Latin America deserves a top-notch U.S. envoy

No one can blame the United States for the turmoil that some Latin American nations are facing, but it certainly wouldn't hurt if Washington had a top-notch diplomat assigned to the region.

But President Bush has appointed Roger Noriega as this nation's envoy to Latin America.

Noriega's resumé is impressive. The 43-year-old diplomat is the current U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States and was a staff member of the Senate and House international relations committees during the previous decade.

Unfortunately, a closer look at his credentials shows that, like Otto Reich - whom Bush wisely decided not to re-nominate to the post of assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs - Noriega is not the diplomat the White House needs in the region.

As the senior aide to former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., Noriega actively promoted his boss' xenophobic, anti-Communist and anti-Cuban agenda. Moreover, he hasn't hesitated to offend some foreign diplomats. For instance, Noriega publicly accused Mexico's Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda - who just announced his resignation - of anti-U.S. prejudices.

This is a critical time in Latin America. Besides the turmoil in Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela, nations like Brazil and Ecuador have elected populist presidents who may not always see eye to eye with Washington.

Thus, what the United States needs in the region is a first-rate diplomat, not a cold war ideologue. To borrow a theme from Bush's presidential campaign, his administration needs a uniter not a divider.

We need someone ready, willing and able to put U.S. national security interests first.

Otto Reich is transferred to the White House *** Otto J. Reich, the administration's leading hard-liner on Cuba, will move from the State Department to a new post inside the White House, reporting directly to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on Latin American policy, administration officials confirmed yesterday. The move sidesteps a potentially nasty confirmation fight in the Senate, where Democrats have vowed to torpedo efforts to make permanent Mr. Reich's position as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, the department's senior post for the region. Mr. Reich's new position as "presidential envoy" to the Americas would not require Senate confirmation. The new posting was first reported in yesterday's Miami Herald.***

It's Cool Again to be communist***"In the 1980s we observed that Marxist-Leninist antidemocratic groups were consistently supported and helped by misguided members of the left wing of the Social Democratic parties in Europe and a number of other regions," says Constantine C. Menges, a former national intelligence officer at the CIA who is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. "Regrettably, they seem to have learned little from the revelations that followed the unraveling of communism in Eastern Europe, and it appears that many of these misguided groups and individuals are back supporting antidemocratic, radical causes. As examples, they are supporting the [Hugo] Chavez regime in Venezuela and the communist guerrillas in Colombia."

Inspired by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and Cuba's Fidel Castro, military strongman Chavez is turning oil-rich Venezuela into a populist, anti-U.S. dictatorship, say U.S. intelligence sources. They tell Insight that Chavez is providing a safe haven for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) narcoguerrillas, an 18,000-man insurgency that began decades ago as an offshoot of the local Communist Party and still clings to Marxist-Leninist ideology.

U.S. policy during the Clinton administration provided Colombia, a country twice as large as France, with the means to combat drug producers and traffickers but deliberately restricted the use of U.S.-supplied military equipment to prevent Bogotá from effectively fighting the FARC. A U.S.-brokered "peace" process helped give the FARC a protected sanctuary the size of Switzerland in the heart of the country. Now, Colombia faces the prospect of disintegration as the cocaine- and heroin-financed FARC gains military ground.

Economic hard times and the difficult transitions from populist welfare-state regimes to market-based systems are creating hardship and malaise across much of Latin America, including Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member Ecuador and industrial powerhouses Argentina and Brazil. Far-left politicians now run the Western Hemisphere's most populous cities: Mexico City and São Paulo, Brazil. Masked Zapatista gunmen spouting Marxist rhetoric gained political legitimacy last year in Mexico, entering into negotiations with the government and even dictating terms in the name of an oppressed Indian minority in the southern part of the country. Across Mexico, Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos, a swaggering figure in a black ski mask who smokes a pipe, enjoys a cult following of sorts. Tourists even can buy chic Marcos postcards at airport gift shops.

……………….. The old revolutionary ideology is chic again. One of the theoretical architects of the new antiglobalism movement is Antonio Negri, an Italian former professor who, with Duke University professor Michael Hardt, coauthored the new book Empire. Harvard University Press, which published the U.S. edition, approvingly calls the book "an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto." Harvard identifies Negri as "an independent researcher and writer and an inmate at Rebibbia Prison, Rome."

Why is he in prison? The New York Times was more illuminating. Negri, according to the Times review, is "a 68-year-old Italian philosopher and suspected terrorist mastermind who is serving a 13-year prison sentence in Rome for inciting violence during the turbulent 1970s." He allegedly is a secret member of the Red Brigades. And even before Negri's book was published in August, it was on the Amazon.com top-100 best-seller list and was in New York University's top 10. The free market is speaking: Marxist terrorism is cool.***

Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

Chavez Bombshell? - A defector's testimony links the Venezuelan strongman to international terror***At a Miami press conference this past Sunday, Diaz said that shortly following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Chavez commissioned him "to organize, coordinate, and execute a covert operation consisting of delivering financial resources, specifically $1 million, to [Afghanistan's] Taliban government, in order for them to assist the al-Qaeda terrorist organization," while, "making it appear as if humanitarian aid were being extended to the Afghan people."***

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