MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Plenty of democracy in Venezuela, according to OAS

“Democracy is very much in force in Venezuela”, and it's not convenient to try and isolate internationally the administration of President Hugo Chavez said Jose Miguel Insulza Organization of American States Secretary General in a Sunday interview with the Argentine daily Clarin.

Insulza described Chavez decision not to renew the license of the country's longest established television channel RCTV, and which triggered domestic and overseas criticisms, as "more of a bad example than a menace to the press". "I think democracy is very much in force in Venezuela. I also believe the alternative that some have proposed of establishing some kind of isolation of the Chavez administration, a condemnation, is a totally unviable alternative from a legal point of view and most inconvenient from a legal point of view", added Insulza. OEA Secretary General admitted that the "Venezuelan government is empowered to do what it did (non renewal of the license), and as Brazil's president pointed out when a president is empowered to act and not to act, non acting is as democratic as acting". As to those who forecast that Venezuela in on the same political path as Cuba Insulza was definitive: "that's a catastrophe prescription. What we need to do is recover Cuba, not give Venezuela away, from a democratic point of view". Regarding the situation in the island Insulza said that in the island "there's a transition process interesting willingness. What must be understood is that whoever rules Cuba in the future it will be the same people who have been ruling for a long time, as has happened in Eastern Europe. But we must open a new process in Cuba and not keep condemning".