By Jose Antonio Ventura Sosa

Translated By Carly Gatzert and Richard Hauenstein

January 16, 2006

El Salvador - Diario Co Latino - Original Article (Spanish)

In an Apparent Blow to U.S. Policy in Latin America, Bolivian
President Evo Morales (L) is Inaugerated and Receives Staff of
Command on Sunday (above);

BBC VIDEO: Bolivian Coca Framer Evo Morales Pledges
Radical Change at His Inaugeral, Jan. 22, 00:02:00

[SLIDE SHOW: Inaugeral of Evo Morales]
President Nestor Kirchner Wipes a Tear from the Face of Exultant
Venezuelan Leader Hugo Scavez, With Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of
Brazil, at Inaugural of Evo Morales (below).





Hugo Chavez, left, Celebrates With New Bolivian President Evo
Morales on Balcony of the Presidential Palace in La Paz. (above);

Dignitaries Gathered With President Evo Morales on Balcony of
Presidential Palace in La Paz. The Paintings Over the Balcony
are of Andean Liberation Heroes, from left to right: Simon Bolivar,
Andres de Santa Cruz and Jose Antonio Sucre. (below)





Bolivians Celebrate the Inaugeral Evo Morales in La Paz (above)

Fireworks Over La Paz, Sunday Evening, Celebrate Evo's Triumph (below)

Claims made by various columnists that the U.S. is losing ground in Latin America stand to be thoroughly questioned and analyzed for two fundamental reasons:

1. As can be seen from its international political history, the U.S. has expertly created antagonisms for the purpose of reaping significant economic gains.

2. U.S. governments over time have characterized themselves by intervening in international relations and taking advantage of friendly governments to achieve their own national objectives. 

We only need to glance briefly at the events that preceded the recent election of the Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Salvadorian foreign minister's trip to Mexico to broach the subject of the construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico. The ministers gathered from around Latin America didn't even mention [the wall] in their final statement; rather, they concluded that countries should have the sovereign right to conduct their own migratory politics and decided in favor of a petition related to integral migration reform.

So the question, “Is the U.S. losing Latin America?” can be answered with an emphatic “No!” Contrary to what others claim, [this assertion] is a new way of making the citizens of Latin America believe that along with the shift toward ideologically socialist governments comes the consequence of harsh opposition to U.S. interests, without stopping to consider the correlation of politics or liberation in what has taken place. This is, or will be for the immediate future, the positions of Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia, with the likely addition of Mexico.

The analysts sometimes see only the Amazon rainforest without stopping to look at the trees of which it is composed, and it is in this way that these superficial assessments remain at the level of political positioning, without perceiving the strategic interests of the political actors involved.

The United States has generated an innovative political agenda in which it creates demons that will later become angels and vice versa, so that it can monitor and dictate to those they cannot watch and control now, and in which perceptions of global economic power don't matter, because (according to this agenda) only one global economic conflict exists, in which the U.S. dollar seems to be a victim of the Euro and export of America's domestic manufacturing base; this dispute is at its base simply an expression of [U.S.] national interests. 

As a result, by means of its new political actors, Latin America will display the other face of Janus (the two-faced Greek god) and while seeming to distance themselves from America, they will in fact be drawn closer, and when they finally appear lost to America, they will instead be firmly in its grasp.

When historians examine Latin American political events with respect to the United States, I am sure that they will describe [the U.S.] as a domineering country with major influence in [Latin America], which is adjusted precisely to meet its national interests. 

So, let’s be more objective in the application of our scientific-political analysis of Latin America.