U.S. Renews Hard Line on Venezuela

By José de Cordoba - U.S. officials are scrambling to assert that the Obama administration hasn't softened U.S. policy toward Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez recently won a controversial referendum allowing him to run for office as many times as he wants. Last week, acting State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid surprised some observers when he said that Venezuela's election "was held consistent with democratic principles," though he also mentioned some "troubling reports of intimidation of opponents." The remarks set off a furor among Venezuelan opposition activists and some commentators because the description of Venezuela's referendum seemed markedly different from the tone set by the Bush administration, which repeatedly voiced worry that Mr. Chávez was undermining Venezuela's democracy. U.S. officials say they continue to be very concerned about Venezuela , one of the leading suppliers of oil to the U.S. "The state of health of democracy in Venezuela is not very good," said a State Department official, adding that the U.S. also continued to be concerned that Venezuela 's continuing support for Colombia 's drug-funded communist guerrillas is undermining democracy in the region. "There's no change in policy," he added. The strong words from Washington come a week after Mr. Chávez won his bid to scrap term limits. The electoral process was marked by the massive spending of state resources on the Chávez campaign, where, among other things, the state-dominated media endlessly broadcast Mr. Chávez's message. As has become usual in Venezuelan campaigns, there were implied threats that thousands of state workers would lose their jobs if they voted against the president. Police also broke up protest marches by university students calling on Venezuelans to oppose the measure. In that context, Mr. Duguid's remarks created some controversy. "It wasn't exactly a presidential blessing, but Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez has to be pleased -- and maybe even a little astonished," said an editorial in the Houston Chronicle following the initial State Department comments. "The Obama State Department has declared that Venezuela 's recent referendum on term limits was by and large democratic." The State Department official said the spokesman's words had been "misinterpreted" by the media. They had little echo in Venezuela ; the loquacious Mr. Chávez didn't pick up on them. But the flap indicates how much the world is expecting changes in policies toward traditionally hostile nations under the Obama administration. It appears little has changed in the U.S. 's testy relationship with Mr. Chávez. Last month, shortly before his inauguration, Mr. Obama, in an interview with the U.S. Spanish-language network Univision, said Mr. Chávez had hindered progress in Latin America, and expressed concern about the Venezuela 's ties with Colombia 's FARC guerrillas, who are considered a terrorist group by the U.S. Mr. Chávez, who won some sympathy in Venezuela and elsewhere for regularly attacking George W. Bush, has seemed unsure of how to approach Mr. Obama. At first Mr. Chávez attacked the president-elect, but lately he has been saying that there could be dialogue between the two.