PUZZLING TURNAROUNDS IN US POST-SEPTEMBER STANCES TOWARDS LATIN AMERICA
Daniel Brett | 14.11.2001 17:58
Announced US policy shifts towards Latin America -and particularly towards Colombia and Venezuela- appear to have been diverted before they took off, probably victims of the turf wars between the agencies that compete to set Washington's line in foreign affairs.
In Colombia, where US ambassador Anne Patterson had spelt out the new post-September approach, change was in the air even before President Andrés Pastrana got around to his meeting with his US peer George W Bush on 11 November.
A story in the New York Times datelined in Bogotá on 10 November cites unnamed `Colombian and American officials' as saying that the US `is not about to become further engaged against rebel groups that enrich themselves from cocaine' -a direct contradiction of what Patterson had said.
That same story oddly reports that it was the Colombians -newspaper columnists, commentators, officials- who underlined that their armed groups were on the official US list of foreign terrorist organisations and started peddling a harder line against them.
Actually, it was the State Department that drew attention to the `terrorist' status of the Colombian groups, a message driven home by the ambassador in Bogotá, who publicly drew a parallel between these groups and Al Qaida.
Similarly, Pastrana is portrayed as seeking the lifting of the US distinction between anti-narcotics and counter-insurgency aims. The US ambassador had said the US needed to do more than merely support anti-drugs operations, and move into such areas as hostage-taking and sabotage of oil and mining installations.
The impression is that a spin-doctor or two has been hard at work trying to recast what appeared to be the line only a week ago.
Something similar happened to the recall of Donna Hrinak, US ambassador to Venezuela. The word was put out that a full inter-agency review of relations with Venezuela had been ordered, and it was made to sound nasty. Hrinak was back in Caracas within the week, seemingly suggesting that everything would be fine if only President Hugo Chávez would not contradict George W Bush's interpretation of events in public.
Swings like these have taken place before, but not normally after such big buildups. An impression growing in the region's foreign ministries is that the formulation and conduct of Washington's hemispheric foreign policy has become unusually unstable.
A story in the New York Times datelined in Bogotá on 10 November cites unnamed `Colombian and American officials' as saying that the US `is not about to become further engaged against rebel groups that enrich themselves from cocaine' -a direct contradiction of what Patterson had said.
That same story oddly reports that it was the Colombians -newspaper columnists, commentators, officials- who underlined that their armed groups were on the official US list of foreign terrorist organisations and started peddling a harder line against them.
Actually, it was the State Department that drew attention to the `terrorist' status of the Colombian groups, a message driven home by the ambassador in Bogotá, who publicly drew a parallel between these groups and Al Qaida.
Similarly, Pastrana is portrayed as seeking the lifting of the US distinction between anti-narcotics and counter-insurgency aims. The US ambassador had said the US needed to do more than merely support anti-drugs operations, and move into such areas as hostage-taking and sabotage of oil and mining installations.
The impression is that a spin-doctor or two has been hard at work trying to recast what appeared to be the line only a week ago.
Something similar happened to the recall of Donna Hrinak, US ambassador to Venezuela. The word was put out that a full inter-agency review of relations with Venezuela had been ordered, and it was made to sound nasty. Hrinak was back in Caracas within the week, seemingly suggesting that everything would be fine if only President Hugo Chávez would not contradict George W Bush's interpretation of events in public.
Swings like these have taken place before, but not normally after such big buildups. An impression growing in the region's foreign ministries is that the formulation and conduct of Washington's hemispheric foreign policy has become unusually unstable.
Daniel Brett
e-mail:
dan@danielbrett.co.uk
Homepage:
http://www.latinnews.com/newsroom.htm