Obama Will Have to Restore Relations Latin America

Barack Obama has turned out to be a political phenomenon from every viewpoint. A senator that, until recently, had gone unnoticed and was practically unknown outside of Washington D.C. has won the presidency of his country – the leading world power – issuing an extraordinary electoral campaign that even the strategists and planners of Obama’s rival, John McCain, as well as various analysts consider exceptional. Barack Obama is the first African-American president of his country and, what’s more, of recent African descent. He is the first president who, since 1976, has won over 50% of the popular vote, defeating his opponent in many districts that have historically been claimed by the opposing party and capturing the support of the majority of young voters, the majority (67%) of “hispanics” and “latinos” (as they call Latin Americans in the United States) and the majority of African-Americans. Additionally, Obama is coming into the presidency with the sympathy and the admiration not only of his fellow countrymen but of the rest of the world. His message of “change” has given rise to great expectations both within and without the borders of his country.

In our region there is a lot of hope that the “change” the new North American President advocates will positively affect his policy in regards to Latin America. Venezuelans trust that the new North American President will assume a different behavior than that of his predecessor in the handling of North America’s relationship with our country.

However, I think there is no reason to get our hopes up. The priorities of the North American government’s foreign policy will remain the same and will continue to be determined by the more important national interests of security and defense of the country. In Latin America the priorities are and will continue to be the fight against drug trafficking, the struggle against terrorism and the strengthening of democracy.

As far as Venezuela is concerned, it is of course possible that the North American administration will try to build bridges to placate the hostility of the Venezuelan President. During his electoral campaign, Obama said that he would meet the Venezuelan President without preconditions. Certainly, the Lieutenant Colonel President also plans to meet with the new North American president. In his congratulatory message he offered to “restore relationships” with the United States and relaunch “a bilaterally constructive agenda”.

What does “restore relationships” mean? Is it that maybe those relationships have at some point been interrupted? What the Lieutenant Colonel President has had is a personal attitude toward President Bush, characterized by absolutely unjustified insults, wrongs, and offenses that can only be explained by resent, also strictly personal, but that in action has affected the normal development of economic relationships, as well as business and other types of relations between the two nations. The attacks and insults are received with approval and acquiescence by many people – and many governments – because to be anti-American or anti-yankee is the norm and because President Bush has not earned much world sympathy.

In any case, I hope it is true that the intention to strengthen ties with the new North American President exists, and that the personal relationships between the two presidents can maintain an air of mutual respect that corresponds between civilized governments and between two traditionally friendly countries.

However, we must not forget that more than the personal ill will and hate that the Lieutenant Colonel President exerts on the actual North American head of state, in his determination for “21st century socialism” the Lieutenant Colonel President will continue working toward his highly improbable goal of destroying the empire and liquidating neoliberalism, in attempts to end the reign of the leading world power. So behind any relationship building, the Lieutenant Colonel President will continue to be under the permanent scrutiny of the new North American administration. The dictatorial military regime that has planted itself in Venezuela, its populist international conduct and demagogy and the “strategic alliances” which it has supposedly established with countries like Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Iran, Belarus, Korea, and Russia make it an unpredictable figure, with a chance of disrupting regional stability. These are things that the new North American president will certainly have in mind as he tries to soften the tone of anti-North American rhetoric of the Lieutenant Colonel President.