Standing Up to a Coup--and to Tio Sam

You can say one good thing for the right-wing political hacks that President Bush left to oversee U.S. policy toward Latin America while he and other top administration officials focused on the Middle East. When last weekend’s coup d’etat in Venezuela happened, they didn’t mess things up as badly as they might have.

That’s a backhanded compliment, but it does run counter to the conventional wisdom about Washington’s reaction to the brief, tragicomic circus in Caracas that left at least 15 people dead.

The Bush administration has been widely condemned for not coming out as quickly or firmly as it should have in favor of democracy when the controversial--but legitimately elected--President Hugo Chavez was briefly deposed by a faction of the military.

A populist who boasts of his admiration for Fidel Castro, Chavez was replaced as president for less than 48 hours by Pedro Carmona, a civilian business leader. Carmona was ousted, in turn, after he tried to dissolve the Congress and fire the Supreme Court. Since being restored to power, a presumably chastened Chavez has pledged to seek reconciliation with his opponents rather than revenge.

The rap against Bush’s Latin American policy team starts with the fact that they were in contact with Carmona and other coup plotters beforehand, although there is no evidence they encouraged them. Then, once the coup was underway and other Latin American nations immediately condemned it, Washington was hesitant. The diplomatic damage caused by that delay was compounded when some administration officials suggested that Chavez brought the coup on himself.

So what that the criticism is valid. It also gives political appointees such as Otto J. Reich, deputy secretary of State for Latin America, and Roger Pardo-Maurer IV, the Pentagon’s top bureaucrat for Latin America, credit for more clout than they really have.

Within hours of the coup, political activists who follow Latin American affairs were spinning conspiracy theories on Web sites. They all stressed Reich and Pardo-Maurer’s ties to Nicaragua’s Contras when the Contras were backed by the Reagan administration. Add the fact that Reich is a former lobbyist for Mobil Oil, which does business in Venezuela, and is also an anti-Castro Cuban who apparently never met another anti-Castrista he didn’t like and you have the makings of a juicy conspiracy theory.

Unfortunately, the reality is far more prosaic--though still worrisome. The lame U.S. reaction to the coup reveals that--with the exception of Mexico--Latin America policy has been left to ideologues or incompetents who haven’t a clue when faced with a crisis in which the facts are in shades of gray.

A top Latin American diplomat who was involved in monitoring the Venezuelan coup told me the problems his government had with Washington ended when “we got the grown-ups”--National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell--”to pay attention.”

“They were distracted with the Middle East. But when they finally came around, they did all the right things,” the diplomat said.

He also describes a scenario that took place during the coup that should be encouraging, even to those who assume nothing important happens south of the border without a wink or a nod from the colossus of the north.

The diplomat was in Costa Rica at a meeting of the 19-member Rio Group of Latin American nations when news of the Venezuelan coup arrived. Within hours, the attendees had approved a resolution threatening to sever diplomatic ties with Venezuela unless the country’s democratically elected president was restored to power.

“I know none of us care much for Chavez,” Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda told the group, according to my source. “But a coup d’etat is a coup d’etat, and we must all condemn it.” The notoriously arrogant Mexican diplomat proceeded to cajole and lecture the meeting until the anti-coup resolution was complete.

So if the bad news about Venezuela’s abortive coup is that the U.S. government hemmed and hawed while democracy was on the line, the good news is that the Latin Americans themselves now have leadership with the gumption to face down military coups, whether or not Tio Sam is there to back them up.

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Frank del Olmo is associate editor of The Times.