CARACAS (UPI) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he gave the military orders to shoot down any U.S. unmanned aircraft in his country's airspace.

Chavez said using a drone constituted “an act of war” and complained of the United States' allegedly using Columbia as a staging area, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported Monday.
“A few days ago, at midnight, one of their aircraft without a crew penetrated up to the Fuerte Mara (in a western border state). The soldiers saw it; they called the officer of the guard, he came, but it left, the plane disappeared,” Chavez said during Sunday's broadcast of his show, “Alo Presidente.” “Last night, I ordered: Any little aircraft of those that (appears), bring it down.”
Last week, Chavez accused The Netherlands of working with the United States on a plan to attack Venezuela, the newspaper said. He said the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curacao “have permitted the installation of U.S. military teams on their territory, placing Venezuela in the sights of the Americans.”
He also has accused Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of “placing military units on the border, believing that that will frighten us” and inserting intelligence agents and paramilitary forces in Venezuela.
Photo: Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez gestures during the inauguration of the new state-run bank Banco Bicentenario at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Monday, Dec. 21, 2009. (AP photo)
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