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President Bush's choice for the top Latin American policy post, Otto Reich, will have a hard row to hoe. But that's even before he takes up his intended job as assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere-if confirmed. He is expected to have a tough time in the confirmation process with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
For the past six years, Reich, who came to the United States from Cuba when he was 15, has been a lobbyist, and one of his major clients is Bacardi-Martini, which has paid him more than $600,000, according to public records. He played a role in writing the Helms-Burton Act, which tightens the embargo on Cuba and has provisions that could eventually benefit Bacardi. He worked for Ronald Reagan's administration. And his sympathy for the Cuban exiles and their views on Castro is well known.
Two key Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressed reservations about Mr. Reich. "I do not believe that under these circumstances Mr. Reich is the right person for the job at this critical time," said Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said Reich would have to answer some "serious questions" about his role in Central America during the Reagan years.
If he does get the Senate panel's approval, it may well be Reich eventually regrets they were not more severe with him. Because a limited tour d'horizon of Latin America brings up a variety of prickly situations with which he will have to deal.
Venezuela stands out. Former coup-leader turned elected president Hugo Chavez continues to be a puzzle for Washington. He was expected to condemn the United States and United Kingdom air strikes a few weeks ago on Iraq, a fellow member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. But he didn't, even though mutual support among Opec members, aimed at maintaining oil prices high, is a central plank of his economic policy.
Meanwhile, foreign investors, among them the U.S., are noticing that the Chavez's government has not carried out the radical economic policy changes they initially feared. Rather, the government has appeared desperately keen to attract foreign capital. In contrast to his left-leaning rhetoric, some of his policies appear aimed at partially reducing the state's role in some areas of the economy. And on the foreign front Chavez appears to be feeling pressure from the military, because of what western diplomats say was the growing threat of international political isolation for foreign policy adventurism in the Andean region, a key element of his "Bolivarian Revolution."
It will be Reich's task to sort out to what extent these changes may decisively alter the military-populist character of the former paratrooper's government.
Peru is about to have a presidential election, but the first round on April 8 is expected to be indecisive. It may be won by Alejandro Toledo, the candidate elbowed out by the Alberto Fujimori government in fraud-marred elections last year. He's usually described as "a centrist former World Bank economist" but his future policies are mostly unknown.
Even less known are the policies sustained by Lourdes Flores, whose running as a conservative and, according to opinion polls, will be Toledo's rival in a second round in which, polls are showing now, she might be neck and neck with him.
Neither candidate has a party organization behind, one of the reasons for unpredictable future policies. Another, that particularly may affect the U.S., is that it is still unclear how any new Peruvian government will deal with the fallout from the scandal centered on Fujimori's spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, confirmed by the CIA as its man in Peru and widely known to have rigged last year's election for his boss, who is now self-exiled in Japan. Reich will be Washington's point man on this issue.
And then there is that hardy perennial: Cuba.
As support in the United States for the Washington embargo of the island is showing more signs of weakening than at any time in the last 38 years, Fidel Castro, rather than encouraging this change by opening up Cuba's closed political system, has embarked upon a fervent campaign to re-establish old-style socialist values, cracked down on dissidents and slowed Cuba from opening to foreign investment. During the past few months, he has also provoked clashes with governments, institutions and individuals who would consider themselves Cuba's allies.
This reaction is not new. In 1996, when relations with the U.S. were improving, Cuban security forces shot down two U.S. civilian aircraft piloted by Cuban exiles. Two years later, after Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba again raised hopes of a democratic opening, the government clamped down on internal opposition and introduced anti-subversion laws.
Many opponents of U.S. policy argue that the embargo itself is one of the principal obstacles to change because it allows the government to blame all the country's shortcomings on U.S. aggression. But a case can be made that lifting the embargo might be proclaimed by Castro as a triumph that finally validates his political system by the West. In sorting this out is where the going will get real sticky for Cuban-born Otto Reich if he is confirmed for assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com