Imperial sunset

The first commentator thought I was suggesting military action against Britain… I rewrote the last sentence (and made a few changes to correct typos and editing errors) to clarify what I think is inevitable.

Argentina received the support of its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors Monday in its claim to sovereignty over the Falklands (Las Malvinas) Islands. According to the AP, the 32 countries currently gathered on the Mexican coast for the Rio Group summit backed a statement presented by Mexico’s Felipe Calderon saying “the heads of state represented here reaffirm their support for the legitimate rights of the republic of Argentina in the sovereignty dispute with Great Britain.”

(Hemispheric Brief)

The agenda for what should have been a Rio Group meeting decided on three official agenda items:  #1 is long-term reconstruction in Haiti; #2, affirming Argentina’s sovereignty over the Malvinas;  and #3,  developing an alternative organization to replace the cold-war era (and U.S. dominated) Rio Group and get around the limitations of the (again, U.S. dominated) Organization of American States.

No one objects to reconstructing Haiti (except those that want to control the reconstruction) and returning the Malvinas (Falklands) to Argentina is probably not all that important to anyone except the five thousand people living on the islands, and the British taxpayers who spend over $20,000 per Kelper on military protection from their shift of governance to the Province of Tierra del Fuego.

What is important to the leaders of the new Latin American and Caribbean Union is making a statement, and a very clear one, about the seriousness of the alternative organization.  With even the Mexican President (or, if you prefer, “resident of Los Pinos” for you die-hard Lopezobradistas out there) speaking  of Bolivarianism, the Malvinas/Falklands dispute is simply a test for what is really important… and maybe as a needless distraction from the real story (or stories) for the  English-speaking press.

Look who wasn’t there.  Canada,  Honduras and the United States weren’t invited.  Canadian firms — and the Canadian government — have garnered a bad reputation in Latin America, especially among the left and among environmentalists for the way Canadian extractive industries have run roughshod over local communities.  In addition, Canadian diplomacy in Latin America has been knee-jerk in support of U.S. initiatives, such as the attempted Venezuelan coup of April 2002.

Canada also has supported the coup in Honduras, which as the leaders meeting in Playa del Carmen made painfully obvious, shook the region more than perhaps its backers in the United States and elsewhere realized.

Calderón and Raul Castro (Photo: Milenio Televisíon)

The United States, besides backing the Honduran coup (and seen — even by reactionary supporters of the coup — as a puppet of the United States), the Venezuelan coup attempt, and most coups in Latin America going back to the 1829 coup against Mexican President Vicente Guerrero, and having more than enough of a history in Latin America and the Caribbean to annoy nearly any country you can name, was, of course, the dominant “partner” in previous pan-American organizations.  The Organization of American States, for example,

… is funded largely by – you guessed it – the U.S. and Canada. Specifically, in 2009, of the US$78.6 million in regular fund quotas collected, 73.6% came from those two countries (US$47 million from the U.S. and US$10.9 million from Canada).

And he who pays the piper calls the tune.  Both the Honduran coup, when what should have been an OAS crafted response was pushed aside in favor of a U.S. brokered “negotiation”, and the Haitian earthquake, in which the U.S. relief effort appears more and more like a unilateral invasion and less-and-less like a pan-American reconstruction program.

No wonder Evo's smiling (Photo: Milenio Televisíon)

Finally, it’s inescapable that the best economic growth in Latin America has been in those countries that have distanced themselves from the United States.  Bolivia — yes, Bolivia — has seen the best growth rates south of the Rio Grande, Mexico — which depends on the United States for 90% of its foreign trade — and Peru have done the worst during the recent economic crisis.   The Calderón Administration, here in Mexico, has had to slowly adopt the López Obrador program during its tenure whether they wanted to or not.  López Obrador was pushing to expand pan-Latin markets, and, Bolivarian economics has its attractions, even for FeCal.  As Sean Goforth writes in the Washington-based Foreign Policy Association Mexico Blog:

After a bruising 2009, Mexico’s economy should return to positive growth of around 3% this year, but the path to sustainable development remains uncertain. Reforming state-owned industries risks massive political backlash, but improving Mexico’s trade regime offers promise without the peril.

What trade strategies can boost Mexico’s growth? Several prospects have been bandied about. Talk of “deepening” Mexico’s commitment to the North American market was common before the recession, but diversification, not concentration, has proven more popular of late. To this end, President Calderon recently called for Mexico to “diversify its trade and investment (and) reduce its dependence on the United States.” His comments were made with an eye toward Europe, but he made similar statements regarding Brazil last August.

Since the inception of the Banco del Sur — the self-financed inter-Latin American (Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and a few others) development bank has proven relatively successful, Mexico has given more serious consideration to inter-Latin finances.  This is part of the same economic trend we’re also seeing even among countries with traditionally bad relations.  In Venezuela, where a particularly severe dry spell this year has meant a shortage of hydro-electric power, and the Venezuelans are turning even to the despised Colombians for electrical generating capacity.

So, everyone with the exception of Alan Garcia of Peru — from Alvaro Uribe of Colombia on the far right  to Cuba’s Raul Castro — sees the new organization as potentially to their mutual advantage.

Uribe is largely seen — like the uninvited Honduran leader, Pepe Lobo and the AWOL Peruvian, Alan Garcia — as a U.S. puppet.  Given the Colombian administration’s dependence on “Plan Colombia” funding, coupled with the increased U.S. military presence in Colombia,  and Uribe’s boorish behavior at the conference, unreasonable assumption.

Bolivia’s Evo Morales called his Colombian counter-part “an agent of the United States, who came to the conference with the purpose of derailing it by creating an altercation with the Venezuelan President” (my translation).

Chavez (left, of course) and Uribe (on the right, as you'd expect)

Uribe arrived late, barged into a meeting and began interrupting the speaker with complaints about Venezuelan restrictions on the import of Colombian beef.  Unfortunately for Uribe, the speaker was Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, not a man easily interrupted.  Chavez allegedly told Uribe to “go to Hell”, and finished his speech.  Later, host Felipe Calderón said Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez was acting as head of a group that would work out an amicable solution to Colombian-Venezuelan trade differences… something impossible to do if the United States (which has a stake in continued animosity between Venezuela and Colombia) were involved.

Finally, even with Chile’s return to a conservative government, pan-American relations are better and there is consensus that the various states need to coordinate their economic and political activities.  Chile was traditionally close to Great Britain, and Augustin Pinochet was personally close to Margaret Thatcher the last time there was a serious attempt by Argentina to regain control of the Malvinas.  At the time of the Falklands War, Chile and Argentina were close to war with each other over the boundary and navigational rights to the Magellan Straits.  That dispute ended with the Vatican Treaty of 1984, and — with Pinochet and Thatcher both gone, and a new spirit of cooperation not only between Chile and Argentina, but between all the Latin and Caribbean nations, the sense is that IF there is oil in the Malvinas, not only Argentina, but the entire region will benefit.  If not, it doesn’t matter.   I’m very much afraid the economic and political interests of 5000 aging English colonials and 500,000 sheep don’t stand much of a chance weighed against a those of a union of 500,000,000 people.