US-VENEZUELA:
Washington's Praise of Poll
Suggests Detente
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON (IPS) - Praise by the U.S. State Department for
Sunday's referendum in Venezuela suggests that President Barack
Obama is hoping to ease long-strained relations with President Hugo
Chavez, according to regional experts here.
While State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid Tuesday noted that
Washington had received "troubling reports of intimidation," he
added that, "for the most part, this was a process that was fully
consistent with [the] democratic process."
Asked whether Washington approved of the poll's results - which
changes the country's constitution to enable Chavez to run for a
third term in 2012 - Duguid said the question "was a matter for the
Venezuelan people".
Washington's reaction marked a distinct change in tone from the
consistently hostile rhetoric of the administration of President
George W. Bush, which had welcomed a coup attempt against Chavez in
2002, and follows a remarkably conciliatory statement by the
populist leader on the eve of the referendum, which Chavez won with
a solid 54 percent of the vote.
Only last month, Chavez had denounced Obama - even comparing his
"stench" to Bush - for publicly admonishing Caracas for its alleged
support of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
insurgency. On Saturday, however, he said he was ready to engage in
direct talks with the new U.S. president in order to restore better
ties.
"Any day is propitious for talking with President Barack Obama," he
told foreign reporters, suggesting that they could even get together
before the next Summit of the Americas which is to be held in
Trinidad Apr. 17.
While a pre-summit meeting is highly unlikely, according to experts
here, the back-and-forth of the past several days suggests that both
leaders are open to a more positive - if still somewhat restrained -
relationship.
"I don't think the Obama administration is going to rush for
rapprochement with Chavez because that would boost his political
standing," said Michael Shifter, an Andean specialist at the
Inter-American Dialogue (IAD) here.
"But I do think they'll be cordial, discreet, and try to press the
reset button to see how relations can be made more constructive.
Certainly not a hard line, but also not warm abrazos, either,'' he
added.
That there is room for improvement in bilateral ties is certainly
clear. Under Bush, relations deteriorated badly, particularly after
the 2002 military coup attempt which, according to Chavez, was
actively supported by the U.S., a charge Washington has denied.
Among other actions, Chavez cut all military-to-military ties with
the United States and ended Venezuelan cooperation with U.S.
counter-drug efforts. At the same time, he cultivated close ties
with U.S. adversaries, notably Iran and, more recently, Russia, with
which he has concluded a series of major arms-sales agreements.
For much of Bush's tenure, his principal Latin America aides,
assistant secretaries of state for western hemisphere affairs Otto
Reich and Roger Noriega, were relentless in their attacks on Chavez,
particularly his close relationship with former Cuban President
Fidel Castro.
While their successor, Thomas Shannon, toned down the rhetoric
considerably after he took over the Latin America portfolio at the
end of 2005, ties continued to worsen, although the economic
relationship - particularly Venezuelan oil exports to the U.S. -
never appeared to be seriously threatened.
Last September, Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassador from Caracas "in
solidarity with" Bolivian President Evo Morales who had expelled
Washington's ambassador in La Paz after accusing him of encouraging
secessionist forces there. Washington responded by expelling
Venezuela's ambassador here.
Obama, who rarely mentioned Chavez during the presidential campaign,
has yet to identify who will occupy the most important Latin America
posts in his administration, although Georgetown Prof. Arturo
Valenzuela, who served on the National Security Council (NSC) staff
under Bill Clinton, is considered the front-runner for assistant
secretary. Shannon, however, has reportedly been asked to stay on
through the Trinidad Summit.
At the National Security Council, the two leading candidates
reportedly include Daniel Restrepo, the director of the Americas
Project at the Centre for American Progress (CAP) think tank who is
considered close to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, and Fulton
Armstrong, a veteran Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst who
reportedly clashed with the far-right Reich and then-Undersecretary
of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton
about Cuba.
Obama's failure so far to make these appointments is one reason why
any concrete moves toward détente with Venezuela is likely to take
some time. "Given the lack of a team in place for hemispheric
affairs at State or the NSC, I suspect they will be mainly in
listening mode, even at the Summit," said John Walsh, an Andes
expert at the Washington Office on Latin America.
But Walsh said he, too, detects a "new tone and as more constructive
attitude" in Obama's approach to both Venezuela and Latin America.
"It's what people have been hoping to see," he said, adding that he
expected Chavez to reciprocate.
"With oil revenues likely to continue in steep decline, mending
fences would be a good thing to do from Venezuela's perspective," he
said. Moreover, "if Obama wants to talk, as he said he would during
the campaign, I don't see that Chavez would get much mileage out of
spurning him."
Most analysts here agree, although they add that rapprochement will
not be easy. "Obama has a much different personal profile and...
history, so it will be much more difficult (for Chavez) to paint
Obama as a Yankee imperialist the way he could with George Bush,"
noted Shannon O'Neil, a Latin America specialist at the Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR). "But Chavez will always need some sort of
opposition, and the United States makes an easy foil for him."
Shannon headed a much-noted study by a high-powered CFR task force
on U.S.-Latin America policy last year, which called for any new
administration to cease efforts to isolate Chavez and instead engage
him primarily in a regional, as opposed to a bilateral, context.
A subsequent study published just after Obama's election by an
inter-American commission headed by former Mexican President Ernesto
Zedillo and former U.S. U.N. Amb. Thomas Pickering urged the new
administration to adopt a "calibrated, non-confrontational approach
in its relations with Venezuela... based on mutual respect and
non-intervention in each other's internal affairs and those of
neighboring countries."
The study was sponsored by the Brookings Institution, a major
recruiting ground for top officials in the new administration.
Shifter told IPS he thought Obama's first priority in dealing with
Chavez should be to return each country's ambassadors back into
their respective posts and then seek to identify areas in which they
could rebuild cooperation.
"Chavez has said he needs until 2012 to tackle the whole crime
question in Venezuela, and a lot of crime there has a drug
connection, so restoring cooperation on the drug issue could help
rebuild some confidence," he said. "But getting the ambassadors back
would be the first thing."
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