Chavez threatens to throw out foreigners who criticise him

Hugo Chavez has served notice that foreign dignitaries visiting Venezuela will be deported if they presume publicly to criticise him as he attempts to transform the country into a single-party state dedicated to his vision of "21st century socialism".

"How long are we going to allow a person from any country in the world to come to our own house to say there's a dictatorship here, that the President is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?" Mr Chavez asked during his weekly television and radio program, Alo, Presidente, on Sunday.

President Chavez, who is preparing to submit next month to the Venezuelan Congress a radical overhaul of the country's constitution, did not name names. But the outburst was widely thought to have been prompted by critical comments by Manuel Espino, the president of Mexico's ruling, centre-right National Action Party, recently in Caracas.

His six-hour broadcast on Sunday contained numerous hints as to the content of the reform, which his opponents fear will hasten Venezuela's transition to a fully socialist state. With all the deputies in the congress allied with him, the changes are certain to be approved and will be tested in a referendum early next year.

Among them was a confirmation that Mr Chavez, who was re-elected in DEcember by a large margin for a third term of office, will seek term limits on all elected officials with the exception of himself. "If there's indefinite re-election here, it should only be for the president of the republic, not for governors and mayors," Mr Chavez confirmed. "They have governing methods that don't have anything to do with revolution and integration."

Since December, Mr Chavez has moved swiftly to advance what he has called his Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, named after Simon Bolivar, the hero of the South American independence movement. He has taken steps to nationalise the telecommunications and energy industries, notably forcing foreign oil exploration companies to accept state control of their operations.

He has also launched an ambitious effort to unite the leftist factions already supporting him into a single new party. Officials claim that as many as six million citizens have already declared allegiance to it. Mr Chavez insists that his aim is to shift control of the country's destiny to the citizenry and the poor. It is a strategy that is sure to play well with the masses. Hunger and poverty rates have been slashed under Mr Chavez's rule and provision of education and health care has been greatly improved