Venezuela's Chavez denies plans to finance leftist party in El Salvador

President Hugo Chavez has rejected a U.S. allegation that Venezuela plans to send campaign money to El Salvador's main leftist party, calling it a lie.

Chavez scoffed at accusations by U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell that his government plans to help finance the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, saying that sending money was unnecessary because the FMLN is a "solid" and "well-organized" party with popular support.

"It's a lie. We don't need to do that, and they don't need it," Chavez said.

El Salvador's U.S.-backed President Tony Saca asked his diplomats Thursday to investigate McConnell's allegations. McConnell said this week that Chavez was expected to "provide generous campaign funding" to the FMLN to help the opposition party win the presidency next year.

Saca warned Venezuela not to meddle in El Salvador's presidential race, telling CNN en Espanol that such actions would constitute "a clear intervention in the internal affairs of my country."

Since taking office in 1999, Chavez has sent billions of dollars (euros) in aid and energy funding to governments throughout Latin America. But the self-proclaimed revolutionary denies that financing from oil-rich Venezuela has been intended for political organizations.

It's the U.S. government — not Venezuela — that constantly meddles in the domestic affairs of its Latin American neighbors by using the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to undermine leftist governments in the region, Chavez said.

Chavez noted that Alex van Schaick — a Fulbright scholar currently working in Bolivia — said this week that a U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia's capital of La Paz asked him to keep tabs on Venezuelan and Cuban workers in Bolivia.

"The United States had to admit to espionage," Chavez said.

After Van Schaick revealed that he was asked to monitor Venezuelan and Cuban workers, the U.S. Embassy in La Paz issued a statement saying that "some routine information sessions about security given to certain American citizens included incorrect information."

"As soon as this was brought to our attention, appropriate measures were taken to assure that these errors would not be repeated," the statement said.

U.S. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said in Washington that any such request would have been a mistake.

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