Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Dec 14 2000 (IPS) — US President-elect George W. Bush will almost certainly face serious challenges in the Americas, particularly in the Andean region, Haiti, and in several Central American countries, according to a new report by a Washington-based think-tank released here Thursday.

In the latest in a series of annual assessments, the Inter- American Dialogue (IAD) warned that what it calls “deep and pervasive problems”, particularly the “relentless violence and deterioration of Colombia”, as well as continued political instability in Peru and Haiti, will likely pose major headaches for Washington over the next four years.

The troubled political situation in Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Guatemala, as well as the defiance of Washington on the international stage by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, could also make life difficult for US diplomats, according to the report, which called for the president to maintain a “cordial and correct relationship” with Caracas and avoid isolating it.

“Venezuela may offer US policy its most difficult test,” said the report. “Isolating Chavez or precipitating a downward spiral in US- Venezuelan links will benefit no one,” it says, adding that if Chavez, who has gained enormous power through a series of elections, tries to impose authoritarian rule, Washington should be co-ordinate its policy with other governments in the Americas.

Chavez, whose high-profile friendship with Cuban President Fidel Castro, recent visit to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and refusal to permit US spy planes to operate in Venezuelan airspace as part of its war against drugs have exasperated policymakers here, has increasingly come under attack in major US newspapers as a potential long-term threat to Washington’s interests.

The report, which also urges completing the long-promised Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) – a Bush priority – and bolstering links with Mexico under its new president, Vicente Fox, was signed by a number of US, Canadian, and Latin American heavyweights.

On the US side, they included former president Jimmy Carter; a top Bush adviser, former National Security Adviser under George Bush, Brent Scowcroft; a former US trade minister, and a former commander of US military forces in Latin America, ret. Gen. John Galvin; several former assistant secretaries of state for Inter-American Affairs; and Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, a close political ally of the Republican president-elect; as well as prominent academics and business executives.

On the Latin America side, signers included former Argentine president Raul Alfonsin, former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, former Chilean finance minister Alejandro Foxley; former UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, former Mexican finance minister Jesus Silva-Herzog, among others.

The report, which was written before the presidential election contest was finally decided by the US Supreme Court late Tuesday night, was intended to highlight policy initiatives and challenges to be faced by the new administration, which takes office Jan. 20. During the presidential campaign, Bush, whose father first proposed a continent-wide FTAA 10 years ago, said he would give Latin America a higher priority than it has received under President Bill Clinton.

The report found that events of the past year present a “mixed picture” for democratic and economic development in the region.

The two brightest spots, according to the report, were found in Latin America’s two giants: Brazil, which appeared to have recovered very well from its 1999 currency crisis; and Mexico, which continued to enjoy strong economic growth and made a “decisive break with its authoritarian past by holding its most democratic election ever and inaugurating an opposition leader as president”.

Washington should try to build on both achievements, according to the report, which called for developing “sustained co-operation on key regional and international issues” with Brazil, particularly in light of its enormous influence with other South American states, and by seriously taking up Fox’s challenge to deepen relations and co-operation through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and in immigration and drug issues.

US and Mexican leaders, according to the report, should work towards a future when their border is “fully open”, Mexicans in the United States ” can live and work with dignity” and the dollar is used as “the official currency of Mexico”.

To succeed with both Latin giants, according to the report, Washington “will have to constrain its unilateral impulse, and be willing to identify common approaches and work multilaterally with them and other governments”.

In particular, it called for an end to the unilateral US “certification” process which judges other nations by the degree to which they are co-operating in the US drug war.

Bush will have a key opportunity in April 2001 – less than 90 days after he takes office – to set the policy stage when he meets the other elected leaders from throughout the region in Quebec City for the third Summit of the Americas since 1994.

Bush should push there for the renewal of the 1994 commitment to finish negotiating the FTAA by 2005, pledge to seek “fast-track” authority from the US Congress to negotiate such an accord, and commit itself to helping re-vitalising the Organisation of American States (OAS).

While economics, particularly the alleviation of poverty in Latin America posed a major challenge to the region’s future, political issues, particularly in the Andean region, are likely to give Washington the greatest problems.

“For some to come, no country in Latin America outside of Mexico will command greater US policy attention than Colombia,” according to the report, which noted that Washington’s commitment of 1.3 billion dollars in mostly military aid to Bogota this year is “focused far too narrowly on drug interdiction and eradication, and needs to be revised”.

While such aid can turn Colombia’s army into a more professional force, according to the report, Washington must also insist that the army curb human rights abuses, sever ties to right-wing paramilitary groups, and “leave no doubt that it supports the peace negotiations” between the government and left-wing insurgencies, if for no other reason than to gain support from other donor countries and Colombia’s neighbours for its policy.

Peru, where former president Alberto Fujimori resigned in exile, “now faces a period of grave instability and uncertainty”, according to the report which recommended staunch support for the OAS in its efforts to facilitate a democratic transition.

In Ecuador, which suffered South America’s first military overthrow of an elected president in 24 years last January, “partisan strife, compounded by underlying ethnic and social conflicts” remains a serious problem. Both countries will require sustained US and international support.

In the Caribbean, the report stressed that the situation in Haiti, despite the re-election of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide earlier this month, has become “increasingly desperate” and the “country’s leadership now seems ready to abandon all but the most superficial trappings of democracy and move toward an authoritarian populist government”.

International aid has largely dried up, posing the possibility of renewed violence and repression, which could in turn lead to more drug- trafficking and “a new flood of boat people”.

Washington, it said, should try to work within a multilateral framework to protect human rights and ensure that support for health, education and grassroots development will continue.

IAD also called for the new US president to overhaul US policy toward Cuba by shifting toward a “policy of engagement and dialogue” that would increase the chances for a peaceful transition to a more democratic government once president Fidel Castro leaves the scene.