il WSJ sulla situazione i namericalatina

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

                WALL STREET JOURNAL
                      http://www.wsj.com/
 
 THURSDAY - DECEMBER 13, 2001
 SECTION:         EDITORIALS & OPINION
 
 EDITORIAL:         Review & Outlook
                      While Caracas Burns
 
         Argentina has a debt crisis, guerrilla movements are growing in
 Colombia and Peru, and on Monday Venezuela was all but shut down because
 of a nationwide protest against the creeping dictatorship of President
 Hugo Chavez. The success story that was once Latin America is unraveling
 by the day, thanks in part to a lack of U.S. leadership.
         Yet while Caracas burns, the top U.S. policy maker for the
 region can't assume his post for reasons of petty ideological revenge.
 Otto Reich -- President Bush's nominee to be Assistant Secretary of
 State for the Western Hemisphere -- still can't get a hearing in
 Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd's subcommittee. Mr. Dodd's petulance has
 gone beyond the usual Beltway payback and is now creating a leadership
 vacuum damaging to U.S. national security.
         It's hard to recall reading today's headlines, but 10 years ago
 Latin America's future looked bright. Democracy was on the rise,
 economies were growing and the era of military coups seemed to be over.
 The countries did this mostly on their own, but U.S. leadership was
 crucial. The U.S. nurtured free-market economic ideas and helped against
 Marxist rebels. That trend stopped during the 1990s, as the Clinton
 Administration mostly ignored the region for more glamorous priorities.
 The result today is a region threatened by repression, violence and
 economic decline.
 
 BELTWAY FIDDLER
         In Colombia, Marxist guerrillas now control, and claim to own,
 a portion of the country as large as Switzerland. Any negotiations with
 the government, they maintain, are about who controls the rest of
 Colombia, and to prove it they launch terrorist strikes, kidnap or kill
 innocents and sabotage electricity and oil pipelines. The narcotics
 trade and guerrillas are both now spilling out of Colombia into Ecuador.
 
         Shining Path terrorism is returning to the countryside in Peru,
 where the State Department has issued a travel warning to Americans. The
 triple border area of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina is home to a number
 of Islamic fundamentalist terrorist cells. In Argentina, the government
 is bankrupt, tariff barriers on consumer goods have been hiked to 35%
 and a bank run has triggered capital controls.
         But nowhere have conditions deteriorated faster than in
 Venezuela under President Chavez, whose role model is Fidel Castro.
 Responding to Monday's nationwide strike, Mr. Chavez donned military
 fatigues as fighter planes roared overhead. "Now we will begin
 tightening the screws," he said. "Nothing stops this revolution." He has
 already passed laws that will allow him to confiscate private farmland,
 and on Tuesday Fidel himself paid a visit and praised his handiwork.
         As for Central America, crime and kidnapping rings are chasing
 out foreign investment, the great hope of so many jobless poor. Haitian
 President Jean Bertrand Aristide -- restored to power by Bill Clinton --
 behaves like a mafia don in his destitute nation, where critics of the
 government are murdered with impunity. The refugee exodus has resumed,
 with the U.S. Coast Guard reportedly intercepting more than 300 this
 month.
         Despite anti-Yankee rhetoric for local consumption, Latin
 America has long relied on the U.S. for leadership. The region is in
 enough trouble now that if Secretary of State Colin Powell didn't have a
 war to worry about, he would have no choice but to make Latin America a
 priority. And the crisis explains why Messrs. Bush and Powell are both
 adamant in supporting Mr. Reich, a Cuban immigrant and former ambassador
 to Venezuela with a lifetime of experience and contacts in the region.
         Mr. Dodd knows that Mr. Reich would be confirmed if he got to
 the Senate floor, which is why he wants to block even a hearing. He and
 Latin America aide Janice O'Connell bear a grudge against the
 Cuban-American going back to their days on opposite sides of the battle
 over Central America. But rather than face that difference squarely, Mr.
 Dodd's strategy has been to smear Mr. Reich's reputation, accusing him
 in a letter to this paper of, among other things, being soft on
 terrorism. U.S. officials say the public record refutes those charges,
 which may be why Mr. Dodd doesn't want Mr. Reich to get his chance to
 make his case in the Senate.
         We keep wondering when Mr. Dodd's Democratic betters are going
 to call him to account for such behavior. It'd be nice to know, for
 example, how Florida Democrats Bob Graham and Bill Nelson feel about
 this treatment of a Cuban American. Tom Daschle recently met with Mr.
 Reich, but the majority leader has been reluctant to overrule his
 party's junior barons when they get the bit in their mouths.
         Mr. Bush has the recourse of a recess appointment for Mr. Reich
 once the Senate leaves town. Given the worsening state of Latin America,
 and Mr. Dodd's irresponsibility, the President can justify such a move
 in the urgent national interest.
         Copyright 2001 Dow Jones & Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
 
 
 
> 
> 
> The Revolution will not be televised: News at 11...
> 
> grok
> Independent canadian marxist
> 
> The U.S. ruling class: A godzilla monster
> that stalks the world, devouring everything.
> (apologies to Godzilla and friends)
> 
>