Washington ? The Bush administration Friday blamed former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez for the events that led to his forced resignation and arrest, calling his toppling by the nation’s military a “change of government” rather than a coup. Officials said Chavez’s departure was the will of Venezuela’s people.

After years of frustration with Chavez and his leftist agenda, administration officials spoke with guarded optimism of future relations with an interim government led by Pedro Carmona, the head of Venezuela’s chamber of commerce, including improved cooperation against terrorism and potential increases in oil imports.

Pedro Carmona celebrates before being sworn in as Venezuela's interim president Friday in Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela.

Officials offered a barely veiled sense of satisfaction at the demise of Chavez, whose anti-American rhetoric, political alliances with pariah states and authoritarian ways drove the administration and its Latin American allies to distraction.

President Bush last month showed the administration’s distaste for Chavez by meeting in Peru with the leaders of four of Venezuela’s Andean neighbors and pointedly denying him an invitation. Although Chavez appealed personally to neighboring leaders to intervene on his behalf, the administration said the session primarily concerned trade preferences that did not include Venezuela.

“Obviously, nobody’s shedding tears up here,” said Steve Johnson, a Latin American affairs analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

At the same time, the administration emphasized that it wants Venezuela’s temporary government to hold national elections, preferably by the end of the year. Officials noted that the leadership will face difficulties in restarting the country’s economy and building political credibility. One said, “There are still a lot of details unclear.”

An early sign of change was the pledge from a director of Venezuela’s giant state-owned oil company that the firm would halt exports to Cuba, where Cuban President Fidel Castro became one of Chavez’s closest allies and friends. Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque denounced the Caracas events as a “coup” and said Chavez remains Venezuela’s constitutional president.

Human Rights Watch said it was “deeply concerned” that the military ousted Chavez whose popular support had fallen dramatically despite a 1998 landslide victory outside the democratic process. The presidents of 19 Western Hemisphere countries, meeting in Costa Rica, issued a statement that said, “We condemn the interruption of constitutional order” and called for “transparent elections.”

The presidents, who have mixed feelings about Chavez’s forced resignation, invoked the Inter-American Democratic Charter, adopted in September by the Organization of American States. The charter requires specific actions by all 34 members when an “interruption” occurs.

OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria will convene a meeting today of ambassadors and likely will report to a special meeting of OAS foreign ministers after a trip to Caracas.

The White House, which just Friday proclaimed Pan American Day and described “democracy as the birthright of every person in the Americas,” said the ouster of Chavez was prompted by peaceful protests and justified by the Venezuelan leader’s own actions.