The Foreign Service Journal, April 2006

ed the parties that had led the country for 40 years. In Bolivia, Evo Morales gained prominence as leader of the coca workers. He represents his country’s indige- nous majority. Left and center-left governments dominate South America. Only Colombia, Paraguay and Peru have con- servative governments — with Peru possibly poised to make a radical leftward shift in presidential elections in April. Ecuador is led by an interim government; its path won’t be decided until elections on Oct. 15. One-time U.S. nemesis Daniel Ortega, who ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990 and has lost three straight attempts to recap- ture the presidency, is making a fourth bid this November. More important for U.S. interests is the July presidential election in Mexico, where leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who promises a better deal for the country’s poor, is among the front-runners. The degree to which a Lopez Obrador administration would take on an anti-American cast is unclear. The Hugo Chavez “Problem” Chavez and Morales have made clear their opposition to U.S.-backed policies. After a meeting with Chavez in Caracas in early January, shortly after Bolivian voters elected him, Morales said he and his colleague were unit- ing in a “fight against neoliberalism and imperialism.” At one point in his campaign for president last year, Morales declared that “Western development is the development of death.” When violent anti-American demonstrators filled the streets of Mar del Plata, Argentina, last Novem- ber during the fourth Summit of the Americas, Chavez and Morales taunted Bush, a summit participant, by join- ing the protests. Chavez, having secured control over the Congress, the courts and the National Election Commission, seems a shoo-in for re-election in December to another six-year term. He describes himself as a “21st-century socialist.” Flush with oil money, Chavez also is attempting to forge a broad anti-U.S. coalition in the region. “If he succeeds, that would present enormous problems,” says Michael Shifter, a colleague of Hakim’s at the Inter-American Dialogue. The Bush administration has yet to find a formula for countering Chavez. The State Department’s Shapiro says the United States has tried unsuccessfully to establish a normal working relationship with him. But, Shapiro says, “Hugo Chavez continues to define himself in opposition to us. His efforts to concentrate power at home, his suspect relationship with destabilizing forces in the region and his plans for arms purchases are causes of major concern.” Chavez has his own bill of particulars against the United States, contending that Washington plans to invade his country and backed a short-lived coup against his government in 2002 (on this point, the record is ambiguous). He is also a staunch opponent of the pro- posed Free Trade Area of the Americas, the centerpiece of U.S. policy toward the region. Most Latin countries support the proposal, but it remains stalled. Any such agreement would have to include a phasing-out of U.S. agricultural subsidies, which prevent Brazil and other countries with a strong agricultural base from gaining access to the American market. The United States is will- ing to cut the subsidies, but only as part of a global agree- ment in which European countries take parallel measures to reduce their own subsidies. The United States believes that a free-trade zone extending from Alaska to Argentina would be a tonic for the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean — and for the American economy, as well. But Chavez and his allies believe the FTAA would only enrich multina- tional corporations and would harm those in Latin America who are poor to begin with. Chavez celebrated when the January 2005 deadline passed with no resolution to the stalemate. Nor is there any short-term prospect that the agreement will come to fruition. Colombia stands out as perhaps the most pro- American country in Latin America. President Alvaro Uribe is Washington’s favorite leader in the hemisphere, seen as a positive counterweight to unwelcome trends elsewhere in the Andes. As the State Department sees it, Uribe has greatly improved internal security since becom- ing president in 2002, and is considered likely to be re- elected in May. Squandered Opportunities Bush took office five years ago vowing to successfully conclude the FTAA and to give higher priority to Latin America. At a hemispheric summit meeting in Quebec in April 2001, he proclaimed that the “Century of the Americas” was at hand. Five months later, Secretary of State Colin Powell traveled to Peru for a ceremony ratify- ing the Inter-American Democratic Charter, a document that, in effect, enshrined democracy as the only legitimate F O C U S 24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 6