01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 20, 2005

MIAMI

NO ONE CAN SAY Hugo Chavez hasn't followed through on his potential -- as a dictator.

Maybe that's why Jimmy Carter -- who endorsed the questionable results of last year's recall election, which kept the Venezuelan president in power -- is now offering a way for the Organization of American States to disrobe dictators masquerading as elected democrats. At an OAS meeting last month, the one-term U.S. president who made human rights a cause célebre offered a plan to strengthen the OAS charter. The charter purports to uphold democracy, even if it takes military intervention by the OAS to defend it. As yet, it has never been defended.

Cracking down on basic internationally recognized freedoms, such as free speech, or having the executive branch meddle with a nation's court system to solidify a leader's power: Those should be wake-up calls for the OAS to defend democracy. Carter offered to put some meat on the charter's bones. It's about time. The charter was instituted four years ago, after Peru's Alberto Fujimori went on a power binge that led to the right-wing Fujimori's downfall.

On the left, Chavez has steadily and predictably moved to do much the same, but few Latin American leaders take issue. The one exception, of course, is Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who has grown tired of Chavez's aiding and abetting Colombia's violent narco-terrorists.

Chavez has already led a coup of Venezuela's supreme court. He's now gone so far as to render any disagreement with his tactics an assault on his Bolivarian Revolution -- punishable by prison terms.

Bang a pot to protest? Expect at least three months in jail if there's a high-level Chavista within earshot.

His new law governing a "free" press allows the government to take over the airwaves if it disagrees with TV news coverage. He would imprison anyone -- even e-mail writers -- who, in the regime's eyes, makes "false" statements that cause "panic." Of course, just living in Venezuela can cause panic nowadays.

The Bush administration's point man on Latin America, Roger Noriega, recently criticized Chavez for having beefed up the Venezuelan military with 40 Russian helicopters and 100,000 AK-47s, which might end up in the hands of the Colombian FARC terrorists or other guerrillas in the region. The Chavez regime protested that it was simply replacing old weaponry. So where will those "old" weapons go once the new ones arrive?

To Chavez's "popular-defense" Bolivarian neighborhood groups perhaps? They're modeled after Cuba's block-by-block "defense of the revolution committees," which monitor their neighbors' comings and goings and ensure that everyone participates in "voluntary" projects, such as civil defense. You know -- the usual mandatory brainwashing that helps keep dictators in power.

Chavez says his defense groups are necessary because Venezuela could be attacked any day. Castro made the same point just a few days ago, during one of his hours-long blah-blah-blahs. That would really hurt Castro, because oil-rich Venezuela is supplying Cuba with 80,000 barrels a day at cut rates.

In exchange, Castro has sent tens of thousands of doctors, teachers and "technical experts" to Venezuela to teach Chavez's countrymen the Communist Party line (and, apparently, to register to vote as Venezuelan citizens, and to run the nation's security apparatus and court system). Hey, it's all in the spirit of socialist solidarity.

The OAS would be wise to call Chavez's bluff. Unfortunately, too many Latin American leaders who claim to defend democracy have let their disagreement with Bush over the war in Iraq color their views about Chavez. And the United States, depending on Venezuela for much of its energy supply, won't take on Chavez alone.

Let's give it some time. Chavez isn't known as el loco for nothing. He will probably go too far in his power grab, alienating his allies eventually. The Venezuelan opposition, meanwhile, needs to move beyond criticizing Chavez, and start proposing real solutions to that country's seemingly intractable poverty and class differences.

The problem with Chavez isn't that he proclaims to want to help the poor. No, the real problem is that he doesn't believe in the power of his own ideas enough to let them persuade voters. Chavez opts for Castro's totalitarian tactics because he realizes that, in the open marketplace of ideas, communism is a bankrupt philosophy. He refuses the give-and-take of democratic compromise. The only way to sell his Bolivarian Revolution is to force it on people, one gun butt at a time.

Myriam Marquez is an editorial-page columnist for The Orlando Sentinel.