Chávez's image, international ambitions take a blow
The international perception of Hugo Chávez has slid after a succession
of missteps and setbacks.
Posted on Tue, Dec. 04, 2007
BY PABLO BACHELET
WASHINGTON --
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's international standing has tumbled
following a recent series of missteps capped by his stunning electoral
defeat at home on Sunday, U.S. government officials and observers say.
Few are willing to bet that the populist Chávez will never bounce back
from the setbacks to his efforts to expand his grip on power within
Venezuela and export his brand of socialism across Latin America.
But analysts say that the voters' rejection Sunday of his proposed
constitutional reforms comes on top of a string of international
missteps -- from a verbal clash with the popular Spanish king to a
failed push to politicize OPEC.
Chavez ''has become increasingly erratic,'' said Riordan Roett, with
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
An 18-country poll by the Santiago-based Latinobarometro polling
organization showed Chávez tied with Bush as the least-popular leader in
Latin America, just above Cuba's Fidel Castro.
Chavez's international troubles began more than a year ago, when he
sparred with Peruvian presidential candidate Alán García, a U.S. ally
who went on to defeat a pro-Chávez candidate.
In September Chávez pronounced his now infamous U.N. speech calling Bush
a sulphur-smelling ''devil.'' He was widely denounced. The speech
probably cost him key votes in his failed quest to secure a U.N.
Security Council seat.
Chávez easily won reelection in December, but his international image
took another beating when he revoked the broadcast license of opposition
station RCTV.
The move sparked protests by students, who formed the backbone of the
campaign for a NO vote in Sunday's balloting and unleashed another wave
of international condemnations, including those of the senates of Chile,
Brazil and the United States.
The Brazilian senate has blocked Venezuela's entry into a South American
trade pact known as Mercosur. Brazil, while outwardly friendly, also has
opposed some Chávez initiatives, like a trans-South American natural gas
pipeline.
And last month Saudi Arabia opposed a Chávez initiative to make OPEC a
more political and anti-U.S. body.
At a summit in Santiago de Chile, Chávez drew an angry ''why don't you
shut up'' rebuke from King Juan Carlos. Chávez froze contacts with Madrid.
After that summit, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, a moderate
socialist, publicly criticized Chávez for trying to meddle in a
Chile-Bolivia territorial dispute and for his hawkish positions at OPEC.
Another embarrassment for Chávez came when Colombia's conservative
President Alvaro Uribe pulled the plug on a Chávez effort to mediate a
hostage crisis with a left-wing guerrilla group in Colombia. After a
round of mutual recriminations, Chávez froze relations with Bogotá.
Through it all, the Bush administration has attempted to keep a low
profile on the Venezuela front, hoping to deflate Chávez's efforts to
cast himself as an anti-imperialist crusader.
''The question we're wrestling now is whether a tipping point has been
reached now with the kind of antics we've seen by Chávez of late,'' said
a senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Chávez, given his oil wealth, remains a force to be reckoned with, says
Peter DeShazo, the Latin America analyst with the Center for Strategic
and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. But his international
ambitions are inevitably weakened by his domestic setback.
''Clearly his own political agenda in Venezuela is now off track,''
DeShazo said.
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