Opinion
- Editorial
Juan Forero:
Chavez seeks global stage
Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez's blistering attack on President
Bush at the United Nations last week marked a striking
crescendo in a campaign to project Venezuela as
a country with the global reach to counter American
initiatives.
Swimming in wealth from an oil bonanza,
Venezuela has bestowed billions of dollars in aid
and preferential deals across Latin America, burnishing
Chavez's image as heir apparent to Fidel Castro
of Cuba, his mentor and close friend.
But in recent months, Chavez has
been travelling the world-not just seeking the economic
deals his internationalist government has always
wanted, but also pressing for influence in affairs
far from Latin America, political analysts say.
His immediate goal is to obtain enough backing to
secure a two-year spot on the 15-member UN Security
Council, a campaign the Bush administration is vigorously
opposing by backing tiny Guatemala for the seat.
But his long-term goal appears to be more far-reaching.
"Venezuela was too small for
him; now I think Latin America is too small for
him," said Michael Shifter, an analyst at the
Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group.
"He wants to be a global leader who can shape
the international agenda. This is sort of a shift
to being involved in decision-making on very sensitive
international and political affairs."
In one of the most derisive and
caustic speeches in UN history, the Venezuelan leader
on Wednesday labelled Bush "the devil"
and "dear world dictator", leading to
sustained applause at the General Assembly. On Thursday,
speaking to the congregants of a church in Harlem,
he called Bush an alcoholic and a sick man, "but
very dangerous because he has lots of power".
Since July, Chavez's feverish travel
schedule has taken him to Iran, Syria, Russia, China,
Vietnam, Belarus and other nations whose governments
are often on less than favourable terms with the
United States.
He has come away with support for his bid to gain
the Security Council seat next month-among his backers
are Russia and China, who hold permanent council
seats- and solidified alliances against the Bush
administration. Chavez has railed against American
efforts to neutralise Iran's nuclear efforts and
the administration's support of Israel in its invasion
of Lebanon.
Obtaining a Security Council seat
would further empower Chavez. "This is why
he's putting on the full-court press for the Security
Council," said Riordan Roett, director of Latin
American studies at Johns Hopkins University. "He
sees this as a launching pad for Venezuela on the
UN stage, which is a global stage. And there's no
question that he would use the UN as a personal
hobbyhorse to harass the White House.''
Venezuelan officials cast Chavez's
diplomatic efforts as a high-minded necessity in
the face of American imperialism. They predicted
the General Assembly would approve Venezuela's entry
into the Security Council.
"The president's discourse
and metaphors can leave people surprised, but they
also generate a lot of solidarity, too, which will
be put to the test in the Security Council vote,''
Francisco Arias Cardenas, the Venezuelan ambassador
to the United Nations, said by telephone from New
York. "Saying these truths do not do damage.''
Yet the Venezuelan leader's foreign
policy has had mixed results.
In Latin America, he has mined widespread
aversion to the Bush administration and capitalised
on American blunders, such as the White House's
decision to give tacit support to the opposition
leaders who briefly overthrew Chavez in 2002.
American financial backing of the
opposition has also strengthened Chavez, since he
rarely misses an opportunity to portray his foes
as lap dogs of the Bush administration. Foreign
governments from Argentina to tiny Dominica have
also benefited from Venezuelan largess.
But Chavez's meddling in Peru's
presidential election earlier this year doomed the
candidacy of Ollanta Humala, a leftist whom Venezuela
openly supported. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the
Mexican populist, saw his popularity fall ahead
of July's election after his opponent, Felipe Calderon,
portrayed him as the second coming of Chavez. Calderon
won a close election.
Two more presidential elections in which leftists
close to Chavez are running could also serve as
a barometer of his appeal. In Ecuador, Rafael Correa,
an economist, has a slight lead going into the October
15 vote. And in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, the fierce
Cold War opponent of the United States, has also
led in polls as the country prepares for a November
5 election.
In Venezuela, Chavez's UN outburst
played well among his most fervent backers.
But pollsters in Caracas, the capital,
say that while Venezuelans support the government's
social programmes, they do not back many of his
international initiatives. More than 60 per cent
of Venezuelans reject the country's antagonistic
relationship with the United States, according to
the Datanalisis polling firm, while nearly 80 per
cent do not see Cuba as a model for Venezuela.
"Despite his popularity, he
has some weaknesses, and Venezuelans complain that
he is too aggressive verbally, and they frankly
find it unpresidential,'' said Mark Feierstein,
a former State Department official who works for
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Washington polling and
political consulting firm that has operated in Venezuela.
Juan Forero
BOGOTA
LA Times/Washington Post
Trinidad
Express
Sunday, September 24th 2006
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©2006 Trinidad Express.
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