Despite progress with Cuba, the Obama administration has done little to dispel doubts about Washington's intentions towards its neighbors to the south.
By Rohan Chatterjee
Shortly
after Barack Obama first took office, he famously admitted at the Summit of the Americas that Washington needed to use
diplomacy in “more intelligent ways” in Latin America and beyond.
Now, with his administration’s
groundbreaking normalization of ties with Cuba, he seems to be finally making
good on that pledge as his final term nears it end. As the two countries opened
embassies in each other’s capitals for the first time in over 50 years,
regional leaders unanimously praised the news.
In much of the U.S. media, the
event was portrayed as an easing of Cuba’s decades-long isolation. But in the
region, at least, it’s Washington that’s been isolated — including for the last
seven years of the Obama administration. And it’s not just because of
Washington’s lonely alienation from Cuba.
Imprisoned
by the Past
“We don’t have to be imprisoned
by the past,” Obama said about the need for a new approach to
Cuba. He was referring most directly the last five decades of U.S. policy
toward the island.
But for Latin Americans more
broadly, that history is widely understood as one in which the United States,
especially throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, dominated its regional
neighbors by propping up governments aligned with its own economic and
political interests. This included allying with brutal military dictatorships,
which often came to power by violent coups against democratically elected
governments.
Based on this history, explains
Harvard professor Steven Levitsky, “alarm
bells ring across the political spectrum in Latin America” whenever coups occur
in the region. Washington is always a suspect.
In 2002, for example, alarm
bells rang as the hemisphere’s first coup attempt since the end of the Cold War
took place in Venezuela. The coup carried out against Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez ultimately failed when loyal sections of the armed forces, spurred into
action following widespread public outcry, detained key coup leaders and returned
Chavez to power.
Before it unravelled, the coup
government received the Bush administration’s full endorsement. Suspicions of
U.S. involvement, which ran rampant at the time, were later confirmed when evidence showed that U.S.
officials not only knew of the planned coup, but had actually authorized it.
Honduras
During Obama’s tenure,
Washington has been less willing to intervene in the direct manner of previous
decades, or even to endorse coups as brazenly as Bush did with Venezuela. Yet
two successful coups have been carried out in the region during Obama’s
presidency, and his administration’s response has done little to improve
Washington’s reputation.
The first coup took place in
Honduras in 2009, when then-president Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped by the
military and flown out of the country. In protest, most Latin American nations
and the entire European Union severed ambassadorial ties with the Central American
country. The Spanish prime minister branded the move “illegal,” while
Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner called it a reminder of “the worst
years in Latin America’s history.” International groups, including the
Organization of American States and the United Nations General Assembly, called
for Zelaya’s immediate return.
Although Obama did call for
Zelaya’s return, the United States was one the few countries to retain its
ambassador in Tegucigalpa. Furthermore, the White House and State Department
strenuously avoided labeling the events in Honduras a coup. Such a designation
would have barred the administration from sending military aid to the coup
government.
Now, thanks to Wikileaks,
a cable from the U.S. embassy in Honduras has been released showing that the
State Department indeed believed Zelaya’s removal clearly constituted a coup.
Subsequent revelations showed that several of the coup’s supporters had ties to then Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton’s inner circle.
At the time, the
administration’s response led the New York Times to
comment that it was “often hard to tell if George W. Bush [wasn’t] still
president.” U.S. policy in Honduras remained at odds with much of the
international community’s, and this continued when the Obama administration supported
elections held after
the coup — even when many, including the OAS, questioned their legitimacy.
Yet the White House prevented
the OAS from intervening in the elections. According to Mark Weisbrot from the Center for Economic Policy
and Research, this resulted in the creation of the Community of Latin American
and Caribbean States (CELAC), a hemispheric group that purposefully excluded
the United States.
Paraguay
The second coup took place in
2012 in Paraguay, when ex-bishop Fernando Lugo was ousted in what has since
been described a parliamentary coup. Lugo was impeached by his opponents and
given 24 hours to defend himself following a land dispute that resulted in the
death of six police officers and 11 farmers.
Highly reminiscent of the
fallout after the Honduran coup, Latin American leaders from all political
walks of life protested the events.
Even Latin governments who
traditionally align closely with U.S. policy in the region denounced the move. Chile
recalled its ambassador, while conservative leaders from Colombia and Mexico
publicly rejected the coup. Every foreign minister from the Union of South
American Nations (UNASUR) visited
Paraguay in protest, calling the move a clear violation of UNASUR’s democracy
clause.
UNASUR, along with the regional
trading bloc Mercosur, suspended Paraguay’s membership.
Yet the United States, again, remained one of the only countries in the region
not to denounce the move. When questioned whether the U.S. had decided if what
had happened was a coup, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland replied, “We have not.”
Venezuela
Redux
More recently, the Obama
administration received widespread condemnation for issuing an executive order placing sanctions on Venezuela and
declaring the country “an extraordinary threat to the national security and
foreign policy of the United States.”
With memories of U.S. support
for the failed coup still fresh, there was widespread reaction to the strong
wording of the order. CELAC and UNASUR rejected the sanctions and demanded
their reversal, with CELAC calling them “unilateral coercive measures contrary
to international law.” Even reliable U.S. allies like Colombia and Mexico
signed the statement in arguably the most unified opposition to U.S. policy in
the region to date.
Many regional leaders
also objected to the order, with Argentina’s Kirchner commenting
tersely it was “implausible” that Venezuela could be considered a threat.
Bolivia’s Evo Morales labeled the move “undemocratic,” while Ecuadorian
President Rafael Correa went further, calling it a “bad joke” and a throwback
to “the darkest hours of our Latin America, when we received invasions and
dictatorships imposed by imperialism.”
Even Venezuela’s opposition,
traditionally staunch supporters of U.S. actions against the current Bolivarian
regime, sought to distance themselves, stating “Venezuela is not a threat to
any nation.”
Internationally, 120 British members of parliament called for the rejection of the order,
while 15 million people signed various petitions denouncing the move. Moreover,
the G77 and China
group, representing 134 countries, urged the reversal of the measure
“under principles of respect for sovereignty and self-determination.”
The fallout once again placed
U.S. foreign policy at odds with much of Latin America. As journalist Eva Golinger put it, “Before the region even had
time to celebrate the loosening of the noose around Cuba’s neck, it was
tightened to Venezuela’s.”
Despite the progress of
re-establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, the Obama administration has done
little to dispel doubts about Washington’s intentions towards its neighbors to
the south. While Obama may have broken U.S. Cuba policy out of the prison of
the past, there are many more new ideas waiting to be freed.
Until then, Obama may well go
down in history as another U.S. leader who worked against, rather than with,
Latin America.
Rohan
Chatterjee is an English freelance writer covering Latin American economics and
politics. He’s a regular contributor to Puslamerica and Latin Correspondent.
This articles was first published at Foreign Policy in Focus's Website on Aug 11, 2015
