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Opinion: Latin America's 'Submerging Nations'
11/05/2014 - 09h06
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ROGER F. NORIEGA
The political leaders and diplomats of Latin America and the Caribbean know more about Cuba and Venezuela than even the keenest observers in Washington. So, they should know better, right?
Then why did the Group of Latin America and the Caribbean at the UN designate Venezuela to take the region's non-permanent Security Council seat?
And, why are they determined to invite Cuban despot Raúl Castro to the Summit of the Americas in Panama next spring, ignoring the objections of the leaders of the consequential trade partners in the United States and Canada?
For generations of Latin Americans, Cuba was home to some of the world's best Spanish-language publishing houses, hundreds of quality newspapers and radio stations, progressive labor rights, the region's highest rates of literacy and nutrition, and a robust middle class.
Then came the Castro revolution. Although some may have been caught up in the image of a swaggering and independent Fidel Castro, they have lived long enough to see the ruin he has made of a once vibrant Cuba.
Generations of Latin Americans knew Venezuela as a country rich in oil, audacity and creature comforts, the best place for a musical education this side of Paris, and a democracy through which men from humble beginnings won power.
Some leaders of the region welcomed the benefits of Hugo Chávez's petrodiplomacy, but they expect it will dry up as they witness the tragic collapse of Venezuela's mismanaged economy.
Thousands of tourists from the Americas have visited Cuba personally and recognized the heavy hand of the paranoid Castro regime. The media in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean have informed on the one-sided elections, political strife, and naked repression in Venezuela in recent years.
And the best universities in the region are swelling with thousands of Venezuelan youth who have been forced to abandon their country because of staggering crime, blackouts, food shortages, and repression.
Leaders in the region must read the reports from their own police and intelligence services tracking cocaine contraband back to clandestine airfields in Venezuela.
Leaders whose countries are menaced by narcotrafficking must have been astonished as Nicolás Maduro scrambled madly last July to help a member of his inner circle-retired general and indicted narcotrafficker, Hugo Carvajal-escape extradition to the United States.
The leaders of Cuba and Venezuela are not only sowing chaos in their own countries, but they may drag the region down with it. A narcostate in Venezuela fuels lawlessness in a dozen countries.
A meltdown in Venezuela will hurt key commercial partners and others that have grown dependent on its petrodollars. No one knows these things better than their neighbors.
Every country in the region has higher priorities. Brazil has slipped into recession, and its people are anxious about their quality of life. Peru is trying to recover and sustain economic growth. Colombians are worried about the quality of education and economic competitiveness.
Mexico is trying to retool its economy while maintaining citizen security. Central America is grappling with the impact of gangs and narcotrafficking on their institutions and people. Caribbean countries are worried about the viability of island economies and energy costs.
These are all issues where a dialogue with the United States and Canada can do some good-perhaps a lot of good-for dozens of countries with a shared economic future.
However, the region's diplomats have prioritized the interests of two submerging economies over their very own-risking the region's image in the global marketplace.
The world will not stop spinning on its axis when Venezuela takes a seat in the UN Security Council in January-a seat Cuba held from 1991-94. Indeed, now that Maduro's government has a seat at the table in New York it might be harder for it to evade responsibility for stolen elections and stepped-up repression.
Also, the region's 800 million people will scarcely notice if Cuba attends next year's regional summit, and only a few will care if President Obama declines to attend a meeting organized around an old man and his bad ideas.
Every U.S. president of the last 25 years has been criticized for not taking Latin America and the Caribbean seriously. Given this inexplicable deference to Cuba and Venezuela-from people who should know better-it's fair to ask how seriously Latin and Caribbean leaders take themselves.
ROGER F. NORIEGA, 55, was U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States and assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the administration of President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005 and is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His firm, Vision Americas LLC, represents U.S. and foreign clients.