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Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 3318
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - 10:25 am: | 
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/06/AR2006060600023. html?nav=rss_world
García's Win in Peru Is a Loss for Chávez
Venezuelan's Influence Appears Limited
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 6, 2006; A11
LIMA, Peru, June 5 -- Peruvians knew going into Sunday's presidential election that a vote for Alan García also meant a vote against the regional ambitions of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, whose threats to cut ties with Peru if García won only seemed to turn more voters in the candidate's favor.
In declaring Chávez the true loser of the election during his victory speech Sunday night, García claimed to have stuck a needle into the Venezuelan president's ballooning sphere of involvement in Latin America. Though both men label themselves "leftists," there has been plenty of room for strain between them.
"It clearly was a setback for Chávez in the sense that his candidate didn't win, and the fact that he may have contributed to that loss certainly suggests limits to his influence," said Peter Hakim, director of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.
By choosing García over Ollanta Humala, Peruvian voters opted to preserve the free-market policies that leaders such as Brazil's Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Chile's Michelle Bachelet champion as the best way to generate economic growth and increased social spending.
Humala had called for a social revolution against what he considered inherent exploitation in U.S.-style market economics, a position shared by Chávez and Bolivia's Evo Morales.
"I don't like Chávez," said Walter Vasquez, 40, echoing the views of some 83 percent of Peruvians, according to a Lima-based polling firm that recently surveyed opinions of the Venezuelan president. "Humala is like him -- an impulsive military man. So I voted for García."
Humala, whose new political party won more seats in Congress this year than any other party, now finds himself in the position of opposition leader.
Before the election, Chávez promised to cut diplomatic ties with Peru permanently if "by some work of the devil" García beat Humala. The chief of a mission from the Organization of American States observing the campaign said last week that such statements crossed the line from neighborly interest to an attempt to influence votes. García suggested that Chávez helped fund Humala's election, and Peru has filed a pending complaint with the organization.
In the weeks leading up to the election, each government recalled its ambassador from the other's capital. But remarks by Venezuela's foreign minister Monday suggested that Chávez's threats of cut ties might have been more rhetorical than literal, contingent on Peru's actions going forward. "Our government is analyzing the situation," Alí Rodríguez told reporters. "However, it is very unfortunate that Mr. Alan García in the first statements that have been issued have been about Venezuela."
In trying to build support outside Venezuela, Chávez often appeals to anti-American sentiment and says the wide gaps between rich and poor in many Latin American countries result from U.S. imperialism. He often says that U.S. influence must be resisted by a regional alliance of socialist governments determined to chart its own destiny.
Such a message has found a receptive audience in Bolivia, where Morales became a dependable Chávez ally after taking office this year, but it recently has created sparks in other countries.
When Morales partially nationalized Bolivia's energy industry, Chávez's congratulations were met with criticism in Brazil. When Lula leavened his condemnation of the move by making friendly public overtures toward Morales and Chávez, lawmakers and media outlets throughout Brazil protested, calling for Lula to exert more influence on Venezuela and Bolivia, which are much smaller than Brazil.
"The time for benevolence is over," said an editorial in Sao Paulo's Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper after Morales's energy sector move.
Since then, the Nicaraguan government has called for Chávez to stay out of its politics, echoing the objections voiced in Peru. He had publicly supported presidential candidate Daniel Ortega, a former leader of the Sandanista movement.
García, who was president from 1985 to 1990, has emphasized that his objections to Chávez don't equal support for the U.S. government. But Washington officials clearly have been pleased by the resistance to Venezuela that he and the current Peruvian government of Alejandro Toledo have mounted.
"It is encouraging that the democracies of Latin America that feel Venezuela has been infringing on their own democratic processes are standing up on their own," Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick told reporters in the Dominican Republic on Sunday. |
Debby
Citizen
Username: Debby
Post Number: 2322
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - 12:23 pm: |
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I guess it's better than being dominated by Chavez, but Alan Garcia is horrible. He was the president during Peru's darkest years, complete with "disappearances" and the Shining Path.
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