Venezuela's Chavez denounces military action in Libya

CARACAS (Reuters) - Western military action in Libya is aimed at seizing the North African country's oil reserves, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday.

France said allied warplanes have launched operations to stop Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces attacking the rebel-held city of Benghazi.

Venezuela's socialist leader is the most vocal critic of the United States in Latin America and an ally of Gaddafi.

"They want to seize Libya's oil and they care nothing about the lives of the Libyan people," Chavez said on state TV, wearing a red hard-hat after touring a road building project in a poor neighborhood of Caracas.

"These are the men of war ... what irresponsibility. Behind this is the hand of the United States and its European allies, instead of taking the path that we have modestly proposed."

Chavez announced a vague peace plan this month for Libya and said his friend Gaddafi supported foreign mediation. Both Chavez and Gaddafi are military men who cast themselves as anti-imperialist revolutionaries.

Chavez's plan fizzled after Gaddafi's son, Saif al Islam, said they did not need help from friends in the South American oil exporting nation who lived very far away and had "no idea" about Libya.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the military operations by France, Britain, the United States and Canada, and backed by Arab nations, would continue unless the Libyan leader's forces cease fire.

Chavez denounced the operations as a "pulverization" of international law and as a dangerous and unwarranted intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.

"Another imposition of the warmongering policies of the Imperial Yankee and its allies is unfortunate, and it is unfortunate that the United Nations endorses the war, in contravention of its fundamental principles," Chavez said.

"We know what is going to happen: bombs, bombs, war, more suffering for the people ... this is the hand of capitalism."

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago, editing by Christopher Wilson)