But it is Mexico that the Castro-Chavez threat is at its most
dangerous. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Democratic Revolutionary
Party candidate who was recently mayor of Mexico City, is the
frontrunner in the elections set for next July. If this overt admirer
of Castro wins office - and uses Mexico's vast oil wealth in concert
with that of Venezuela - America could face an OPEC on its own
borders of leftist regimes financed by our oil dependency.
China has moved quickly to strengthen its links with Latin leftists and
is seeking to supplant the United States as a prime market for
hemispheric oil.
Latin Left's Oil (& Coke) Boom
By ***** Morris | New York Post Online Edition
11-16-05 | THE growth of leftist regimes throughout Latin America and
their increasing links with the new axis of Cuba's Fidel Castro and
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez poses a serious danger to the United States.
The left is using revenue drugs and oil to offer voters in these young
democracies an alternative to free markets and global economics.
It's leading to the eclipse of the democratic processes that these
leftist forces are using to achieve power. Whether the peoples who
follow their siren call end up like Cubans, with no elections, or like
Venezuelans, with no rights, the end is not a good one.
My wife Eileen and I have worked in 11 Latin American countries over
the past decade - Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, the Dominican
Republic, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, and
Argentina. We watched a heartening embrace of democratic and
free-market values spread through the continent in the wake of the
collapse of the military dictatorships of the '80s. But now an anger at
the failure of globalization to deliver improved living standards for
the poor is leading to a leftist backlash.
In Argentina and Brazil, the leftist drift has remained wholly
democratic and constitutional. Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner,
who is retaining his popularity, and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio
Lula, who is not, are each part of a democratic context and can be
ousted by the will of their people at the ballot box.
But the Castro-Chavez ring offers a different brand of leftism, which
overrides democratic norms and leaves a new form of authoritarianism in
its wake. This impetus away from democracy might well sputter and die
if left to its own devices, but with huge oil revenues pouring into
Chavez' coffers, it is likely to accelerate and spread.
Chavez has increased his ties to the FARC, the revolutionary drug gang
that infests Colombia's jungles. His growing links with the guerrillas
have led Colombia's government - one of the most stable democracies
in the hemisphere - to cut back relations with Venezuela in protest.
The deadly combo white cocaine and black oil threaten hemispheric
stability.
The left has conspired to oust Bolivia's democratically elected
pro-Western moderate President Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada and now
has brought that poorest of countries to the verge of anarchy. Chavez
is likewise moving to destabilize Peru as its elections approach -
via Antauro Humala, like Chavez a former Army officer.
In Nicaragua, the old Sandinista faction, led by Daniel Ortega, is
using its control of the military and of Congress to bully the elected
government and make it a puppet of the left.
But it is Mexico that the Castro-Chavez threat is at its most
dangerous. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Democratic Revolutionary
Party candidate who was recently mayor of Mexico City, is the
frontrunner in the elections set for next July. If this overt admirer
of Castro wins office - and uses Mexico's vast oil wealth in concert
with that of Venezuela - America could face an OPEC on its own
borders of leftist regimes financed by our oil dependency.
Some of the leftist revival is due to the caf=E9 society disapproval of
the Bush administration that is sweeping the intellectual communities
of Europe and Latin America. But much of it is powered by an oil- and
drug-based alternative to free-market globalization. With these two
sources of revenue, one licit and the other illicit, the left feels
that it may have found a way to pay for an alternative to worldwide
capitalism.
China has moved quickly to strengthen its links with Latin leftists and
is seeking to supplant the United States as a prime market for
hemispheric oil.
The U.S. answer to the left has got to be liberalization of our trade
restrictions on Latin products and nations. The Democrats who almost
killed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA, ratified by
one vote in the House) are doing nothing to help. But the Republicans
- by protecting the American sugar, textile, steel, orange juice, and
beef industries - are asking Latins live by free-market rules we
don't apply to ourselves. These restrictive quotas and our massive farm
subsidies (to largely wealthy farmers) combine to make Latin America
and its poverty fertile ground for subversion and leftist infiltration.
With our trade barriers, oil dependency and cocaine use, America
empowers its own enemies in its own hemisphere.
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