[DEBATE] : Jorge Castañeda in the Washington Post: An Answer for Hugo Chávez

[Riaz K Tayob]

An Answer for Hugo Chávez

By Jorge G. Castañeda
Wednesday, March 7, 2007; A17

MEXICO CITY -- Each stop on President Bush's upcoming swing through
Latin America has its own mini-agenda: ethanol and the Doha round with
Brazil; a Trade Framework Agreement in Uruguay; Plan Colombia and drug
enforcement in Bogotá; immigration and security with Mexico and
Guatemala. But there is an overall agenda for which this trip may well
represent too little, too late: Chávez containment.

The balance of forces in the region has shifted. Not only has the
leftward tilt persisted -- with electoral victories in Nicaragua and
Ecuador, unprecedented near-misses in Mexico and Peru, unexpected
advances in Colombia -- but the Venezuelan president's influence has
expanded. Hugo Chávez has found his sea legs and assembled an
impressive array of tools to seduce the region. His "21st-century
socialism" is a strange blend of a state-run economy, blanket social
subsidies, a perpetual presidency, government by decree, and
authoritarian theory and practices, as well as endless quarrels with
Washington.

Thanks to unlimited oil revenue (for now) and an endless stream of
Cuban doctors, educators and security personnel -- and soon, bountiful
supplies of Russian arms made in Venezuela -- the new Caribbean
caudillo is on a roll. Chávez has skillfully exploited the
disappointment of the region's poor with the economic reforms of the
past two decades; he is (for now) delivering the goods: bare-bones
health care, literacy campaigns, price controls on food staples. Chávez
has extended his reach to Bolivia, where Evo Morales worships him; to
Argentina, where he and his populist colleague Néstor Kirchner are
preparing a massive anti-Bush rally to coincide with the American
president's arrival across the bay in Montevideo; and increasingly to
Ecuador and Nicaragua, through generous handouts. Guatemala and
Paraguay could be next.

While much of Chávez's socialism is either rhetorical or rooted in
economic policy, it entails serious backsliding on human rights and
representative democracy. Ultimately, if Chávez wants to wreck
Venezuela's economy, that is the Venezuelan people's business; but if
he seeks to extend his concentration of power in Venezuela or
elsewhere, that is everybody's business. It is time for others to say
so and to undertake the necessary ideological and political struggle to
check Chávez and Havana, both rebutting their populist fallacies and
failures and vaunting the merits of the democratic alternative, a
globalized market economy, imperfect as it may be.

George W. Bush is the least appropriate person on Earth for this
mission; he is immensely unpopular in Latin America -- not since
Richard Nixon's trip to Caracas in 1959 have so many protests been
likely -- and since Sept. 11, 2001, he has neglected the hemisphere.
Many snicker that if he defends democracy in Latin America as well as
he has in Iraq, only God can help Latin American democrats.

The good news is that there is someone who can do the job, if he
receives political cover and international financial support for the
task. Mexico's Felipe Calderón is ideally suited to engage Chávez and
the Castro brothers in the inevitable ideological fisticuffs. He
believes in human rights and democracy, and he understands
macroeconomic policy and the need for effective anti-poverty programs.
He also knows he has to get along with his northern neighbor.

Calderón, young and a forceful debater, is a better option than Alvaro
Uribe of Colombia, which shares a border with Venezuela. Brazil's left
wing would not allow Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to take on Chávez, even
if Lula wanted to. Chile is a splendid example of the success of
sensible, socially minded policies, but President Michele Bachelet has
proved unwilling to sing their praises. And while Oscar Arias of Costa
Rica has the personal prestige and experience, his country does not.

Yet, even Calderón has a problem. His predecessors' public debates with
Castro, Chávez and Kirchner played well with some Mexicans but went
down terribly with the country's traditional establishment: the
pro-Cuban PRD and the nationalist PRI old guard. Declared an
illegitimate leader by his rival for the presidency and elected with
only 35 percent of the vote, Calderón is understandably reluctant to
brave the chattering classes without some guarantee that Bush will not
leave him hanging on immigration, as he did Vicente Fox. Some believe
that Calderón is thinking of throwing in the towel on the ideological
debate and mending fences with Caracas, Havana and Buenos Aires,
democracy and human rights violations notwithstanding.

But if Bush finally brings with him to Mexico a firm commitment to
comprehensive immigration reform, and the bipartisan backing of House
and Senate leaders to approve it promptly, Calderón would enjoy the
necessary leeway to wage the battle of ideas with the region's populist
tide. That would be the best way to contain it: with the ideas of
Mexico and its friends, not with Washington's attempts at force.

The writer was Mexico's foreign minister from 2000 to 2003, under
President Vicente Fox, and is now a professor of politics and Latin
American and Caribbean studies at New York University.