Obama: "I Came, I Saw and I Said Nothing"

The title of this article is not mine; it refers to a comment made by José Piñera, the brother of Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, and published in the newspaper El Mercurio, along with other comments by different personalities at the conclusion of the speech by the U.S. head of state. The complete text is: “‘Veni, vidi, vici’ was Caesar’s tweet to Rome after a victory. ‘Veni, vidi, and I said nothing’ will be Obama’s tweet today.” But José Piñera, ex-Minister of Labor and Mining under Pinochet, is not the only one who thinks so, although his brother is said to be very satisfied. The president of the Socialist Party said, “The Americans are specialists at putting on good shows. And this was a show; much ado about nothing.”

The Christian Democratic senator and president of the Committee on Foreign Relations in the Chilean Senate regretted that Obama “did not address the issues that Latin Americans and Chileans had hoped for. He made no proposal about the challenge to progress in the fight against poverty, nor about the migration problem, the end of agricultural protectionism, the elimination of the embargo against Cuba, or a significant mea culpa on human rights.”

There are many other similar comments, as well as articles from international news agencies and press releases from other countries. The German agency DPA, for example, pointed out that Obama proposed an alliance to the Americas, without announcing measures or time periods or offering political support.

The tour, which included Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, was also rushed, due both to the development of events in Libya as well as allegations that Obama had violated the U.S. Constitution by supporting intervention in that country, which forced him to shorten his stays in Chile and El Salvador.

But it is not very useful that the U.S. head of state didn’t say anything. He raised issues that he then did not explain, he ignored requests – which is a manner of responding – and he did not offer details about his proposal to update the Alliance for Progress, launched by Kennedy in the 1960s, which is also significant.

Brazil

The first leg of his trip was to Brazil, and events there did not proceed harmoniously because it was from there that Obama gave the go-ahead for the bombing of Libya, led and directed by his country, as had been agreed with his allies. As we know, Brazil abstained from the vote in the U.N. Security Council when it adopted the measures to establish a no-fly zone over Libya, which is the equivalent of an act of war, as a U.S. general said a few weeks ago.

Obama had the option and a valid excuse to postpone the tour, and he did not, presumably thinking that by not being in his country he might appear at the margin of those events. But the air strikes in Libya accompanied him for the entire trip, and the go-ahead that he gave from Brazil had consequences. That was the reason for former President Lula’s absence from the official lunch hosted by President Dilma Rousseff for the visitor.

In Brazil there is a significant Arab community. The country was once a colony of Portugal, and the European nation was under Arab rule for more than a century — these are historical details that it appears the State Department does not properly consider in its analysis. Maybe that is why Obama said later in a speech that the Brazilian transition was a model for the Arab world. Of course he also said in Santiago that the Chilean experience is a model for the region and the world.

Chile

Already in Brazil and throughout the morning in Chile, the U.S. head of state had said that in the speech he would deliver in Chile, he would explain how “our vision for the hemisphere is founded on the idea of an alliance of equals which I have pursued since assuming the Presidency of the United States.”

In Chile, he began his speech by saying, “We are all Americans.” Then he referred to the unity reached by Latin American countries and confirmed that this region “is contributing to global prosperity and security” and therefore will “become more important to the United States,” an assertion sufficient to set off some alarm bells.

Still in this vein, he maintained that “in the Americas today, there are no senior partners and there are no junior partners, there are only equal partners,” so that collaborations of equality “demand” a shared responsibility, which could seem democratic if such associations are established between equals, which is obviously not occurring.

That is the basis of his proposal, whose scope is clear. Latin America is doing well on those issues that interest the United States, so we will collaborate. There is sufficient petroleum for everyone here, both discovered and undiscovered, and Amazon and Antarctica with great riches and enormous supplies of fresh water.

What President Obama did not explain is why we need to collaborate with his country when we are so able and so rich. If he came with economic resources in order to exploit these riches, at present there are many parties interested in investing, who might place fewer conditions and demand fewer benefits.

This is the substance of the speech, in which Obama sought to rely on the image of John Kennedy, admitting that the Alliance for Progress from 1961 was outdated, even though the fact is that when it was put into practice it already was, because its aims did not lead to progress. Recall that Kennedy’s approach when making it public was, roughly: “to our southern neighbors we ask that they give a little to not lose everything,” and so it was. What mattered was to propose half-hearted reforms to counter the influence of the Cuban revolution, and manifested since the “Kennedy era” as an economic blockade.

Regarding Cuba, the U.S. head of state assured that he had made many efforts to improve relations and supposedly also its economy, but that Cuba had not reciprocated. It didn’t occur to him that it would suffice to lift the blockade so that the nation can develop to its potential, as has been demonstrated over the past 50 years.

He also said nothing about what was on the minds of many Chileans, including writer Ariel Dorfman, who asked him publicly via the press to apologize to the Chilean people for the military coup of 1973 and the human rights violations committed with the knowledge and collaboration of Washington.

Dorfman, in an article in the Spanish newspaper El País, said Obama did not need to apologize, or express remorse for the U.S. intervention in Chile. It would suffice to visit the tomb of President Salvador Allende and dedicate “a few solitary minutes,” which would send a signal south of the Rio Grande that a new relationship with the United States would be possible.

Nothing happened. The Chilean journalists covering the visit agreed to ask him if his country would collaborate in the investigation of the deaths of President Allende and his predecessor, Eduardo Frei, and if he would apologize for the participation of his country during the military regime. Obama replied that he would consider any request.

Then he added, “It’s important for us to learn from our history, to understand our history, but not be trapped by it because we’ve got a lot of challenges now and, even more importantly, we have challenges in the future that we have to attend to.”

El Salvador

On Tuesday morning, after having breakfast with President Piñera, the U.S. leader left for El Salvador, the final stop of his tour. Almost at the same time as he arrived, there was a slight earthquake in the Central American nation. In the Salvadoran capital, there were sit-ins and protest marches, but, as in Chile, street closures kept the visitor from seeing them.

Everything took place in a hurry. Obama met with President Funes and later gave a press conference, in which the only significant announcement was that the United States would give $200 million to fight crime in Central America through a plan that, according to reports, will take place outside of the Merida Initiative signed with Mexico.

Having made the announcement, Obama and President Mauricio Funes went to the Salvadoran cathedral where they visited the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero, assassinated by gunshot while he was celebrating mass. The perpetrator of the crime was coup leader Roberto D’Aubuisson, of the ARENA Party, who governed during various periods until the election of Funes. It was Obama who asked to go to the cathedral. Father Juan Vincente Chopin replied with an interesting analysis on the significance of the visit, saying that it would be significant if it was “a recognition of the testimony of life led by Monsignor Romero. That would legitimize his defense of human rights.”

He added that if the visit was only of a political nature, Obama would be looking for popularity, but if in the course of politics the president of the United States asked for the repeal of the amnesty law that protects many murderers, or if he apologized for the crimes committed by “soldiers trained at the School of the Americas,” then “his speech would be encouraging in the name of building a real and stable democracy.”

Obama said nothing, which was the same response that he gave in Chile.