Latin America's Political Compass Veers Toward the Left

Latin America's Political Compass Veers Toward the Left

January 19, 2003

By JUAN FORERO

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Jan. 18 - Latin America's four most visible left-leaning
heads of state came together for the first time this week at the inauguration
of one of them as president of Ecuador.

Ecuador's new leader, Lucio Gutierrez, is a former army colonel and coup
plotter who has promised to fight the "corrupt oligarchy" in his country. The
others are Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former union leader elected to the
Brazilian presidency in October; Fidel Castro of Cuba, the grand old man of
the Latin American left; and Venezuela's embattled president, Hugo Chávez.

The four basked in applause at Ecuador's cavernous Congress on Wednesday and
held meetings to discuss the future of a troubled region.

To some in Washington, particularly conservatives on Capitol Hill, the
convergence of leftist leaders - all of whom, at some point, have used
antagonistic words in criticizing United States policy - has raised concerns
about a new pan-Latin American movement with socialist overtones.

Indeed, Representative Henry J. Hyde, Republican of Illinois and the chairman
of the House International Relations Committee, warned late last year that
Brazil's new president might join Mr. Chávez and Mr. Castro in a Latin "axis
of evil." Mr. Hyde also characterized Mr. da Silva as a dangerous "pro-Castro
radical who for electoral purposes had posed as a moderate."

It is true that all four leaders share similarities: opposition to the
unfettered market reforms that have failed so far to bring prosperity to Latin
America, concern about the burdensome foreign debts that stagger many nations
in the region and wariness about the United States meddling in their affairs.

Invigorated by Mr. da Silva's victory in Brazil - the first election of a
leftist president in the largest Latin American country - the four leaders see
an opportunity to shape events in the region, rather than leave it to the
United States to set the agenda.

Brazil has already exerted its influence, with Mr. da Silva becoming the
driving force behind a "group of friendly nations," including the United
States, that is offering to help Venezuela negotiate an end to a
seven-week-old national strike aimed at forcing Mr. Chávez from power. The
Venezuelan leader has welcomed the initiative, flying on Friday to meet in
Brazil with Mr. da Silva to discuss ways to resolve the crisis.

"There's no question that these four nations are going to form an axis of
populism, or an axis of popular rhetoric," said Larry Birns, director of the
Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based policy analysis group.

But Mr. Birns and other analysts who track political trends in Latin America
said that while the four leaders might, on the surface, show a united front,
they were four very different men who would pursue different agendas with
markedly different approaches.

Mr. da Silva, 57, who grew up in poverty, became a factory worker and helped
found the Workers Party, won a loyal following as a leftist firebrand who
railed against everything from international lending policies to the
incompetence and corruption of Brazil's elite class.

But after losing three presidential elections, he moderated his tone,
promising that Brazil would pay its foreign debt while still trying to enact
social policies to alleviate poverty and hunger.

While still raising concerns about such important issues as the
hemisphere-wide trade zone proposed by Washington, Mr. da Silva has worked to
build ties with the Bush administration. "I can count on President Bush as an
ally," he has said.

Miguel Diaz, director of the South America Project at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington, said of Mr. da Silva, "He wants the
U.S. to be a part of the solution, and doesn't see the U.S. as part of the
problem."

That is not to say that Mr. da Silva plans to abandon his campaign against
poverty and hunger. His Workers Party, an amalgam of divergent leftist
movements, expects Mr. da Silva to address seriously Brazil's grinding
inequality. Mr. da Silva has promised to improve the lives of his countrymen,
pledging that all Brazilians would receive three meals a day.

But the pursuit of his social agenda will be difficult in a country saddled
with a huge foreign debt and international commitments to foreign lenders. It
is a challenge both he and Mr. Gutierrez face: carrying out the far-reaching
social programs they promised on the campaign trail last year while dealing
with serious financial constraints in difficult economic times.

Mr. da Silva appears acutely aware of how important it is for him to provide
successful guidance for Brazil, a country of 175 million that has one of the
world's largest economies and is a budding power broker.

Mr. Gutierrez, 45, a former colonel and son of a riverboat captain, shares
many of Mr. da Silva's qualities, according to international analysts who have
met the new Ecuadorian leader.

Though his background is dissimilar - he helped lead a coup that toppled
President Jamil Mahuad three years ago - he is seen as a pragmatist who has
already sharply shifted on earlier positions like scrapping the country's
dollar currency and not paying the foreign debt.

Mr. Chávez and Mr. Castro, leader of the hemisphere's only Communist country,
have taken more defiant stances.

Mr. Chávez, 48, a former coup plotter, was elected to office in 1998 after
promising to upend the old social order and to improve the lives of the poor.
But his incendiary speeches have divided the country and alienated business
leaders, labor groups and others who now seek to force him from office.

The Venezuelan leader has harshly criticized Washington's policy in the
Americas, built a strong friendship with Mr. Castro and has promised a
peaceful revolution to remake his country. While analysts do not view his
policies as particularly radical, his government is seen as inept, with the
country's economy suffering the consequences and slowly disintegrating over
the last two years.

Mr. Castro, 76 and the leader of Cuba for 44 years, is clearly delighted about
Latin America's shift to the left, though he is now more a symbol than a
protagonist with influence.

Mr. Chávez may believe he has new close friends to help extricate him from the
turmoil roiling his country. But Mr. da Silva and Mr. Gutierrez are expected
to steer clear of forming strong alliances with the Cuban and Venezuelan
leaders, though Mr. da Silva is strongly committed to finding a negotiated
resolution to Venezuela's problems.

The Bush administration has, at least publicly, offered support for the new
leaders, with the American ambassador in Brazil praising Mr. da Silva and the
State Department wholeheartedly supporting the group of friends of Venezuela
despite initial misgivings.

Michael Shifter, who has closely followed the political changes for the
Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group, said the United States
must now show flexibility to give the leaders "more room to maneuver and
undertake new social and economic policies."

"The worst scenario would be if the United States begins to lump all of these
leaders together, in other words sees Lula and Gutierrez the same way they see
Chávez, and talks of an axis of evil," Mr. Shifter said. "Then the risk is it
becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

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