TAKING NOTE: Is Venezuela the New Cuba?
Ballvé, Teo
In many ways, the answer is yes. Venezuela has become a regional spokesperson for opposition to Washington. It has attempted to unite progressive forces throughout the hemisphere in the construction...
...officials have repeatedly accused the Venezuelan government of supporting Colombian rebels and of funding the Bolivian coca-growers movement, but these allegations have been resoundingly rejected for lack of evidence...
...At her confirmation hearing, Rice thus characterized Venezuela “a negative force in the region...
...What remains is the accusation that Venezuela meddles in the affairs of other nations...
...Is it going to be a hemisphere that is democratic and that is prosperous and where neighbors get along, where neighbors don’t interfere in each other’s affairs, where people fight drug trade and fight terrorism together actively...
...U.S...
...President Hugo Chávez’s words, and in many cases his actions, resonate deeply with Latin Americans struggling to escape poverty, inequality, exclusion and the yoke of neoliberal domination...
...Like Cuba, Venezuela has elicited a strongly antagonistic response from Washington for playing this honorary role...
...The history of U.S.- Latin American relations makes this much abundantly clear...
...Undoubtedly, Chávez is attempting a state-sponsored transformation of Venezuela, and by extension the hemisphere...
...Much ink has been spilled about Chávez’s “Bolivarian Revolution,” his policies, his ideas and his style— especially by those questioning his “democratic credentials...
...Helped by Brazil, he has also sought regional economic cooperation with Asian countries, particularly China, in an effort to diversify his country’s U.S.-dominated trade and investment portfolio...
...Within the Americas, the Venezuelan government also stands out in its attempts to aggressively dismantle the historic social injustices still rampant throughout the region...
...Left-leaning governments are consolidating power amid the hemisphere’s evisceration by Washington-backed military and economic policies...
...It has attempted to unite progressive forces throughout the hemisphere in the construction of a regional alliance that would challenge the prevailing vision of U.S.-dominated inter-American “cooperation...
...Within the community of American governments, Venezuela has taken a prominent role in mapping out a future course for the Americas...
...It seems the stagnation of the Cuban predicament has given way to a new crucible of debate and critique around questions of social justice, anti-imperialism, neoliberalism, socialism, democracy and, ultimately, the liberation of a hemisphere...
...On a governmental level for Latin America and the Caribbean, Cuba was to the Cold War as Venezuela now is to the current pattern of global confrontation over the ideologies and practices of neoliberalism...
...Venezuela is now watched closely by policymakers, intellectuals, academics, journalists and activists of all political persuasions, inspiring heated debate on everything from anti-imperialism and human rights to democracy and socialism...
...Latin America stands poised at a historic crossroads...
...It is Chávez’s efforts, along with those of neighboring leaders, to create a “counter-hegemonic bloc” that has more potential bite than bark...
...Of course, there are more radical forces at work in the region, notably in Bolivia, but none have yet achieved state power...
...Immediately, we can dismiss Washington’s “concern” for democracy as the basis for its hostility...
...power...
...For decades, Cuba held considerable sway in the Americas, but now Venezuela has taken center-stage in hemispheric relations...
...He has invited Venezuelans to join him in constructing “a socialism for the twenty-first century”— presumably as opposed to Cuba’s...
...In both cases, immediate efforts focused on the radical inclusion of the nations’ poor, darker-hued majorities, and the chipping away of elite power...
...What Rice really means by Venezuela’s “interference” in regional affairs—a charge the State Department tags onto all its public comments on Venezuela—is more honestly stated as “influence...
...The moment is ripe for a profound, continental transformation, and that Venezuela is trying to be the progressive locomotive driving this process makes Washington (and Wall Street) nervous...
...Venezuela has supplanted Cuba as Washington’s preponderant variable in its Latin America foreign policy calculus...
...Instead of perceiving Latin America’s integration projects as sure-fire ways of ceding sovereignty, he understands regional integration, blocbuilding and South-South solidarity as vehicles for attaining national sovereignty amid coercive U.S...
...And the Bush Administration’s behavior regarding the fight against terrorism, the drug trade and other people’s prosperity is so riddled with contradictions that those “concerns” can also be dismissed...
...As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently stated, what U.S.-Venezuelan relations comes down to, is “what kind of hemisphere is this going to be...
...But in today’s context, what the Venezuelan government is carrying out is almost as radical as what the bearded revolutionaries achieved in the Caribbean...
...Although substantive steps toward greater and deeper regional economic and political integration have been largely led by Brazil, it is Chávez’s emotive billing of integration under an anti-neoliberal banner that gives the process widespread support throughout the region...
Vol. 39 • July 2005 • No. 1
