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> A Recipe for Economic Collapse in Venezuela: Hugo Chavez's ... ...
> away those who are most economically productive. A Recipe for Economic
> Collapse in Venezuela: Hugo Chavez's Anti-Capitalist Philosophy By
> Andrew West, CFA ...
> www.capitalismmagazine.com/2000/october/west_recipe_chavez.htm - 13k -
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> A Recipe for Economic Collapse
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> Chavez' dictatorial tendencies and anti-business rhetoric are likely
> to frighten away those who are most economically productive. A Recipe
> for Economic Collapse in Venezuela: Hugo Chavez's Anti-Capitalist
> Philosophy
You may want to know that Chavez has switched sides on Plan Colombia. The choice was between supporting Plan Colombia or loosing the Andean Trade preferences act. Chavez chose the former.
-david
------ Setting fears aside, Colombia's neighbors see opportunity in U.S. drug plan
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOGOTA, Colombia, April 19 <EM DASH> Only a few months ago, Colombia's neighbors were sounding loud alarms and hastily preparing for a drug war backed by Washington to send cocaine and guerrillas spilling over their borders.
Ecuador girded for refugees and added troops along a lawless frontier. Brazil sent police and fretted about whether napalm would be dropped on the Amazon. With Green Berets training Colombian troops in the jungle, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela warned darkly of a new Vietnam War in the making.
Now, their complaints are giving way to pragmatism. By seeking U.S. aid and trade benefits for their collaboration in the war, the countries are trying to cash in on their fears.
''These countries are now negotiating for goodies,'' said Professor Bruce Bagley, a Colombia and international relations expert at the University of Miami. ''The initial fright and resistance has given away to a more realistic assessment of what they can get.''
The new strategy <EM DASH> likely to be evident at this week's 34-nation Summit of the Americas in Quebec <EM DASH> was on display during a five-nation preparatory summit that concluded Thursday in Cartagena.
Presidents Andres Pastrana of Colombia, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Hugo Banzer of Bolivia, Gustavo Noboa of Ecuador and Peru's foreign minister, Javier Perez de Cuellar, drafted a letter to be presented to President Bush in Quebec appealing for greater U.S. market access.
They are seeking U.S. renewal and expansion of the Andean Trade Preferences Act, a 1991 law expiring in December which exempts Andean exports including flowers, minerals and oil from U.S. duties.
At a news conference in Cartagena, Chavez <EM DASH> who has been the region's most blunt critic of the U.S.-backed strategy to drive rebels from Colombia's coca fields and give aid to poor coca farmers <EM DASH> said he had changed his mind about the plan.
''Where there were doubts about Plan Colombia, now there is clarity,'' declared Chavez, who is seeking Venezuela's inclusion in the Andean Trade Preferences Act.
President Bush should be receptive to the region's plea for reciprocity.
During a recent visit to Washington by Pastrana, Bush said he supports extending the Andean Trade Preferences Act. His $731 million budget request for the Andes also sweetens the deal for countries in Colombia's vicinity, providing $331 million for Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela and Panama.
Despite leftist opposition charges that Ecuador could become a staging ground for operations against Colombian guerrillas, the country is already receiving $62 million in U.S. improvements on an airport the Pentagon uses for counter-drug surveillance flights over the region.
The racheting down of rhetoric about the U.S.-backed drug campaign does not mean Colombia's suffering <EM DASH> and the increased ''spillover'' of its 37-year conflict <EM DASH> has ceased to be a worry around the region.
Venezuela, responding to reports that ranchers were going to form paramilitary squads to defend themselves against kidnappings by Colombia rebels, said this month it had fortified the border with troops.
A letter this week to Bush from more than 100 prominent Latin Americans, including Argentine Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, calls U.S. military aid and forced coca eradication in Colombia ''misguided and harmful'' <EM DASH> a policy that ''will affect the entire Andean region.''
But such complaints were not likely to arise in the formal meetings between presidents beginning Friday in Quebec.
''I think it is on the mind of all of Colombia's neighbors and a number of South American countries,'' said Bagley. ''I don't think it's going to be widely discussed in open forum because it's too sensitive and delicate an issue.''
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