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After marginalizing and ignoring most of its European allies to the
east of it, Bush2’s heavy foot travels south. Are neighbors/allies in the Far
East next? O Canada? Discontent with the U.S. South of the Border by
Jos� Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson, Published on Friday, January 9, 2004
by the International Herald
Tribune When President George
W. Bush joins the Summit of the Americas in Mexico on Jan. 12, he should
reflect upon why good will toward the United States has diminished so
dramatically in the region during his presidency. A recent poll by Zogby International found that 87 percent
of Latin American opinion-makers disapproved of Bush's policy in the region.
Another, by Latinobarometro, found that nearly a third of Latin Americans had a
negative image of the United States - a twofold increase since 2000. This growing
disenchantment is fueled largely by opposition to the war in Iraq, which may be
the one issue that unites people across the political spectrum in Latin America
today. Almost all the countries in the region refused to join the U.S.-led
coalition. The two that held seats on the Security Council last March - Mexico
and Chile - both withheld support for the resolution that would have authorized
the invasion. Both were among the countries excluded from Pentagon contracts in
Iraq. Another source of
discontent among Latin American officials has been U.S. opposition to the International Criminal Court - the one
initiative for handling abusive tyrants like Saddam Hussein that does enjoy
nearly universal approval in Latin America. The Bush administration has been aggressively
pressing these governments to sign agreements that would prevent them from
turning American suspects over to the court. It has cut off military aid and
threatened to withhold humanitarian assistance to countries that refuse. Many Latin American
officials believe, correctly, that these agreements violate their international
treaty obligations, as well as their domestic laws. They find themselves, as a
result, forced to choose
between their commitment to the rule of law and their relationships with the
United States.
And they report that the Bush administration has subjected them to
"unbearable pressure" to choose the latter. This is ironic given
that the United States identifies the promotion of democracy and the rule of
law as a top priority. In fact, at the last Summit of the Americas, in 2001,
the Bush administration played an important role in elaborating an Inter-American
Democratic Charter that commits governments to actively defend democracy in the
region. Yet when this commitment was tested by an attempted coup in Venezuela
the following year, the United States was the charter's only signatory that
balked. Instead of condemning the coup, the Bush administration initially spoke
out against the deposed president, Hugo Ch�vez, and only joined the chorus of
condemnations when the de facto government was beginning to unravel. Perhaps the most notorious
example of the Bush administration's inconsistent approach to its international
obligations lies in Cuba. For decades the United States has condemned the Cuban
government's human rights practices, which are indeed among the worst in the
region. Yet, at the same time, and on the same island, the U.S. government is
now holding hundreds of detainees from the "war on terror," denying
them basic legal protections provided by international law. The double standard in
Cuba helps explain why
Latin Americans embrace multilateral mechanisms like the International Criminal Court and the
Democratic Charter. They see them as vital tools for strengthening human rights
norms in their own countries. But, at the same time, they see them as an
alternative to the selective and self-serving application of these norms by
governments that have the power to impose their will upon others. When Mexico's
ambassador to the United Nations observed recently that the United States
treats his country as its backyard, the Bush administration denounced the
statement so strenuously that the Mexican government felt compelled to fire the
ambassador. Yet officials throughout Latin America believe that the observation
is equally applicable to the whole region. It will take a lot of work for
President Bush to convince them that they are wrong. Jos� Miguel Vivanco is
executive director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch. Daniel Wilkinson, a lawyer at Human Rights
Watch, is author of "Silence on the Mountain:
Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala." http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0109-11.htm |
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