Venezuela takes center stage at OAS special session

Crisis-torn Venezuela takes center stage at the Organization of American States Tuesday with a special session on efforts by international mediators to open a dialogue between the leftist government and the opposition.

At Venezuela's request, Spain's former prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was set to brief the 34-nation's permanent council on the mediation bid that he and two other former Latin leaders are leading.

But the real fireworks are expected to come on Thursday when the permanent council meets again in special session to discuss whether the government of Nicolas Maduro is upholding democratic norms enshrined in the OAS charter.

Venezuela on Monday asked OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro to cancel the Thursday session, insisting he had overstepped his authority in convening it.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez had requested Tuesday's session with Zapatero as an alternative "to once again bring the truth about Venezuela."

The sessions come amid a deepening crisis in a South American country once known for its vast oil wealth, with outbreaks of looting and protests over food shortages raising the specter of a violent upheaval.

Soaring crime, runaway inflation and a sharply contracting economy, worsened by falling oil prices, have fueled an opposition drive to recall Maduro via a constitutionally sanctioned referendum.

- Deepening impasse -

But the former bus driver and handpicked successor to the late Hugo Chavez has bitterly opposed what he sees as a legislative coup, deepening an impasse with the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

Zapatero, former presidents Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic and Martin Torrijos of Panama have sought to open a dialogue, so far with little apparent success.

Opposition and government representatives held tentative indirect talks in the Dominican Republic in mid-May with the former leaders as mediators, but made no progress.

Responding to the crisis, Almagro invoked the OAS's democratic charter on May 31, publishing a scathing report on the human rights situation in Venezuela.

"The secretary general's strategy of raising the issue of the democratic charter has put such pressure on the government of Venezuela that it has had to join this initiative, come here and present some kind of response," a diplomatic source said, commenting on Venezuela's having invited Zapatero to brief the permanent council.

The charter enables the OAS to address the "alteration of constitutional order" in a member country that "seriously impairs" democracy.

The opposition accuses Venezuelan authorities of curtailing freedom of expression and jailing dozens of its leaders and activists for political reasons, among other charges. The government denies the accusations.

- 'Door to intervention' -

If only 18 member states vote in favor, the OAS could decide after Thursday's session to take diplomatic measures to help stabilize Venezuela.

Maduro, however, vehemently denounced Almagro's move earlier this month, and his ambassador to the OAS Bernardo Alvarez rejected OAS involvement in the crisis.

"It is a door to the intervention that the member states have rejected," Alvarez said in a letter to Almagro asking that the session on Thursday be cancelled.

The Venezuelan opposition, which has no voice in the OAS debate, was dismissive of Zapatero's efforts.

"Tell the truth about the process of dialogue in Venezuela, that it doesn't exist because Maduro has broken the constitutional cord and does not yield to democratic solutions to the crisis," said opposition deputy Luis Florido, who heads the National Assembly's foreign policy committee.