Reuters, 05.22.03, 4:32 PM ET By Alistair Scrutton

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Latin America's political shift to the left after a decade embracing U.S.-promoted market reform may be more strident reaction than a serious policy move, analysts say, highlighting the lack of viable alternatives.

The rise to power of another left-leaning government in South America, with Argentina's President-elect Nestor Kirchner promising to be more independent of Washington when he takes over on Sunday, appears to confirm a voter backlash against U.S. influence in the region after years of economic woes.

Center-left Kirchner joins Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Venezuela's populist President Hugo Chavez as leaders openly critical of U.S. policies such as free trade, market reforms, the Cuba embargo or the Iraq war.

Suffering from economic downturn, many of Latin America's 500 million people are tired of the "Washington consensus" of market reforms, unfettered investments and diplomatic closeness in the 1990s -- when Argentina sent troops to the Gulf War.

But the rhetoric seems to be louder than the action, especially over the economy where budget austerity and free trade are still at the forefront of policies -- if only for want of an alternative.

"In Latin America, the issue is not security or geo-political strategy but economic, and on economic policy little has changed," a Western diplomat said.

Ricardo Israel, head of the Political Sciences Institute of the University of Chile, said: "Leaders may blame globalization but they have very little alternatives to offer."

Latin Americans feel poorer as economies have struggled, highlighted by riots in Peru and Paraguay and financial crises in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay over the last year.

Argentina's crisis gave rise to the IMF moniker International "Misery" Fund and Lula was hailed as a victory for the excluded in the region's biggest economy.

Washington has struggled to win Latin American support to condemn Cuban human rights violations. Chavez, a close ally of Cuban President Fidel Castro, is one of the most vocal leaders against what he calls U.S. "imperialism." Even Mexico and Chile, traditional allies, did not back the invasion of Iraq.

LET'S NOT PICK A FIGHT

"There's a degree of resentment against the U.S. not seen for a while due to its unilateralism. On the other hand there's a very heavy dose of pragmatism -- not wanting to pick a fight," said Peter Hakim of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think-tank.

Kirchner criticizes IMF austerity plans and wants an alliance with Brazil before agreeing to a U.S.-promoted Free Trade Area of the Americas, a contrast to the 1990s when Argentina was a key U.S. ally that pegged its currency to the dollar.

But with a weak mandate at home, Kirchner needs foreign support, especially the IMF, to win back investor confidence. "U.S. relations will be just a little more formal, they won't be so openly friendly " said political analyst Manuel Mora y Araujo.

Brazil is key for progress on the free trade agreement by 2005, the world's largest free trade zone covering the Western Hemisphere. Lula calls the free trade agreement a U.S. attempt to "annex" Latin America, "There's been a more confrontational stance on free trade," said Joao Teixeira, of the Prospectiva consultancy in Brazil. "But Brazil does not have many instruments to put rhetoric into action," he added.

"Rather than a move to the left, it's more a move toward caution," said Nicolas Shumway, head of Latin American studies at the University of Texas in Austin.

<a href=www.theglobalist.com>The Globalist Global Bite > Global Politics By David Apgar | Saturday, April 26, 2003  

U.S. President George W. Bush surprised all western intelligence agencies and major news outlets with his recent announcement that Syria harbors weapons of mass destruction. What was his message really intended to say? Was it the opening shot in a broader global campaign to rid the world of yet more of its ills? David Apgar takes a somewhat light-hearted look.

Some people believe that, in its decoded version, President Bush’s veiled threat to President Assad of Syria really reads: “Give up Saddam’s cousins and his sisters and his — or you are toast!”

A brilliant strategy

The Bush Administration has since softened its rhetorical assault on Damascus. But come to think of it, calling on other nations to clean up their act is a brilliant strategy.

Of course, President Nixon tried it as well, but he was no George Bush. His efforts were cut short because he scared Americans more than America’s foes.

President Bush is off to a much stronger start. The real question is this: How far will he go in his expansive mood and mindset? Which nation’s conflicts will not get tangled up in his web?

Real needs

In the view of many, Americans really need help with North Korean nukes — and Colombian drug traffickers.

North Korea presents a worse nuclear proliferation risk than anybody else, and Colombia festers on the edge of civil war in America’s backyard.

A tough goal

And while we’re at it, the United States could also help out its great ally, Britain. It is suffering mightily under all those farm seizures visited upon expatriates in Zimbabwe.

Resolving these prickly issues is a tough goal, but it is certainly within reach — now that the President of the mighty United States has caught the clean-up bug. Here is one correspondent’s guide to how events could unfold:

With North Korea, the United States needs help from both China and Russia. As things currently stand, it is still far too easy for both of these nations simply to sit back and say, “Let’s let America deal with the barking maniac in Pyongyang.”

Addressing complacency

To address their complacency, watch for the U.S. President to announce that the rising threat on the Korean peninsula has forced him to occupy Taiwan and Russia’s Kuril Islands.

He would claim that this move occurred purely out of self-defense, of course.

Rapid response

Normally, great nations would receive such an announcement with skeptical detachment. But the same cannot be said when the 101st Airborne is studying maps of the Syrian Desert.

With the 101st Airborne looking for suitable landing zones in the Syrian part of the Euphrates valley, a little hysteria would be in order.

Painful as it is to have to talk with Kim Jong-Il, one can imagine China’s and Russia’s leaders picking up the telephone to get the mad man of Pyongyang moving in the right direction. Either that or watch Marines roasting marshmallows on the beaches of Taiwan and the Kurils.

On to the New World

The Bush team will also want to turn its creativity to the boiling problems in the New World. Our good friends in Colombia need help in their war on drug terrorists, for example.

Venezuela would be in a great position to help the United States contain Colombian drug lords – but for one little problem.

Why not step in?

Under the stewardship of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s government actually sympathizes with all those aging revolutionaries in Columbia who let their rebel organizations besiege civilian government.

Watch for the United States to step in — threatening to seize Venezuela’s ports, say, until its difficult President Chavez comes around and lends a hand in the Columbian campaign.

As it is, Venezuela’s ports are clogged with oil tankers. We could offer to relieve the congestion while President Chavez considers his options.

What about Fidel?

And then there is Fidel Castro, the unapologetic Cuban super-dictator, whose recent moves against his domestic opposition make him look like a latter-day revolutionary on a permanent overdose of Viagra.

Using the U.S. military — as it is on its way back from the Persian Gulf — in order to send Castro packing is always an option. But it would also be a true cheap shot.

An elegant solution

A more elegant solution might involve, say, the Argentines. With Argentina’s continuing economic crisis, the country needs all the help from the United States that it can possibly offer.

So the Bush Administration would only be wise to ask for a down payment in exchange for its favors. How about sending up the Argentine navy to seize Cuba - and free it?

After all, Argentina's Navy has a lot of experience in seizing islands. Just think back to 1982 — when the country seized the Falkland Islands from Britain.

Great torment

And speaking of Britain, what about Prime Minister Tony Blair?

It surely torments him to read daily dispatches of the latest abominations that Zimbabwe's liberator-turned-tyrant Robert Mugabe has committed against white farmers and black opponents.

An urgent mission

Virtually all of those farmers originally hale from Britain. The situation is awful — and, in asserting its geopolitical mission, the United States cannot forget about Britain, its primary ally. Sending the 82nd Airborne into Zimbabwe surely looks like an urgent humanitarian relief mission.

Of course, some might argue that President Bush could finally use his expansive mood to great effect — by convincing Israel to withdraw to its approximate old borders and focus on self-defense.

One could imagine the President declaring in a weekly radio address: "No offense intended, but the rising terrorist threat to Americans justifies U.S. occupation of the West Bank — as a trust reserved for Palestinians."

A price to pay

To accomplish this ambitious homeland security goal for the United States, the President in all likelihood would not even have to commit any troops. After all, while illegal settlements come and go, smart Israelis would not want to build new ones on the prospective turf of the 3rd Infantry Division.

But we should probably stop short of predicting this last gambit. Unlike fixing the rest of the world, fixing the West Bank would cost the President real political capital at home.

Copyright © 2003 by The Globalist. Reproduction of content on this site without The Globalist's written permission is strictly prohibited.

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www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, March 17, 2003 By: Hector Dauphin-Gloire

Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 09:44:08 -0500 From: Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: Comments on the Asian Model

Dear Editor: I write to comment on Daniel Burnett's letter suggesting a way out of Venezuela's economic crisis. I would like first of all to compliment him on the article, it was a very incisive and well-thought-out piece and I think it contained a lot of truth. I do however have one or two thoughts of my own to add. While I am not trained in economics, I have read some history ... so my comments are coming more from a historical than an economists' perspective.

Mr. Burnett argues, convincingly, that much attention must be paid to the record of the East Asian countries in developing their economies. One thing to bear in mind, however, is that like every country, the economic development in these countries bore a human cost.

With the exception of semi-authoritarian Singapore, the groundwork of economic development in these countries was laid during periods of extreme authoritarianism. This allowed harsh measures to be pushed through and labor unions, etc. to be suppressed. That is not to say, necessarily, that it was not an acceptable price to pay ... only the people in those countries can answer that question.

It does mean however that we should consider the cost before we encourage Venezuela to go down that road.

A further flaw in the East Asian model is that most of these countries have had low levels of social provision (unemployment benefits, welfare benefits, etc.). On the flip side, Taiwan and South Korea have accomplished something almost unknown in the capitalist world ... extremely low levels of social inequality combined with a capitalist system. For these reasons, despite my criticisms, I do have much admiration for the Asian model, and perhaps it is indeed a good way forward for Venezuela.

My own ideal, however, would borrow some from the Asian model, but also from the idea of cooperative economics. Mr. Burnett describes socialism as a system where the State owns and coordinates economic activity in the interests of social justice and equality. He offers a very lucid and accurate analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of socialist economies in the past.

The great lesson of the second half of the twentieth century, I believe, is that while socialism can do great things for developing countries, ultimately the effort is futile unless they industrialize their economies at the same time ... otherwise it comes down to socializing poverty. (Although one could argue that it is certainly better to be poor in Cuba, where some necessities of life are guaranteed, than in most other countries). But in truth, I believe that socialism depends on SOCIAL ownership, not necessarily State ownership ... and this social ownership can take many forms.

We know, as Mr. Burnett states, that State-owned companies are often economically inefficient, and that therefore a State-run command economy is not the way forward. (Although this is not necessarily always true- PDVSA, Renault, and the Brazilian oil company are all examples of nationalized industries which have continued to run profitably).

But this says more, I think, about the fact that these companies are centralized than the fact that they are non-capitalist.

Centralization produces corruption and sclerosis ... as has been amply demonstrated ... whether the company is public or private, and whether it operates for a profit or for social objectives.

What if factories and industries were owned not by the State, nor by private investors, but rather by the people who worked in those industries themselves?

Such a system would assuredly be more egalitarian than capitalism (since there would be no distinction between workers and capitalists), and more efficient than communism (since ownership would be more decentralized, more responsive to the needs of employees, consumers, and the market, and more flexible).

Cooperative economics, while historically a common form of economy particularly in the great civilizations of South America (witness the Ayllu farms of the great Inca Empire) has in modern times been largely ignored.

The capitalist countries, of course, did not want a challenge to their social hierarchy which has an investor class and a working class; and the socialist countries felt that only State ownership could overcome the anarchy and irrationality (as they saw it) of the market.

Indeed, this was one of the fatal mistakes of the whole socialist movement, and doomed their project ... to rely on State rather than cooperative ownership. However, in the few instances where it has been tried, cooperative economics has been highly successful.

The commonly cited example is Yugoslavia, which during the 1970s and 1980s had a productive, growing economy, with more equality than the West and more freedom and efficiency than the countries of the East.

Yugoslavia had a market economy ... but it was not capitalist because factories were owned by the workers themselves, who then elected their own managers and shared the profits from the industry equally. Yugoslavia had its own economic problems caused by the cooperative model, including high unemployment ... but, on balance, I believe that their model was better than either capitalist or state-socialist ownership.

Other examples of the cooperative mode of production include the Yarur textile industry, and other agricultural or industrial enterprises, during both the Christian-Democratic and Allende years in Chile; the Mondragon cooperative in Spain; the ejido farm system in Mexico; and the farms that are being set up in Brazil by the Landless Workers' Movement.

The important thing to realize about cooperative socialism is that it doesn't rule out the market mechanism. On the contrary, no healthy economy can survive in the modern world without some kind of market. However, for a market economy to serve the common good, people need both an egalitarian social system ... so that they are bargaining with each other on a level playing field ... and a spirit of social solidarity, so that greed and self-interest do not become the driver of all economic relations.

Both of these advances, the social one and the moral one, can be provided by a system in which we have decentralized cooperative ownership. Of course, such a system can be combined with the Asian model, in which there is heavy state investment and export-oriented development.

In fact, that is what I believe represents the best way forward for the countries of the Global South -- the Asian model, within an economic framework of cooperative ownership, where relatively few enterprises are owned either by the State or by private individuals.

I hope that these thoughts have been able to supplement Mr. Burnett's ideas for a new Venezuela, and I conclude by agreeing with him ... the economic development of any nation is always a slow, painful process, with much cost in suffering involved ... but at the end of the road, it is necessary if the countries of the global South are to regain their once proud place in the world.

Sincerely, Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com Environmental Technician

www.commondreams.org Published on Friday, March 14, 2003 by the Globe & Mail/Canada by Timothy Appleby

The chief threat to the world today is not Iraq, but the United States, Argentine activist says

The Bush administration's drive to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is so aggressive that even before a war has started its repercussions are being felt in every corner of the world, says Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel.

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Adolfo Perez Esquivel listens to a discussion titled: "A world without wars is possible" during the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2002.

The Argentine, who won the 1980 Peace Prize, views President George W. Bush's plans for attacking Iraq with great alarm. "Bush is setting the world on fire," he said.

Mr. Perez Esquivel, a native of Buenos Aires, is an architect, sculptor and teacher. He won the 1980 prize for his resistance to Argentina's Dirty War against leftist rebels. Imprisoned and tortured, he was freed with help from Amnesty International and the Pope.

At 71, he leads the Latin American human-rights group Servicio, Paz y Justicia, and travels widely on behalf of the antiwar movement. He has been in Toronto and Ottawa under the auspices of the church group KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives.

After visiting Iraq last year for a firsthand look at what 12 years of sanctions and U.S. bombing attacks have done to its battered infrastructure, Mr. Perez Esquivel scoffed at the notion that Iraq poses any significant threat.

A U.S. attack, on the other hand, would open "a Pandora's box, threatening to set free the demons of death and destruction," he wrote recently.

"The chief danger in the world today is not Saddam Hussein," Mr. Perez Esquivel said. "It is the United States."

Like other critics of U.S. policy, he perceives in the United States an angry, isolated country inflicting lasting damage on itself. Mr. Perez Esquivel reaches for some words by Abraham Lincoln, quoted by President John F. Kennedy at the United Nations in 1962.

"What Lincoln said more than a century ago is that if the United States doesn't defend life, then it faces the prospect of self-destruction."

Yet unstable as the planet is, Mr. Perez Esquivel fears surging anti-Americanism will make it far more so. Across Latin America, he says, the antiwar sentiment, which has prompted big demonstrations in half a dozen countries, is vigorously feeding long-term resentment over U.S. policies on trade, tariffs, militarization and debt.

"What's happening with Iraq is not isolated, it's part of a global phenomenon. When we see the installation of U.S. military bases throughout Latin America, when we look at [American interference] in countries such as Venezuela and Colombia and Panama, we have to ask ourselves what's going on.

"Lots of people think it and won't say it, but I will say it: The United States is seeking to control the world. That's why we are seeing the reaction in so many countries."

www.abs-cbnnews.com By HERBERT V. DOCENA

Docena is a Research Associate of Focus on the Global South, a policy research center dealing with economic and security issues confronting developing countries.

PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL - Off we dash to catch a glimpse of the man everybody here calls Lula. Along the way, we run into a throng of people milling around a TV set: Lula’s already at the park addressing thousands and thousands of Brazilians. We’re late. Off we race toward a taxicab and slam the doors shut. “To the park, por favor,” we tell the driver in broken Portuguese.

It’s Lula’s voice booming on the cab’s AM stereo. “Is that Lula?” my companion asks. The driver nods and flashes the thumbs-up.

“Bom?” Is he good?

“Muito bom!” Very good!

The driver pushes hard on the pedal. He swerves maniacally. It’s as though he sensed how much we -- a group of delegates attending the World Social Forum -- want to see Lula in the flesh. “The driver wants to see Lula as badly as we want to,” another companion corrects me. He overtakes furiously.

Lula, of course, is Luis Ignacio “Lula” da Silva, the new President of Brazil, who won a landslide 62 percent of the votes in Brazil’s election last October -- the biggest ever garnered by any presidential candidate in Brazilian political history. His name is on T-shirts that are still selling like pancakes here, months after the election campaign. His face has even replaced that of Che Guevara’s in some of those most sought-after red pins.

We stop beside another taxicab at the intersection. The driver gestures toward his colleague at the other car to ask whether he’s also tuned in. He gives the thumbs-up. He’s listening to Lula too. Then another cab. Another thumbs-up.

“Did you know that one of the first things Lula did when he became President was to tour his ministers in the favelas (slum communities) to tell them, ‘This is how Brazilians really live. Keep that in mind when you fulfill your duties,’” my Indian companion begins sharing our Lula stories.

“Did you know that one of the first things he did when he assumed power was to cancel a contract for jet fighters in order to use the money for schools?”

We listen intently to the live broadcast. Lula’s speech was in Portuguese and we could barely pick out the words. Pais. Problemas. Esperenca. Ah, he was talking about his country. He was discussing problems. And he was talking about hope.

All the other words in between I couldn’t decipher. But the things that couldn’t be translated I could discern: There was a raw sincerity to his words. His voice rang with a promise that even I -- a foreigner, a non-Brazilian -- also wanted to believe in.

“Ole-ole-ole Lula, Lula!” chanted the thousands, punctuating the President’s speech, as though he had just scored the winning goal in the championships of the World Cup.

I thought I had seen this before.

Back home, hundreds of thousands of unwashed and unpowdered Filipinos also gave former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada the kind of devotion that the unwashed and unpowdered of the Brazilians are now giving Lula. Like Lula, Erap’s popularity among the masses was historically unprecedented. And for the true believer, Erap represented what Lula now symbolizes for many Brazilians: the rise of the dispossessed against a long period of oppression.

Lula, however, in hindsight and in comparison, seems to be the real thing. He’s really one of them. As a boy, he almost died from starvation and had to escape a drought in his province via a long and torturous journey to the city. Erap, in contrast, having come from the old rich, has probably never experienced hunger.

Lula has really fought for the masses. A former metal worker, Lula spent most of his adult life as a trade union leader fighting against the Brazilian dictatorship. Erap also devoted most of his life fighting on the side of the poor -- but only in the movies. And in real life, he was very cozy with Ferdinand Marcos the dictator.

The otherwise empty road was suddenly jammed. All routes seemed to lead to the park. In front of us, a man proudly waves Lula’s red party flag from inside his car. Stalled, we decided to join the crowds of people still sauntering toward the park in hordes to catch a glimpse of their President -- even if his speech has already ended. They have not been packed up from their communities and sent there in a bus by their local political operators. There were no goodie bags. They went there on their own, expecting nothing in return.

I have not really seen this before. This was all amusingly new to me.

Where I come from, people have grown to see most politicians with nothing but disdain and contempt. In just 20 years, we have twice become so disgusted with our presidents, Marcos and Estrada, that we kicked them out of office. But here in Brazil, in some of the conferences, just the mere mention of Lula’s name by a speaker was enough to provoke the crowd into a sudden convulsion and a rapturous cheering of “Ole ole Lula!”

In the Philippines, political leaders inspire nothing but suspicion and cynicism; here, Lula seems to inspire real trust and hope. Back home, elections are often a choice among the least devious devil. Here, it appears like there could have been no better choice.

I come from a country where the youth have grown so wary of politics that most of them wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it. But here, Lula’s most ardent followers are the young: they were at Lula’s rally in massive numbers -- shirtless, holding their girlfriend’s or their boyfriend’s hands while listening raptly to Lula’s every word, kissing and embracing each other after applauding him feverishly.

I come from a country where the leader of the most organized segment of the Left is daring enough to call for an overthrow of the State, but not bold enough to come home from a comfortable exile.

Here in Brazil, Lula’s vision is not just bold; he is here, and he has won. The Brazilian Left has achieved what the most organized segment of the Left back home had deemed unimaginable: It had wrested ultimate leadership of the State without having had to kill anyone -- not the reactionary elements, not even former comrades in arms.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether Lula can really steer this State toward its revolutionary aims. But he has already shown that the first and most important step -- to take control of it and to mobilize the masses behind it -- can be done.

And here, perhaps, lies the reason why Lula arouses so much excitement even from the cynical and the hardened. He is an aberration. In today’s order of things, his victory seems so much like just a happy freakish accident, unbelievable but true.

In a world dominated by politicians out to serve the interests of the few and the powerful, in a world marked with political systems that inherently give undue advantage to these kinds of politicians, we have not expected any Lula to prevail. In a continent where the United States has routinely done everything to prevent leaders like Lula from coming to power and from doing anything but its wishes, we have not expected Lula to overcome. In a period when the Establishment has in so many places successfully suppressed the opposition and elites just scramble for power among themselves, when the Left has in so many cases fragmented itself, we have not expected Lula and his party to show the way.

I stood there, along with the Brazilians lining the road, waiting for Lula’s car to pass, hoping that in chanting “Ole ole Lula!” there would be more aberrations, more freaks, to come.

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