CLAREMONT, Calif., April 25, 2005 (AScribe Newswire) -- Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice can best "contain" Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez by addressing Latin America's economic problems, says a Pomona College professor who is an expert on the region.
"As Secretary Rice visits Latin America, she undoubtedly will be attempting to test the water for the administration policy of containing Chavez," says Miguel Tinker-Salas, an expert on political and historical issues confronting contemporary Latin America. "The best way to 'contain' Chavez, however, is not to attempt to forge a 'Latin American coalition of the willing,' but rather to address the real issues that confront the region: poverty, inequality and, yes, sustainable development."
Rice is traveling through Latin America this week, touring four countries in four days. The State Department says its official reason for the visit to Brazil, Colombia, Chile and El Salvador is to "support democracy, free trade and sustainable development in the region and beyond."
However, verbal jousting between the Bush administration and Chavez's "populist" regime has intensified of late. Chavez has threatened to cut off oil exports to the United States if Washington moved to destabilize his rule, and Washington has declared that it was pursuing a policy to "contain" him.
Chavez is a leftist leader in the region, and the only one offering a clearly alternative and opposed model to Washington's scenario of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (F.T.A.A.) composed of market democracies led by the United States.
"After years of neglect, the Bush administration is taking notice of developments in Latin America and officials apparently do not like what they see," says Tinker-Salas. "Throughout the continent, traditional political parties, long time allies of the United States, have lost power. Faced by almost two decades of neo-liberal economic policy and the repeated imposition of austerity measures, many sectors of the population have become radicalized."
He notes that in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela, populist, neo-populist and socialist candidates have been elected to the presidency, and that leaders of social movements in Bolivia and Peru are demanding a new pluri-national state that addresses their concerns. In Ecuador, the unpopular president Lucio Gutierrez, elected on the promise of reform, which he failed to implement, was ousted after weeks of street protests. In Central America, the old Nicaraguan Sandinistas have made significant electoral gains.
"The U.S. is beginning to fixate on Chavez in much the same way officials earlier did on Fidel Castro of Cuba and the same way they did with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua," he says. "In a policy approach that harkens to the Cold War they have begun to blame Latin America's shifting political climate on Chavez and pursue a policy of isolation and containment. During her confirmation hearing in January, Secretary Rice indicated that Chavez was a 'negative force' for the region."
"In a statement that the Bolivian indigenous would find insulting, administration officials have suggested that Chavez is to blame for unrest in that country. The policy of containment can only work, however, if the U.S. finds willing allies among Latin Americans presidents. And until now this approach has not yielded results. The administration has already approached Argentina and Brazil on this matter without success. Hoping to promote this policy they have begun to describe President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil as the good reformer with whom they can get along, and Chavez as the destabilizing force. They seem to forget that, in the midst of the crippling national work stoppage in 2002-03, it was Brazil who sent Chavez a life-line providing him oil when he needed it the most."
Tinker-Salas is author of Under the Shadow of the Eagles, The Border and the Transformation of Sonora During the Porfiriato (1997).
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CONTACT: Professor Tinker-Salas can be reached at his office phone: 909-607-2920 or by email: mrt04747@pomona.edu. He is fluent in both Spanish and English and has been interviewed about Venezuelan and Mexican politics by scores of media in the U.S. and Latin America. Additional information on Tinker-Salas can be found in his "Faculty Profile" at http://bryson.pomona.edu/4d.acgi$ViewFacultyMember564. |
