Latin America Challenges The Washington Concensus

In election after election, Latin Americans are choosing leaders who promise a shift from traditional elite-driven politics to more participatory and active democracies that focus on fulfilling the needs of the poor. With nearly a dozen national elections coming up this year, including especially significant ones in Mexico and Brazil, this is an important time to assess how far the new leaders of Latin American politics, diverse as they may be, are likely to go in achieving real change. And at a time of virtually one-party rule in the United States, the prospects for real democracy in Latin America offer an intriguing model for the rest of the world. To the extent that U.S. officials have paid any attention to the new Latin American leadership, it has been largely fixated on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. In February, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld played the Hitler card, describing Chávez as "a person who was elected legally-just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally-and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others." Other U.S. officials have used Chávez' fiery attacks on President Bush to raise the specter of a Cuban socialist model being imposed by Chávez and his new allies throughout Latin America. In general, however, Latin America is low on the Bush administration's radar screen. Although the U.S. government was deeply involved in Latin America during the '80s, providing military and other assistance to governments fighting internal civil wars, successive administrations have been less concerned with the region since the fighting there stopped. The war in Iraq has pushed Latin America even lower on the priority list. - http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2564/

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