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 News from Around the Americas | June 2005 
Opposition to US Makes Chávez a Hero to Many
 Juan Forero - NYTimes
Bogota - When President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela arrived at the World Social Forum in Brazil in January he was greeted with thunderous cries of "Here comes the boss!"
At ceremonies surrounding the inauguration of Uruguay's president, Tabaré Vázquez, the latest left-of-center leader elected in Latin America, throngs roared their approval as Chávez gave one of his characteristically rambling talks, full of warnings about American imperialism.
And in Buenos Aires, crowds mobbed Chávez when he showed up recently to inaugurate Venezuela's first state-owned gasoline service station in the Argentine capital, part of a food-for-oil deal popular with Argentines.
It is the kind of public adoration that brings to mind another Latin American leader, Fidel Castro, who for more than 45 years has drawn accolades wherever he has gone, much to Washington's chagrin.
Now, it seems, the torch has been passed, and it is Chávez who is emerging as this generation's Castro - a charismatic figure and self-styled revolutionary who gives his counterparts bear hugs on state visits, inspires populist left-wing movements, and draws out fervent well-wishers from Havana to Buenos Aires.
Like Castro, Chávez bears a "Made in USA." label, burnishing his image by mining latent anti-American sentiment and capitalizing on Washington's mistakes, like the tacit support the White House gave to a short-lived coup against him in 2002.
He is now assailing the United States over the case of Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban-American exile and Castro foe accused of bombing a Cuban airliner.
Chávez has demanded that the United States, which is holding Posada Carriles, return him to Venezuela, his base of operations at the time of the bombing. Chávez has repeatedly accused the United States of having a double standard on terrorism, coming down hard on those it perceives as its enemies and pulling its punches with an accused terrorist at war with Washington's longtime nemesis, Castro.
The strategy is classic Castro, but Chávez has one great advantage the Cuban leader never had - the richest oil reserves outside the Middle East, a gusher of cash that he is using to weave ever closer diplomatic and commercial ties with Latin American nations.
"He's following his own path, his own destiny, and he's doing it against US opposition, so the Latin Americans support it," said Wayne Smith, a former American diplomat in Cuba and now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, which tracks developments in Latin America.
Chávez is also riding a wave of popular reaction in the region against the "Washington consensus" of democracy and open markets.
Three-quarters of South America is now ruled by left-of-center presidents, and next year Mexico may well elect a leftist populist of its own, Mexico City's mayor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Meanwhile, the United States receives negative news coverage in Latin America, from the war in Iraq to reports of prisoner abuses in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
In a recent coordinated set of surveys conducted across Latin America by a consortium of polling firms, President George W. Bush was given a 26 percent approval rating. A yearly poll by Latinobarómetro, a Chilean firm that surveys political attitudes around South America, showed that in 2004 more than 60 percent of Latin Americans still had a good opinion of the United States. But in some countries, like Argentina and Mexico, the approval rating was below 50 percent. |
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