BILL CORMIER, <a href=www.sfgate.com>Associated Press Writer Sunday, May 25, 2003
(05-25) 10:19 PDT BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) --

Nestor Kirchner, Argentina's first elected president since the economy unraveled 18 months ago, was taking office Sunday amid popular demands he rebuild a country battered by its worst financial crisis in a century.

Twelve Latin American leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, joined the 53-year-old center-left politician for a day of ceremonies.

Kirchner, who hails from the sparsely populated Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, enters office with the weakest mandate in Argentine history. He won a four-year term by default when former President Carlos Menem dropped out of a runoff.

A center-left politician from Argentina's long-dominant Peronist party, Kirchner is being sworn in as Argentina's 52nd president on promises to defend domestic jobs and industry after more than a decade of unbridled free market policies.

A day of lavish ceremony kicked off when caretaker President Eduardo Duhalde had a traditional hot chocolate with his staff, then participated in a Mass at a Roman Catholic basilica in Lujan, 40 miles northwest of Buenos Aires.

Duhalde took power as a congressional appointee in January 2002 only weeks after the last elected leader, Fernando De la Rua, was forced out amid an imploding economy and deadly street rioting. De la Rua was halfway through his four-year term when the country plunged into economic chaos, bringing a revolving door of five presidents in two weeks.

Sunday's inaugural was seen as a moment of closure -- and a new beginning -- for a country struggling to steady itself from five years of recession, a $141 billion debt default and deep currency devaluation. The jobless rate remains at a near record 18 percent with more than half of the 36.2 million population living in poverty.

Many South American presidents were attending the day's ceremonies, including populist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who since his own election as Brazil's first leftist leader, has sought to expand regional ties.

"Brazilian and Argentine relations are in their finest hour," he insisted, adding that the arrival of ally Kirchner would help bring about true political integration in the region.

"Today is a day for a democratic fiesta in Argentina," added Lula da Silva in a public letter.

On hand were presidents of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay and a scattering of Central American presidents. The United States sent a delegation headed by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez.

Since winning the presidency, Kirchner has lashed out at U.S.-backed free market reforms and promised a multibillion-dollar public works program to jump-start the economy.

But his economic plan remains vague for reviving South America's third-largest economy. His challenges include shrinking a bloated public sector and overhauling the country's tax code. Kirchner also must define his future relationship with the International Monetary Fund as the country grapples with restructuring.

The Miami herald Posted on Sun, May. 25, 2003 BY FRANCES ROBLES frobles@herald.com

CUZCO, Peru - Cuban President Fidel Castro will be invited to attend next year's Rio Group summit, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced Saturday at the end of the pro-democracy group's 17th conference.

''I confess. I see no reason for Cuba to be out of the Rio Group,'' da Silva said. ``Since it was first created in Brazil, I don't know why they have not been invited. We are going to investigate that, and, next time, Cuba will be invited.''

The roots for the organization of Latin American presidents began in 1983, with a handful of nations trying to bring peace to Central America. It was formalized three years ago, and its 17 conferences since then have stressed strengthening democracy.

Cuba has been shunned from the Rio Group for years partly because of its communist government, but more because the group largely focuses on South American integration ssues. In past Rio Group summits, the organization has ''expressed profound concern'' for the situation in Cuba, but never condemned Castro.

The big difference now is that next year, da Silva -- a friend of Castro's -- will be president of the Rio Group and Brazil will host the summit.

The move to invite Cuba is unlikely to make many waves in Latin America, where Castro has friendly relationships with the presidents of not just Brazil but Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru. Cuba already participates in the Ibero-American Summit, and even recently signed a pro-democracy declaration.

''It's not going to be controversial in Latin America; it'll be controversial in Washington,'' said Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latin America and Caribbean Center at Florida International University. ''Washington is going to be angry at any attempt to incorporate Cuba to anything.'' But Gamarra said inviting Cuba could even open Castro up to scrutiny and put the island on the global map.

Antonio Jorge, an expert on Cuba, said the invitation is significant because the invitation by da Silva -- president of the largest country in Latin America -- comes in the wake of the harshest wave of repression in more than a decade against government opponents on the island. Seventy-five dissidents arrested in mid-March are serving prison sentences of up to 28 years. Cuban authorities also executed three men last month who hijacked a passenger ferry.

Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo closed the two-day conference by emphasizing the ''concrete results,'' including a plan to raise international funding for highways linking South American nations.

''The debate has been frank, intense and rich,'' Toledo said.

Herald staff writer Nancy San Martín contributed to this report.

Fri May 23, 2003 08:04 PM ET By Missy Ryan

CUSCO, Peru (<a href=reuters.com>Reuters) - The United Nations must be more aggressive in helping Andean nations quash drug trafficking and moving against rebel violence in Colombia, presidents at a Latin American summit said on Friday.

"The drug trade and terrorism threaten our democracies ... and we cannot ignore what is happening in Colombia," Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo said in opening a two-day meeting of the Rio Group, which includes 19 democracies from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego.

"We must together ask the ... United Nations to speak out firmly against terrorism and drug trafficking, especially in Andean countries," Toledo added. "There are sister nations (to Colombia) ready to lend a hand in any way they can."

Toledo's invocation echoes a proposal from Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez urging the Rio Group to push for a U.N. resolution seeking a cease-fire from the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Thousands are killed every year in Colombia, the world's No. 1 cocaine producer, as security forces fight FARC rebels and other armed groups the government says are involved in the drug trade. The Andean region is also home to the world's second- and third-largest cocaine producers, Peru and Bolivia.

Earlier on Friday, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said he welcomed the plan from Gutierrez. Ecuador, like Colombia's other neighbors Venezuela and Peru, has expressed worry about spillover from Colombian violence.

"The Ecuadorean president's proposal seems practical, for all the neighboring, allied and democratic countries to call on the United Nations to ... tell the FARC that a peace process is needed and that they should cease hostilities," Uribe said.

"If the FARC does not accept, we would have to seek another remedy, which should entail all nations helping Colombia defeat terrorism militarily, with authority," he said.

SUPPORT FOR PLAN UNCLEAR

The proposal on fighting drugs and violence was not on the summit's formal agenda, which officials have said will center on making governance more effective, strengthening democratic governments and curbing rampant social unrest.

But Chilean President Ricardo Lagos said the proposal was likely to be adopted at the summit. "The Colombia issue has been examined closely. ... This proposal would allow us to clear up in great measure an issue that is conflictive for all of Latin America," Lagos told reporters.

Officials say the summit -- which will address reforms for political parties and mechanisms to recycle debt service into public works investment -- must buck the trend of high-level meetings long on protocol and short on results.

"I come hoping this won't be just another summit where we make speeches, applaud, take a photo and say 'Ciao,"' said leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who faces stiff political opposition at home. "This continent needs profound economic and social changes."

The United Nations says Latin America should grow close to 2 percent this year as it recovers from a grave economic crisis including a default and devaluation in Argentina and crippling strikes in oil-exporter Venezuela. Last year, the regional economy shrank 0.6 percent.

Fri May 23, 2003 03:32 PM ET By Pablo Bachelet

WASHINGTON (<a href=reuters.com>Reuter) - President Bush is preparing a series of meetings with key Latin American leaders in an effort to boost his neglected hemispheric agenda, officials and diplomats say.

On Friday, the White House announced that Bush would meet Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on June 20 in Washington, to "discuss issues of common interest, such as advancing economic growth and prosperity, and promoting peace, freedom, and stability."

Bush also on Friday called Argentina's, Néstor Kirchner, to congratulate him on his election and invite him to the White House for a meeting soon, according to Argentine officials. Kirchner is to be sworn in as president on Sunday.

Officials say renewed presidential involvement in the troubled region is meant to show that Bush is determined to push ahead with his Latin American agenda, which had fallen to one side after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The president very much wants to move on, to the extent that circumstances allow it, from a crisis mode of pursuing foreign policy back toward the agenda that he was beginning to establish before September 11," a State Department official said on Friday.

Early in the presidency, Latin America enjoyed a prominent position in Bush's priorities. The White House hailed what was to be the "Century of the Americas," with 800 million inhabitants united under an umbrella of common democratic ideals and a free trade pact bigger than the European Union.

But the Sept. 11 attacks put the agenda on hold, Latin American observers say, even as the region sank into its first recession in two decades in 2002 and countries like Argentina and Venezuela faced political and economic upheavals.

The Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think-tank, described the U.S.' involvement in Latin America as "sporadic and uneven" in a March 2003 report.

Differences were further underscored by the Iraq war, which stirs uneasy memories of unilateral action by the United States in places like Guatemala (1953-1954) and the Dominican Republic (1965). The Iraq war was very unpopular in Latin America.

"You do get a sense that there is this distrust and suspicion that has come back with a vengeance from Latin Americans toward the United States, that had really declined over the course of the 1990s," said Michael Shifter, with the Inter-American Dialogue.

Relations deteriorated further after White House officials expressed their "disappointment" over the refusal of Mexico and Chile to back a U.N. Security Council resolution in March that would have approved the Iraq invasion.

After the Iraq war, Bush met with six of the seven Latin American heads of state that endorsed the armed action. Among those who opposed the war, the only ones to get a ticket to the White House were the presidents of Uruguay and Guatemala.

That is set to change with the June meeting between Lula, who opposed the Iraq war and has expressed skepticism over Washington's free trade agenda. "The two leaders will discuss issues of common interest, such as advancing economic growth and prosperity, and promoting peace, freedom, and stability," the White House said in a statement.

The leaders of the Western Hemisphere are also set to meet in November in Mexico to discuss economic, social and security issues.

Insight On The News Posted May 23, 2003 By Martin Edwin Andersen

Cuba's 101st independence day, May 20, was a day like any other for that country's more than 11 million people who still live inside Fidel Castro's gulag. His regime still basked in the glow of having been re-elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council, recognition of the island's contribution to human rights around the globe, said Fidel's spokesmen. Meanwhile, the island faced one of its worst sugar harvests in a century, and a hard-currency shortage made essentials such as food and fuel even scarcer for those outside of the Communist Party nomenklatura.

In Washington, President George W. Bush brought to the White House a group of former Cuban political prisoners and relatives of some of those still imprisoned. "My hope is for the Cuban people to soon enjoy the same freedoms and rights as we do," said the man who owes his presidency to the votes of Cuban-Americans as much as any other group. "Dictatorships have no place in the Americas."

The White House event was nice enough, but it didn't hide the fact that the day before a U.S.-backed statement condemning human-rights violations in Cuba was withdrawn at the Organization of American States (OAS) after failing to garner enough support from other members. Only after its authors (Canada, Chile and Uruguay) took the unprecedented step of resubmitting the text - which expressed "deep concern about the sharp deterioration" of the human-rights situation in Cuba - as "nonbinding" did 16 of the hemispheric body's 34 members sign on to it.

Strongman Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, as well as Brazil - whose new populist government is praised by Wall Street for its "moderation" - led the fight to kill not only the resolution but also the OAS' moral voice in the coming post-Castro period. Not surprisingly, Venezuelan Ambassador Jorge Valero, whose government has had no problem in coddling Colombian guerrillas and other international terrorists, delicately warned that the statement would "heighten differences and tensions that exist in the hemisphere." Instead, the honorable Valero urged the OAS to debate Cuba in an "integral way" by including a discussion on the U.S. economic embargo against the island. It's an old tactic: Change the subject and, maybe, it will go away.

The pantywaist approach taken by the OAS - one of Washington's most tedious debating societies - to the hemisphere's last remaining dictatorship and the world's longest reigning tyrant came after the Castro regime imprisoned some 75 pro-democracy activists in the worst crackdown on the island in recent years. After meting out prison sentences of six to 28 years, the regime added an additional libel by branding the dissidents as U.S. "mercenaries."

Last week, the United States kicked 14 Cuban diplomats about of the country, accusing them of spying. Meanwhile the Bush administration has appeared to dawdle on forging an effective response to the actions against the island's growing pro-democracy forces. A ban on cash remittances to Cuban families from their American counterparts is considered by many to be ineffective and, since the relatives will suffer more than the regime, inhumane. Ideas about rallying additional international opposition to the Cuban regime meanwhile face stumbling blocks such as those posed by the OAS. Direct aid to island dissidents, such a providing them with communications equipment, might also result in even greater human-rights abuses by a dictatorship that appears willing to go tit-for-(limited) tat.

All of this has the Cuban diaspora, seeing the results of U.S. "shock-and-awe" campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, chafing for change. "Exiles want more than talk from Bush Administration; No change in Cuba Despite Republican Administration," declares a May 13 e-mail from a group called the Cuban American Republican Council (www.CubanGOP.com).

"There is growing discontent among Cuban exiles with the George W. Bush administration's Cuba policy," says Hank Tester, an NBC-6 broadcaster with WFFG Keys Talk Radio in Florida who frequently reports on the Cuban exile community. "Despite historically rock-solid support for Republican presidential candidates, and barrels of cash laid on Republican presidential campaigns, Fidel Castro is still in power. Republican presidents dating back to Richard Nixon have talked the talk but not walked the walk, and not much has changed with the current resident of the White House. That's the word I have been picking up on."

Political analysts tell Insight that the feelings of Florida Cubans voiced by Tester are shared by the large Cuban-American community in New Jersey, which already is trending toward the Democrats. As Florida Republican Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart see more non-Cubans moving into their congressional districts, critics claim that they are limiting their political concerns about Cuba to more parochial issues - meaning they have little or no influence with Cubans outside of Florida. Rep. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), on the other hand, appears to be gaining a lot of influence with Cubans within and outside of his district in New Jersey, and even beyond the borders of the Garden State.

Cuban-American sources within the GOP say that the disillusionment is not limited to administration policy on Cuba, but also to a perception that their support is being taken for granted. These sources say that despite Bush's whisker-thin win in the Sunshine State in 2000, not enough has been done to appoint Cuban-Americans to senior policy jobs. They point out that if the next Supreme Court nominee is a Hispanic, he is likely to be Mexican-American, not Cuban-American. How this plays out in the 2004 elections is anyone's guess but, according to one long-time GOP stalwart: "If the Democrats pick [highly popular Florida Democratic Sen.] Bob Graham as their vice-presidential running mate, there could be real problems for the Republicans among the Miami Cuban community."

Not content to leave the fate of the island in the hands of Washington politicians of either party, in Puerto Rico, a group of exiles gathered together as a National Transition Commission (www.refecuba.com/declaracion.htm) to urge Cuban-Americans to join together in creating a virtual government in exile by means of a democratic plebiscite.

"We recognize that the demands [for democracy] that we have made on the regime have been proposed on repeated occasions by various governments, international organizations and prestigious individuals and that these have been systematically ignored and made to look foolish by Castro," the group says in its founding declaration. "In order for the international organizations to apply economic and political sanctions on the regime and to force compliance with international laws and treaties, it is indispensable that the people of Cuba, both on the island and in exile, express and support these demands with one voice. For this reason, this commission proposes as a first step to convert the exile community in an important factor for Cuban liberty with the means to give effective support to the island's dissidents."

The commission says its referendum with ask four essential questions: 1) Do you agree that it is necessary to legitimate a free Cuban government? 2) Do you believe that it is necessary to support a transitional committee to achieve this free government? 3) Do you believe it is important to actively support those internal groups with the broadest public appeal? 4) Do you support the petition signed by more than 10,000 Cubans on the island demanding a national plebiscite to vote on political, economic and social reforms?

It is a unique approach. By getting the exile community to speak with one voice in favor of both democracy and those on the island who are on the front lines in trying to achieve it, Cuba's diaspora - as much as 20 percent of the island's native born sons and daughters - may become relevant to a process that it has been effectively shut out of in recent years. For years Fidel as played several riffs of the same theme: that democracy activists are stooges of the Americans; that Cuban-Americans are interested in a role in island politics that relegates those still there to that of mere spectators; that a rapproachment between the United States and Cuba necessarily requires a softening of the U.S. stance toward the regime.

Cubans on the island fighting for democracy and a diaspora fully committed to their success. Hmm. What was that old leftist slogan: "The people united will never be defeated"?

In this case, it sounds about right.

Martin Edwin Andersen, a contributing writer to Insight, recently edited a U.S. government-funded study on possible democratic transitions in post-Castro Cuba.