The top State Department official for Latin America said Thursday there is a growing consensus in the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere that democracy in Venezuela is in grave peril.
Newly appointed Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon told a congressional committee that the government of President &to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/12/16/40882.html' target=_blank>Hugo Chavez was "subverting democratic institutions by using them to restrict the rights of those who disagree with it, slowly undermining economic freedoms and rejecting the opportunities of globalization."
His comments add to the increasingly tense relations between the administration of President &to=http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/399/16096_Bush.html' target=_blank>George W. Bush and Chavez's democratically elected government. At this month's Summit of the Americas, Chavez led a protest against U.S. policies and opposed Bush's efforts to win support for a hemisphere-wide free trade zone.
The Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to Shannon's comments.
Chavez, who was first elected in 1998 and is up for re-election next year, insists he fully supports democracy and accuses the U.S. government of falsely branding him authoritarian because it disagrees with this socialist policies.
Chavez says Bush's government stands for a "false democracy" of elites, while Venezuela now has a true "participatory democracy."
Shannon, a career Foreign Service officer who took office two weeks ago, said Chavez was concentrating power in the executive and politicizing the judiciary.
"The impact on the civic, political and economic life of the country is evident in increased self censorship by the media, lack of public confidence in the electoral system, reluctance to express disagreement with government policies for fear of retribution and capital flight," he said.
Shannon said the Bush administration was working with the 34-nation Organization of American States, the European Union and others to speak out against abuses of democracy and hold the Venezuelan government accountable to its commitment to democracy under the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
"We are reaching out, at a bilateral level, to our partners in the hemisphere and Europe to do the same, and sensitizing them to the threat to regional stability posed by the Venezuelan government's arms shopping spree and its support for radical political movements," he said.
In May, the Chavez government signed an agreement with Russia to purchase 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. Bush has expressed concern the weapons could fall into the hands of groups such as leftist rebels in Colombia.
Chavez, who has close ties with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, is encouraging leftist governments in Latin American to resist American hegemony in the region.
Dan Burton, the chairman of the Western Hemisphere panel of the House International Relations Committee, said the Chavez government is dismantling the institutions of democracy.
"I want to tell President Chavez and that my colleagues and I do not support his idea of communist revolution throughout Latin America and simply abhor his vitriolic, leftist revolutionary rhetoric," he said.
Burton said he would like to see better U.S.-Venezuelan relations but Chavez continued use of destabilizing rhetoric made this difficult "and could easily lead to serious problems."
While Democrats on the committee also were critical of Chavez, some said the larger problem was the failure of the Bush administration's policies in the hemisphere and Bush's unpopularity in the region.
"There has been a massive failure of leadership,"' said Rep Robert Menendez, the panel's top Democrat. "What is our vision and where is our leadership?..Let's create a real plan" to deal with Latin America, reports AP.
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