Capitalism killed the Martians, suggests Hugo Chavez

Red Planet was insufficiently red, evidently

Venezuelan supremo Hugo Chavez has provocatively suggested that Martian civilisation may have been wiped out by the arrival of capitalism.

Speaking yesterday to mark World Water Day, el prez offered: "I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilisation on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet."

Remarkably, Chavez didn't accuse the United States and its allies of having a hand in the Red Planet's downfall, but did caution that the worship of Mammon and the rape of Mother Earth could condemn humanity to the same fate.

The would-be president for life, whose country exports 1 million barrels of oil per day, warned: "Careful! Here on planet Earth where hundreds of years ago or less there were great forests, now there are deserts. Where there were rivers, there are deserts."

According to Reuters, the president resisted the temptation to blame globalisation for the eventual heat death of the universe, and returned to more traditional Chavezesque discourse when he said "the West's attacks on Libya were about water and oil reserves". ®