Hugo Chávez Denounces US Policy in Latin America

RICHARD LAPPER & ADAM THOMSON / Financial Times (UK) 4nov2005

Mar del Plata — Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's leftwing president, on Friday sought to stoke anti-American sentiment in Latin America with a broadside against the US that was likely to heighten Washington's concern at his rising influence in the region.

Addressing at least 10,000 demonstrators gathered in the small seaside resort to protest against the visit of George W. Bush to this weekend's Summit of the Americas, Mr Chávez insisted: “We [Latin America] will never be North American colonies.”

He threatened to “bury capitalism in order to give birth to 21st century socialism, a new historic socialist project that the people of the Americas are demanding”.

Venezuela's rising oil revenues have provided Mr Chávez with money to provide cheap oil and financial support for a number of countries in the region. With a series of elections due across Latin America in the next year of so, his support could help like-minded leftwing movements to come to power.

Evo Morales, the leader of Boliva's indigenous coca growers, who could become president following election's next month, told the FT that Mr Chávez “breeds solidarity and speaks for the Latin American people. He is an immense figure in the region.”

Mr Bush’s response has been to seek closer US links with the region's two most important centre-left leaders. On Friday, he held a meeting with Néstor Kirchner of Argentina and on Sunday will meet with Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. However, disagreements about free trade talks in the region could undermine the US's aims.

In negotiations to agree common policies to tackle regional problems, Argentina and Brazil opposed US efforts to include fixed deadlines on a clause dealing with the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), a faltering trade accord agreed at the first Summit of the Americas 11 years ago.

Vicente Fox, Mexico's president and a US ally on trade issues, said he was “very disatisfied” with the lack of progress on FTAA. He suggested that countries in favour of a deal might forge ahead without those opposed to an agreement.

Failure to agree the wording of a clause covering FTAA distracted attention from the original objectives of the summit: common policies to tackle problems of poverty and joblessness, both of which have remained persistently high despite recent economic recovery in the region.

Both Argentina and Brazil have highly competitive agricultural sectors and are refusing to agree to a deal that does not start to dismantle barriers and subsidies benefiting US farmers. Mr Chávez said simply that the agreement should be “buried”.

José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organisation of American States, which organised the summit, expressed disappointment that trade had emerged as the focus of the meeting. Yet he remained optimistic that regional leaders would eventually come to an agreement. “Nobody is going to get to the point where something will break," he said.

source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/873a46ce-4d6e-11da-ba44-0000779e2340.html 7nov2005