US President George W Bushs administration did serious damage to its credibility in Latin America by praising  prematurely, as it happens  an apparent military coup detat in Venezuela, regional specialists in Washington on Monday.

Washington welcomed Fridays news of the ouster of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, who returned to office in triumph last Sunday after the coalition that led the coup fell apart.

This whole episode does not reflect well on the US administration, said Michael Shifter, vice president of the think tank Inter-American Dialogue. It badly damages US credibility on democracy questions and revealed that the US had completely isolated itself on this issue.

Other analysts, including State Department officials who spoke on condition they not be identified, blamed political appointees  particularly Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Otto Reich and the senior director for Democracy, Human Rights and International Organisations at the National Security Council, Elliott Abrams  for what is being described in Washington as a major policy debacle.

This erases just about everything weve been trying to do in Latin America in terms of ensuring support for democracy, said one foreign service officer. Didnt anyone think how this would be seen by Latin Americans?

She referred to a statement issued by the State Department on Friday afternoon and read in part by White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer after businessman Pedro Carmona was installed by the military as transitional president and moved to dissolve Venezuelas congress and supreme court.

Praised the military

In the statement, the State Department declared that Chavez had provoked his own removal and had resigned. It praised the military for its role and blamed Chavezs supporters for firing, on orders, upon protesters outside the presidential palace.

They were awfully quick to embrace the oppositions version of events, noted Bill Spencer, director of the non-governmental Washington Office on Latin America.. They should have been extremely cautious about the apparently unconstitutional removal of an elected head of state from power.

The State Department also refused to describe what had taken place as a coup or an unconstitutional interruption or alteration of the democratic order, as defined by the Organisation of American States (OAS) Democracy Charter. Instead, it called Chavezs ouster a change of government.

In its position, Washington found itself completely isolated from other OAS members, particularly the 19 Latin American governments represented at the Rio Group Summit in San Jose on Friday. In a joint declaration issued at almost the same moment as the State Department put out its statement, the Group condemned the action against Chavez and called for an urgent OAS meeting under the Charters authority.

Washington subsequently modified its position late Saturday, when the OAS met and, with the US concurring, voted to condemn the alteration of constitutional order in Venezuela. Yesterday, State Department spokesperson Philip Reeker still said last Thursdays events did not amount to a coup detat .

More damage had already been done Sunday, however, when Abrams boss, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, appearing on a national public affairs television programme, again blamed Chavez for his own overthrow.

Whole world is watching

He needs to respect constitutional processes, admonished Rice. We do hope Chavez recognises that the whole world is watching, and that he takes advantage of this opportunity to right his own ship, which has been moving frankly in the wrong direction for quite a long time.

It was an especially regrettable tutelary presentation,'' retired US Ambassador Robert White told IPS . How is it possible we reacted the way we did unless we had foreknowledge? he asked, adding that he did not know personally of any US complicity in the affair.

The damage to Washingtons reputation in Latin America was likely to be extensive, he said, adding: Democracy is truly the one thing that we have going for us. And this incident says, We believe in democracy as long as people vote our way.

On Sept 11, the US signed the Democratic Charter but then suddenly things seem to be back to the old days of the Cold War, when you embrace people who are friendly to you and oppose people you dont like, said Spencer, who added that the Bush administrations outspoken opposition to Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega in Nicaraguas recent elections also showed an abandonment of even-handedness in partisan conflicts in Latin America.

Calling for Congressional hearings, Spencer added that a lot of questions should be asked about what role the US had in fomenting or encouraging the opposition and its quick embrace of this as a way to change governments.

Clearly, people in Washington were waiting and hoping (for Chavez) to be ousted. I dont know how much more they were doing.