Latin America's Political Compass Veers Toward the Left

www.nytimes.com January 19, 2003 By JUAN FORERO

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Jan. 18 — Latin America's four most visible left-leaning heads of state came together for the first time this week at the inauguration of one of them as president of Ecuador.

Ecuador's new leader, Lucio Gutierrez, is a former army colonel and coup plotter who has promised to fight the "corrupt oligarchy" in his country. The others are Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former union leader elected to the Brazilian presidency in October; Fidel Castro of Cuba, the grand old man of the Latin American left; and Venezuela's embattled president, Hugo Chávez.

The four basked in applause at Ecuador's cavernous Congress on Wednesday and held meetings to discuss the future of a troubled region.

To some in Washington, particularly conservatives on Capitol Hill, the convergence of leftist leaders — all of whom, at some point, have used antagonistic words in criticizing United States policy — has raised concerns about a new pan-Latin American movement with socialist overtones.

Indeed, Representative Henry J. Hyde, Republican of Illinois and the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, warned late last year that Brazil's new president might join Mr. Chávez and Mr. Castro in a Latin "axis of evil." Mr. Hyde also characterized Mr. da Silva as a dangerous "pro-Castro radical who for electoral purposes had posed as a moderate."

It is true that all four leaders share similarities: opposition to the unfettered market reforms that have failed so far to bring prosperity to Latin America, concern about the burdensome foreign debts that stagger many nations in the region and wariness about the United States meddling in their affairs.

Invigorated by Mr. da Silva's victory in Brazil — the first election of a leftist president in the largest Latin American country — the four leaders see an opportunity to shape events in the region, rather than leave it to the United States to set the agenda.

Brazil has already exerted its influence, with Mr. da Silva becoming the driving force behind a "group of friendly nations," including the United States, that is offering to help Venezuela negotiate an end to a seven-week-old national strike aimed at forcing Mr. Chávez from power. The Venezuelan leader has welcomed the initiative, flying on Friday to meet in Brazil with Mr. da Silva to discuss ways to resolve the crisis.

"There's no question that these four nations are going to form an axis of populism, or an axis of popular rhetoric," said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based policy analysis group.

But Mr. Birns and other analysts who track political trends in Latin America said that while the four leaders might, on the surface, show a united front, they were four very different men who would pursue different agendas with markedly different approaches.

Mr. da Silva, 57, who grew up in poverty, became a factory worker and helped found the Workers Party, won a loyal following as a leftist firebrand who railed against everything from international lending policies to the incompetence and corruption of Brazil's elite class.

But after losing three presidential elections, he moderated his tone, promising that Brazil would pay its foreign debt while still trying to enact social policies to alleviate poverty and hunger.

While still raising concerns about such important issues as the hemisphere-wide trade zone proposed by Washington, Mr. da Silva has worked to build ties with the Bush administration. "I can count on President Bush as an ally," he has said.

Miguel Diaz, director of the South America Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said of Mr. da Silva, "He wants the U.S. to be a part of the solution, and doesn't see the U.S. as part of the problem."

That is not to say that Mr. da Silva plans to abandon his campaign against poverty and hunger. His Workers Party, an amalgam of divergent leftist movements, expects Mr. da Silva to address seriously Brazil's grinding inequality. Mr. da Silva has promised to improve the lives of his countrymen, pledging that all Brazilians would receive three meals a day.

But the pursuit of his social agenda will be difficult in a country saddled with a huge foreign debt and international commitments to foreign lenders. It is a challenge both he and Mr. Gutierrez face: carrying out the far-reaching social programs they promised on the campaign trail last year while dealing with serious financial constraints in difficult economic times.

Mr. da Silva appears acutely aware of how important it is for him to provide successful guidance for Brazil, a country of 175 million that has one of the world's largest economies and is a budding power broker.

Mr. Gutierrez, 45, a former colonel and son of a riverboat captain, shares many of Mr. da Silva's qualities, according to international analysts who have met the new Ecuadorian leader.

Though his background is dissimilar — he helped lead a coup that toppled President Jamil Mahuad three years ago — he is seen as a pragmatist who has already sharply shifted on earlier positions like scrapping the country's dollar currency and not paying the foreign debt.

Mr. Chávez and Mr. Castro, leader of the hemisphere's only Communist country, have taken more defiant stances.

Mr. Chávez, 48, a former coup plotter, was elected to office in 1998 after promising to upend the old social order and to improve the lives of the poor. But his incendiary speeches have divided the country and alienated business leaders, labor groups and others who now seek to force him from office.

The Venezuelan leader has harshly criticized Washington's policy in the Americas, built a strong friendship with Mr. Castro and has promised a peaceful revolution to remake his country. While analysts do not view his policies as particularly radical, his government is seen as inept, with the country's economy suffering the consequences and slowly disintegrating over the last two years.

Mr. Castro, 76 and the leader of Cuba for 44 years, is clearly delighted about Latin America's shift to the left, though he is now more a symbol than a protagonist with influence.

Mr. Chávez may believe he has new close friends to help extricate him from the turmoil roiling his country. But Mr. da Silva and Mr. Gutierrez are expected to steer clear of forming strong alliances with the Cuban and Venezuelan leaders, though Mr. da Silva is strongly committed to finding a negotiated resolution to Venezuela's problems.

The Bush administration has, at least publicly, offered support for the new leaders, with the American ambassador in Brazil praising Mr. da Silva and the State Department wholeheartedly supporting the group of friends of Venezuela despite initial misgivings.

Michael Shifter, who has closely followed the political changes for the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group, said the United States must now show flexibility to give the leaders "more room to maneuver and undertake new social and economic policies."

"The worst scenario would be if the United States begins to lump all of these leaders together, in other words sees Lula and Gutierrez the same way they see Chávez, and talks of an axis of evil," Mr. Shifter said. "Then the risk is it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."