[Marxism] No tangos in Condoleezza's plans

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

The New York Times, March 13, 2008
Rice Trip to Skip Argentina in Sign of a Growing Rift
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

RIO DE JANEIRO — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to 
touch down in Brazil on Thursday for a two-day visit to South America, 
less than two weeks after Colombia’s assassination of a top rebel leader 
enraged Ecuador’s president and drew threats of military action by 
Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez.

Ms. Rice will visit Brazil and Chile, but notably absent from her 
itinerary is Argentina, where Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in October 
became the first woman elected to be the country’s president. The 
omission underscores Washington’s disappointment with the new Kirchner 
government, which has continued to strengthen ties with Mr. Chávez while 
accusing the United States of political motives in an investigation into 
a suspected $800,000 secret campaign contribution from Venezuela to Mrs. 
Kirchner.

“The United States is clearly snubbing Argentina,” said Peter Hakim, the 
president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. “They are 
unhappy with Argentina in ways that continue with this new president.”

Relations with Brazil, where President Bush visited last year, remain 
warm. The agenda for Ms. Rice’s visit on Thursday includes meetings in 
Brasília with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Foreign Minister 
Celso Amorim. Ms. Rice and Mr. da Silva are expected to discuss progress 
on an initiative announced with Mr. Bush last year to develop ethanol 
industries.

Later Thursday, Ms. Rice is scheduled to fly to Salvador de Bahia for 
events tied to that city’s designation as the center of Afro-Brazilian 
culture, American diplomats said. On Friday, she is to fly to Santiago 
to meet with Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, and foreign minister, 
Alejandro Foxley.

Ms. Rice is likely to address the flare-up over President Álvaro Uribe’s 
decision to send Colombian forces into Ecuador to kill a senior rebel 
commander on March 1. The crisis ended Friday when Mr. Chávez, Mr. Uribe 
and Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president, shook hands.

Last March, President Bush also avoided Argentina during his South 
American tour, visiting Brazil and Uruguay, Argentine supporters of Mr. 
Chávez, meanwhile, staged an anti-Bush rally in Buenos Aires.

Relations between the United States and Argentina have been strained 
throughout Mr. Bush’s presidency. Argentina still blames the 
American-controlled International Monetary Fund for its financial 
collapse in 2001. Argentina was forced to default on billions of dollars 
in debt to the I.M.F. and the Paris Club, which is composed mostly of 
European lenders.

Anti-American sentiment became a way for Néstor Kirchner, who took over 
as president in 2003, to play to leftist constituencies while turning 
around a country where more than half the population had slipped below 
the poverty line, said Daniel Kerner, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, a 
political risk advisory and consulting firm in New York.

Anti-Bush sentiment erupted in November 2005 at a meeting of Latin 
American leaders that Mr. Bush attended in Mar del Plata, Argentina. In 
front of Mr. Bush, Mr. Kirchner criticized the neo-liberal policies of 
the 1990s that the United States sponsored and did little to stop 
anti-American protests. Mr. Bush left Argentina insulted by his 
treatment there.

American officials were looking for change when Mrs. Kirchner, the wife 
of Mr. Kirchner, was elected last October. But just days after she was 
inaugurated in December, diplomatic tensions flared again when American 
prosecutors in Miami identified four Venezuelans and a Uruguayan in 
connection with a plot to cover up an $800,000 campaign contribution 
from Venezuela’s government to Mrs. Kirchner after the money was 
discovered in a suitcase during a security check at a Buenos Aires airport.

Mrs. Kirchner called the investigation “garbage operations” and asserted 
that it was intended to drive a wedge between the growing friendship 
between Argentina and Venezuela. State Department officials deny there 
was any political motivation.

In retaliation, Mrs. Kirchner restricted diplomatic access for the 
American ambassador, Earl Anthony Wayne. Thomas A. Shannon Jr., 
assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in January that 
Argentina’s reaction was “regrettable and not positive.”

On Wednesday night Mr. Shannon denied that Ms. Rice was snubbing 
Argentina by not visiting on this trip. “There’s only so much we can do 
with the days we have,” he said.

So far, two of the four men formally charged in the case have pleaded 
guilty to charges of conspiring to act as agents of a foreign country 
without notifying the attorney general of the United States.

The case has pushed Argentina and Venezuela even closer together. While 
Venezuela has continued to buy Argentine consumer products, it has also 
bought some $4 billion in Argentine bonds to help Argentina refinance 
its debt. During a visit by Mrs. Kirchner to Caracas last week Mr. 
Chávez pledged to supply Argentina with more than 10 million barrels of 
fuel oil and diesel a year.


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