Those of us in the media biz often use the first week of the year to reflect on what has passed in a year-end recap. It’s an easy way to buy time for next week, when folks are all back from vacation. Since I’m the kind of guy who likes to look ahead, I decided to do a preview of things to come, down south — waaay down south. 2006 is an election year in three key Latin American countries: Colombia, Brazil and Mexico.
Judging from what happened last month in Bolivia, where the former leader of a coca grower’s union became president by a landslide, Latin America should give US government foreign-affairs experts a big headache this year. That is, of course, if those experts care to pay attention to what’s happening south of the border — to many Americans, it seems, a very long wall is the best solution, because, as the saying goes, “If you can’t see the problem, there is no problem” (or, however you say it in English).
Anyway, Evo Morales, Bolivia’s left-leaning president-elect, seems to be a threat to the US — a strong ally of that crazy leftist Hugo Chavez, from Venezuela, whom most Americans hate but give money to every time they use the pump at a Citgo gas station.
And of course, there’s the coca problem. Morales grew coca, the base for cocaine, in a country known for its liberal policies regarding coca growth and its possible connection to Colombian guerrillas and drug rings. But Evo is a good man. He already told the US government he’s willing to help in the War on Drugs if the US gives him a lot of money and technology.
And why not do it? After all, the US gave a lot of money and technology — $3 billion over five years — to Colombia in the infamous Patriot Plan, which helped your good ally, president Alvaro Uribe, set up tent as that nation’s leader. Or at least a leader to those who aren’t against him — like the guerrilla armies and a group of ex-militia men who control the forests where coca comes from. Now Uribe is shooting for reelection, backed by big business and a strong following that will support him for another four years.
Uribe’s main concern should be the guerrillas he’s been able to keep in the jungle, thanks to his liberal version of a totalitarian police state, where cops and the army join forces to keep everyone at bay. If those guerrillas suddenly decide to start head-on narco-terrorism attacks on the main cities, instead of the isolated killings and kidnappings they’re internationally famous for, Uribe will be in trouble. But hey, if even George W. Bush got four more years, why can’t Uribe? His popularity is, compared to Georgie’s, way up.
Anyway, the US needs to keep backing the Colombian government, its only ally in the region, because Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inacio da Silva (better known by his nickname Lula), will likely be reelected after a tight race. And that will probably happen even as Lula’s political party has been accused, and some members even pleaded guilty, of political corruption and bribe-taking, two popular practices in Latin America. The reason it will probably happen is because the economic reforms Lula’s made — very conservative and measured for a guy who campaigned as a left-wing radical — have worked for the good of the people, moving about 15 percent of the country’s population from a state of real misery to just plain poverty. Plus, the US and big business love a government that can be easily persuaded (read: bribed) to look elsewhere while they pillage the Amazon rainforest.
And then there’s my beloved Mexico, where reelection is unconstitutional. That one’s going to take a whole column to discuss, so we’ll handle it next week.
Hernan Mena, a native of Mexico, is associate editor of the regional Hispanic weekly newspaper, Que Pasa.
This article appears in Jan 4-10, 2006.
