LATAM: The Samper Case and the US Elections

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis Carlos Castilho

FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil, Jul 13 1996 (IPS) - The US withdrawal of Colombian President Ernesto Samper’s entry visa was taken as one more sign that political diplomacy here bows to the action of transnationals.

At least this was the point of view expressed by a former Brazilian Ambassador to Washington.

Decisions taken in the White House are under the power of domestic politico-electoral interests, while business diplomacy leads towards a global vision, he said.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the sanction imposed on Samper, who was effectively put on a par with the drug barons, and the application of the Helms-Burton bill, sanctioning those who deal with Cuba, have not been taken very seriously in Latin America.

Both sanctions are clearly motivated by US based constraints linked to the presidential elections in November, when President Bill Clinton will be running for reelection for another four year term.

Clinton needs the votes of the US right wing and the ultra conservative Cuban exiles in order to win.

The candidates running in an electoral campaign nearly always develop a mad vote hunting obsession free from the weight of a logical and coherent foreign policy.

When this occurs in a nation like the United States – the leading world power – all the other nations, especially in the developing world, are somehow made captives of an electoral war conmpletely alien to them.

The new element is that the US transnationals no longer unconditionally follow the president in power like they did during the cold war.

The current business strategy is more long term and, in this era of globalisation, gives little importance to national frontiers and autonomy.

Thus, the Samper episode clearly shows the increasing dichotomy between the decisions of Washington and Wall Street – the business heart of the United States.

While Clinton is making a big electoral noise with his foreign sanctions, the transnationals are silently continuing with their business, because they know that once the November elections are over everything will return to normal.

The Latin American governments have also become aware of this, which explains the small level of reaction to the controversial measure against Samper.

In other times, Clinton’s attitude would have been classed as an imperial act, given that the sanction was applied without any concrete evidence against a man who had been absolved by the Congress of his own country.

In order to gain votes at home, Clinton fed nationalism in Colombia and increased the lack of confidence in diplomacy of the State Department.

On the other hand, he created an opening for a response from Colombia, which came in the form of the Samper administration threatening to reveal a list of companies suspected of having narcotraffic links, which could cause a few red faces amongst the transnationals.