BBC:
Last week, [Colombia’s defense minister Gabriel Silva] released a statement accusing Venezuela of failing to tackle international drug routes.
He said there was “almost a free traffic” of flights loaded with drugs from Venezuelan territory.
The bad feeling between the Venezuelan and the Colombian governments has been kept under control by a mutual silence for several weeks now, but it only takes a small event for it to erupt into insults again.
In this instance, the Colombian defence minister’s comments were more than enough.
On his Alo Presidente programme, Mr Chavez gave a typically damning response.
“The Colombian defence minister? I think he’s mentally retarded,” he said.
He added that the only explanation for his behaviour was that he was “following instructions from the empire”, referring to the US.