Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says Russian Sukhoi fighters will be used to counter US spy planes

President Hugo Chavez says he is certain that the US aircraft that flew over Venezuela last Saturday was on a spy mission. US ambassador Patrick Duddy claimed that the incursion by an anti-submarine S3 Viking plane was due to an "airworthiness mistake" but Chavez emphasized his displeasure saying "last Saturday night a US war plane violated Venezuelan air space and flew over La Orchila ... which is banned even for civil aviation! We are certain that they are spying," Chavez said, attending a ceremony at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Fila de Mariches.

Chavez rejects the US government's version of the event in which the US State Department claims the aircraft was engaged in anti-narcotics operations. "They are testing our capacity to react ... this time, we allowe the plane to leave our airspace with a warning but we had Sukhoi fighter pilots were starting the engines to ensure the sovereignty of our territory," Chavez said.

"Afterwards, they said no, these are operations against drug trafficking. Lies! It is like saying that the US 4th Fleet comes here to fight drug trafficking. It is a war fleet, a threat not only against Venezuela, but against Latin American."

Chavez says he will take the issue to the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) summit starting Friday in Brasilia. "We are not going to fall into provocations ... neither will we let them violate our sovereignty! The US Empire and its lackeys whould beware. Watch out!"

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Venezuela is facing the most difficult period of its history with honest reporters crippled by sectarianism on top of rampant corruption within the administration and beyond, aided and abetted by criminal forces in the US and Spanish governments which cannot accept the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to decide over their own future.

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