A series of diplomatic rows exposing Latin American resentment of US foreign and domestic policies threatens to overshadow a major regional summit designed to promote cooperation.
The Summit of the Americas, which was to begin in the Mexican city of Monterrey yesterday, was called to discuss social development in a region with 220 million poor people.
PHOTO: AFP
But development has been conspicuously absent from the agenda in the lead-up to the two-day meeting, which has been marked by simmering tensions and open squabbles.
US president George W. Bush faces more than 30 other heads of state, many of whom oppose his policy towards Latin America.
One issue that could sour the gathering is the requirement that foreign visitors be fingerprinted and photographed at US airports. Some 27 states are exempt from the measures, but no Latin American country is among them.
Brazil is one of the most strident dissenters, and has retaliated by ordering the same measures to be applied to US visitors, causing nine-hour queues and official protests from the US. The tit-for-tat move has been hugely popular in Brazil, which is also the main thorn in US plans to negotiate a free trade deal extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva is scheduled to meet Bush on the sidelines of the summit. But he is not the only Latin American president under pressure to stand up to what many view as the US' bulldozer tactics.
Last week, Argentine president Nestor Kirchner said he would win the debate with Bush in their one-on-one meeting in Monterrey "by a knockout".
His comments came days after high-ranking US officials urged Argentina to speed up the fulfilment of debt-refinancing conditions in the wake of the country's economic crisis, and criticized the failure of its foreign minister to meet dissidents on a recent trip to Cuba.
The chief minister of the Argentine cabinet, Alberto Fernandez, called the comments "impertinent."
In the absence of Fidel Castro, who was not invited because Cuba is not a member of the Organization of American States, the most vehement anti-US voice is likely to be Venezuela.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez last week called the US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, "a real illiterate" after she condemned his closeness to Castro and reluctance to call a leadership referendum.
The left-wing former paratrooper promised to speak his mind.
"The time of cowardly governments on this continent subordinate to the dictates of Washington is coming to an end," he said.
Bush should find some solace, however, in the summit's host, Mexican president Vicente Fox. Fox has welcomed the US leader's proposal to provide millions of illegal immigrants, most of them Mexicans, with temporary work visas.
But even this prize is qualified by the fact that it faces some opposition in the US Congress, and falls far short of the amnesty Fox had sought. It is more of a unilateral bone-throwing exercise than a victory for diplomacy.
Mexico's former ambassador to the UN, Alfonso Aguilar Zinser, said the plan was a sign that the US treated Latin America as its "backyard."
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was seized and taken toward Iran and another — a cargo ship near Oman — sank after being attacked, authorities said on Thursday, as tensions escalated near the Strait of Hormuz. It was not immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country’s claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the US. The turmoil in the strait has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the US and Iran to
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
RSS