Chavez puppet sparks protests

A puppet show at the US ambassador's residence in Caracas has strained Venezuela's already tense relationship with Washington.

A comedian brandishing a rubber-lipped effigy of Venezuela's leftwing president, Hugo Chavez, entertained an audience of Venezuelan newspaper proprietors and television moguls at an event hosted by the American ambassador, Charles Shapiro, last week.

Venezuela's vice-president, Jose Vicente Rangel, said the "grotesque" performance contravened the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations.

He said he did not know whether it was a "calculated provocation" or an example of Mr Shapiro's "personal irresponsibility".

The government is considering what diplomatic action to take, while the Venezuelan parliament has announced it is sending a delegation to make a formal complaint to the US Senate and the Organisation of American States.

The leader of parliament, Francisco Ameliach, described the performance as "a total lack of respect for the Venezuelan Republic".

The US embassy admitted in a statement that the act was "in bad taste, because of its political content. We regret that some people were offended. The embassy does not know in advance nor does it censor what its guests are going to say."

Bilateral relations have been cool since Washington gave official recognition to a short-lived government which replaced Mr Chavez for 48 hours during a bungled coup attempt in April 2002.

Venezuela is the fourth largest supplier of oil to America and the US state department is uneasy about Mr Chavez's nationalist rhetoric and overt friendship with Cuba's Fidel Castro.

A journalist who was a guest at the embassy function, Laura Weffer, said the performance, which featured "fart jokes" and impersonations of Mr Chavez, did not go down well with the Venezuelan audience.