{{Venezuela brushed off criticism from U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday and maintained its accusation that an American detainee in Caracas is a spy pretending to be a filmmaker.}}<\/p>\n
During his visit to Latin America, Obama said on Saturday the allegations against Tim Tracy, 35, were “ridiculous.”<\/p>\n
But Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres insisted that intelligence agents tracking Tracy since late 2012 had uncovered ample evidence he was plotting with militant anti-government factions to destabilize Venezuela with violence.<\/p>\n
“When you want to do intelligence work in another country, all those big powers who do this type of spying, they often use the facade of a filmmaker, documentary-maker, photographer or journalist,” he told state TV.<\/p>\n
“Because with that facade, they can go anywhere, penetrate any place.”<\/p>\n
Obama’s comments about Tracy, and others questioning socialist leader Nicolas Maduro’s democratic credentials after last month’s disputed presidential vote, have infuriated the government and revived accusations of “imperialist meddling.”<\/p>\n
Late on Saturday, Maduro’s government issued a formal protest note. In a remark reminiscent of his mentor and late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s tirades against U.S. leaders, Maduro even labeled Obama “the grand chief of devils.”<\/p>\n
Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver who rose to be Chavez’s foreign minister and vice president, has alternately railed against Washington in the same terms as Chavez and fanned prospects of a rapprochement by offering dialogue.<\/p>\n
“I think he actually wants to improve relations with the North, but because he’s vulnerable domestically right now, he needs to revive the old blood-and-thunder rhetoric to shore up support,” said a Western diplomat in Caracas.<\/p>\n
The Tracy case is a crucial test of Maduro’s intentions toward a country that remains the main export market for the OPEC member’s oil despite years of political hostility.<\/p>\n
{reuters}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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