CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 13 — Supporters and foes of President Hugo Chavez called for more street demonstrations Friday, as Venezuela’s leaders ignored foreign pressure to end a general strike and schedule elections. Alarmed at the growing crisis that has paralyzed the world’s fifth largest oil exporting nation, the White House called for early elections as the only path way out of the country’s political turmoil.

A political crisis escalates into street battles.

“THE UNITED STATES is convinced that the only peaceful and politically viable path to moving out of the crisis is through the holding of early elections,” the White House said in a written statement Friday.

Late Thursday, a U.S. envoy arrived in Caracas to hold talks with government and opposition officials.

“This visit shows the concern that we feel in Washington,” said Thomas Shannon, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere at the State Department, on his arrival late Thursday in the Venezuelan capital.

However, Shannon’s presence along with that of the head of the Organization of American States has so far failed to tamp down the tension.

Chavez supporters planned a rally in downtown Caracas Friday to celebrate the eight-month anniversary of the president’s return to power after an April 12 coup.

Opposition leaders said they too would return to the streets Friday, the 12th day of a crippling general strike they launched in a bid to oust Chavez and his leftist government. “The national strike is just beginning,” declared a strike organizer, Carlos Fernandez of the business group Fedecamaras, which joined with the country’s 1-million-strong workers’ confederation to wage the third general strike against Chavez in a year.

He warned there would soon be new shortages of basic goods and gasoline because of the strike, which has triggered panic buying at supermarkets, shuttered many shops and slowed the economy of this nation of 24 million.

OAS WARNING

In the latest signs of tension, police used tear gas to break up a clash between pro- and anti-Chavez groups late Thursday. There were no reports of serious injuries in the scuffle, which came as the Organization of American States warned that time is running out for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

“If we don’t find a solution at the table, there’s a risk that the country becomes more polarized, and that brings an enormous risk of violence,” OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria said.

Citing economic and political turmoil, Chavez opponents launched the general strike Dec. 2, demanding a nonbinding referendum on his presidency, which ends in 2007. Chavez has refused, and the opposition now says it will end the strike only if he calls general elections.

The strike has crippled Venezuela’s oil industry, which supplies 13 percent of U.S. imports, unsettling markets worldwide and alarming analysts heading into the winter oil season. Ali Rodriguez, president of the state-owned oil monopoly, said Venezuela might even have to import gasoline.

Fearing violence from pro-Chavez mobs Thursday night, the opposition Globovision TV network urged supporters to stay inside. Protesters banged on pots and pans — a nightly ritual — from inside their houses, instead of on the streets.

ROWDY MARCH

Earlier Thursday, opposition supporters — many of them middle-class professionals who accuse Chavez of stirring class warfare — held a rowdy march outside the headquarters of Venezuela’s oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A.

“Every minute we’re at risk of descending into violence. But I don’t care. We’ll stay in the streets,” said Maria Luisa Guinand, a 28-year-old marketing executive.

Intent on breaking the strike, Chavez fired four dissident executives of the oil company. He fired the same executives and three others in April, sparking a general strike that led to a two-day coup. He reinstated the executives after he was restored to power.