Angel Falls

CARACAS (AFP) – The world's tallest waterfall - Angel Falls in southern Venezuela

Should be stripped of the name by which it is widely known in favor of its indigenous one, President Hugo Chavez said

The falls, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were spotted by US pilot Jimmy Angel in 1937, bringing international attention to what has become one of Venezuela's top tourist attractions, though it is in remote Bolivar state.

"How could we accept this idea that the falls were discovered by a guy who came from the United States in a plane. If we do that, that would be like accepting that nobody was living here," Chavez mused on his weekly radio and television show, "Hello Mr President."

"Nobody should speak of Angel Falls any more," Chavez said. "That is ours, and was a long time before Angel ever got there."

After he came to power in 1999, the firebrand leftist leader changed his own country's name, from just plain Venezuela to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. That move was to pay homage to independence fighter Simon Bolivar

LaVenDer