Countries are starting to run back into Castro's arms

……….Bush, appearing with several prominent Cuban-Americans at the White House earlier this month, spoke of stepping up enforcement of the travel ban that prohibits most Americans from visiting Cuba. He appointed Powell and Cuban-born Housing Secretary Mel Martinez of Orlando to head up efforts for a free Cuba.

Latin America, meanwhile, is again doing business with Castro. Silva last month led a delegation of Brazilian businessmen to Havana, where they signed $200 million in new business deals and an agreement to renegotiate Cuba's $40 million debt to the country.

In Havana last week, Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Biesla announced a series of trade and cultural agreements with Cuba, and Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said Kirchner himself could visit early next year.

''We are under a strict directive that Cuban-Argentine relations deepen and bear fruit,'' new Argentine Ambassador Raul Abraham Taleb told The Associated Press.

At 77, Castro himself still enjoys rock-star popularity throughout Latin America. Despite decades of dictatorship, he is seen by many as a champion of the poor and a symbol of defiance against an overbearing superpower.

At Kirchner's inauguration in May, just a month after the dissident trials, thousands of Argentines greeted the Cuban leader with chants of ''Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!'' at a speech that had to be moved outside to accommodate the masses.

''Generally, Latin American leaders are farther to the right than the populace, but they have to be mindful of their public opinion,'' said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. ''Reaching out to Castro has always been a way for leaders to establish their bona fides with the left.''

The United States, meanwhile, has grown increasingly unpopular in the region. The mostly poor countries of Central and South America still are waiting for the promised benefits of the hard-medicine free-market reforms promoted by Washington over the last decade. The region has felt ignored by the administration since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, diverted American attention to the Middle East. Opinion polls showed overwhelming opposition in Latin America to the U.S. attack on Iraq.

''It's like when your daughter is mad at you, she goes out with the biker,'' said Joe García, executive director of the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation in Miami. ***

Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

Fidel Castro - Cuba

People power rules in S. America***South Americans are both emboldened and disenchanted with democracy, analysts say. On one hand, the region's democracies have been unable to meet public expectations, with many leaders switching to austerity measures from the free-spending rhetoric of the campaign trail. On the flip side, mass demonstrations against government policies were unheard of during decades of strongman rule. Democracies, however flawed and fragile, allow people to express their discontent. But, some analysts warn, the pendulum may have swung too far in the other direction.

"In some ways these protests represent the voice of the people, who are mobilizing against unpopular measures," says Luis Nunes, Peru director for the US-based National Democratic Institute. "But they are a dangerous interpretation of democracy. In South America we cannot have revolving-door presidencies. This isn't what democracy means."***

Castro's fine hand is behind many of the current events in Latin American countries which had, until now, seemed as if they were going to try to abandon socialism and actually become modern, functioning capitalist democracies.

For one thing, Cuba serves as a very active training center for leftist "activists" who then go out to the rest of Latin America; for another, Castro gets a free pass from the Dems for anything he does. I think part of the reason that the turn to the left occurred when it did - starting right at the end of Clinton's tenure in office - was that the US appeared to be regarding Castro's Cuba as not such a bad deal after all. Everything from the admiring comments of Carter and others to the handing over of Elian left our allies in Latin America very confused and feeling, I think, without support.

And in my opinion, Bush's one big foreign policy blunder will prove to be not having aggressively supported the Venezuelans when they got Chavez out for that brief moment a couple of years ago. He made a personal statement and then immediately backed down on it, and since then the US has done nothing to support the Venezuelan opposition.

Chavez is Castro, but younger and with 30 more years of mischief ahead of him, and worse still, on the mainland where he is busy infecting every country around him.

Who will be the next Castro? Who will be the Champion of the poor and the misguided of Central and South America? Looks like the future Castros are lining up. Isn't it time to boost our Good Neighbor policy or do we wait like we did when the nazis to got a foot in the door of South America? I guess we shouldn't worry about it since the Commies are OK? (All rhetorical questions)

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