Spain's King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to "shut up" during closing speeches by leaders from the Latin world and brought the Ibero-American summit to an acrimonious end on Saturday.
"Why don't you shut up?" the king shouted at Chavez, pointing a finger at the president when he tried to interrupt a speech by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Zapatero was in the middle of a speech at the summit of mostly leftist leaders from Latin America, Portugal, Spain and Andorra, and was criticizing Chavez for calling former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a fascist.
Chavez, a leading leftist foe of Washington, also attacked Spanish businessman Gerardo Diaz Ferran earlier in the week after he questioned the safety of foreign investments in Venezuela.
Chavez, a former soldier, is well-known for fiery speeches - often aimed at the administration of US President George W. Bush.
In the past, he has called Bush a "donkey," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice an "illiterate" and former Mexican President Vicente Fox a "lapdog of imperialism."
Referring to Aznar on Friday, Chavez said, "That former Spanish president ... was a true fascist, a true fascist".
The Spanish delegation was not impressed. "I want to express to you President Hugo Chavez that in a forum where there are democratic governments ... one of the essential principles is respect," Zapatero said sternly, drawing applause from some of the other heads of state.
But never one to lie down, Chavez said later the Spanish had come out of the verbal spat looking bad after the king lost his composure.
"The one who looked bad there was the one who lost control, who told us to shut up as if we were still subjects from the 17th, 18th centuries," he told reporters.
Chavez, who has used his country's oil wealth to spread his self-styled socialist revolution, made his mark on the three-day summit from the start, announcing his arrival earlier in the week with defiant lyrics from a Mexican ballad.
While most heads of state were due to leave Chile on Saturday, Chavez joined some of South America's most left-leaning leaders at a rally of about 3,000 people gathered for a "People's Summit" in a Santiago stadium.
He interrupted his speech at the rally to call Cuba's Fidel Castro, who he considers his mentor.
Chavez paraphrased a message from the ailing leader and political mentor congratulating Chileans who fought against former dictator Augusto Pinochet.
"Well Fidel, what a shame that we don't have speakerphone on this mobile, the people wanted to hear you," said Chavez, dressed in a red T-shirt.
Also at the rally were Bolivia's Evo Morales, Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega.
The 19 leaders at the summit were nearly all leftists and the gathering was mostly friendly, although tension flared between neighbors Argentina and Uruguay over a controversial pulp mill along a border river.
Uruguay granted a long-awaited start-up permit to a Finnish group for the pulp mill on Thursday, drawing swift criticism from Argentina and deepening a long-running dispute.
The official theme of the summit was social cohesion, but many of the region's top leaders took advantage of the event to hold bilateral meetings on energy.
Latin American economies have expanded rapidly in recent years, putting pressure on energy supplies due to rising consumer demand and factory output in countries such as Chile and resurgent neighbor Argentina.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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