The head of the Organization of American States (OAS) opened a hemispheric summit late on Sunday with a warning against "silencing" political opponents, a week after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez shut down an opposition television station.
"The first duty of a democratic government is broadening democracy," OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza told delegates at the organization's 37th General Assembly.
"By contrast, if a government is silencing opponents, excludes them from the political process and resorts to repression, it embarks on a path toward certain weakening of democratic rule," Insulza added without mentioning Chavez directly.
PHOTO: AFP
He urged Latin American nations to promote a climate of tolerance as they confront multiple political, economic and social challenges.
Venezuela's oldest and most popular television channel, RCTV, went of the air a week ago, after Chavez refused to renew its broadcasting license, accusing the station of subversion.
The country has been in turmoil ever since, with thousands of students and other opponents of Venezuela's mercurial ruler taking to the streets to protest the move.
Thousands of demonstrators marched in Caracas again on Sunday, slamming Chavez's shutdown of RCTV that openly called for his ouster in 2002, during a two-day coup bid against him that ultimately failed.
Tooting whistles and waving Venezuelan flags, demonstrators also spoke out noisily against government ombudsman German Mundarain, who on Friday endorsed Chavez's move.
He also suggested there was a link between protesting students and parties who might be trying to topple leftist Chavez.
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of Chavez backers marched in a show of support for his controversial maneuver, now an international scandal.
The conflict has spilled over into the halls of the OAS assembly, where a group of former employees of the defunct network is lobbying foreign ministers, urging them to hold a full-scale debate on the situation in Venezuela.
They have enjoyed tacit support from the US, which has submitted to the OAS Permanent Council a statement by the US Senate, in which the upper chamber of Congress urged the OAS to come up with a response to Chavez's decision.
But while not ruling out changes in the assembly's agenda, Insulza told reporters at the start of the meeting that so far, no member nation has presented a formal request that the issue of RCTV be discussed at the forum.
Venezuela's OAS representative, Jorge Valero, said on Saturday that a discussion of RCTV's closing would be considered "interference" in Venezuela's domestic affairs.
But he later said such a debate, if it were to occur, will give Venezuela "an excellent opportunity" to explain its government's action.
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