MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paving the ground for Venezuela's referendum.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met privately with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Venezuelan telecommunications tycoon Gustavo Cisneros, the Carter Centre reported this Sunday. Mr. Carter pushed for the meeting, held in Caracas on Friday, the centre confirmed after the news was leaked to the press over the weekend.

"There was a mutual commitment to respect the constitutional process and support future conversations between Venezuela and the media, with the goal of ensuring an adequate social climate for the constitutional process that is the recall referendum" on cutting short Chavez's term, scheduled for next August 15 said the release.

President Chavez, Mr. Carter and Mr. Cisneros also discussed "the need for national dialogue after August 15".

The goal of such dialogue is for "all Venezuelans to come together in harmony to combat poverty and promote health, education and economic opportunities in the country". During recent raids of two of Mr. Cisneros properties and one of his television stations allegedly uncovered a cache of weapons and ammunition in one of the station's warehouses. Station personnel said the premises were previously occupied by a security firm and denied any link to anti-Chavez conspiracies.

Meanwhile in Washington former Under Secretary for Latinamerican Affairs Otto Recih revealed that the White House would like to see President Chavez removed from office.

"Now that I'm no longer in government, I can say we would like to see Chavez out of office because he's not democratic and has caused much pain and harm to Venezuelans", said Mr. Reich.

President Chavez has repeatedly accused the United States of attempting to promote uprisings against his administration and blames President Bush directly for when he was displaced from office for two days. However Mr. Reich denied any US involvement in the uprising of April 2002.

Mr. Reich accused the Venezuelan president of trying to block the recall referendum scheduled for next August 15.

"Chavez supports radical movements all over the hemisphere and has tried to gag the press, unions and citizens organizations", claimed the former US official.