Ian Boyne

WHILE THE media understandably lapped up the sumptuous fare which Opposition spokesman Karl Samuda served in the sectoral debate Tuesday, there was no discussion on a more critical foreign policy issue which he addressed.

Showing that, indeed, Opposition Leader Bruce Golding's recent warning to the Government on Venezuela was no tangential matter, but was apparently part of a larger strategic decision, Samuda strongly attacked the Venezuelan President, challenging the PNP Government not to jeopardise Jamaica's interests by supporting his bid for the Security Council. Samuda was tactically powerful by concentrating on some of Chavez's outrageous statements and projecting him, in effect, as kooky and a dangerous leftist.

NAME-CALLING

While Samuda reported to Parliament that Chavez has called U.S. President Bush a madman, terrorist, assassin, genocidal murderer, a drunkard and a donkey, he failed to mention that U.S. defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has likened Chavez to Hitler. And while Samuda traced the hostility on Chavez's part to the failed coup against him in 2002, he failed to mention that the US was quick to give legitimacy to the coup, contrary to every democratic principle it has publicly espoused. As Professor Michael Shifter of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service says in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs "Washington's rush to express approval for such a blatantly unconstitutional act undermined U.S. credibility on the democracy issue".

While an American at a prestigious American university could feel constrained to make that statement, the Jamaican Samuda felt it unnecessary to make a statement condemning that action. He was only quick to point out that Chavez himself was involved in a coup attempt against Carlos Andres Perez in 1992, as though one wrong cancels the other.

Samuda is right about one thing: "There is intense hostility between the Venezuelan and American Governments. We can ignore it if we wish but we cannot deny its existence". And the hostility is having a ripple effect in the region. The same day that Samuda was making his anti-Chavez foreign policy contribution in the sectoral debate, a report emerged that for the first time in decades, divisions were appearing inside Chile's erning coalition. President Michelle Bachelet is from the Socialist Party in the Coalition of Parties for Democracy.

The head of the Christian Democrat Party is Soledad Alvear. It might be just coincidental, but she is sounding the same line being carried here by Golding and Samuda. Suspecting that the Chilean president will support Chavez for the Security Council seat, (like Golding and Samuda) Alvear has openly opposed Venezuela's selection. She said we should look "for a country that could adequately represent the region... which is not in the case of Venezuela".

Notice Samuda on that same day: "Who is best able to represent the broad interest of the region??given the foreign policy positions taken by Venezuela, is that country likely to use its position on the Security Council to further its own undeniable anti-American agenda or to pursue the region's interests?" The battle for Latin America is on in earnest. Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner is strongly backing Venezuela's bid for the Security Council while Colombia is opposing Venezuela's bid.

LACK OF SOPHISTICATION

The Jamaica Labour Party's lack of sophistication in foreign policy issues showed glaringly in the Samuda presentation, as he took that party's fanatical and hysterical anti-socialist stance to embarrassing proportions. One of the major reasons why Jamaica should not support Venezuela in its bid for the Security Council is because Chavez has accepted socialism and this is dangerous for the region.

I blush for my former boss, who is one of the most compassionate and caring persons I have known. (He spoke at my mom's funeral 22 years ago). But, he is still in the Cold War. He says the PNP is merely "returning to its roots" by its relationship with Chavez!

Somebody (perhaps Chris Tufton) should sit down with Karl and tell him about a concept called ideological pluralism. Ideological pluralism means that a state accepts ideological diversity and does not premise a relationship on ideological affinity.

That is the policy the US accepts when it maintains its close relationship with the totalitarian communist Government of China which suppresses Press freedom and even Internet access. Yet the US is living off China's savings and runs a huge deficit with that country. The US is close to countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan whose ideologies differ radically from its own. Ideological pluralism means we can relate to countries like Cuba and Venezuela without accepting everything they do. Ideological pluralism allows you to accept the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states.

What sort of nonsense is Samuda talking about, using the nation's Parliament to raise his anti-socialism, Russian-ship-like bogey? Has the JLP not learnt anything in foreign policy since the 1950s?

Hear this absurdity: "Hugo Chavez is an avowed socialist. But the philosophy he espouses and the agenda it has been used to construct hardly coincides with that of the region and definitely does not coincide with ours." Of course, it does not. But, a commitment to ideological pluralism means that Chavez can pursue his socialist utopia while we construct our own system. Samuda's foreign policy would mean that Jamaica would only have relationships with countries which share its particular philosophy. An absolutely unworkable and absurd foreign policy approach that even his model the United States does not support.

OUT OF TOUCH

Samuda is also out of touch, as Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, with what is happening in the Latin American region. As the June 19 issue of Newsweek magazine says in an article "Latin leaders Follow No Boss", while conventional wisdom says Latin America is turning to the Left "Latin leaders are increasingly guided by pragmatism rather than ideology, working to answer popular demands caused by failures of the 1990s."

This is essentially the same point which is made in the scholarly journal Foreign Affairs by former Mexican Foreign Minister, now Professor of Latin American Studies at New York University, Jorge Castaneda (May/June issue). He shows that the Left in Latin America today is not the old authoritarian, market-rejecting Left. Says Castaneda: "If Chile is any example, this Left's path is the way out of poverty, authoritarian rule and eventually inequality". Chavez represents more of the old Left and the region is not likely to follow him and his discredited ways (Venezuela is a disastrously run economy, only saved by Chavez's petrodollars.)

Chile is the model in the region and is now -socialist Chile-the poster child of the IMF, the World Bank and the IDB.The Global Competitiveness Report says Chile is the most competitive country in the entire developing world. It is the best-performing economy in Latin America. There have been significant reductions in poverty and, interestingly, US-Chilean relations are extremely good and warm. Even though Chile voted against the Iraq war in the Security Council and has refused to back Washington on other foreign policy initiatives. Showing that a country does not have to prostitute itself to the United States to have a good relationship with that country. (Though having some economic clout helps!)

Venezuela is no model to follow except in its commendable attempts to provide housing, medical care and education to its poor. Chavez's social programmes are impressive and that accounts for his huge internal popularity. But, only oil has saved the economy from his mismanagement and policy recklessness.

Like Samuda, I am wary of Chavez's getting a seat on the Security Council, despite Guatemala's territorial claim on Belize and its being the US choice. And it has been clear that Chavez is not unlike the United States in his own vindictiveness and churlishness. He has pulled out of the G-3 and is reluctant to pursue deepening economic ties with regional countries which have bilateral treaties with the US, citing all sorts of spurious and nonsensical reasons to mask his visceral anti-Americanism. The region must make it clear to Chavez that we like neither big nor little bullies.

IMPERIALIST IMPULSE

If he insists on using his petro-power to get his way in his anti-American crusade, then he is morally no different from America when its acts from its imperialist impulse. (By the way, Karl, we should unite against "Imperial America". Not against America per see, but imperial America.)

The problem with writing or speaking on foreign policy issues is that there is no patience with genuinely independent positions. There are the reflexive anti-American advocates, for whom America can do nothing right and anyone who says anything slightly positive about America is a traitor or an Uncle Tom. I get many of those letters. Then there are the vulgar pro-American supporters who think it sacrilege to even question America's actions.

And you still have the dyed-in-the-wool ideologues who will attack America for human rights abuses but overlook Castro' and Chavez's flagrant and despicable human rights abuses.

John Maxwell, who writes so eloquently about human rights issues, has never once seen it fit to castigate Cuba for suppressing the freedom of journalists and ordinary citizens who have no right to propagate their own right-wing religious and political views. Yet the slightest transgression by the Bush Administration is given mountains of column inches. Ideological blindness is a milder word for hypocrisy, so I'll use that (John Maxwell is my mentor, taking me under his wings when I was only 18. I could never repay his kindnesses.)

The PNP has an honoured history of independence and integrity in foreign policy. There is no indication that this is being threatened. This country has in Foreign Affairs Minister Anthony Hylton and Minister of State Delano Franklyn two of the finest and brightest foreign policy minds in the region and certainly two of the sharpest politicians in the country. No JLP politician is competent to lecture them about foreign policy issues, with the greatest of respect.

If they decide to support Venezuela's bid for the Security Council seat it will not be because of any anti-American posture (they are no radical socialists) nor because of any pressure from Chavez. But, it is a good thing we are again discussing foreign policy issues. Perhaps we can get it right this time.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email him at ianboyne1@yahoo.com