[Marxism] For leftist leaders, NYC is world's soapbox (Miami Herald)

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Sat, Sep. 29, 2007
For leftist leaders, NYC is world's soapbox
BY PABLO BACHELET

President Evo Morales played a soccer match with his fellow
Bolivians, appeared on the Jon Stewart comedy show and addressed
scores of admirers at a historic venue in New York.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a U.S.-educated economist, talked
to investment bankers wearing a dark suit with a shirt with
indigenous markings and no collar or tie, while Nicaragua's Daniel
Ortega took a withering blast at the U.S. ``empire.'

Morales, Correa and Ortega were among half a dozen left-wing Latin
American presidents in New York this week for the U.N. General
Assembly, usually an occasion to discuss foreign policy priorities
with other leaders.

But their activities within the United Nations and outside showed how
Latin American leaders are using the New York stage to polish their
international images, set a tone for their relations with Washington
and send messages to audiences at home and abroad.

The ongoing General Assembly attracted the presence of an unusually
large contingent of left-of-center Latin American leaders, many of
them elected within the past two years.

They all came with a common thread: a pledge to fight inequality in a
region that produced some of the world's wealthiest citizens as well
as 200 million poor people.

''It is unacceptable that the irresponsibility of a privileged few be
shouldered by the dispossessed of the earth,'' Brazilian President
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told the General Assembly.

Some, like Morales and Correa, went further, assailing the so-called
''neoliberalism'' -- which in Latin America is associated with
U.S.-promoted free trade and hands-off government.

But they still took time to speak to investors.

''They're passing a caricature [of capitalism],'' says Christopher
Sabatini of the Council of the Americas, a pro-business organization
that hosted events with several presidents. ``But the fact that
they're here means that they agree with the basic elements of a
market economy.''

During recent visits, Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chávez has
lambasted President Bush in his speeches and visited the Bronx and
Harlem to highlight Venezuela's discounted heating oil program for
the U.S. poor.

ANTI-U.S. MESSAGE

Chávez did not show up this year, but leaders like Morales and
especially Ortega dished out plenty of anti-U.S. talk.

Ortega, the head of the Marxist-leaning Sandinista party that ruled
the country in the 1980s, acted as if the Cold War had never ended,
telling the U.N. audience that the United States was the ``most
gigantic and impressive dictatorship that has existed in the history
of humanity.''

He met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for more than an
hour, and the two parted with a warm embrace as cameras flashed.
Afterward, Ortega told journalists his nation and Iran would form an
unspecified ``front for the fight of peace.''

Others were less confrontational, however.

In his election campaign, Ecuador's Correa, an ally of Chávez, called
Bush a fool and promised deep economic and political changes.

In New York, Correa refrained from attacking the Bush administration
and agreed to address a skeptical audience at the Council of the
Americas headquarters on New York's Park Avenue, donning his
indigenous shirt. He told bankers that if he had to choose between
paying salaries or paying foreign creditors, he would opt for the
former. He refused to utter a word in English even though he has a
doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, an Argentine senator who according to
most polls is likely to win the presidential election Oct. 28, opted
to accompany her president-husband Néstor Kirchner to the General
Assembly instead of campaigning at home.

She gave interviews to U.S. media, basked in praise as she received a
human rights award from New York University School of Law and met
with Argentine scientists working in the United States.

She also addressed a Wall Street audience at the Waldorf Astoria
Hotel's Starlight Roof, a chandeliered hall suited for the fanciest
of social events.

Her husband sometimes has had a contentious relationship with the
Bush administration and foreign investors, but Fernández delivered a
mostly soothing 38-minute speech in which she touted Argentina's
recent economic accomplishments.

At the main table, she chatted with the State Department's top Latin
American diplomat, Thomas Shannon.

BUSY AGENDA

Meanwhile Morales, who is looking to build a reputation as a champion
of indigenous rights, filled his four-day New York agenda with 21
appointments, including a Sunday soccer match against a team of
Bolivian expatriates from Northern Virginia. He botched a penalty
kick but his squad still won, 3-2.

On Monday he recounted his political career before an audience of
nearly 1,000 that filled the Great Hall of The Cooper Union in
Manhattan, which claims to be a birthplace of sorts for movements
like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
and The American Red Cross.

Morales was cheered when he touted his government's achievements,
praised Cuban leader Fidel Castro and dubbed capitalism as ``the
worst enemy of humanity.''

He suggested U.S. aid programs were undermining his government and
drew chuckles from his audience as he narrated how he recently
summoned the U.S. ambassador in Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, to a 5 a.m.
meeting at the presidential palace

He peppered his comments with clever maxims, such as his teasing of a
Cabinet minister for wearing a tie.

''I believe the tie separates the head from the heart,'' he said.

Last year, Morales made a splash when he brandished a coca leaf --
the raw material to make cocaine -- as he addressed the General
Assembly as part of a campaign to decriminalize the plant that
indigenous communities consider part of their traditions. This year
he toned down his mentions of the coca leaf and addressed his bad-boy
image.

''Please don't consider me the axis of evil,'' he joked with Jon
Stewart.


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