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President Hugo Chavez urged Venezuelan parents not to dress their children in costumes for Halloween, calling it a U.S. custom that has no place in the South American country's cultural traditions.

Speaking during his weekly radio and television show Sunday, Chavez called Halloween a "gringa," or North American, custom.

"Families go and begin to disguise their children as witches," Chavez said. "That is contrary to our ways."

Chavez said he was urging Venezuelans to reflect on the subject. In recent years it has become common to see Venezuelan parents holding parties for children dressed as ghouls, animals and witches.

In one odd incident a week ago, authorities found more than a dozen jack-o'-lanterns left in spots around Caracas bearing anti-government messages and what appeared to be bomb-like fuses. Police and firefighters removed the pumpkins with caution, though the jack-o'-lanterns reportedly bore messages saying they were not explosives.

Paper skeletons bearing anti-Chavez messages also have appeared in spots across Caracas recently, and government officials have blamed sectors of the opposition with aiming to create chaos.

Chavez did not refer to those incidents in his comments on Halloween. But he urged parents to think about whether it was appropriate to dress up their children as part of a foreign custom, calling it "the game of terror."

He said that is part of the U.S. culture -- "terrorism, putting fear into other nations, putting fear into their own people."

Chavez, a tough-talking nationalist, is a fierce critic of President Bush who blames Washington for "imperialist" actions in countries from Iraq to Haiti.

Chavez says that he is leading a socialist "revolution" to help the country's poor, and that it should include emphasizing Venezuelan cultural traditions over U.S. customs that have been adopted in various countries and reinforced by images of American life on television and in Hollywood movies.

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