Posted on 02/28/2005 6:29:50 AM PST by Alex Marko
Regional leaders including Fidel Castro of Cuba, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will meet in Montevideo, Uruguay. on Tuesday for the inauguration of Tabaré Vázquez, the latest in a string of Latin American left-wing politicians to win electoral victories in recent years.
It seems, however, that Mr Vázquez, whose government contains five politiicans imprisoned or exiled during the military government of the 1970s, will pursue a cautious economic strategy, more like that of Mr Lula da Silva than the more radical option being advanced by Mr Chávez.
Uruguay restructured its external debt in 2002, rather than following Argentina into default and the outgoing government of Jorge Batlle has agreed an investment treaty with the US, although this has still to be approved by congress, which Mr Vázquez's Frente Amplio will dominate.
However, the new administration will restore diplomatic relations with Cuba broken in 2002 after Mr Castro accused Mr Batlle of treachery for condemning its human rights record at the United Nations. Mr Chávez will address the city council of the capital on Wednesday, and meet Argentina's Néstor Kirchner and Mr Lula da Silva on the same day, before travelling on to India and France, where he is likely to seek support for his diplomatic battle with the US.
President Nicanor Duarte of Paraguay, another visitor to Montevideo, wll travel on to Mexico and then to Colombia where he will discuss with Álvaro Uribe possible links between Colombia's left-wing Farc guerrillas and the recent kidnap and subsequent murder of Cecilia Cubas, the daughter of a former Paraguayan president.
On Monday supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former president of Haiti, will demonstrate to commemorate the first anniversary of his resignation. Clashes between right-wing paramilitaries and supporters of Mr Aristide based in the slum areas of Belair and Cité Soleil have led to the deaths of dozens of people in the last few months.
And in Bolivia on the same day, trades union, peasant and community organisations are planning to step up a campaign of road blocks, hunger strikes and other protests to press the government of President Carlos Mesa on a number of fronts. The demonstrators want a new constituent assembly to be convened before regional elections that will allow the direct election of departmental authorities for the first time, as well as the implementation of a tough new law to regulate the country's natural gas industry. They are also demanding the extradition from the US of former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who was ousted after widespread protests in October 2003.
Argentina expects to announce the result of its debt restructuring offer by Thursday. Investment bank analysts are expecting at least 70 per cent of bond holders to have accepted new bonds being issued. The deal is worth about 34 cents in the dollar to the creditors but many institutional investors are still keen to cut their losses.
Ecuador which defaulted on its external debt in 1999, two years before Argentina, will name the banks that it expects to manage an upcoming debt issue, designed to raise $750m. Despite his success on capital markets, President Lucio Gutiérrez is still under fire at home as a result of his purge of politicial opponents from the court system towards the end of last year. The centre-right Social Christian party and centre-left Democratic Left are threatening to convene a parallel congress, to run alongside the official institution in which Mr Gutiérrez's supporters enjoy a fragile majority.
It is very concerning what is happening in Venezuela. Something to keep an eye on.
It's not really about leftist policies per se ... It's about corrupt socialists trying to hang on to money and power, corruptly.
I agree.
No need to worry about South and Central America. They will all be up here before long where we can keep a closer eye on them.
Are you implying that they might not all be rushing north for mom, baseball & apple pie?
Perhaps they are just stopping here to make a little money on their way to Canada.
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