Original source URL: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030807T.shtml http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/world/americas/08cnd-latin.html March 8, 2007 Bush Faces Clash of Agendas in Latin America By JIM RUTENBERG and LARRY ROHTER SÃO PAULO, Brazil, March 8 ‹ President Bush arrived here tonight for the start of what he has portrayed as a ³We Care² tour aimed at dispelling perceptions that he has neglected his southern neighbors. But the fresh graffiti on streets here in South America¹s largest city calls Mr. Bush a murderer. And the smattering of protests and the placement of antiaircraft guns around town that have preceded his arrival present an alternate interpretation of his visit: as a clash between the United States-style capitalism he espouses and the socialist approach pushed by leftist leaders who have grown in power and popularity. And as the Bush administration prepares to use the president¹s five-nation tour to highlight a new ethanol development deal with Brazil, the world leader in that technology, and American health care and education programs elsewhere, much of the pre-tour attention is focusing on what may best be called ³The Rumble on the River.² President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Mr. Bush¹s chief nemesis in Latin America, will be leading a protest against him in Buenos Aires as Mr. Bush arrives across the Rio de la Plata in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Friday night. ³Our planes will almost cross paths,² Mr. Chávez said this week, although he denied any intention to sabotage Mr. Bush¹s visit. Mr. Bush played down Mr. Chávez¹s planned rally in interviews with South American reporters this week, telling a group of them on Tuesday: ³I go a lot of places and there are street rallies. And my attitude is, I love freedom and the right for people to express themselves.² Whether inadvertently or not, though, Mr. Bush irritated Mr. Chávez with a speech he gave in Washington on Monday. In it, he said Simón Bolivar, the hero of South America¹s independence struggle and Mr. Chávez¹s idol, ³belongs to all of us who love liberty.² That remark brought a sharp and sarcastic rejoinder from Mr. Chávez the next day during his weekly radio program. But in spite of administration attempts to minimize the shadow cast on the visit by Mr. Chávez ‹ who has called Mr. Bush ³the devil² and has pushed an aggressively anti-American agenda throughout the region ‹ the tour itself seems at least in part geared to counter his influence. Mr. Chávez has built that influence in part by showering poor communities in Latin America with money for housing and health care and freely dispensing oil at cut-rate prices. Mr. Bush¹s new agreement with Brazil to increase ethanol production in the region represents a way to cut back on the influence Mr. Chavez¹s oil supply gives him while at the same time encouraging employment and economic development. And before arriving here, Mr. Bush announced a number of new initiatives to help the poor in Latin America, whom he referred to, in a venture into Spanish, as ³workers and peasants.² He promised hundreds of millions of dollars to help families buy homes and said he would dispatch a Navy hospital ship to the region to provide free health services. In his interviews this week, Mr. Bush has repeated that the United States¹ aid to Latin America has doubled during his tenure to roughly $1.6 billion a year. ³When you total all up the money that is spent, because of the generosity of our taxpayers, that¹s $8.5 billion to programs that promote social justice,² including education and health, he told reporters on Tuesday. But the view from here could scarcely be more different. In an editorial headlined ³Uncle Scrooge¹s paltry package,² the conservative daily newspaper O Estado de São Paulo on Wednesday noted that Mr. Bush¹s offering amounts to ³the equivalent of five days¹ cost of the war in Iraq, and a drop of water compared with the ocean of petrodollars in which Chávezism is navigating at full speed, from Argentina to Nicaragua.² Some of Mr. Bush¹s aides this week said they were worried that perceptions in the region that the United States had neglected its southern neighbors, and that frustration in lower classes that had not reaped the benefits of free trade, were helping to fuel the region¹s leftist movements. Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush¹s national security adviser, said, ³It¹s something we have not done well enough ‹ getting out the full scope of the president¹s message.² Mr. Bush told reporters that he hoped to counter Mr. Chávez¹s message by espousing the benefits of free trade. Asked by a reporter about Mr. Chávez¹s ³so-called alternative development model² calling for nationalization of industry, Mr. Bush said: ³I strongly believe that government-run industry is inefficient and will lead to more poverty. I believe if the state tries to run the economy, it will enhance poverty and reduce opportunity.² He added, ³So the United States brings a message of open markets and open government to the region.² But even Mr. Bush¹s Brazilian hosts seemed divided in their reaction to that message. Although President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be meeting with Mr. Bush on Friday to sign the ethanol accord and is scheduled to visit him at Camp David on March 31, the party he leads has chosen to support and participate in the anti-Bush demonstrations. The party, the Leftist Workers¹ Party, warned on its Web site that Mr. Bush ³shouldn¹t count on Brazil for imperialist actions in the region.² One essay called him ³the big boss of international terrorism,² while another declared that Mr. Bush was ³persona non grata² in Brazil. ³The United States in general and the Bush government in particular are brutally violent,² wrote Valter Pomar, the party¹s head of international affairs. ³We will only be free of this threat when the North American people constitute a government on the left.² Jim Rutenberg reported from São Paulo, and Larry Rohter from Buenos Aires. 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