Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Democracy in Latin America under siege


``The U.S. commitment for democracy can be strong, unless it collides with other interests, such as oil.'

The United States will continue to look the other way as we must now compete with China, Russia and others for Latin American oil.

The reason, of course, is Venezuela's oil. The Bush administration doesn't want any political turmoil that could threaten the steady supply of oil, while much of the Caribbean and Central America depend on Chávez-supplied subsidized oil, and Brazil and Argentina are exploring petroleum joint ventures with Venezuela.

It's all about oil. -Am





ANDRES OPPENHEIMER

THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT

Posted on Sun, Feb. 29, 2004
Democracy in Latin America under siege


These are dark days for the cause of democracy in Latin America. Last week's headlines from Haiti, Venezuela and Argentina show that the international community may be quietly walking away from its commitment to the collective defense of democracy.

The French government -- with a nod from the Bush administration -- called for the resignation of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who despite his disastrous rule was democratically elected and scheduled to end his term in 2006. The French plan for an international peacekeeping mission in Haiti may have been as much geared to end the bloodshed as to take a dramatic step to mend fences with the United States in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

But whatever the intentions, the fact that a few hundred rebels in Haiti could sway major countries to demand the resignation of an elected president should sound alarm bells throughout the hemisphere. It happens at a time when violent antigovernment groups are spreading in several Latin American countries with politically weak elected leaders and where some elected governments seem more tolerant of dictatorships than their predecessors.

The armed rebellion against Aristide comes only five months after radical Indian-led leftist groups forced the resignation of a president in Bolivia and after similar riots brought down a democratic president in Argentina in 2001 and in Ecuador in 2000.

U.S. and Latin American diplomats fear this may be only the beginning of a wider revolt in Latin America because of the proliferation of radical grass-roots groups such as Bolivia's Indian-led cocaleros, Argentina's Piqueteros groups of jobless workers, Brazil's Sem Terra landless movement, the Humala rebels in Peru and the Pachakutik Indian movement in Ecuador.

These ultraleft groups may feel increasingly encouraged by the recent events in Haiti and Bolivia.

While their specific political goals differ -- Brazil's Sem Terra group fights for land rights, Argentina's Piqueteros for unemployment subsidies, etc. -- some political analysts see a growing political and financial coordination among them.

`NEW PHENOMENON'

'We are seeing a new phenomenon, which is groups that combine insurrectional and electoral tactics,' Venezuelan political analyst Alberto Garrido said. ``And they got together last December at the Bolivarian People's Congress in Caracas, where they openly stated their intentions to work together.'

In Venezuela, democracy suffered a new setback last week when President Hugo Chávez'scontrolled elections board in effect disqualified an opposition petition drive to seek his removal from office by demanding that more than 1 million of the opposition's 3.4 million signatures be individually reviewed.

The Organization of American States and Carter Center observers in Venezuela say the government's doubts can be easily solved by using a statistically sound random sample to verify the signatures, but Chávez seems intent on adding technical hurdles to the recall process.

Will the United States and Latin American countries invoke a 2001 OAS Democracy Charter, which commits countries to ostracize elected presidents who break the rule of law? I doubt it. Chávez is ruling through controlled institutions, and there is a strong chance that Washington and Latin America will continue looking the other way.

The reason, of course, is Venezuela's oil. The Bush administration doesn't want any political turmoil that could threaten the steady supply of oil, while much of the Caribbean and Central America depend on Chávez-supplied subsidized oil, and Brazil and Argentina are exploring petroleum joint ventures with Venezuela.

WILL IS LACKING

'The will to deal with these [nondemocratic] situations is not as great as it once was,' said Michael Shifter, an analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based Inter-American Dialogue research group. ``The U.S. commitment for democracy can be strong, unless it collides with other interests, such as oil.'

Finally, Argentina's government officially announced to visiting Cuban Foreign Minister Humberto Pérez Roque last week that it will not condemn the Castro regime at this year's United Nations Human Rights Commission's vote on Cuba. Argentina voted against Cuba at the U.N. commission for several years but switched to an abstention last year.

Argentine President Néstor Kirchner's announcement came only days after the U.N. Human Rights Commission's special representative for Cuba, French jurist Christine Chanet, issued a statement condemning an 'unprecedented wave of repression' in Cuba and after Amnesty International cited Cuba as the country with the greatest number of political prisoners in Latin America.

In different countries, by action or omission, there is a steady erosion of the principle that has ruled inter-American relations since the collapse of military dictatorships in the 1980s that democracy should be defended by all and that there is no such thing as ``good dictatorships.'

It's an accumulation of events that may set precedents that today's democratic leaders may come to regret.



http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/8068478.htm