[A-List] Edge of a Volcano

[Mawar Merah <bunga_mawar_merah@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Edge of a Volcano
Sick of Poverty and Corruption, Latin America is
Turning Left 
by Duncan Campbell
The Guardian 
December 01, 2002 

 

There can be few more spectacular sights in Latin
America than El Reventador, the volcano that has been
erupting so furiously over the past few weeks that it
has cast its dust over the streets of Quito 60 miles
away. Now the capital of Ecuador is experiencing the
latest in a series of Latin American eruptions of a
different nature: the peaceful election of a leftwing
president whose declared enemies are corruption and
poverty and who looks like the antithesis of the kind
of leader the United States would like to see in the
region. 

The weekend victory of the 45-year-old former colonel
Lucio Gutierrez encapsulates the change of mood
throughout Latin America. On Monday, a general strike
is planned in Venezuela as part of an attempt to oust
the president, Hugo Chavez, a man whose path to power
was similar to that of Gutierrez, and the country
teeters on the edge of civil war. In Argentina,
economic catastrophe could also herald seismic
political change within the next few months. 

Before the dust settles, Gutierrez's achievement
deserves to be recognized. He easily defeated Alvaro
Noboa, the Bonita banana billionaire and the country's
richest businessman. The contrast could not have been
greater. While Gutierrez had the backing of the
indigenous Indian population, came from a humble
background and was a former Latin American military
pentathlete champion, Noboa was a chum of Charlton
Heston, a polo player and the owner of a home on New
York's Park Avenue who heavily outspent his rival. On
the walls of the city over the past few weeks, a piece
of graffiti perhaps captured the national mood. It
used Noboa's initials to spell out in Spanish the
slogan: Not Another Dumb Oligarch in Power. 

The success of Gutierrez fits into what is now a clear
pattern in Latin American politics. It follows the
landslide victory of Lula da Silva in Brazil, which
was also based on a platform of battling inequality.
In March, Argentina goes to the polls and the current
frontrunner is Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, another populist
who has challenged the authority of the IMF and the
rule of the market. And it coincides with recent
advances for the left in Bolivia and Peru. 

Ecuador is a small country of 12 million people but it
has - in common with its larger, less tranquil
neighbors, Colombia and Peru, and with most of Latin
America - the massive problems of debt repayment,
poverty, inequality, unemployment and government
corruption. Like other Latin Americans, Ecuadoreans
were led to believe that neo-liberalism, the global
marketplace and the adoption of IMF policies would
lead to better days. But like their counterparts, they
have found that life for most over the past decade has
not improved and may even have worsened. Many who
voted for the untried Gutierrez and Da Silva felt they
had little left to lose. 

The most explosive countries are clearly Venezuela,
where the radical Chavez faces opposition from all
sides, including parts of the military, and Argentina,
where popular discontent with free market policies
grows sharper every day. Crucially, the US has
signaled its disapproval of Chavez, a man they see as
too close to Fidel Castro, and those who seek to
remove him before his elected term of office have been
left in little doubt that they will do so with the
tacit agreement of Washington. But the US now has to
recognize that it cannot impose its preferred
candidates on countries impatient for change. 

Gutierrez has already made it clear that he does not
seek confrontation with either the US or the IMF. He
may not have been as enthusiastic as his rival in
welcoming the US troops stationed in their "anti-drug"
base in Manta in Ecuador, but he has made clear that
they can stay and that the oil companies can continue
to export his country's resources. The Wall Street
Journal declared him last week someone with whom the
financial establishment could do business, and halfway
down his list of qualifications is a diploma from the
Inter-American Defense College in Washington. 

"This is the most difficult time because now we have
to start to turn what the people want into reality,"
Gutierrez said after his election. He knows that his
room for maneuver is tiny, the obstacles in his way
huge and that the effect the new president will have
on corruption and poverty may be less than volcanic.
Pragmatism, not revolution, is the word of the day. 

Last week Gutierrez jokingly promised that if he was
elected, there would be no more volcanic dust in
Quito. He may have already failed on that promise, but
he is still part of a wind of change - born of hope
rather than resignation - that is blowing through
Latin America. Many neighboring countries will be
watching to see how the new presidents ride that wind.



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