Alan Garcia, former and potential next President and opponent of the favoured candidate of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is “a thief”.

This latest outburst was apparently too much for Peru’s Foreign Ministry who has accused Chavez of “persistantly interfering in Peru’s affairs in breach of international law”.

This follows previous comments by President Hugo Chavez who openly backed ultra-left populist Ollanta Humala in the April 9th poll. Chavez said he will break off relations with Peru if Garcia wins.

Peru has recently signed a free-trade agreement with the United States than Humala (and Chavez) wants to scrap, and left-wing Garcia wants to renogotiate for a even better deal than the fairly decent one President Toledo negotiated. Chavez has been threatening and insulting those who deal with the US, to which Garcia has basically said “When you stop selling oil to the US and making billions of dollars, we’ll stop trading with the US too”.

Tags: garcia, hugo chavez, humala