Reviving a Cold War atmosphere
Starting just before Christmas and lasting right up to the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey on 12-13 January, a combination of public and off-the-record statements, and `deep background' briefings, by US officials gave the impression that Washington was determined to recreate a Cold War atmosphere on a hemispheric scale. The core message was that Cuba, allied with Venezuela, have embarked upon a campaign to destabilise democratic governments in the region and foster anti-US sentiment — and that Argentina and Brazil are suspected of tolerating, maybe even sympathising with, their aims.
As on previous occasions when similar messages were broadcast, several features were toned down in time for the summit, but the core message has not been disowned — and it carries a vague but ominous threat. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega phrased it as follows: `Those that continue in destabilizing democratically elected governments, interfering in the internal affairs of other governments, are playing with fire.'
Reich on Venezuela & Cuba
The ball was set in motion a week before Christmas by US special envoy Otto Reich, when in a briefing he singled out Venezuela as the Latin American country facing `the most serious' political crisis. Playing with innuendo, Reich hinted that President Hugo Chávez might block a referendum to revoke his mandate (preempting the verification process now under way, Reich said that the opposition had collected `more than 3m, possibly up to 4m, valid signatures' endorsing the call to a referendum) or ignore its verdict (he said that opinion polls showed two-thirds of the population against Chávez ).
The US, said Reich, is very concerned about the `continuous' reports about the presence of `Cuban agents' in Venezuela: `hundreds if not thousands of persons of military age and appearance.' He added that Washington, together with `all of its friends in the hemisphere', is closely monitoring what is happening in Venezuela.
Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, pitched in on 3 January with the theory that Fidel Castro has come out of a long hibernation to launch a new bid for regionwide influence. `In his final days,' said Noriega, Castro appears `nostalgic for destabilising elected governments.' He went on, `It should be very clear to Fidel Castro that his actions have caught the attention of Latin American leaders and that his actions to destabilise Latin America are increasingly provocative to the inter-American community.'
Noriega was critical of what he portrayed as a leftward tilt in Argentina's foreign policy, including a rapprochement with Cuba, which he illustrated with Argentine foreign minister Rafael Bielsa's `particularly disappointing' failure to meet Cuban dissidents when he visited Havana last October (Brazilian President Lula da Silva was earlier faulted on similar grounds). He also found worrying a reported initiative by President Néstor Kirchner to enlist Cuba as an associate member of Mercosur, and Kirchner's meeting with Bolivian opposition leader Evo Morales (who is routinely included among the leaders that represent a threat to regional security).
Off-the-record scenarios
On 5 January, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli announced that `the close ties between the government of Venezuela and the government of Cuba raise concerns among Venezuela's democratic neighbours.' That same day, US officials briefed journalists that Cuba and Venezuela were engaged in a joint effort to foster anti-US sentiment; Castro providing the political nous and Chávez the funds generated by his country's oil exports.
The latter, they said, were influential in the `ouster' of Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Opposition leader Evo Morales was said to have received funds from Chávez via Venezuela's military attaché in La Paz (who in the US version, denied by Caracas, was expelled for this by the Sánchez de Lozada government), and directly when he visited Caracas. Venezuela was also said to be funding opposition groups in Ecuador and Uruguay. Mention was made as well of the older charges that Chávez has been providing support and safe haven to Colombian guerrilla organisations.
Journalists were reminded that Chávez had visited Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, funded al Qaeda (a case brought against him on these grounds has just been thrown out by a US court), and in September 2003 received the `unannounced' visit of North Korea's ambassador to Cuba (this was accompanied by the hint that Chávez might have been thinking about buying North Korean nuclear knowhow).
Then there is the presence of the Cubans `of military appearance' mentioned by Reich. The briefers acknowledged that most of these are indeed volunteer doctors and teachers, but noted that they performed `political tasks in their spare time' — and in any case the real threat came from the large number of Cuban personnel `embedded' in Venezuela's security and intelligence services.
Endorsement from above
Though some US officials told the press privately that a confrontation was under way within the Bush administration between `believers' (in Chávez as engaged in destabilising other governments) and `skeptics', over the next couple of days in Washington, higher-ranking officials sounded similar notes. Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Noriega's statements as `calling things by their name' and added, `I've been in senior national security positions on and off over the last 17 years. And through that whole period of time, Cuba has been trying to do everything it could to destabilise parts of the region.' Powell described relations with Venezuela as `tense'.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice echoed Reich's verdict that Venezuela is undergoing a `very difficult period' and said that the best thing Chávez could do is comply with the will of his people — the context implying that his people want him out. Rice also said that she couldn't understand why anyone who believed in democracy would want to have relations with Fidel Castro. She also noted that `Colombia has concerns about activities that Venezuela may have been involved in.' This is an allusion to the old claim that Chávez has been supporting the Colombian guerrillas. [According to one off-the-record briefing that departs from the norm, US military intelligence has found no evidence that Venezuelan provision of arms to Colombia has risen since Chávez came to office.]
Castro-Chávez meeting
An unscheduled, highly secretive visit by Fidel Castro to Venezuela, on 22 December, gave further ammunition to US briefers. The story they put out was that the Cuban and Venezuelan leaders had met to discuss how to confront the prospect of an `inevitable' defeat for Chávez in the mandate-revocation referendum. An alternative version had them discussing the prospect of US intervention.
This latter interpretation was fed, a few days later, by Castro's public reply to Otto Reich's pronouncements. Apart from reiterating that most of the Cubans in Venezuelan (10,169 of them) were `relatively young doctors, with an average 10 years' experience', Castro issued a warning to the US: `I hope they do not make a mistake with the Venezuelans. Nowadays, it is anyone's guess how much resistance any foreign intervention in Venezuela would encounter in South America. I don't like to lie or use fanciful arguments, and I'm certain I'm not wrong in saying that a military intervention in Venezuela would set alight the tinderbox of South America as a whole, all the way down to Patagonia. You can't rule this hemisphere of hundreds of millions of people with a rifle and bayonet on each corner, in each factory, in each school, on each street.'
Castro made no mention of the Cuban intelligence and security personnel in Venezuela. Privately, government sources in Caracas do not deny their presence; rather, they say it is only logical to seek assistance in this area from the country that has the most experience in dealing with US or US-backed subversion.
Targeting Morales in Bolivia
Of all the recent off-the-record briefings by US officials, those that have received less attention from the US and international media are the ones regarding Bolivia — beyond the alleged funding of Evo Morales by Venezuela, mentioned earlier. The message being conveyed now is that Evo Morales is connected with the Colombian guerrilla organisations (both the Farc and ELN are mentioned), who have been providing training to coca growers (in the making and laying of booby-traps, for instance) and assistance in the launching of a local guerrilla organisation, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia (ELN-B).
In the version circulating in Washington, the ELN-B is already in existence: eight of its members were arrested in early December and only released after Morales threatened to overthrow the government. The ELN-B's hand is seen behind the bombing of rural electrical installations (described as `US-funded'). ELN-B `operatives' were arrested while transporting 81mm shells to the coca-growing Chapare region.
The new ELN-B's appearance on the scene dates back to April 2003, when journalists were invited (according to one of them, by the US embassy) to witness the capture of a Colombian guerrilla trainer and some of his Bolivian trainees. Among the items said to have been seized were fake documents, ammunition (but no guns) and a blueprint for the creation of the ELN-B. This was presented as the `germ' of a `narcoterrorist' organisation. By year-end, though, the public prosecutor still lacked enough evidence to file formal charges. The Colombian authorities, usually keen to uncover international ramifications of their guerrilla groups, identified their national as a known human rights activist.
The later arrests were of cocalero activists, suspected of involvement in attacks on the government's coca-eradication teams and on `alternative development' schemes -- but not clearly linked with a nascent ELN-B. Morales has been trying to rein in the more radical cocaleros for much of last year, holding out the prospect of firmer political gains in this year's municipal elections. He has also denied having received any funds from Venezuela or collusion with Colombian guerrillas.
[Worth noting: this is the second purported `revival' of the ELN in Bolivia. The original one was the organisation that fronted Che Guevara's failed guerrilla uprising of the mid-1960s. In the early 1990s it reappeared on the domestic scene as the reputed author of a bombing of US diplomatic premises. At that time the US State Department considered it linked to the Peruvian Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru.]
Behind this is Washington's opposition to Bolivia's departure from the agreed `zero coca' policy, which began under the recently resigned President Sánchez de Lozada.
Brazil assumes mediating role
There have been angry responses from both Venezuela and Argentina to the recent spate of public statements and off-the-record briefings by US officials. In the run-up to the Summit of the Americas, Brazil preferred to deride the US claims both publicly and in their own background briefings. Marco Aurelio Garcia, who is President Lula da Silva's chief foreign policy adviser, called on Roger Noriega to clarify whether he had been speaking `as a Cuban exile or in the name of his government.'
Privately, the claims that Hugo Chávez 's government might be involved in providing false documents for `terrorists' or helping them launder their money (aired in a recent US magazine article based on briefings by officials) are dismissed as `fantasies'.
Brazilian officials add, though, that their government — and Lula himself — have been trying to persuade their US counterparts that there is no `leftward tilt' under way in Latin America. Kirchner's stance is explained as the product of a balancing act between great domestic political pressures and external economic difficulties. As to Chávez , while admitting that he is often `over the top' verbally, the Brazilians say there is no sign that he intends to transform Venezuela into a hub of terrorism.
Some of this message appears to have percolated: at Monterrey, Bush again publicly supported Argentina's economic efforts, and did not adopt a belligerent tone towards Venezuela. The Venezuelan government, through Vice-President José Vicente Rangel, redefined its situation vis-í -vis the US as `a strange relationship, because we have excellent relations regarding such matters as counternarcotics and oil, but some differences over politics — which shouldn't be worrying.'
Lagos decries unilateralism
That confrontation was avoided at Monterrey, however, is not a sign that `misunderstandings' have been overcome. The US has not only managed to irk Venezuelans, Argentines and Bolivians. It has also discomfited Costa Ricans with its threat of exclusion from Cafta, and Nicaraguans with its open involvement in domestic politics. Perhaps the best indicator of widespread irritation is provided by Chile, until recently Washington's model free-trade partner but spurned when it came to supporting its candidate for the top job at the Organization of American States (OAS).
Just before Monterrey, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, in his characteristically measured tone, took the US to task, not for its policy emphasis on security, but for the manner in which it has excluded Latin America from its approach to this area. `Security,' he said, `is in each country a prime common good, and is something we can share through frank and open dialogue [but] while the US conducts its dialogue on the important issues with the powers of the North Atlantic, in our continent we lack the necessary communication to make progress.' Just as Latin America is interested in free trade with the US, he noted, it is also interested in a model of regional security that `respects the values' of each individual nation.
Just in case the allusion was too vague, he added that he believed Cuba would progress and improve its relations with the rest of the region — and that others could best help by taking good care not to get embroiled in Cuba's internal affairs.
As on previous occasions when similar messages were broadcast, several features were toned down in time for the summit, but the core message has not been disowned — and it carries a vague but ominous threat. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega phrased it as follows: `Those that continue in destabilizing democratically elected governments, interfering in the internal affairs of other governments, are playing with fire.'
Reich on Venezuela & Cuba
The ball was set in motion a week before Christmas by US special envoy Otto Reich, when in a briefing he singled out Venezuela as the Latin American country facing `the most serious' political crisis. Playing with innuendo, Reich hinted that President Hugo Chávez might block a referendum to revoke his mandate (preempting the verification process now under way, Reich said that the opposition had collected `more than 3m, possibly up to 4m, valid signatures' endorsing the call to a referendum) or ignore its verdict (he said that opinion polls showed two-thirds of the population against Chávez ).
The US, said Reich, is very concerned about the `continuous' reports about the presence of `Cuban agents' in Venezuela: `hundreds if not thousands of persons of military age and appearance.' He added that Washington, together with `all of its friends in the hemisphere', is closely monitoring what is happening in Venezuela.
Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, pitched in on 3 January with the theory that Fidel Castro has come out of a long hibernation to launch a new bid for regionwide influence. `In his final days,' said Noriega, Castro appears `nostalgic for destabilising elected governments.' He went on, `It should be very clear to Fidel Castro that his actions have caught the attention of Latin American leaders and that his actions to destabilise Latin America are increasingly provocative to the inter-American community.'
Noriega was critical of what he portrayed as a leftward tilt in Argentina's foreign policy, including a rapprochement with Cuba, which he illustrated with Argentine foreign minister Rafael Bielsa's `particularly disappointing' failure to meet Cuban dissidents when he visited Havana last October (Brazilian President Lula da Silva was earlier faulted on similar grounds). He also found worrying a reported initiative by President Néstor Kirchner to enlist Cuba as an associate member of Mercosur, and Kirchner's meeting with Bolivian opposition leader Evo Morales (who is routinely included among the leaders that represent a threat to regional security).
Off-the-record scenarios
On 5 January, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli announced that `the close ties between the government of Venezuela and the government of Cuba raise concerns among Venezuela's democratic neighbours.' That same day, US officials briefed journalists that Cuba and Venezuela were engaged in a joint effort to foster anti-US sentiment; Castro providing the political nous and Chávez the funds generated by his country's oil exports.
The latter, they said, were influential in the `ouster' of Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Opposition leader Evo Morales was said to have received funds from Chávez via Venezuela's military attaché in La Paz (who in the US version, denied by Caracas, was expelled for this by the Sánchez de Lozada government), and directly when he visited Caracas. Venezuela was also said to be funding opposition groups in Ecuador and Uruguay. Mention was made as well of the older charges that Chávez has been providing support and safe haven to Colombian guerrilla organisations.
Journalists were reminded that Chávez had visited Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, funded al Qaeda (a case brought against him on these grounds has just been thrown out by a US court), and in September 2003 received the `unannounced' visit of North Korea's ambassador to Cuba (this was accompanied by the hint that Chávez might have been thinking about buying North Korean nuclear knowhow).
Then there is the presence of the Cubans `of military appearance' mentioned by Reich. The briefers acknowledged that most of these are indeed volunteer doctors and teachers, but noted that they performed `political tasks in their spare time' — and in any case the real threat came from the large number of Cuban personnel `embedded' in Venezuela's security and intelligence services.
Endorsement from above
Though some US officials told the press privately that a confrontation was under way within the Bush administration between `believers' (in Chávez as engaged in destabilising other governments) and `skeptics', over the next couple of days in Washington, higher-ranking officials sounded similar notes. Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Noriega's statements as `calling things by their name' and added, `I've been in senior national security positions on and off over the last 17 years. And through that whole period of time, Cuba has been trying to do everything it could to destabilise parts of the region.' Powell described relations with Venezuela as `tense'.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice echoed Reich's verdict that Venezuela is undergoing a `very difficult period' and said that the best thing Chávez could do is comply with the will of his people — the context implying that his people want him out. Rice also said that she couldn't understand why anyone who believed in democracy would want to have relations with Fidel Castro. She also noted that `Colombia has concerns about activities that Venezuela may have been involved in.' This is an allusion to the old claim that Chávez has been supporting the Colombian guerrillas. [According to one off-the-record briefing that departs from the norm, US military intelligence has found no evidence that Venezuelan provision of arms to Colombia has risen since Chávez came to office.]
Castro-Chávez meeting
An unscheduled, highly secretive visit by Fidel Castro to Venezuela, on 22 December, gave further ammunition to US briefers. The story they put out was that the Cuban and Venezuelan leaders had met to discuss how to confront the prospect of an `inevitable' defeat for Chávez in the mandate-revocation referendum. An alternative version had them discussing the prospect of US intervention.
This latter interpretation was fed, a few days later, by Castro's public reply to Otto Reich's pronouncements. Apart from reiterating that most of the Cubans in Venezuelan (10,169 of them) were `relatively young doctors, with an average 10 years' experience', Castro issued a warning to the US: `I hope they do not make a mistake with the Venezuelans. Nowadays, it is anyone's guess how much resistance any foreign intervention in Venezuela would encounter in South America. I don't like to lie or use fanciful arguments, and I'm certain I'm not wrong in saying that a military intervention in Venezuela would set alight the tinderbox of South America as a whole, all the way down to Patagonia. You can't rule this hemisphere of hundreds of millions of people with a rifle and bayonet on each corner, in each factory, in each school, on each street.'
Castro made no mention of the Cuban intelligence and security personnel in Venezuela. Privately, government sources in Caracas do not deny their presence; rather, they say it is only logical to seek assistance in this area from the country that has the most experience in dealing with US or US-backed subversion.
Targeting Morales in Bolivia
Of all the recent off-the-record briefings by US officials, those that have received less attention from the US and international media are the ones regarding Bolivia — beyond the alleged funding of Evo Morales by Venezuela, mentioned earlier. The message being conveyed now is that Evo Morales is connected with the Colombian guerrilla organisations (both the Farc and ELN are mentioned), who have been providing training to coca growers (in the making and laying of booby-traps, for instance) and assistance in the launching of a local guerrilla organisation, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia (ELN-B).
In the version circulating in Washington, the ELN-B is already in existence: eight of its members were arrested in early December and only released after Morales threatened to overthrow the government. The ELN-B's hand is seen behind the bombing of rural electrical installations (described as `US-funded'). ELN-B `operatives' were arrested while transporting 81mm shells to the coca-growing Chapare region.
The new ELN-B's appearance on the scene dates back to April 2003, when journalists were invited (according to one of them, by the US embassy) to witness the capture of a Colombian guerrilla trainer and some of his Bolivian trainees. Among the items said to have been seized were fake documents, ammunition (but no guns) and a blueprint for the creation of the ELN-B. This was presented as the `germ' of a `narcoterrorist' organisation. By year-end, though, the public prosecutor still lacked enough evidence to file formal charges. The Colombian authorities, usually keen to uncover international ramifications of their guerrilla groups, identified their national as a known human rights activist.
The later arrests were of cocalero activists, suspected of involvement in attacks on the government's coca-eradication teams and on `alternative development' schemes -- but not clearly linked with a nascent ELN-B. Morales has been trying to rein in the more radical cocaleros for much of last year, holding out the prospect of firmer political gains in this year's municipal elections. He has also denied having received any funds from Venezuela or collusion with Colombian guerrillas.
[Worth noting: this is the second purported `revival' of the ELN in Bolivia. The original one was the organisation that fronted Che Guevara's failed guerrilla uprising of the mid-1960s. In the early 1990s it reappeared on the domestic scene as the reputed author of a bombing of US diplomatic premises. At that time the US State Department considered it linked to the Peruvian Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru.]
Behind this is Washington's opposition to Bolivia's departure from the agreed `zero coca' policy, which began under the recently resigned President Sánchez de Lozada.
Brazil assumes mediating role
There have been angry responses from both Venezuela and Argentina to the recent spate of public statements and off-the-record briefings by US officials. In the run-up to the Summit of the Americas, Brazil preferred to deride the US claims both publicly and in their own background briefings. Marco Aurelio Garcia, who is President Lula da Silva's chief foreign policy adviser, called on Roger Noriega to clarify whether he had been speaking `as a Cuban exile or in the name of his government.'
Privately, the claims that Hugo Chávez 's government might be involved in providing false documents for `terrorists' or helping them launder their money (aired in a recent US magazine article based on briefings by officials) are dismissed as `fantasies'.
Brazilian officials add, though, that their government — and Lula himself — have been trying to persuade their US counterparts that there is no `leftward tilt' under way in Latin America. Kirchner's stance is explained as the product of a balancing act between great domestic political pressures and external economic difficulties. As to Chávez , while admitting that he is often `over the top' verbally, the Brazilians say there is no sign that he intends to transform Venezuela into a hub of terrorism.
Some of this message appears to have percolated: at Monterrey, Bush again publicly supported Argentina's economic efforts, and did not adopt a belligerent tone towards Venezuela. The Venezuelan government, through Vice-President José Vicente Rangel, redefined its situation vis-í -vis the US as `a strange relationship, because we have excellent relations regarding such matters as counternarcotics and oil, but some differences over politics — which shouldn't be worrying.'
Lagos decries unilateralism
That confrontation was avoided at Monterrey, however, is not a sign that `misunderstandings' have been overcome. The US has not only managed to irk Venezuelans, Argentines and Bolivians. It has also discomfited Costa Ricans with its threat of exclusion from Cafta, and Nicaraguans with its open involvement in domestic politics. Perhaps the best indicator of widespread irritation is provided by Chile, until recently Washington's model free-trade partner but spurned when it came to supporting its candidate for the top job at the Organization of American States (OAS).
Just before Monterrey, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, in his characteristically measured tone, took the US to task, not for its policy emphasis on security, but for the manner in which it has excluded Latin America from its approach to this area. `Security,' he said, `is in each country a prime common good, and is something we can share through frank and open dialogue [but] while the US conducts its dialogue on the important issues with the powers of the North Atlantic, in our continent we lack the necessary communication to make progress.' Just as Latin America is interested in free trade with the US, he noted, it is also interested in a model of regional security that `respects the values' of each individual nation.
Just in case the allusion was too vague, he added that he believed Cuba would progress and improve its relations with the rest of the region — and that others could best help by taking good care not to get embroiled in Cuba's internal affairs.