Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday blamed his US counterpart George W. Bush for the crisis in Bolivia, saying Bush's "poisoned medicine" of free-market democracy has been rejected by Latin America.

Chavez said the protests in the Andean nation were sparked by popular opposition to capitalist free-trade policies advocated by Bush.

He condemned as "poisoned medicine" Bush's speech to the Organization of American States last week, in which he recommended a mix of representative democracy, integration of world markets and individual freedoms.

"That is what is killing the peoples of Latin America ... This is the path of destabilization, of violence, of war between brothers," Chavez said in a "Hello President" weekly television and radio program.

Calling Bush "Mr. Danger," Chavez added, "We, the people of Latin America are saying 'No Sir, Mr. Danger,' your poisoned medicine has failed."

Also in the broadcast, Chavez said Venezuela will take the United States to an international court if it does not extradite an exile with Cuban origin wanted by Caracas for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner.

Chavez said the US authorities had no excuse not to grant the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles, who was indicted in Venezuela in the 1970s for involvement in the 1976 terrorist attack on a Cubana de Aviacion airliner which killed 73.

Posada, with Venezuelan citizenship, escaped from prison in 1985. He was arrested in Miami, southern US, in mid May, for having entered the US territory illegally.

Source: Xinhua