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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (57899)	11/20/2002 6:04:06 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

Meanwhile, back in South America, things are not looking too good. November 20, 2002 Latin America Viewed As Instable By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 1:12 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's not threatening enough to qualify as an ``axis of evil,'' Latin American style. Perhaps ``axis of instability'' will do. For the Bush administration, the political portents in much of Latin America are not encouraging. In Brazil, political restlessness was evident last month when voters picked a leftist, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as their next president. On Sunday, Ecuadoreans in all likelihood will do likewise by choosing a leftist colonel, Lucio Gutierrez, as their new leader in a presidential runoff. If elected, Gutierrez will try to do what the past two elected presidents have not done: complete a four-year term. He is an admirer of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a populist strong man who presides over perhaps the most polarized country in the hemisphere. Once proud and prosperous Argentina faces a possible 15 percent economic contraction this year. Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, is doing battle with drug traffickers plus two insurgencies on the left and one on the right. Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo is trying to govern with barely 20 percent support. In Bolivia, presidential candidate Evo Morales campaigned in the summer as a fierce opponent of the U.S. counter-narcotics program. He lost to a more conventional candidate by 1.5 percentage points. For Washington, perhaps the most worrisome development is the election of Silva in Brazil. He is considered potentially the main obstacle to President Bush's grandest goal for the hemisphere: a free trade agreement by 2005. Bush and Silva will meet Dec. 10 in Washington; both sides say they want close cooperation. Terror is another U.S. worry in the hemisphere, although far less than in the Middle East and Asia. The Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay border area is seen by the State Department as a ``focal point for Islamic extremism.'' Such topics were the focus of a gathering of hemispheric defense ministers that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld attended this week in Santiago, Chile. Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a private research group, is worried about the drift away from U.S.-backed economic reforms in Latin America. ``I'm very pessimistic,'' says Hakim. ``There is no clear solution to this. No one quite sees how to restore growth and vibrancy in these countries.'' The Heritage Foundation's Steven Johnson says many Latin Americans persist in believing in a ``strong leader who will work miracles as opposed to development of public institutions that respond to their needs.'' Moises Naim, a Venezuelan who is editor of Foreign Policy magazine, says there is nothing wrong with the U.S.-favored economic recipes -- privatization, trade liberalization and deregulation. He says many governments have given lip service to these approaches but never implemented them. These ideas have become ``politically noxious'' even though they were never given a chance to succeed, Naim says. There is another cause for anxiety. According to Chile's Latinobarometro, 80 percent of Latin Americans believe that corruption, organized crime and drug trafficking have ``increased a lot'' in recent years. In a speech last month, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick noted that, for all its problems, the region is far better off than it was 15 years ago when ``it was plagued by hyperinflation and a debt crisis.'' Zoellick cited Chile as an example of a country where sound policies produced gains. Chile's economic growth ``has enabled it to cut its poverty rate in half, from 45 percent in 1987 to 22 percent in 1998,'' Zoellick said. He also said Mexico's free trade policies have paid off in sharp growth of its high tech exports. A U.N. study gives it a No. 12 ranking worldwide in the category. In 1985, Mexico was too far down on the world scale even to qualify for a ranking. Trade, migration and other issues will be on Secretary of State Colin Powell's agenda next week when he travels to Mexico. Mexican officials complain that the relationship is too dominated by U.S. worries over border security. They are hopeful that improved treatment for Mexican migrants can be reinstated as an integral part of the cross-border agenda. ------