Posted on 01/02/2003 5:42:22 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Breakfast with Hugo Chavez, dinner with Fidel Castro.
The first day in office for Brazil's new president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, projects the image of a leftist alliance in Latin America — one that Chavez, Venezuela's president, has already nicknamed the "Axis of Good."
Such an alliance could hinder U.S. efforts to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas stretching from Alaska to the tip of Argentina by 2005.
Despite the perception of a new Latin American troika, doubts abound that Silva really wants to form a bloc with such close ties to Chavez and Castro, Cuba's leader.
But by giving Latin America's other two leftist leaders such a warm welcome a day after his inauguration, Silva gets huge political mileage in Brazil, where Castro and Chavez are revered by the far left of his party.
The United States sent trade representative Robert Zoellick to the inauguration, seen by the Brazilians as something of a snub because Zoellick suggested last October that Brazil's only trading partner would be Antarctica if it did not join the hemispheric trade zone.
Silva responded by calling Zoellick "the sub secretary of a sub secretary of a sub secretary" during his election campaign.
At the breakfast meeting, Chavez asked Silva to send technical experts from Brazil's state-owned oil company to replace some of the 30,000 Venezuelan state oil workers who have joined a crippling nationwide strike. Silva said he would consider the request.
And before dining Thursday night with Silva, Castro told Associated Press Television News that Brazilian-Cuban relations will grow stronger now that Brazil has its first elected leftist president.
Arriving at Silva's rural retreat 20 miles outside Brasilia for dinner, Castro shook hands and signed autographs for about 50 cheering Silva supporters. He did not speak with reporters.
Castro and Chavez had front-row seats in Congress at Silva's inauguration Wednesday, where an estimated 200,000 Brazilians waved red flags. Many were dressed in red and white clothes, the colors of Silva's Workers Party.
The Cuban and Venezuelan leaders had dinner together, and talked until 4 a.m. Thursday at the Brasilia hotel where Castro is staying.
But experts said Silva's efforts to accommodate Castro and Chavez in Brasilia could be carefully calculated political window dressing.
Silva angered his party's left wing by appointing fiscal moderates to key cabinet posts, but needs its help to push programs through Congress, where he lacks a majority.
"Embracing Castro and Chavez, the symbols of anti-U.S. influence in Latin America, gets Silva political capital in Brazil," said Stephen Haber, a Latin American expert at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. "But this is a dangerous game, you go too far one way or the other and this will blow up in your face."
Silva doesn't want to scare away investors, who already sent the value of the Brazilian currency, the real, down 40 percent last summer over fears that his administration might not follow responsible economic policies.
So far, Silva seems to be pleasing his supporters without spooking financial markets. The real, which ended down 35 percent last year, finished stronger Thursday as the market reacted positively to second-tier finance ministry appointments.
Named to the posts were a mix of left-leaning, moderate and liberal economists with strong credentials, along with officials from the administration of former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso who will keep their posts.
Chavez coined the "Axis of Good" term after Silva was elected in October, hailing the victory and saying Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba should team up to fight poverty.
"We will form an 'axis of good,' good for the people, good for the future," Chavez said at the time.
But Brazilian political scientists dismissed the possibility of an "Axis of Good" being created by the meetings between Silva, Castro and Chavez.
"There is no way this represents the beginning of Chavez' 'Axis of Good' and much less the 'Axis of Evil' imagined by right-wing Americans," said Luciano Dias, a political scientist at the Brasilia-based Brazilian Institute of Political Studies.
Silva, who is popularly known as Lula, "would never even consider creating a nucleus of leftists in Latin America, he is too smart for that," Dias said.
U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher would not comment Thursday on the possibility of the alliance.
Chavez left his strikebound and politically riven country despite the crippling work stoppage aimed at toppling him from the presidency of the world's fifth largest oil producer.
Silva also has a compelling reason for staying on friendly terms with Chavez: The long border the two countries share.
"Brazil worries very much about violence in Venezuela spilling over into Brazil," Haber said. "So you want to have peaceful relations with the Venezuelan, regardless of who is in charge."
During his breakfast with Silva, Chavez also brought up the idea of increasing cooperation among Latin American state-owned oil industries and set up a company called Petro-America.
"It would become a sort of Latin American OPEC," Chavez said. "It would start with Venezuela's PDVSA and Brazil's Petrobras," and could come to include Ecopetrol from Colombia, PetroEcuador from Ecuador, and PetroTrinidad from Trinidad and Tobago."
Last week, Cardoso's outgoing administration sent a tanker to Venezuela carrying 520,000 barrels of gasoline, but that barely dented shortages around the country.
If Silva decides to help Chavez with Brazilian oil workers, it probably won't accomplish much either, said Albert Fishlow, who heads Columbia University's Brazilian studies program.
"If he does it will be minimal and not enough to affect the situation," Fishlow said.
So, that great champion of the workers is going to send strikebreakers to Venezuela? Hmmm.
I'm sure Lula is just tickled pink (pun) by all this attention from the two biggest losers in Latin America.
Anyone who believes this trio is a TRUE threat is a bit paranoid, IMHO. Lula i suspect just wishes these two clowns would just go away. They will ruin Lula's chances (if he had any) in Brazil...
Perhaps i'm an optimist but i think Chavez will be gone even before Saddam, and Castro will continue his slide into oblivion, accompanied by his ideological stablemate jimmuh the nobelpeaceprizeTM winner...
"Trust me, Lula, just keep blaming everything on I live in Chile, which is probably the most far along of the Latin American countries in its economic development, although by no means the richest, just the most robust.
I have many Latin American friends, of all political persuasions. I even have friends who are diehard COMMUNISTS.
The reality in Chile, at least, is that there is a really big middle class that would NEVER put up with Cuban style socialism -- the standard of living in just too low.While they might sympathize with Cuba and cheer them on as the "underdog" against big bad Amerika, they would NEVER go the last mile with them and put up with the inconvenience and scarcity of a socialist economy. they look down upon the Cubans and socialists as ne'er do well incompetents and do not hate America enough to stop trying to live like Americans.
There is a strong middle class in Brazil, along with one in Venezuela.
While the "poor" in both these countries are quite powerful politically, they are not the class that gets things done, and they know it
When push comes to shove, the majority of the poor will NOT come to the aid of Lula or Chavez, and these will fall.
The Venezuelan middle class has basically decided to go for broke, the shop owners, the professionals, have, IMHO, decided that this is the LAST chance to oust Chavez: it will become almost impossible if Chavez survives this strike. I don't think he will be able to, but things will get dicey.
Keep your fingers crossed folks, the next six weeks are going to be *really* interesting not only in latin America, but in the middle east, Iraq and Korea!
Mr. da Silva (LULA) chillingly hinted on September 13 that Brazil should resume its quest for atomic weapons. Speaking at the Air Force Club in Rio de Janeiro, he criticized Brazil's compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"I imagine this would make sense only if all countries that already have [nuclear weapons] also gave them up," the former metalworker said. As O Globo On Line reported the next day, Mr. da Silva added: "It is not fair that developed countries, who have nuclear weapons technology, demand that others not have them or deactivate what they have. All of us developing countries are left holding a slingshot while they have atomic bombs."
If we cave with the North Koreans it is going to be tantamount to giving Lula a green light.
What happended to last advocate of a Cuban-dominated Latin America. Comrade Che Guevara.
If these two neo-commies try to Fidelize their nations, blood will run in the streets.
We will see 2 new Pinochets before we see even one new Fidel.
A_L_L_E_N_D_E.
VIVA PINOCHET THE SAVIOR OF CHILE!!!!
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