BY NANCY SAN MARTIN AND TIM JOHNSON

  The Organization of American States agreed on Saturday to send Secretary-General César Gaviria to Caracas to assess the political situation in
  Venezuela but stopped short of calling for action to repeal the removal of President Hugo Chávez.

  ''This is a complicated problem,'' said Ambassador Esteban Tómic of Chile, whose government has said it would not recognize the new interim regime in
  Venezuela. ``New elections are the way to resolve this situation.''

  Ambassadors of the 34-member organization planned to invoke the 6-month-old Inter-American Democratic Charter, a legal instrument designed to
  ensure democratic rule in the hemisphere.

  The charter empowers the OAS to undertake initiatives to ``foster the restoration of democracy.''

  While the OAS Permanent Council will probably summon foreign ministers to Washington later this week to contemplate further action once they hear
  Gaviria's assessment, some member nations appeared deeply concerned that the overthrow of Chávez may incite unrest against elected leaders
  elsewhere.

  The potential threat became apparent late Friday at the annual 19-member Grupo de Río Summit gathering in Costa Rica, where leaders of various Latin
  American nations issued a joint statement denouncing what they called ''the interruption of constitutional order'' in Venezuela.

  However, they refrained from characterizing Chávez's removal as a coup d'état.

  Mexican President Vicente Fox said his country would not recognize Venezuela's new government until new elections are held, a declaration that was
  echoed by several other leaders at the summit, a forum for dialogue and consensus-building on issues that affect the region.

  In a radio address Saturday from Costa Rica, President Eduardo Duhalde of Argentina said the new government of Venezuela is exhibiting an attitude
  ``typical of a dictatorship.''

  SANCTIONS URGED

  He also urged the OAS to apply sanctions to Venezuela, saying that the new government ``has stepped out of the democratic system.''

  Cuba's government, meanwhile, called on the United Nations to investigate the overthrow of Chávez, a close friend of President Fidel Castro's.

  At a weekly rally organized by the government, thousands of Cubans protested Chávez's removal.

  ''The truth is that in Venezuela they have had a coup,'' Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations, told the crowd gathered in Guira de
  Melena, a town in Havana Province.

  With Castro watching from a front-row seat, Rodríguez also criticized the United States for not condemning Chávez's removal.

  He said that ''the Yankees are almost always behind coups . . . and install dictators,'' but stopped short of accusing the United States of being behind
  what he called the illegal removal of a democratically elected president by Venezuela's ``oligarchs.''

  POSITIVE VIEW

  In neighboring Colombia, meanwhile, Chávez's ouster is widely considered a benefit for the Bogotá government, presumably because it will make it
  harder for leftist rebels to retreat to Venezuela.

  Colombia and Venezuela have clashed over accusations that rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, routinely cross the
  border to Venezuela so they can safely prepare new terrorist strikes.

  Colombian foreign minister Clemencia Forero Ucrós, who was also attending the conference in Costa Rica, described Venezuela's interim president, Pedro
  Carmona Estanga, as a ''great friend'' of Colombia's.

  ''We hope . . . democracy prevails in Venezuela,'' she said. ``We expect to have the best relations with the interim government.''

  Brazil issued a press release.

  ''The Brazilian government expresses its trust that the Venezuelan nation will find a path to return to democratic normality through elections in a timely
  manner,'' the statement said in part.

  In Mexico, which shares a trade pact with Venezuela and Colombia called the Group of Three, there was concern about the military's role in toppling
  Chávez.

  A Mexican diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity expressed concern that the Venezuelan crisis could draw in the United States. If that happened,
  he said, ``then it really is a problem for the hemisphere.''

  Herald staff writers Frances Robles in Bogotá and Kevin G. Hall of The Herald's world staff in Mexico City contributed to this report.