A Sometime Champion of Democracy

The Bush administration’s rapid initial approval of this month’s coup in Venezuela has tarnished its status as self-proclaimed champion of democracy and the rule of law in Latin America.

Moreover, the reaction to the attempted ouster of President Hugo Chavez especially rankled Latin leaders because it followed recent trade and security measures in which the U.S. has been seen as contradicting its principles.

The practical effects could include an erosion in support for U.S. policies on Iraq and the Middle East conflict, Latin American diplomats say.

To be sure, there is little sympathy in the region for Chavez, who has trampled on a few democratic principles himself. But by seemingly backing the overthrow of a freely elected leader, the United States has diminished its capacity for moral suasion.

“There is at least a short-term cost. It’s not something people will forget,” said Carlos Elizondo Mayer-Serra, a political scientist and director of the Mexico City-based Center for Economic Research and Teaching. “It’s a displacement of the very ends that the United States is trying to promote.”

After Chavez was replaced April 12, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer declared the Bush administration’s support for new elections. And National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said on a television news show two days later that Chavez’s policies were not working for his country. But the administration has insisted that it took no action to encourage a coup or ensure its success.

Response Draws Fire

For all the administration’s talk of backing democracies and free markets, its response gave the impression that the U.S. government selectively supports coups d’etat and a short-circuiting of the popular will, various observers in the hemisphere say.

A leading Brazilian newspaper, O Globo, said, “Washington’s impatience, its supposed approval of the coup leaders and its hurry to approve an interim government bring back memories of a past that democracies of the continent repudiate with fervor.”

Most Latin American leaders--led by the presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina--were quick to condemn the coup attempt. Upon his return to office, Chavez singled out Mexico’s Vicente Fox by thanking him for refusing to recognize the coup leaders.

The Brazilian government reacted “with pleasure to Venezuela’s return to constitutional order and its democratic process. . . . It marks an important achievement in the reaffirmation of Latin American values and democratic principles.”

By contrast, President Ricardo Lagos of Chile is under fire at home for his seemingly ambivalent initial response to the news. Lagos’ fellow leftists say Chilean leaders have a special responsibility to denounce coup attempts, given the violent 1973 overthrow of President Salvador Allende.

But it was the U.S. reaction that had immediate repercussions at the United Nations, with Latin American diplomats holding a private conclave and the large developing-nation bloc uniting quickly behind Chavez and, by implicit extension, against Washington.

The consensus, participants said, was that the coup plotters had acted only because they believed--rightly or not--that they had been given a green light by the Bush administration.

“The United States blew it badly,” said a senior Latin American diplomat at the U.N. from a country that is normally supportive of Washington. “It is now trying to get out of this situation the best that it can. But damage has definitely been done.”

U.S. Actions a Concern

The Venezuelan fiasco occurred amid lingering bitterness in the region after the U.S. slapped tariffs of up to 30% on foreign steel this year. That measure in effect seals off the U.S. market from exporters such as Brazil, which says the tariff runs counter to free trade principles.

U.S. law enforcement agencies’ roundup of hundreds of foreigners after Sept. 11 and the secrecy surrounding their detention also concern many Latin Americans for what the actions convey about legal institutions that heretofore were regarded as exemplary.

“Some of the measures have been more appropriate to a dictatorship, and so I hope they are only temporary,” said Diego Valades, director of the Center for Juridical Studies at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

In Mexico, Fox is under fire for forging stronger U.S. links. It doesn’t help that his quest for legal status for about 3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States is stalled.

Elsewhere, there is exasperation in Argentina over U.S. reluctance to approve a financial assistance package to help the Latin nation out of its economic crisis.

Seeking to mend diplomatic fences after a difficult week in the region for the United States, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell assured the representatives of the Organization of American States at a meeting Thursday in Washington that the administration stands with critics of the failed coup.

That effort was undercut, however, by U.S. efforts to water down the initial OAS resolution to repudiate Chavez’s attempted ouster.

“We condemn the blows to constitutional order that Venezuela has suffered,” Powell told the gathering. “We look to the legal authorities of Venezuela to hold accountable all who violated the law both before and during the recent crisis.”

In a reference to the shaky history of democratic regimes in Latin America, Powell said: “Coups are a thing of the past, not a pathway to the future.”

He also acknowledged that the coup raised the question of how vigorously other countries, including the United States, had acted in support of Venezuelan democracy. And he said words that Latin leaders wanted to hear--that democratic processes must be observed.

“We must do this not just for Venezuela’s sake but for all our sakes,” he said, “because the consolidation of democracy in our hemisphere is profoundly important to all of us--to our freedom, to our prosperity and to our security.”

Some U.S. analysts say the administration’s handling of the coup attempt was a diplomatic setback but will probably not have lasting effects on its influence in the region.

But others say it raised questions about the competence of the Bush team dealing with Latin America.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Western Hemisphere subcommittee, said the episode showed that the administration needs more “adult supervision.”

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Kraul reported from Mexico City and Orme from the United Nations. Times staff writers Paul Richter and Nick Anderson in Washington and researcher Paula Gobbi in Rio de Janeiro also contributed to this report.