U.S. Denies Push For Venezuela Coup
The Bush administration, which appeared to tacitly endorse the short-lived ouster of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said Tuesday it met in recent months with the opposition there but denied encouraging a coup.
"Our message has been consistent. The political situation in Venezuela is one for the Venezuelans to resolve peacefully, democratically and constitutionally," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters. "We explicitly told opposition leaders that the United States would not support a coup."
But CBS News Senior White House Correspondent John Roberts reports that it appears they did just that by embracing Chavez' successor at a time when U.S. allies in the region were condemning what they clearly saw as a military coup. When Chavez was returned to power, the White House looked like it had sided with coup plotters over democracy.
Some Democrats called that deeply troubling.
"I think it is incumbent upon the greatest democracy in the world to defend democratically elected governments," Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said.
The White House has since condemned Chavez' removal, but officials still refuse to call it a coup.
Venezuelan military officers deposed Chavez Friday after 17 people were killed during huge protests against his rule. He was replaced with an interim government lead by business leader Pedro Carmona, who dismissed Congress and the Supreme Court.
Chavez returned to office in triumph Sunday when loyalist troops ended the coup after tens of thousands of his supporters demonstrated to demand his return.
The United States, which has a long history of intervening to overthrow leftist and populist leaders in Latin America, blamed Chavez for creating the conditions that led to his overthrow and urged the transition government briefly in power to move to democratic elections as soon as possible.
U.S. officials met Carmona and Gen. Lucas Rincon, chief of the Venezuelan armed forces, and other influential Venezuelans in recent months but strenuously denied that they signaled support for a coup against Chavez.
The firebrand former paratrooper, who won a landslide election in 1998 on a crusading anti-poverty platform, has drawn the ire of U.S. officials because of his friendship with Cuban President Fidel Castro, his contacts, mainly about oil, with Iraq, and his questioning of the U.S. war on terrorism.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that senior Bush administration officials met several times in recent months with leaders of the coalition that ousted Chavez and agreed he should be removed from office.
The officials, however, gave conflicting accounts of the meetings. One unnamed senior official quoted by the newspaper insisted the Venezuelans use constitutional means to remove Chavez while a Defense Department official said the message was less categorical, saying U.S. officials sent "informal, subtle signals" that the Bush administration did not like Chavez.
Venezuela is particularly crucial to U.S. interests because it is the fourth largest U.S. supplier of oil and petroleum, exporting 1.5 million barrels of oil a day to the U.S. market.
Asked if U.S. officials offered a wink and a nudge to the coup plotters in its meetings, Fleischer said he was unaware of such signals but did not categorically rule them out.
Another U.S. official, who insisted on anonymity, rejected the notion, saying, "The implication that the United States somehow explicitly or implicitly encouraged a coup could not be more wrong."
Other U.S. officials who asked not to be named repeatedly denied they had even hinted at support for a coup.
"People have been coming to us complaining. We told them that we support the democratic process and everything has to be done constitutionally. We didn't so much as wink at them," said a State Department official who asked not to be named.
U.S. Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Roger Pardo-Maurer, U.S. deputy assistant defense secretary for western hemisphere affairs, met Venezuelan military chief Rincon in December and "made it very, very clear that the U.S. intent was to support democracy, human rights, that we in no way would support any coups or unconstitutional activity."
U.S. officials have been unrepentant about their failure to condemn the coup immediately last week and analysts have said this has tarnished Washington's credibility as a defender of democracy in Latin America.
"If you give the green light to the military in a country as important as Venezuela, then the chance of this sort of thing happening in other countries is increased significantly and that's very, very serious for U.S. interests," former Clinton administration National Security Council advisor Arturo Valenzuela told CBS News.
Experts who have had private contacts with U.S. officials this week said the Bush administration now realized their apparent sympathy for the coup was a mistake.
"Given my contacts with people in the administration over the last two days -- they will not say so publicly -- but quite clearly there has been a rethink of the decision last week at the time of the coup," said Riordan Roett, director of the Western Hemisphere program at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
In Venezuela Tuesday, Chavez, working to rebuild his authority after the failed coup, met with the head of the Organization of American States, who called for reconciliation between Venezuela's bitter rivals.
OPEC Secretary-General Ali Rodriguez also visited Chavez's presidential palace. Markets have seen Chavez's return two days ago after a tumultuous week as a sign Venezuela would continue its policy of restricting production and thus keep oil prices high.
OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria said after his talks with Chavez that Venezuelans must find a way for "dissent to be expressed constitutionally."
"Polarization has to give way to reconciliation and understanding," he said.
Chavez, normally known for his caustic criticism of his rivals, has repeatedly called for reconciliation since returning to power and promised a series of meetings with political foes this week.