US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was scheduled to leave yesterday for a tour of Latin America that is for now overshadowed by a massive earthquake in Chile, one of the five countries on her itinerary.
Analysts said Clinton’s trip was designed to revive the strong hopes US President Barack Obama’s administration had initially raised in the region, but it was not immediately clear how much the quake would affect her tour.
Clinton spokesman Philip Crowley said there was “no change at the moment” for her visit tomorrow to Santiago, where she is scheduled to meet outgoing Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and president-elect Sebastian Pinera.
But he said officials would reassess the situation today when the chief US diplomat is in Uruguay.
On Jan. 17, she made a brief visit to Port-au-Prince airport to consult with Haitian President Rene Preval, five days after the quake struck and killed more than 200,000 people in the impoverished Caribbean country.
Relief and reconstruction in Haiti were also on the agenda for Clinton’s tour — that is also to take her to Brazil, Costa Rica and Guatamala — as Latin American countries list help for Haiti as a regional priority.
Clinton is expected in Montevideo today for Uruguay’s presidential inauguration of former leftist rebel Jose Mujica, an event analyst Michael Shifter said can be used to reinforce US support for democracy in the region.
Uruguay typifies a trend in which the region wants to show independence, but not belligerence toward the US, said Shifter, a leading analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.
Anti-US Venezuela is one of a few key exceptions.
Clinton will use the inauguration to show that the US, which long looked at the region as its backyard, accepts the new political realities and will work with both governments of the left and right.
“She is picking up almost where Obama left off almost a year ago with the summit of the Americas, which was very promising and which raised expectations and then things got bogged down and sidetracked,” Shifter said.
The Obama administration has faced criticism from various quarters over its response to the quake in Haiti, handling of events after last year’s coup in Honduras and the pace of its bid to engage diplomatically with Cuba.
It has also been criticized for a military base agreement with Colombia, its push for anti-nuclear sanctions against Iran — which has made inroads in Latin America — and its slowness in naming key diplomats to the region.
Shifter said “this was not a smooth take-off for re-engageing with Latin America,” which had taken a dim view of the counter-terrorism policies of the administration of former US president George W. Bush.
“She is confronting a region where there is a lot of good will and openness and interest in dealing with the United States but perhaps a little more skepticism and realism than there was a year ago,” he said.
On Wednesday, Clinton will meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim in Brasilia, where she will raise US concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.
Brazil, a member of the 15-member UN Security Council, has friendly ties with Iran, and hosted a visit by Ahmadinejad last year. Lula is to travel to Iran in May.
Clinton will visit Costa Rica tomorrow, where she will be the keynote speaker at the Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas ministerial meeting.
The secretary is also to meet separately with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and President-elect Laura Chinchilla.
Clinton will make her last stop in Guatemala on Friday for talks with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, as well as for a meeting with leaders of Central American countries and the Dominican Republic.
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