Venezuela: What Happened?

At the urging of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelans began examining the rifts that led to a flip-flop coup over the weekend and nearly ripped the nation apart. But so far, there seemed to be as much bitterness as forgiveness.

"Polarization has to give way to reconciliation and understanding," OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria said after meeting Chavez on Tuesday. His fact-finding trip was meant to help other governments in the hemisphere understand what happened as Chavez was toppled on Friday only to retake power on Sunday amid unrest in which dozens died.

While Caracas had seemingly returned to normal, the passions expressed during mass marches over the weekend by Chavez's supporters and foes remained fierce.

The opposition Democratic Action party announced Tuesday it did not recognize Chavez as president. "The people arose on April 11 to remove that gentleman with a 19th century mentality who misgoverns the fatherland," party president Rafael Marin said.

A senior Bush administration official contacted Pedro Carmona the day the business leader took over as Venezuela's president after Hugo Chavez was temporarily ousted, the New York Times reported in its online edition on Wednesday.

Otto Reich, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, phoned Carmona on Friday and pleaded with him not to dissolve the National Assembly, the paper reported.

Reich, a Cuban American known for his opposition to Cuban President Fidel Castro, told Carmona that such a move would be a "stupid thing to do," and provoke an outcry, the Times reported, citing a State Department official.

Even as dozens of civilians and soldiers face possible charges stemming from the coup, Christian Democratic party leader Sergio Omar Calderon appeared to justify it on Tuesday, arguing that Chavez himself had imposed "permanent unconstitutionality" on the country.

Opposition congressmen planned to make their first appearance since the weekend in Venezuela's National Assembly on Wednesday to help name a commission to investigate the turmoil. The Interior Ministry said 49 people died from Friday to Sunday. Caracas' opposition party mayor put the figure at 121.

The Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, which led a national strike last week that helped topple Chavez, called for a referendum on whether the government should stay.

Even so, Caracas Archbishop Cardinal Ignacio Velasco — who visited Chavez during the president's detention — said Chavez "promised me he would correct many things." He praised the president for admitting he had made errors.

Globovision television director Alberto Ravell apologized for failing to broadcast protests to demand Chavez's return Saturday, and he accepted Chavez's apology for earlier broadcast insults against Ravell and his father.

"Two trains clashed here and those two trains left a little broken glass," he said. "The opposition has to clean up its glass, the government has to clean up its glass and we, the communications media, have to pick up our glass."

Pedro Carmona, who spent a day as supposed president before Chavez returned, was under house arrested Wednesday facing possible charges of rebellion and usurping authority.

Officials offered varying estimates of how many soldiers remained in custody on Tuesday, ranging from about 25 to 80.

The U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, warned U.S. citizens in Venezuela that the situation remained "unstable" and said it wasn't equipped to provide refuge to U.S. citizens. The U.S. State Department authorized the voluntary departure of all nonessential embassy personnel.

The Bush Administration on Tuesday denied accusations that it had been sluggish to defend democracy by denouncing Friday's overthrow of an elected president and reports that it had given coup plotters a go-ahead wink.

"We explicitly told opposition leaders the United States would not support a coup," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. However, it was not clear the Bush administration considered what occurred in Caracas to be a coup, and its initial response was to blame Chavez for his own removal.

While most Latin American governments rapidly termed Chavez's ouster a coup, Fleischer said Gaviria's fact-finding mission would determine that. Fleischer noted that the United States condemned "the alteration of constitutional order" — something most allies blame on Chavez's foes but which opposition parties here blame on Chavez.