Nikolas Kozloff

Hugo Chávez's geopolitical rivalry with Washington has reached soaring new heights -- literally into space.  After meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Caracas recently, the Venezuelan leader remarked that Moscow had offered to assist Venezuela in developing its own space industry including a satellite launch site and a factory.  It was Putin's first visit to Venezuela, and the Russian was received with full military honors upon arrival.  "This is a truly important day for the country and for Latin America," Chávez said.

 

Back in Washington, officials wasted no time in dismissing the Chávez-Putin tête-à-tête.  "We would note that the government of Venezuela was largely closed this week due to energy shortages," declared State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.  In a caustic reference to Spielberg's E.T. perhaps, Crowley added, "to the extent that Venezuela is going to expend resources on behalf of its people, perhaps the focus should be more terrestrial than extraterrestrial."

 

What's behind the Chávez-Putin summit?  At this point, the true scope of the space deal is unclear and hopefully all future initiatives will be wholly peaceful in nature.  Could the discussions have something to do with counteracting U.S. influence?  Chávez himself denies it, proclaiming loudly during Putin's visit that "we aren't making alliances here against Washington."

 

Such claims don't ring particularly true, however.  For the past few years, Venezuela's leader has been assiduously courting Russian support.  Indeed, just since 2005 he has signed a dozen military agreements with Moscow worth more than $4 billion.  Chávez's buying spree has included helicopters, fighter jets, and 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles.  In addition, Venezuela has received more than $2 billion in credit lines for more Russian arms including T-72 tanks and an advanced anti-aircraft missile system.

 

To be sure, the Obama administration has stoked Venezuelan fears by proceeding with planned U.S. military bases in Colombia, a nation which borders Venezuela.  Yet, there's something disturbing about Venezuela's turn towards Russia.  In 2008, Chávez conducted joint military exercises with Russian vessels in the Caribbean, including the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser Peter the Great.  The ship has massive firepower and can deliver conventional or nuclear warheads, as I described in an article at the time.

 

With Washington warning of a regional arms race, the left has chosen to stay mute about the weapons purchases or alternatively bash U.S imperialism.  Within the increasingly more unsettling geopolitical milieu, Chávez rails about the need to create a "multi-polar" world in which the U.S. would not be the only superpower.  Which nations are to comprise this Axis of Good?  Presumably, those countries which Venezuela is seeking to ally to, including Russia but also others such as China and Iran.

 

Chávez is sounding increasingly defiant.  When asked by reporters how the U.S. might view Venezuela's lavish defense spending, the president remarked, "We don't really care what Washington thinks."  For his part, autocratic Putin sounded cynical when discussing the budding new relationship.  If the U.S. didn't want to sell arms to Venezuela, he said, "Well, for us that's good."

 

During their meeting in Caracas, Chávez presented Putin with the so-called Order of the Liberator -- Venezuela's highest honor -- and provided the Russian leader a replica of a sword brandished by South American independence hero Simon Bolívar -- the namesake of Venezuela's socialist-inspired "Bolivarian Revolution."  Kissing the replica, Putin remarked, "Russia from the start has supported Latin America's struggle for independence."  The Russian added, unconvincingly, "Our objective is to make the world more democratic, make it balanced and multi-polar."

 

At the height of the Cold War, the Soviets supported Cuba but it's debatable whether Russia ever took Latin American emancipation very seriously. Today, Russia has no ideological project and its take on Latin America seems even more narrow-minded. The budding geopolitical alliance between Russia and Venezuela, which now looks as if it could reach into space, would seem to be more of a marriage of convenience than anything else.
 
"Satellite" Diplomacy

 

The same might be said of Venezuela's courting of China, a relationship which has already yielded collaboration in many realms including military. Reuters reports that Venezuela has purchased a network of radars and jet-training aircraft from the Asian nation. Venezuela says the planes will be used to train local pilots and intercept drug traffickers, though the K-8 planes may also be refitted for combat as well as a missile-defense radar system. Chávez, who says he is simply modernizing his armed forces, adds that "China has become one of the biggest allies of Venezuela, and Venezuela is one of the biggest allies of China in the world."

With the launching of Venezuela's Venesat-1 communications satellite in late 2008, that alliance has resulted in big benefits for Chávez. The satellite, also dubbed "Simon Bolívar," was built with Chinese know-how and was Venezuela's first. Chávez hailed the launch as an "act of liberation," designed to eliminate his country's "satellite illiteracy." Venesat-1 was the product of concerted shuttle diplomacy: Chávez has been a frequent visitor in Beijing. 

 

Indeed, Venezuela and China have been collaborating on scientific and technological matters for the past eight years. As with Russia, Chávez hopes that growing ties with China will lead to a new multi-polar model in order "to break" U.S. hegemony. In 2005, both countries signed a contract for Venesat-1 in Caracas, and the next year Chávez went to China personally to oversee the construction of the satellite costing more than $200 million.

 

The satellite, which is designed to provide radio, television, and internet in three band frequencies, and whose signal will extend all the way from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, will facilitate not only broadcasting but also distance learning and medical services.  In southeastern Venezuela, a financially poor and rugged region where land lines are expensive to build and maintain, Venesat-1 will provide welcome telecommunications coverage.

 

From an economic and social standpoint, that is certainly a welcome development: for years, satellite-based networks have been concentrated in Venezuela's higher-income, more heavily populated regions. Venesat-1 by contrast will help to facilitate distance education and bring the internet to schools and homes across Venezuela. 

 

The orb will also lead to great advances in "telemedicine," that is to say the sending of medical tests of patients from remote areas via internet to medical centers for speedy diagnosis. This is particularly helpful for Warao Indians, a tribe residing in an easterly region of the Orinoco River Delta. Through telemedicine, the Warao will be able to consult specialists working in Venezuela's best hospitals.

 

Venezuela's Houston Mission Control

 

Let's not kid ourselves however: Venesat-1 also fulfills some valuable political objectives. Chávez himself has remarked that "a satellite at the service of capitalism is launched to make money, but Simón Bolívar will benefit development and the integration of our people." A satellite will help Chávez proceed with his agenda of politically integrating like-minded regimes throughout the region.

 

Reportedly, the first users of Venesat-1 have included the very vocally pro-Chávez public station Canal 8, as well as Telesur, an interesting pan-Latin American TV channel based in Venezuela [for those interested in exploring the politics surrounding Telesur and the media in Venezuela, see my chapter on the subject in my book Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left].  Chávez says Venesat-1 will strengthen Venezuela's sovereignty by overcoming the constant U.S. "media bombardment."

 

El Sombrero is a town lying some 200 miles south of Caracas in Central Venezuela. Recently, rolling farming landscape has been transformed by the arrival of satellite technology. Chávez's version of Houston mission control, El Sombrero houses satellite dishes as well as a radar facility which has employed both Venezuelan and Chinese scientists. Above the entrance of the facility there's a massive sign reading "Patria, Socialismo o Muerte" -- Fatherland, Socialism or Death. Nearby lies an air force base where Russian Sukhoi fighters take off constantly from a landing strip.

 

Daniel Varnagy, a telecommunications expert from Simon Bolívar University, told the BBC that Venesat-1, which followed the nationalization of Venezuela's telecommunications sector, could give the government the possibility of interfering with communications. "Chávez is trying to protect his political project and his own person. He believes he's being pursued and spied on by other countries," Varnagy said.

 

Venezuelan authorities, however, insist their intentions are peaceful and rule out any military or espionage uses. Venesat-1, Chávez asserts, is designed to lead toward the "construction of socialism."  The Venezuelan leader adds that Latin countries "spend millions of dollars in satellite services, almost all of them monopolized by big international companies.  It is the domination of space." Hardly amused by such fiery rhetoric, Washington reportedly requested that China suspend the launch of Venesat-1, a plea which Beijing flatly disregarded.

 

Another Space Race?

 

Chávez is correct in criticizing the excesses of U.S. foreign policy and his concern about American dominance over the space industry is understandable.  In light of U.S. high handedness in Latin America, it's reasonable that countries like Venezuela would want to build up their own space industry in an attempt to rival the technological edge of their northern neighbor.  To be sure, Venesat-1 will also be put to some beneficial logistical and social uses [though it could also be abused].

 

The problem is not there, but in the overall geopolitical context in which Venezuela finds itself. In an effort to build up his "multi-polar world," Chávez has allied himself with anti-democratic countries like China and Russia. Chávez's relations with these two have a technological component, but the alliances have taken on an increasingly diplomatic and political hue and it is here where Venezuela gets into ideological contradictions.

 

In an effort to satisfy China, Chávez has been making bizarre statements backing up Beijing's repression in such far-flung corners of the globe as Tibet [for more on this, readers can go to my website and read this article]. Though the world would be a better place without a sole superpower like the U.S., Chávez's multi-polar vision is problematic and could very well make things worse. What's more, in a political sense Venezuela's alliances are making a mockery of Chávez's calls for "21st century socialism."

 

Another undesirable result of these alliances has to do with military strains. Tensions on the high seas between Russia and Venezuela on the one hand and the U.S. on the other are bad enough. Could we now see a similar drama in space? The last space race, which pitted the Soviet Union against the United States, exacerbated superpower tensions and made the world a very unsafe place to live.

 

NASA, beset with fluctuating budgets and the political whims of ever-changing administrations and congresses, has experienced a relative decline in recent years. While such a decline was not such a huge concern following the end of the Cold War, America's once-clear dominance of space is now being challenged by other nations. Russia has been a leader in space launches, but currently China is a key player in human spaceflight. Indeed, China became just the third nation after the United States and Russia to send its own astronauts out on a spacewalk.

Evan Ellis, a consultant with technology firm Booz Allen Hamilton, told the Los Angeles Times that Venesat-1 was an example of "strategic relationships" China had been able to acquire because the United States no longer "closely defends its exclusive presence" in Latin America.

"Traditionally, Chinese diplomacy has been cautious there for fear of provoking us and endangering its U.S. trade relationship," Ellis declared. "But it's become bolder in its affairs, not just with relatively neutral countries, but even with a country like Venezuela, which is openly hostile to the United States."

 

The new competition has some on Capitol Hill growing concerned. During a hearing of the House's subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics last year, ranking Republican of Texas Pete Olson remarked, "We should never ever cede American leadership." With Russia and now China promoting space ties with many new nations such as Venezuela, there is sure to be much hand wringing in Washington in the not too distant future.

 

All of a sudden, the space industry has become pretty fluid. It's a situation with unforeseen consequences for the traditional players but also for up and coming countries like Venezuela, a medium-sized nation which has now chosen to insert itself into the wider geopolitical milieu.

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Having survived a U.S.-supported coup d'état in 2002 which briefly removed him from power, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has sought to encourage solidarity amongst impoverished nations in an effort to counter Washington's hegemonic and imperial designs throughout Latin America and around the world. That impulse is certainly understandable, but Chávez has now gone so far overboard that he has lost all moral standing and any shred of credibility. Just in case you missed it here is Chávez's latest gem for the ages: "I don't know, maybe he [the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin] was a great nationalist, a patriot."

While Chávez has certainly made some obtuse statements over the years, this remark was so offensive, so insensitive, so utterly devoid of any moral compass that it ought to give severe pause to Chávez's international supporters. If Chávez were so inclined, he might have taken a moment to conduct a cursory google search before holding forth on the subject of well known African dignitaries. Perhaps the Venezuelan might have come up with the following obituary from London's Guardian newspaper, dated 2003: "Idi Amin," ran the piece, "was one of the most brutal military dictators to wield power in post-independence Africa."

After militarily seizing power in 1971, the Ugandan made himself president, dissolved parliament and suspended elections. Under Amin, the secret police exercised absolute power over life and death while the courts and press were subjected to the president's whims. Even more disturbingly, Chávez's "patriot" killed hundreds of thousands of his real and perceived political opponents. To this day the true death toll is not known with estimates ranging widely between 80,000 and 300,000. Amnesty International, compiling figures with the help of Ugandan exiles, put the number even higher at 500,000.

It's odd that Chávez would cast Amin as a nationalist since other contemporary leaders held the exact opposite view. Indeed, Tanzania's former president Julius Nyerere once remarked that Amin actually damaged the cause of African nationalism. Perhaps, what Chávez meant was that Amin was a black nationalist to the detriment of other ethnic groups: in 1972 the Ugandan expelled 35,000 Asians from his country in the course of three months.

It's difficult to see what was going through Chávez's head when he made his recent speech: not only were his comments morally repugnant but also politically self defeating. In Uganda, officials said they were offended by the Venezuelan. President Yoweri Museveni's secretary Tamale Mirundi declared that Amin's soldiers had murdered both his parents right in front of him. "The way he [Amin] killed Ugandans in big numbers cannot qualify him to be a nationalist," Murundi added.

The withering criticism hasn't deterred Chávez from pursuing diplomatic alliances with tin pot African dictators such as Muamar Gaddafi. But the Venezuelan has embraced more loathsome despots. Take for example the case of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who Chávez calls a "brother." The African leader, Chávez says, has been wrongly branded a "bad guy" in the eyes of the world. Chávez once presented Mugabe with a replica of a sword wielded by Latin American independence leader Simon Bolívar. In another vintage Chávez gem, the Venezuelan leader told Mugabe that he was "a true freedom fighter [who] continues, alongside his people, to confront the pretensions of new imperialists."

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980 and refused to leave office after disputed elections. He has presided over a humanitarian crisis which has pushed thousands to the point of starvation and left many dead of cholera. Zimbabwe once had one of the best health care systems in sub-Saharan Africa, but under Mugabe hospitals had to be shuttered because staff could not afford to buy necessary medicine or equipment. Instead of castigating Mugabe, Chávez came to the African leader's defense: the health emergency in Zimbabwe, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry stated, should not be used by other nations to "politically destabilize" the government in Harare.

In 2000, Mugabe began an oftentimes violent campaign to take over white-owned farms in Zimbabwe and hand them to blacks. Ultimately most of the land wound up in the hands of Mugabe's cronies and agricultural production plummeted, thereby wrecking the economy. Predictably, Chávez came to Mugabe's defense. "I pay tribute to Mugabe," the Venezuelan said, adding "the president of Zimbabwe is made out to be a villain - because he takes land from those who don't need it to give it to those who need it to live."

As if it could get no worse, Chávez has also embraced Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, a leader who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity in Darfur. The ICC has charged Bashir with five counts: murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape. The court has declared that Bashir is criminally responsible for atrocities in Darfur as he was the head of state and commander of the Sudanese armed forces during a five-year counter-insurgency campaign waged against armed groups.

According to the Guardian, few independent observers doubt Bashir's culpability for the humanitarian disaster in Darfur which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since 2003. After a mainly non-Arab uprising broke out in Darfur, Bashir's government armed, trained and financed bands of Arab nomads to ransack villages in the region, murdering, raping and pillaging as they went along. The Sudanese army provided air and ground support. Human rights groups have hailed the ICC's decision to pursue Bashir. The Sudanese leader meanwhile counters that the ICC arrest warrant is a western plot to arrest his country's economic development. The ICC, he says, should "eat" its warrant.

Coming to the aid of an ally, Chávez has done his utmost to rehabilitate Bashir. "The recent indictment against the Sudanese president Bashir is one of these ridiculous cases. It's a farce," he said during an Arab summit in Doha. Going even further, Chávez spoke personally with Bashir and invited the Sudanese leader to visit Venezuela. "I spoke with al-Bashir and asked him about the risks he is facing when he visits a foreign country," Chávez said. "I invited him to visit Caracas, and I told him, 'I hope you do not have any problem there.'"

Chávez added that the ICC decision was based on racism and was "a legal eyesore and a political abuse, not only for Sudan but for the people of the third world." Unlike Chávez, other Latin American leaders have refused to demonstrate any solidarity with Bashir. During an official session at Doha, Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kircher walked out so as to avoid being photographed with the Sudanese leader.

Chávez's African exploits are but the latest chapter in the Venezuelan's long embrace of autocratic despots. It's a long and tangled history, and I've written extensively about it before. Chávez has thrown his political and diplomatic support behind the likes of Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for example. The Venezuelan leader has even warmed up to the likes of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. In Belarus, opposition activists are closely monitored by the secret police--still called the KGB. Anyone joining an opposition protest, Lukashenko has said, should be treated as a "terrorist," adding: "We will wring their necks, as one might a duck." During a visit to Minsk, Chávez remarked bizarrely that Belarus was "a model social state."

But by far the lowest moment came during the Chinese crack down in Tibet. Once again Chávez was on the wrong side. Defending China's repression, he argued that Tibet was part of China. Chávez moreover ridiculed attempts to protest China during the Olympics and in another flight of fantasy claimed that "The United States is behind all that is happening as it wants to derail the Beijing Olympics."

Everything that I've reported on here is on the public record, yet troll through the left blogosphere and you'd be hard pressed to find any mention of Chávez's moral lapses. Indeed, it would appear as if Chávez can do no wrong in the eyes of his international supporters.

Speak to leftist Latin American experts and they'll privately concede that Chávez is out of line. However, these same experts are very selective about what they will or will not sign or publish. Left academics will be the first to rush to Venezuela's defense when Caracas is attacked by the likes of Human Rights Watch for example. I haven't seen any mention however of Idi Amin or Omar Al-Bashir. Where are the heavy hitters on the left? The silence is becoming more and more apparent.

As a result of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe’s decision to allow six U.S. military bases on his country’s soil the propaganda war has heated up in the Andean region. In neighboring Venezuela, Hugo Chávez says Colombia is seeking to destabilize the border and has hinted that war could be imminent.

When Uribe and Chávez slug it out rhetorically the two constantly employ historical references, in particular to the Great Liberator Simón Bolívar. A leader of the independence struggle against Spain, Bolívar was a member of the Caracas aristocracy and liberated Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador from imperial rule in the early nineteenth century.

Why is this Bolivarian rhetoric still so common and integral to politics in the Andean region? To answer that question I wrote a piece for the Washington, D.C-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs in March, 2008.  I was prompted to write the piece in response to the political crisis stemming from a Colombian military raid on a FARC guerrilla encampment within Ecuadoran territory. For years the Colombian government has been at war with the leftist FARC and is wont to pursue its political enemy across its borders in Venezuela to the east and Ecuador to the south.

Then as now, Uribe’s U.S.-assisted military brinksmanship resulted in a rhetorical outburst from Chávez. In light of the current crisis and threat of war perhaps it’s instructive to revisit my original piece for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Looking back on my article written a little more than a year ago it is striking how little politics has changed in the Andean region. Indeed, Chávez continues to employ Bolivarian symbols and his government has sought to pass an education bill based on “the Bolivarian doctrine”: a term used by the Venezuelan President to describe his socialist political movement. The measure has generated considerable controversy with some protesters claiming that the bill will open the door to socialist indoctrination in schools. In the international arena meanwhile, Chávez has said that the U.S. seeks to fracture Bolivarian unity by installing its bases in Colombia and Soto Cano in Honduras [for more on the U.S. airbase at Soto Cano, see my previous columns].

Chávez never misses a chance to use Bolívar for political ends. In a column for the state-run Bolivarian News Agency the Venezuelan President recently made allusion to an early diplomatic encounter between Bolívar and the United States. In 1817, American ships sought to supply arms to Spanish forces opposed to Bolívar in Venezuela. When Bolívar captured the two ships Secretary of State John Quincy Adams sent a Baltimore journalist with political ambitions named John Baptiste Irving to negotiate with Bolívar.

In her book Venezuela and the United States: From Monroe’s Doctrine to Petroleum’s Empire, historian Judith Ewell writes that Irving was instructed to secure the release of the ships and the handover of the vessels to their rightful owners. Irving was also told to secure an indemnity for the lost cargo. Bolívar received Irving graciously as he hoped that the diplomatic envoy would extend U.S. political recognition to his movement.

However, diplomatic negotiations quickly deteriorated: Bolívar would not back down on his position vis-a-vis the ships while Irving failed to provide the coveted recognition. Bolívar grew disenchanted with the U.S., a power which in his view had failed to provide adequate support for South American independence movements. According to Ewell, Irving did not take Bolívar’s dismissal of the shipping issue lightly. For several months, the American fired angry notes back to Adams which characterized Bolívar as a tyrant and a “Don Quixote with ambition.” “The wheels of his [Bolívar’s] government,” Irving wrote, “are clogged already with imbecility.” In 1819 Irving finally gave up his mission and returned to the U.S.

In his column Chávez made reference to the Irving-Bolívar diplomatic spat, writing that the U.S. has historically sought to head off Latin American unity. To this day, Chávez says, Washington continues its geopolitical strategy in such nations as Honduras and Colombia. A few days ago, during a summit of South American nations held in Quito, Ecuador Chávez continued to hark on this theme.

Ecuador has pursued a political alliance with Venezuela and recently the Rafael Correa government refused to renew a lease for a U.S. military base located at the port city of Manta. In Quito, Chávez was joined by Correa as well as the deposed President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya. During the summit Chávez compared Uribe to General Francisco de Paula Santander and remarked that in Ecuador “Bolívar’s sword is more alive than ever.”

“Now I understand why Bolívar got tied up with Manuela Sáenz,” Chávez added. The Venezuelan was making reference to Simón Bolívar’s lover, a native of Quito. As I note in my book Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left which came out just after I wrote my piece for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Sáenz is a potent political symbol linking Venezuela to Ecuador.

“To this day,” I wrote in my book, “Ecuador and Venezuela still have the same flag colors. Saenz belonged to the aristocracy and met the Liberator after the famed Battle of Pichincha. She accompanied Bolivar on his military campaigns, carrying out intelligence work, raising funds for independence forces, and cheering on the troops. Saenz also demonstrated great valor on the battlefield, seeing action during the Battle of Ayacucho…Saenz’s love letters to Bolivar are preserved in a Quito museum, along with some of her garments and an oil painting showing her in her childhood.”

In her day, Sáenz remarkably rose to the rank of coronela or colonel. Like Chávez, Correa is a politician who makes skilful use of historical symbols. Indeed, Correa recently raised Sáenz’s rank to generala or general in recognition of the woman’s efforts in the South American independence struggle.

Could the diplomatic thaw between Venezuela and the United States be coming to an abrupt end? At the recent Summit of the Americas held in Port of Spain, Barack Obama shook Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s hand and declared that he would pursue a less arrogant foreign policy towards Latin America. Building on that good will, Venezuela and the United States agreed to restore their ambassadors late last week. The diplomatic overtures provided a stark contrast to the miserable state of relations during the Bush years: just nine months ago Venezuela expelled the U.S. envoy in a diplomatic tussle. At the time, Chávez said he kicked the U.S. ambassador out to demonstrate solidarity with left ally Bolivia, which had also expelled a top American diplomat after accusing him of blatant political interference in the Andean nation’s internal affairs.

Whatever goodwill existed last week however could now be undone by turbulent political events in Honduras. Following a military coup d’etat in the small Central American nation on Sunday, Chávez accused the U.S. of helping to orchestrate the overthrow of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. “Behind these soldiers are the Honduran bourgeois, the rich who converted Honduras into a Banana Republic, into a political and military base for North American imperialism,” Chávez said. The Venezuelan leader urged the Honduran military to return Zelaya to power and even threatened military action against the coup regime if Venezuela’s ambassador was killed or local troops entered the Venezuelan Embassy. Reportedly, Honduran soldiers beat the ambassador and left him on the side of a road in the course of the military coup. Tensions have ratcheted up to such an extent that Chávez has now placed his armed forces on alert.

To be sure, Chávez has a certain taste for hyperbole and has not provided any proof that the U.S. could be behind the coup in Honduras. On the surface at least it seems unlikely that Obama would endorse an interventionist U.S. foreign policy in Central America. Over the past few months the U.S. President has gone to great lengths to “re-brand” America in the eyes of the world as a reasonable power engaged in respectful diplomacy as opposed to reckless unilateralism. If it were ever proven that Obama sanctioned the overthrow of a democratically elected government this could completely undermine the U.S. President’s carefully crafted image and lead many to conclude that he is just as cynical as his predecessor.

Officially the military removed Zelaya from power because the Honduran President had abused his authority. On Sunday Zelaya hoped to hold a constitutional referendum which could have allowed him to run for reelection for another four year term, a move which Honduras’ Supreme Court and Congress declared illegal. But while the controversy over Zelaya’s constitutional referendum certainly provided the lightning rod for military intervention, it’s no secret that the President was at odds politically with the Honduran elite for the past few years and had become one of Washington’s fiercest critics in the region.

The Rise of Zelaya

Zelaya, who sports a thick black mustache, cowboy boots and large white Stetson hat, was elected in late 2005. At first blush he hardly seemed the type of politician to rock the boat. A landowner from a wealthy landowning family engaged in the lumber industry, Zelaya headed the Liberal Party, one of the two dominant political parties in Honduras. The President supported the Central American Free Trade Agreement which eliminated trade barriers with the United States.

Despite these initial conservative leanings, Zelaya began to criticize powerful, vested interests in the country such as the media and owners of maquiladora sweatshops which produced goods for export in industrial free zones. Gradually he started to adopt some socially progressive policies. For example, Zelaya instituted a 60% minimum wage increase which angered the wealthy business community. The hike in the minimum wage, Zelaya declared, would “force the business oligarchy to start paying what is fair.” “This is a government of great social transformations, committed to the poor,” he added. Trade unions celebrated the decision, not surprising given that Honduras is the third poorest country in the hemisphere and 70% of its people live in poverty. When private business associations announced that they would challenge the government’s wage decree in Honduras’ Supreme Court, Zelaya’s Labor Minister called the critics “greedy exploiters.”

In another somewhat jarring move that must have raised eyebrows in Washington, Zelaya declared during a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean anti-drug officials that drug consumption should be legalized to halt violence related to smuggling. In recent years Honduras has been plagued by drug trafficking and so-called maras or street gangs which carry out gruesome beheadings, rapes and eye gouging. “Instead of pursuing drug traffickers, societies should invest resources in educating drug addicts and curbing their demand,” Zelaya said. Rodolfo Zelaya, the head of a Honduran congressional commission on drug trafficking, rejected Zelaya’s comments. He told participants at the meeting that he was “confused and stunned by what the Honduran leader said.”

Zelaya and ALBA

Not content to stop there, Zelaya started to conduct an increasingly more independent foreign policy. In late 2007 he traveled to Cuba, the first official trip by a Honduran president to the Communist island in 46 years. There, Zelaya met with Raul Castro to discuss bilateral relations and other topics of mutual interest. But what really led Zelaya towards a political collision course with the Honduran elite was his decision to join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (known by its Spanish acronym ALBA), an alliance of leftist Latin American and Caribbean nations headed by Chávez. The regional trade group including Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Dominica seeks to counteract corporately-friendly U.S-backed free trade schemes. Since its founding in 2004, ALBA countries have promoted joint factories and banks, an emergency food fund, and exchanges of cheap Venezuelan oil for food, housing, and educational investment.

In an emphatic departure from previous Honduran leaders who had been staunch allies of the U.S., Zelaya stated “Honduras and the Honduran people do not have to ask permission of any imperialism to join the ALBA.” Speaking in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa before a crowd of 50,000 unionists, women’s groups, farmers and indigenous peoples, Chávez remarked that Venezuela would guarantee cheap oil to Honduras for “at least 100 years.” By signing onto ALBA, Zelaya was able to secure access to credit lines, energy and food benefits. As an act of good faith, Chávez agreed to forgive Honduran debt to Venezuela amounting to $30 million.

Infuriating the local elite, Chávez declared that Hondurans who opposed ALBA were “sellouts.” “I did not come here to meddle in internal affairs,” he continued, “but…I cannot explain how a Honduran could be against Honduras joining the ALBA, the path of development, the path of integration.” Hardly content to stop there, Chávez lambasted the Honduran press which he labeled pitiyanquis (little Yanqui imitators) and “abject hand-lickers of the Yanquis.” For his part, Zelaya said “we need no one’s permission to sign this commitment. Today we are taking a step towards becoming a government of the center-left, and if anyone dislikes this, well just remove the word ‘center’ and keep the second one.”

It wasn’t long before private business started to bitterly attack Zelaya for moving Honduras into Chávez’s orbit. By joining ALBA, business representatives argued, the President was endangering free enterprise and the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Former President Ricardo Maduro even claimed that the United States might retaliate against Honduras by deporting Honduran migrants from the United States. “Don't bite the hand that feeds you,” Maduro warned, alluding to Washington. Zelaya was piqued by the criticisms. “When I met with (U.S. President) George W. Bush,” he said, “no one called me an anti-imperialist and the business community applauded me. Now that I am meeting with the impoverished peoples of the world, they criticize me.”

Zelaya’s Letter to Obama

In September, 2008 Zelaya further strained U.S. relations by delaying accreditation of the new U.S. ambassador out of solidarity with Bolivia and Venezuela which had just gone through diplomatic dust ups with Washington. “We are not breaking relations with the United States,” Zelaya said. “We only are (doing this) in solidarity with [Bolivian President] Morales, who has denounced the meddling of the United States in Bolivia's internal affairs.” Defending his decision, Zelaya said small nations needed to stick together. “The world powers must treat us fairly and with respect,” he stated.

In November, Zelaya hailed Obama’s election in the U.S. as “a hope for the world,” but just two months later tensions began to emerge. In an audacious letter sent personally to Obama, Zelaya accused the U.S. of “interventionism” and called on the new administration in Washington to respect the principle of non-interference in the political affairs of other nations. According to Spanish news agency EFE which saw a copy of the note, Zelaya told Obama that it wasn’t his intention to tell the U.S. President what he should or should not do.

He then however went on to do precisely that. First of all, Zelaya brought up the issue of U.S. visas and urged Obama to “revise the procedure by which visas are cancelled or denied to citizens of different parts of the world as a means of pressure against those people who hold different beliefs or ideologies which pose no threat to the U.S.”

As if that was not impudent enough, Zelaya then moved on to drug trafficking: “The legitimate struggle against drug trafficking…should not be used as an excuse to carry out interventionist policies in other countries.” The struggle against drug smuggling, Zelaya wrote, “should not be divorced from a vigorous policy of controlling distribution and consumer demand in all countries, as well as money laundering which operates through financial circuits and which involve networks within developed countries.”

Zelaya also argued “for the urgent necessity” of revising and transforming the structure of the United Nations and “to solve the Venezuela and Bolivia problems” through dialogue which “yields better fruit than confrontation.” The Cuban embargo, meanwhile, “was a useless instrument” and “a means of unjust pressure and violation of human rights.”

Run Up to June Coup

It’s unclear what Obama might have made of the audacious letter sent from the leader of a small Central American nation. It does seem however that Zelaya became somewhat disenchanted with the new administration in Washington. Just three months ago, the Honduran leader declined to attend a meeting of the System for Central American Integration (known by its Spanish acronym SICA) which would bring Central American Presidents together with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in San José, Costa Rica.

Both Zelaya and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua boycotted the meeting as they viewed it as a diplomatic affront. Nicaragua currently holds the presidency of SICA, and so the proper course of action should have been for Biden to have Ortega hold the meeting. Sandinista economist and former Nicaraguan Minister of Foreign Trade Alejandro Martínez Cuenca declared that the United States had missed a vital opportunity to encourage a new era of relations with Central America by “prioritizing personal relations with [Costa Rican President] Arias over respect for Central America's institutional order.”

Could all of the contentious diplomatic back and forth between Tegucigalpa and Washington have turned the Obama administration against Zelaya? In the days ahead there will surely be a lot of attention and scrutiny paid to the role of Romeo Vasquez, a General who led the military coup against Zelaya. Vasquez is a graduate of the notorious U.S. School of the Americas, an institution which trained the Latin American military in torture.

Are we to believe that the United States had no role in coordinating with Vasquez and the coup plotters? The U.S. has had longstanding military ties to the Honduran armed forces, particularly during the Contra War in Nicaragua during the 1980s. The White House however has rejected claims that the U.S. played a role. The New York Times has reported that the Obama administration knew that a coup was imminent and tried to persuade the military to back down. The paper writes that it was the Honduran military which broke off discussions with American officials. Obama himself has taken the high road, remarking “I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms [and] the rule of law…Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.”

Even if the Obama administration did not play an underhanded role in this affair, the Honduran coup highlights growing geo-political tensions in the region. In recent years, Chávez has sought to extend his influence to smaller Central American and Caribbean nations. The Venezuelan leader shows no intention of backing down over the Honduran coup, remarking that ALBA nations “will not recognize any [Honduran] government that isn't Zelaya’s.”

Chávez then derided Honduras’ interim president, Roberto Micheletti. “Mr. Roberto Micheletti will either wind up in prison or he'll need to go into exile… If they swear him in we'll overthrow him, mark my words. Thugetti--as I'm going to refer to him from now on--you better pack your bags, because you're either going to jail or you're going into exile. We're not going to forgive your error, you're going to get swept out of there. We're not going to let it happen, we're going to make life impossible for you. President Manuel Zelaya needs to retake his position as president.”

With tensions running high, heads of ALBA nations have vowed to meet in Managua to discuss the coup in Honduras. Zelaya, who was exiled to Costa Rica from Honduras, plans to fly to Nicaragua to speak with his colleagues. With such political unity amongst ALBA nations, Obama will have to decide what the U.S. posture ought to be towards the incipient "Pink Tide" sweeping across Central America, a region which Washington traditionally viewed as its own “backyard.”

As Iran heads into a hotly contested presidential election on June 12th, a most unlikely issue stands to exert a political impact upon the race: Latin America. What’s that you say, Latin America? How could a region which is so geographically, culturally, and politically removed from Iran have any bearing on the upcoming election in the Islamic republic? On the surface at least such a connection might seem far-fetched or bizarre yet on a certain level it’s not too surprising that the Iranian political debate has come to center around foreign affairs.

In an effort to undermine Washington, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has befriended Third World countries which are resisting U.S. political hegemony. In particular Iran has carried out an aggressive foreign policy effort in Latin America, a region which has seen the emergence of so-called leftist “Pink Tide” regimes in recent years.

Iran is divided into two political camps which have divergent views about foreign policy. On the one hand conservatives allied to Ahmadinejad would like Iran to continue its bellicose approach towards Washington; reformists meanwhile urge a more moderate and cautious posture. The reformists are pinning their hopes on former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi who seems to have the greatest chance of staging an upset against Ahmadinejad.

Slamming his opponent in a televised speech, Mousavi said “Instead of investing in Iran’s neighboring countries, the government has focused on Latin American states. The President has obviously failed to get his priorities right.” Apparently pining away for antiquity and the lost days of Darius and Xerxes, Mousavi lamented the fact that Iran had ignored its own backyard of the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East in favor of Latin America. “We have neglected civilizations in which Iran has played a role,” he said. “We have forgotten cities we lost in wars between Iran and Russia and cling to countries such as Venezuela and Uruguay,” Mousavi thundered. Iran should have invested in neighboring countries instead of “pouring money” into Latin America, the reformer exclaimed.

The comments seemed to hit a nerve. Afraid that he might lose support amongst his cherished nationalist base, the Iranian President lashed back at Mousavi. “One of these gentlemen [rival candidates] still cannot understand world affairs and this is why he asks us why we have focused on Latin America,” Ahmadinejad declared, his comments oozing condescension. “When the Western countries were trying to isolate Iran, we went to the U.S. backyard and I even delivered my strongest anti-U.S. speech in Nicaragua,” he added.

It’s fascinating that top Iranian statesmen are arguing about Latin America — in a presidential election cycle no less. Yet both candidates are unbelievably — I would argue even woefully — wrong in their approaches towards Latin America. The point is not that Iran is inherently mistaken in reaching out to Latin America but that its diplomacy is cynical and has nothing to do with promoting a shared political and social belief system.

To be sure Ahmadinejad has made plenty of trips to Latin America over the past couple of years and has used the junkets to publicize his supposedly anti-imperialist credentials. In Bolivia, Ahmadinejad promised $1 billion to help develop the Andean nation’s oil and gas sector. Making skillful use of its petrodollars, Iran has also entered into various economic agreements with Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. Ahmadinejad has made particular efforts to cultivate political and diplomatic support from Venezuela, a fellow OPEC member. Today Iran and Venezuela are putting together a joint tractor production plant and President Chávez plans to promote the sale of Iranian designed “anti-imperialist cars” for local consumption. Ahmadinejad meanwhile has opened a trade office — in Quito of all places. Iran’s push into Latin America forms part of what Ahmadinejad calls his “counter lasso” of the U.S. The moves have alarmed the likes of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who has called Iran’s inroads into Latin America “disturbing.”

Despite his speechifying against the U.S., Ahmadinejad’s Latin American diplomacy has little to do with advancing progressive social and political ideals. For the Iranian leader it’s all about getting diplomatic support from the likes of Venezuela and Brazil for Iran’s nuclear energy program. In this sense Ahmadinejad is square and politically narrow minded. Latin America is the one region of the world where the left has made significant gains in recent years, yet Ahmadinejad has little interest in such developments.

If he truly sought to promote Iranian-Latin American solidarity, Ahmadinejad might have fought for women’s and labor rights. As I discuss in considerable detail in my book Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave, 2008), both groups have advanced exponentially in a political and social sense in countries ranging from Argentina to Venezuela to Brazil.

Unfortunately however Ahmadinejad has led his country in the opposite direction from Latin America. In Iran, the President’s “morality police” stop, beat and arrest young girls for simply walking with their boyfriends in public. When hundreds of women and men marched to commemorate International Women’s Day, police and plainclothes agents charged and attacked the crowd. The security forces then dumped cans of garbage on the heads of women who were seated in a public park and beat protesters with batons for good measure.

When bus drivers in Tehran went on strike to protest working conditions, Ahmadinejad’s security forces attacked and arrested laborers. Bravely, the workers refused to end their strike. That’s when state thugs targeted the workers’ wives and children. Busting into the home of one of the strike leaders, the authorities kicked and beat the man’s wife. In response, labor unions in 18 world capitals took part in protests outside Iranian embassies.

You might have thought that Mousavi would have attacked Ahmadinejad’s hollow “anti-imperialist” politics in advance of the Iranian presidential election. Mousavi himself has stated that he would review discriminatory laws against women if he won the election. Speaking to female supporters in Tehran, he added that he would disband the morality police which enforce strict standards of Islamic dress on the streets.

Mousavi might have praised South American nations for advancing women’s rights. He could have held up Latin countries as a beacon of progress and a model worth aspiring to. Instead he suggested that Iran scrap its Latin American foreign policy in favor of Central Asian diplomacy. Presumably, Mousavi would prefer warm ties with the likes of Uzbekistan, a human rights hellhole where battered women can’t count on any protection from the authorities.

These are the kinds of friends Mousavi would like to cultivate? If so, then this candidate doesn’t offer much of a bold or “reformist” agenda when it comes to charting his country’s future foreign policy.