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U.S., Venezuela clash as OAS meeting begins - (Condi to meet with Chevez opponent)***...."Together we must insist that leaders who are elected democratically have a responsibility to govern democratically," Rice said at the gathering's opening session.

She did not directly mention Venezuela but Washington and other critics of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez say that although twice elected, the Venezuelan president is showing authoritarian tendencies in office.

Speaking before the conference began, Chavez accused the United States of trying to impose a "global dictatorship" and said that it, not Venezuela, should face OAS scrutiny.

"So, they're going to try to monitor the Venezuelan government through the OAS, they must be joking!" Chavez said, speaking on his weekly "Hello President" TV and radio show.

'GLOBAL DICTATORSHIP'

"If there is any government that should be monitored by the OAS, then it should be the U.S. government, a government which backs terrorists, invades nations, tramples over its own people, seeks to install a global dictatorship," he said.

......Despite the fierce rhetoric from Chavez, a U.S. official said Rice greeted Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez and thanked him for his comments at a private meeting of OAS ministers on Sunday afternoon.

But in a gesture sure to anger Chavez, Rice plans to meet Maria Corina Machado, a prominent opponent of the Venezuelan president, on Monday, six days after President Bush welcomed her to the White House.****

The Facade of Latin Democracy***....The briefing I heard from this 37-year-old single mother, who for more than a year has been fighting treason charges ordered up by Chavez, was deeply sobering. Since winning a recall referendum last August, the self-styled "Bolivarian revolutionary" has systematically gutted or intimidated Venezuelan institutions, from the courts to the media to the opposition parties, while preserving just enough formal democracy to give himself cover with his forgiving neighbors. "We feel very lonely," Machado said. "People outside say to us: 'You can come in and out of the country, you have a free press, you don't have thousands of political prisoners, you have elections -- so what's the problem?'

"But Chavez doesn't need to close newspapers in order to force people to censor themselves. He doesn't need thousands of political prisoners if he can make examples of a few people in every sector of society, a labor leader here, a journalist there. And he doesn't need to cancel elections if he can use his appointees to change the rules so that the voting can be easily manipulated. It is a terrific facade, but inside is an atmosphere of total control and fear. Traveling around the country, as I do, it's shocking to see how frightened people are about what the government can do to their lives."

Machado got to make her case to Bush and to the OAS ambassadors only because her organization was invited to the nongovernmental forum by the United States. A Venezuelan attempt to overturn the invitation procedure and ban her failed. Though her criminal trial is due to resume on Friday, she came and spoke freely; though she enraged Chavez with her blunt words outside the White House, she will return to Caracas and face the court system he now controls. By so conspicuously trying to stop her, she says, "the government has given evidence that everyone in the OAS can see, of how they use intimidation to silence dissent. If in Venezuela you speak out you are punished....***