Presidential Candidate Lucio Gutierrez appears surrounded by media in Quito, Sunday October 20, 2002. Gutierrez is one of two possible winners of this first electoral round according to unofficial results. With 46 percent of the votes counted, Lucio Gutierrez, a dismissed army colonel who is an admirer of Fidel Castro and Venezuelas leftist President Hugo Chavez, surged into the lead with 18.79 percent of the votes. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
- Castro and Chavez 
Castro and da Silva (Lula)
Brazil's gathering clouds***Mr. Maisto's tenure as Bill Clinton's ambassador in Venezuela may shed light on his passive approach in Brazil. Columnist Robert Novak reported that Ambassador Maisto "privately advised Congress not to worry about accession of the leftist populist Hugo Chavez to that nation's presidency" in 1999.
In office, Col. Hugo Chavez threw out the constitution and sent armed brigades to attack his civic opposition. He began aiding the FARC terrorists trying to subvert Colombia. Former Reagan National Security Council official Constantine Menges warned in 1998 and 1999 that Mr. Chavez would be an ally of Fidel Castro as well as other state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and Iraq. That has happened. Mr. Maisto saw no such problem.
Today Col. Chavez provides a $2 billion petroleum subsidy to Fidel Castro and allies his government with states like Iran, Iraq and communist China. Mr. da Silva calls Col. Chavez "an example to emulate." Col. Chavez calls Mr. da Silva "a great man," and predicts: "The left is going to win in Brazil. Changes are coming step by step on this continent. I think about it day and night."
Robert Novak reports that since arriving at the Rice NSC, Mr. Maisto has "pressed for normalization with communist Cuba" and has worked to maintain the Clinton-era guidelines that impede a stronger U.S. policy against Colombian terrorist groups.
The Washington-based Center for Security Policy, directed by former Pentagon official Frank Gaffney Jr., describes Mr. Maisto as "a career Foreign Service officer known for his soft line on narco-terrorism and other security issues," and says he is "a major roadblock to realization of the President's agenda."
Has Mr. Maisto provided President George W. Bush the advice and help he deserved as the United States seeks to preserve political democracy and avoid what Mr. Menges recently called the possibility of a "nuclear armed axis of evil in the Americas" including Mr. Castro, Mr. Chavez and a radical da Silva regime in Brazil? We will know next month.***
The Southern Threat*** U.S. Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recently drew attention to the economic risks inherent in Brazil's more than $250 billion dollar international debt and caused great concern in the financial community when he said that "throwing the U.S. taxpayer's money at a political uncertainty in Brazil doesn't seem brilliant to me. . . . The situation there is driven by politics, . . . not . . . by economic conditions." A da Silva presidency would likely mean Brazil's default on its debts, which, combined with the crisis in Argentina, could cause immense economic problems in all of Latin America. But worse than the economic downturn would be the effect on the Brazilian people of a radical regime moving toward dictatorship and the risk of destabilization in the region from a Castro-da Silva-Chavez axis.
A da Silva regime in Brazil could soon be followed by the success of the Communist guerrillas in Colombia and the establishment of anti-American regimes in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador (where in January 2000 radicals toppled the government in a few days, with help from military officers recruited by Chavez, though their success was short-lived). Thus, by the end of 2003, the United States might be faced with anti-American regimes in most of South America.
If those regimes recruited only one tenth of one percent of military-aged males for terrorist attacks on the United States, this could mean 30,000 terrorists coming from the south. In addition, many Middle Eastern terrorist organizations, including the PLO, have long collaborated with Castro against the United States and its allies; they and the Iranian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah have hidden among the sizable Middle Eastern communities in Brazil and Venezuela.***
Embattled president threatens to torch Venezuelan oil fields ***But analysts say it is still unclear how deep the Chavez government's willingness to please Washington runs. "They want to show Washington there is cooperation," Shifter said. "But I'm not sure how much there will be.'
Indeed, Chavez continues to play with fire -- at least rhetorically. In the same interview with Harnecker, the Venezuelan president warned that his removal, even by "institutional" means, could set the country -- and in particular the oil fields -- alight. "The country would become a powder keg," he said. "If in Colombia there is sabotage against the oil pipelines, what would happen here, where a whole people and an army see Chavez as the incarnation of hope?"
Other government figures have made the same threat in recent months, one going so far -- in a private meeting with university administrators -- as to say the country would be turned into "another Kuwait" (a reference to Saddam Hussein's torching of the Kuwaiti oil fields after the Gulf War).
How serious is the threat? "It's a bluff," says Romero, the political scientist. The U.S. Embassy is more cautious. "I don't think any of us knows," the spokesman said. There are many reasons why Washington would not want to see Venezuela descend into chaos. But few doubt that political turmoil -- with or without sabotage -- could disrupt the flow of oil. And that alone is a good enough reason for the United States to seek to reject any violent attempt to remove Chavez. ***
Treasury chief, Argentina's leaders talk on money crisis - unemployed blame free market system *** But he said the Bush administration remains averse to even short-term loans like the one to Uruguay -- which must be repaid, with interest, after International Monetary Fund assistance comes through within days. "O'Neill is very uncomfortable about this whole trip, but he has to do it anyway," Bernal said. "He's uncomfortable because his philosophy of the future of capital markets, his basic view, is that bailouts are not efficient."***
Blocking a new axis of evil*** A new terrorist and nuclear weapons/ballistic missile threat may well come from an axis including Cuba's Fidel Castro, the Chavez regime in Venezuela and a newly elected radical president of Brazil, all with links to Iraq, Iran and China. Visiting Iran last year. Mr. Castro said: "Iran and Cuba can bring America to its knees," while Chavez expressed his admiration for Saddam Hussein during a visit to Iraq. The new axis is still preventable, but if the pro-Castro candidate is elected president of Brazil, the results could include a radical regime in Brazil re-establishing its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs, developing close links to state sponsors of terrorism such as Cuba, Iraq and Iran, and participating in the destabilization of fragile neighboring democracies. This could lead to 300 million people in six countries coming under the control of radical anti-U.S. regimes and the possibility that thousands of newly indoctrinated terrorists might try to attack the United States from Latin America. Yet, the administration in Washington seems to be paying little attention.
...... Brazil shares common borders with 10 other countries in South America. This would help da Silva to emulate — as he has said he would — the foreign policy of the pro-Castro and pro-Iraq Chavez regime in Venezuela, which has provided support to the communist narco-terrorist FARC in Colombia as well as other anti-democratic groups in other South American countries. Hugo Chavez worked with Mr. Castro to temporarily destabilize the fragile democracy in Ecuador two years ago. Now both support the radical socialist leader of the cocaine growers, Evo Morales, who hopes to become president of Bolivia this August.***
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, Bolivian leader to seek close trade ties with U.S.*** U.S. officials in charge of Latin American affairs are breathing easier: Despite the big scare of Bolivia's June 30 elections, in which a radical leftist coca growers' leader nearly won the presidency and triggered fears that he would turn that country into a narco-socialist state, it now appears that Bolivia will remain a close ally of the United States.
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who won the election by two percentage points and has reached a power-sharing agreement that virtually assures his victory in a runoff vote in Congress this weekend, told me in a telephone interview that one of his priorities after taking office next Tuesday will be to seek a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States.
''We will follow the steps of Chile, and seek a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States,'' Sánchez de Lozada said. ``This is very important for us, because the big problem for small countries like Bolivia is that we don't have markets to sell our products.''
Sánchez de Lozada spoke shortly after the U.S. House approved a bill giving President Bush Trade Promotion Authority to sign new free-trade agreements. The bill is expected to be approved by the Senate this week, clearing the way for a free-trade agreement with Chile this year and creation of a hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005.***