UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Venezuela's outspoken President Hugo Chavez has called US president George W. Bush "the devil", "a liar" and a "tyrant" in a scathing attack before the UN General Assembly.
"Yesterday the devil came here and this place still smells of sulphur," Chavez said, referring to Bush's speech at the assembly on Tuesday.
"He came here talking as if he were the owner of the world."
Chavez launched a virulent attack on what he called US "hegemony" and renewed calls for drastic reform of the
United Nations to reduce the US influence.
In a warmly applauded speech in which he quoted at different times left-wing US intellectual Noam Chomsky, Greek philosopher Aristotle and film director Alfred Hitchcock, Chavez also called Bush "a liar" and "a tyrant".
"We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated," he told the assembly.
US "imperialism", he added, was "a threat to the survival of the human race."
Bush promoted "a false democracy of the elite" and a "democracy of bombs", he declared.
The left-wing Venezuelan president is a frequent critic of the US administration which he accuses of backing a plot to overthrow him.
Washington considers Chavez, a close ally of communist Cuba, to be a destabilizing influence in Latin America. But the United States is a major consumer of Venezuelan oil.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez displays author Noam Chomsky's book: 'Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance' as Chavez addresses the 61st General Assembly of the United Nations at United Nations headquarters in New York September 20, 2006. (Ray Stubblebine/Reuters)
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