Chávez to withdraw Venezuela from IACHR

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced that his country will withdraw "from the sadly famous Inter-American Commission on Human Rights" (IACHR) and called for the State Committee to evaluate this issue.

"As Head of State I will firstly request the State Council the analysis and the recomendation for the immediate withrawal from the sadly famous IACHR," Chávez stated during a nationwide tranmission.

"It's enough. How much longer are we going to have this Damocles sword?," he added.

"It's a mechanism that the United States uses against us," the president said referring to the Organization of American States (OAS).

Chávez told his Vice-President Elías Jaua to accelerate the installation of the State Committee, an organization that, according to the Constitution, will be in charge of recommending policies of national interes to the head of state, so it could offer a "firm recommendarion" within "the next days, not even weeks."