PERU: Garcia to Seek Neighbourly Relations with Chavez

By Ángel Páez Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Ángel Páez

LIMA, Jun 8 2006 (IPS) - The government of Peruvian president-elect Alan García will not lead a current of opposition in Latin America to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, even though his victory was celebrated in Washington as creating a new counterweight in the region to the leftist leader of oil-rich Venezuela.

García will not follow a policy of confrontation with Venezuela when he takes office on Jul. 28, because that would play into the hands of the supporters of his nationalist rival Ollanta Humala, who could accuse the new president of toeing the U.S. line.

The president-elect himself made it clear that he would focus on “good relations marked by respect,” although he clarified that this policy towards Caracas would only be followed “as long as there is no meddling in Peru’s internal affairs.”

“Foreign policy cannot be based on emotions,” Luis Gonzáles Posada, who served as foreign minister in García’s previous administration (1985-1990), told IPS.

“We have always had very good relations with Venezuela, which have unfortunately been battered by Chávez’s meddling” in the campaign in favour of Humala, Gonzáles Posada, a lawmaker who belongs to García’s APRA party, told IPS.

But “We hope that good international relations will prevail,” he added.

Gonzáles Posada said the new administration “will not seek to lead any anti-Chávez regional movement.”

Chávez attempted to strengthen Humala’s chances of winning the presidency by insulting the social democratic García, but his strategy backfired.

The impact instead hurt Humala, who won the first round of elections on Apr. 9 but lost to García by a margin of 47.5 to 52.5 percent in Sunday’s runoff election.

“The identification of Humala with the Venezuelan president hurt us a great deal, because a very damaging campaign was carried out under the slogan ‘Alan or Chávez’,” Humala’s spokesman Carlos Tapia admitted to IPS.

García himself stated in his victory speech that “the only big loser here is Hugo Chávez.”

Humala “sought to distance himself from Chávez but his efforts fell short,” said Tapia. “The press wanted Humala to insult Chávez, but we couldn’t do that. The Venezuelan leader was merely asked not to interfere in internal affairs, although I believe that something more could have been done.”

Up to the very day of the elections, Chávez made public statements like “may God illuminate the Peruvian people” to vote for Humala. But his prayers did not work.

García, meanwhile, had remarked that the aim of Venezuela’s leftist leader is “to impose a dictatorial, militaristic model in the region.”

Nevertheless, Gonzáles Posada said that “no leadership is built on confrontation with other presidents, that is not right.”

“Policies of confrontation are not in line with the views of APRA, which seeks unity and integration in Latin America,” he said.

The APRA party supports the consolidation of a South American Community of Nations, based on the Andean Community (made up of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) and the Southern Common Market or Mercosur (comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay).

However, that path to regional integration is now fraught with difficulties, because after Colombia and Peru signed free trade agreements with the United States, Chávez announced that Venezuela would pull out of the Andean Community. Mercosur is also facing its own internal frictions.

García’s triumph reinforces the position of countries in the region that are uncomfortable with Chávez, even though Peru’s president-elect himself is left-leaning.

“García’s victory will have a positive effect in terms of balance in the region,” Alejandro Deustua, with the Peruvian Centre for International Studies (CEPEI), a local think tank, remarked to IPS. “We hope he will constitute an effective and consistent curb on Venezuela’s hostile, authoritarian positions, and on Bolivia’s revisionist stances.”

Although García has declared that he will seek good relations with Chávez, the bad blood between the two leaders is unmistakable, and has deep roots.

Former Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974-1979 and 1989-1993), a sworn foe of Chávez, is a close friend of Peru’s president-elect and the godfather of his son, Alan Simón García.

Pérez was among the first to loudly condemn the “self-coup” staged by then Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who dissolved parliament in April 1992 with the support of the armed forces, marking the start of his authoritarian regime.

At the time, Pérez sought guarantees for García, who was then facing corruption charges. But García was forced to flee into exile when agents of the National Intelligence Service, run by Fujimori’s shady security chief Vladimiro Montesinos, went to his house to arrest him.

A few months later, when then-lieutenant colonel Chávez led a second failed attempt to overthrow Pérez in Venezuela, on Nov. 27, Fujimori avenged himself by granting asylum in Peru to many of the junior officers involved in the aborted coup.

But perhaps that memory will not colour García’s sentiments today.

“Of course García will act as a counterweight, because his platform is closer to that of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, and it is from that direction that alliances and accords will emerge,” Elizabeth Salmón, an expert in foreign policy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, commented to IPS.

“That would pave the way for the construction of a Bachelet-García-(Argentine President Néstor) Kirchner alliance,” she said.

In Salmón’s view, “Peru’s president-elect will have to distance himself from both the neoliberal positions of the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe and from Chávez’s populist radicalism.”

But, she said, “I don’t believe Chávez is so important as to generate a current within the region. García should forget about him and work towards unity and integration in the region.”

Deustua, however, said García should not mark his distance from Colombia’s right-wing president. “The Uribe administration is peculiar, because of the context of the internal armed conflict, and deserves Peru’s complete support, even in a concrete fashion when necessary,” the analyst argued.

“With that government we could achieve regional development, above and beyond its neoliberal origins. Besides, I don’t believe that García will be able to opt for something very different than the free-market neoliberal model,” he said.

“But today it’s not possible to say whether his government will be right- or left-wing, because that will be determined by his way of doing politics, and not so much anymore by ideology,” he added.

García’s victory also placed him in an advantageous position to negotiate with the United States, which encourages political action against Chávez in the region.

The bilateral free trade treaty signed with Washington this year by the outgoing government of Alejandro Toledo, which has not yet been ratified by Congress, will give García a chance to demonstrate his interest in staying on a good footing with the United States.

“There is a predisposition towards maintaining good relations with the United States. García has committed himself to the free trade accord, although he has mentioned that he is going to keep an eye on how well it works,” said Deustua.

“In Washington’s view, that treaty has already been negotiated, and must be sent to Congress in its present shape and form, so it is unlikely that García would engage in negotiations on that front,” said the analyst.

The free trade treaty is a reality, and its approval is in the hands of the legislatures of Peru and the United States,” said Salmón. “So I don’t think García can do much in that sense, and I believe he will seek a balance, respect for the rule of law,” she added.