Chavez says U.S. suffers 'great defeat'

President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that the United States suffered a humiliating defeat in its move to condemn Venezuela internationally for forcing an opposition-aligned TV station off the airwaves.

Chavez began a news conference by playing a video of heated debate between his foreign minister and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at an Organization of American States meeting in Panama on Tuesday. The OAS declined to adopt a U.S. request to investigate his government's removal of Radio Caracas Television from the air.

"A great defeat for the empire," said Chavez, who said OAS member countries had refused "to play (Washington's) game" and instead backed his government.

"It was the greatest defeat _ a moral defeat, a political defeat," said Chavez, who maintains the government made a proper legal decision not to renew the channel's license.

In the video of the OAS meeting, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro demanded that the OAS investigate rights violations at the U.S. prison on Guantanamo and on the U.S.-Mexico border before Rice walked out.

"She was trying to maintain her calm, but already from the beginning you could tell she was a little annoyed," Chavez said. "I know her very well and I know when she's annoyed ... surely because they couldn't find anyone to do their work, their dirty work, and she had to leav."

Chavez has said he will not go back on his refusal to renew the license of RCTV, which he accuses of a key role in backing a short-lived 2002 coup against him.

RCTV, the country's oldest and most-watched private channel, went off the air May 27, and its license was turned over to a state-funded channel. Chavez says he is democratizing the airwaves and that freedom of speech will be respected.

Before Chavez spoke, thousands of protesters _ mostly university students _ filled the streets chanting "We want freedom!" as they marched to the attorney general's office in Caracas to denounce the government action.

Some flew the Venezuelan flag upside down as a symbol of protest while hundreds of riot police and National Guard troops watched.

Chavez says the student protesters are being manipulated by his foes and by Washington.

Most of the Venezuelan news media are in private hands, including many newspapers and radio stations that remain critical of Chavez. The only other major opposition-sided TV channel is Globovision, and it is not seen in all parts of the country.

Surveys since May 14 have shown that 78 to 83 percent of the public disagrees with the removal of RCTV, said Oscar Schemel, president of Caracas-based pollster Hinterlaces. The telephone polls, commissioned by private banks, have a margin of error of about 5 percentage points, he said.