diplomats. This does sound like a setup and a big act.
World news | Gaius Monday, 25 September , 2006
By Dan, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 10:39 am
What it sounds like is a case of “He said, he said”. But since John Bolton is American, he’s definitely better.