Brazilian Leader Backs Chavez in Venezuela Crisis

Summary

Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio da Silva has sent his top foreign policy adviser to help mediate a solution to the political crisis between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his political opponents. Da Silva likely does not want to see Chavez replaced with a more pro-U.S. government. However, his advisor's statement that he would not meet with opposition leaders could backfire by hardening their determination to oust Chavez as soon as possible.

Analysis

Less than two weeks before taking power, Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva has sent his top foreign policy adviser -- Marco Aurelio Garcia -- to Caracas to offer Brazil's help in solving the current political crisis in Venezuela. However, Garcia said that he would not meet with any Venezuelan opposition leaders because they are demanding the resignation of President Hugo Chavez, according to Brazilian news reports.

U.S. diplomatic sources in Brazil cautiously welcomed da Silva's efforts to take a more active and direct public role in the situation in Venezuela, , according to the daily O Estado de Sao Paulo. Nevertheless, Garcia's remarks suggest that the incoming Brazilian government will be more concerned with strengthening the Chavez's regime's flagging international support than in helping to end the crisis peacefully.

Garcia's signaling of a firm pro-Chavez stance ahead of his trip could undermine month-old mediation efforts by Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria. The Bush administration is backing Gaviria's attempts to reach a solution that likely would consist of 1) a popular referendum in February 2003 on whether Chavez should resign early, and 2) new general elections if Chavez loses the referendum.

However, instead of aiding the negotiations currently under way in Caracas, Garcia's snub of opposition leaders could make them even more resolved to get rid of Chavez as quickly as possible. This could be especially true if they perceive that Brazil's new socialist president is taking sides in a political conflict that many Venezuelans may feel Brazil has no business getting involved in.

Although da Silva has made considerable effort to differentiate himself from Chavez in terms of how he plans to govern Brazil, ideologically the two leaders are very close. In fact, before he started moving to the center in his fourth consecutive attempt to win Brazil's presidency, da Silva openly expressed his admiration and support for Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution."

Da Silva is a co-founder with Cuban leader Fidel Castro of the Sao Paulo Forum, a hemispheric umbrella group for Latin American Marxist and socialist parties, former guerrilla organizations and active rebel groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Peru's Shining Path. Chavez also has been a member of the Sao Paulo Forum since the mid-1990s.

Many South American governments have shifted ideologically to the left since Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in December 1998, as a new generation of populist leaders with solid grassroots appeal among the poor made strong electoral gains at the local and national levels.

For instance, besides Chavez in Venezuela and da Silva in Brazil, Ecuador's President-elect Lucio Gutierrez and Bolivia's indigenous leader Evo Morales belong to a new generation of populists who are winning elections by advocating economic nationalism and railing against the free-trade, macroeconomic and counter-drug policies backed regionally by the United States.

Moreover, El Salvador's Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a rebel group in the 1980s which re-invented itself in the 1990s as a socialist political party with growing popular centrist appeal, expects to score major gains in that country's 2003 legislative elections and win the presidency in 2004.

But if the Chavez regime implodes and a new center-right transition government comes to power in Venezuela, it could impede the efforts of self-proclaimed socialist political organizations seeking power throughout Latin America.

Da Silva also may have practical motives for trying to help Chavez weather the political conflict that threatens his regime. By helping to keep Chavez in power, da Silva would be assured of a geopolitical ally in countering the growing American military and economic presence in Colombia.

Regardless of their political differences, many Brazilians believe that the Bush administration's expanding military support for Colombia is only the tip of a more ambitious long-term strategy to gain direct control over oil and other natural resources in South America. The Bush administration is backing what Brazilians perceive as a conservative government in Colombia, as well as signing a free-trade agreement recently with Chile and building a stronger U.S. military and economic presence in other Andean countries with substantial energy, mineral and forest resources.

Brazilian foreign policymakers are concerned that it won't be long before American corporations start to encroach on the outer frontiers of the Amazon River Basin. If Chavez were to be replaced by a U.S.-backed center-right regime in Venezuela, Brazil's sense of encirclement would increase. As a result, da Silva likely will do whatever he can to help his friend Chavez, in defense of what he perceives as Brazil's paramount geopolitical interest in the region: to contain American expansionism.

Da Silva is a co-founder with Cuban leader Fidel Castro of the Sao Paulo Forum, a hemispheric umbrella group for Latin American Marxist and socialist parties, former guerrilla organizations and active rebel groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Peru's Shining Path. Chavez also has been a member of the Sao Paulo Forum since the mid-1990s.

Lovely.

Socialists to the south, socialists to the north. The planet is becoming socialist. But that, of course, won't stop war. We'll just feel better until we get blowed up.

***But if the Chavez regime implodes and a new center-right transition government comes to power in Venezuela, it could impede the efforts of self-proclaimed socialist political organizations seeking power throughout Latin America. Da Silva also may have practical motives for trying to help Chavez weather the political conflict that threatens his regime. By helping to keep Chavez in power, da Silva would be assured of a geopolitical ally in countering the growing American military and economic presence in Colombia.***

Bump!

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