Caracas, Venezuela ? When President Bush hosted a top Venezuelan political activist at the White House last week, he sparked yet another clash in Washington’s already strained relations with leftist President Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez called Bush’s meeting with Maria Corina Machado a “provocation” that could affect bilateral relations. Pro-government Venezuelan legislators were so hostile in a meeting on antidrug efforts that the U.S. ambassador and a U.S. congressman had to duck out.

The dispute likely will erupt again when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to address the issue of Venezuela on Monday at an Organization of American States gathering in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The three-day OAS conference begins today.

“It gives the impression that the Bush administration is supporting Machado and not the government,” Nelson Davila, a Venezuelan Foreign Ministry official, told The Miami Herald.

Machado is the head of Sumate, the pro-democracy group that helped organize a failed recall referendum against Chavez last year. An engineer, she faces up to 16 years in prison for allegedly conspiring against the state by accepting $31,000 from the U.S. government, under the auspices of the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, to finance Sumate’s activities, which the government says are partisan, not independent.

“Part of our work is to bring attention to the very critical situation in Venezuela,” Machado told The Herald Friday. “Thousands of people are being intimidated for thinking differently from the government.”

Chavez has repeatedly accused the Bush administration of trying to topple and even assassinate him. He has won two presidential elections, but his domestic critics accuse him of stacking the courts and the national electoral board and passing laws that inhibit freedom of speech.

For Machado, the Bush meeting provided another opportunity to focus foreign attention on issues in Venezuela that many say imperil democracy.

“President Bush wanted to know, firsthand, the vision of Venezuelan citizens,” she said in a telephone interview from Washington. “The message we gave him is the same one we give to everyone we meet with: We want to live in a democracy.”

Machado said that while Venezuelans should solve their own conflicts, the international community has a role in “defending democracy” everywhere.

That’s the message she will push at the meeting of the 34-nation OAS.