Investor's Business Daily, March 6th, 2007
Latin America: President Bush will encounter loud leftist protests in the region this week, organized by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. He's desperate to mess up Bush's visit, but he won't succeed.
As Bush prepares a milestone visit to five Latin American democracies, expected to draw a warm welcome from their leaders, a left-wing clown show is getting ready in the wings, courtesy of the regional bully.
In Argentina, for example, Chavez is organizing a big, noisy counterprotest in collaboration with that country's reluctant president, Nestor Kirchner. The March 9 event will be a blatantly propagandistic bid to demonstrate that anti-Bush sentiment is alive and well south of our border.
But there are signs it might not go as well as the last trash-drenched, anti-Bush gathering two years ago, during an Organization of American States meeting in Mar del Plata.
For one thing, Kirchner didn't particularly want to host Chavez's new rally, and when Chavez prevailed on him, he made it clear he didn't want it big. He wanted to move the event from a 40,000-seat stadium to one that seats just 6,000. He also presented Chavez with a $192,000 bill.
Chavez has invited two other anti-U.S. presidents to thumb their noses at Bush at this event, Ecuador's Rafael Correa and Bolivia's Evo Morales, neither of whom is on the president's itinerary.
Morales, whose nation relies on $120 million in U.S. aid, has made some curiously hesitant statements about needing to sort out his schedule before knowing whether he can attend. So it's possible he might not show up if Chavez doesn't push him.
Note that the Chavez rally will not be held in any of the five countries that are hosting the president -- Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico -- but in probably the only country whose state-paid protesters, known as piqueteros, can fill a stadium with anti-Bush protesters.
For the countries Bush is visiting, something much better than fist-waving rallies will be offered.
The president has prepared a large package of measures to help the region, including a U.S.-Brazil alliance on ethanol, increased trade with Uruguay, ways to end narcoterrorism in Colombia, an immigration pact with Mexico and transnational adoption regularization with Guatemala.
All of these offer opportunity rather than handouts, and share hope with America's neighbors.
And significantly, all make Chavez livid. He's on record with rabid statements against almost every one of these efforts, denouncing bilateral cooperative acts as "imperialism."
Chavez predicted that "the little gentleman" will meet with protests. "It will be a welcome ceremony of repudiation," he said Monday, and added in a thinly veiled threat: "I hope violence does not erupt."
Bush will also bring along other goodies. The USMS Comfort will make calls through several Latin American and Caribbean ports, providing free medical care for 85,000 poor people, and 1,500 free surgeries. This will dwarf any of Fidel Castro's efforts to send his paramedic-grade doctors to propagandize for the Cuban regime.
There's also a new initiative to help Latin Americans study in the U.S. through the community colleges. This is particularly promising because a comparable program in the 1980s for 2,000 Chinese students has since reaped the U.S. decades of good will.
The handouts may look like Santa Bush, but that's all right. The important thing is that Bush will get a chance to get word out about U.S. involvement in Latin America through direct assistance, trade pacts and other cooperative ventures for which it's never received credit.
Bush has authorized $1.5 billion in U.S. assistance to the region since he's taken office -- doubling what the Clinton administration approved and dwarfing the highly politicized but ineffective handouts that the Chavez regime gets so much credit for dishing out. It's also not very well known that the U.S. also has been helping poor countries with with free medical care.
"When President Bush goes, he's taking a positive message -- cooperation and collaboration," a senior state department official told IBD, emphasizing that all the measures are meant to engage the private sectors of these countries. "If Chavez wants to send conflict, that's his position, and that's not on our agenda."
Maybe that explains the real reason for the protests. Chavez seeks to create conflict through rent-a-mob protests to obscure Bush's agenda. He may create excitement in the crowds and draw TV cameras, but there's nothing new about the message he's pushing other than a wish to silence Bush.
But a source in Caracas tells us that this time Chavez may really run into some static. The anti-Bush rally was stuck in a stadium not only because Kirchner had little stomach for it. There is also the possibility of large, truly spontaneous demonstrations in favor of Bush and against Chavez's hate-Bush carnival. Kirschner's own political rivals have criticized Kirchner's sponsorship of Chavez's activities.
Copyright 2007 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
