Blogging the democratic revolution
Uruguay has broken free from the Chavez orbit. It’s exiting Mercosur, the trade bloc that is a good idea in concept, but in reality not so good for a little state like Uruguay. It’s dominated by Brazil and Argentina, and while Brazil is never a problem, Argentina is. It’s also got Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in as a brand new associate member, something that makes the air pretty hard to breathe for civilized Uruguay. Chavez has stated that he intends to make Mercosur his vehicle for influencing events around the Americas. Well, not on Uruguay’s dime. Uruguay is a lovely little…
Leftwing Uruguay, supposedly fully in bed with Hugo Chavez, now seeking a free trade pact with the hated Colossus of the North, none other than the U.S. And you were told it was all going so bad down there. Uruguay is practically the vortex of supposedly anti-American sentiment, its president fully pals with the hemisphere’s worst dictators. And yet! Seeking a free trade pact, same as Mexico’s Vicente Fox has got! I am flabbergasted. Talk about unexpected! Uruguay was one of the five nations that didn’t sign on to the free trade pact with the U.S. at the Mar Del…
Cheap oil for rich Uruguay – that’s Hugo Chavez’s masterplan for winning influence in the region. What’s news to him is that it won’t buy him any influence. Down in that part of the world, people who are bought don’t necessarily stay bought. Just ask the IMF and emerging market investors about Argentina! Not that Uruguayans enjoy that comparison to their neighbor, but I think it’s highly questionable that Uruguay will become a Venezuelan satellite over this. They are able to buy oil at market rates. Hugo Chavez is just not making them have to. Uruguayan per capita income is…
Two editorials about today’s launch of Telesur, Hugo Chavez’s grand new television network designed to put the region’s free press out of business, are in today’s Chicago Tribune and Monday’s Investor’s Business Daily. (A third, here, from El Semanal Digital, is in Spanish.) The Tribune points out that Castro is deeply involved in this “news” project, a bad sign given his abysmal record on the free press, and argues that if it’s as bad as it looks, no one’s going to watch it. True. IBD warns that this is an effort to replace Venezuela’s authentic free press and give Colombia’s…
Blogger Randy Paul from Beautiful Horizons has a welcome perspective on Uruguay and its new president, Tabare Vazquez, a leftist, whose party is unpromisingly identified on the radio here as a collection of ‘communists, socialists and tupamaro guerrillas.’ Understandably, Vazquez is a cause for alarm to some – even some Uruguayans. But Randy checked around, and so did I, and the most likely outcome is Vazquez will be a pragmatist – more Lula than Chavez. Randy outlines several interesting reasons why. Randy’s Uruguay analysis isn’t firsthand but he’s got a good feel for much of the region and his take…