Posted on Sun, Sep. 21, 2008
BY JORGE G. CASTAÑEDA
www.project-syndicate.org
MEXICO CITY -- For the next American president, fixing the international
mess inherited from the Bush administration will be no simple task.
While Latin America will not be a priority for either an Obama or McCain
administration, continuing the United States' neglect of the last seven
years is no longer viable.
Two distinct political/diplomatic challenges stand out: Cuba's imminent
transition or succession crisis, and the continuing ascent of the
region's ''two lefts,'' one represented by Venezuela's President Hugo
Chávez and the other by Brazil's increasingly influential President Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva. The next U.S. administration will prove successful
only if it grasps that Latin America is living through a moment that
combines the best and worst aspects of its history: the fastest economic
growth since the 1970s, with poverty and inequality diminishing, and
more democratic and respectful of human rights than ever before, but
becoming more politically polarized.
In Cuba, Fidel Castro's eventual passing from the scene represents an
immense challenge. The United States cannot continue with the failed
policies of the past half-century. Demanding a full-fledged democratic
transition as a pre-condition for normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations is
both unrealistic and unpalatable to Latin America. Yet the United States
cannot set aside the question of democracy and human rights in Cuba
while it awaits the departure of Fidel's brother, Raúl.
Realpolitik and fear of another exodus of Cuban refugees across the
Florida Straits may tempt the United States to pursue a ''Chinese'' or
''Vietnamese'' solution to Cuba: normalizing diplomatic relations in
exchange for economic reform, while leaving the question of internal
political change until later. But U.S. leaders should not succumb to
this temptation. The United States, Canada, Europe and Latin America
have constructed a regional legal framework, which must not be
abandoned, to defend democratic rule and human rights in the hemisphere.
Elections the norm
Cuba needs to return to the regional concert of powers, but it must
accept this concert's rules. Holding free and fair elections may not be
the primary issue, but nor are they issues that should be shelved in the
interests of stability and expediency. Elections must instead be part of
a comprehensive process of normalization: They should neither be a
deal-breaker nor a nonissue. While the United States should lift its
trade embargo as soon as Cuba's transition begins, everything else
should be conditional on Cuba initiating a process of resolving all
outstanding issues.
But Cuba is just part of what might be called Latin America's ''left''
problem. Indeed, much has been written recently about the ascent of the
left in Latin America over the past decade. In fact, there are two lefts
in the region: a modern, democratic, globalized and market-friendly
left, found in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, parts of Central America and, up
to a point, in Peru; and a retrograde, populist, authoritarian, statist
and anti-American left, found in Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba,
Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, in Argentina,
Colombia and Paraguay.
Some of these ''lefts'' are in power; some, as in Mexico in its last,
disputed presidential election, barely missed conquering it, but may
still do so.
During the past two years, it has become increasingly evident that the
''modern'' or ''soft'' left is, all in all, governing well. The other
left has proved to be more extreme and erratic than many anticipated.
The former feels no urge to ''export'' its ''model,'' whereas the latter
has a strategy and the means to do so.
The retrograde left today can realize Che Guevara's old dream: not
''one, two, many Vietnams,'' but ''one, two, many Venezuelas,'' winning
power by the ballot and then conserving it through constitutional
changes and the creation of armed militias and monolithic parties. It
can finance all of this with the support of Venezuela's state oil
company, implementing social policies that are misguided over the long
term but seductive in the short run, especially when carried out by
Cuban doctors, teachers and instructors.
Herein lies a dilemma for the next U.S. president: how to address the
clear rift between the two lefts in a way that improves U.S.-Latin
American relations, fortifies the modern left and weakens the retrograde
left without resorting to the failed interventionist policies of the
past. The best, strictly Latin America-focused steps, are self-evident,
if not easily achievable. They require strengthening the governments of
the modern left, or those of the center or center-right threatened by
the old-fashioned left, and simultaneously making it clear to the latter
that there is a price to be paid for violating the basic tenets of
democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Transform relationships
Turning its back in the face of such challenges is no longer a viable
American option. Aside from areas of particular concern (oil, arms,
guerrillas, drugs), the United States needs Latin America dearly
nowadays because resistance to it is springing up everywhere -- and with
greater virulence than at any time since World War II's end. The next
U.S. president must reinvigorate a relationship that is ready to be
substantially transformed for the first time since Franklin Roosevelt's
Good Neighbor Policy of seven decades ago.
Jorge G. Castañeda, former foreign minister of Mexico (2000-03), is a
Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at
New York University.
©2008 Project Syndicate
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/693805.html
No comments:
Post a Comment