Cuban President Fidel Castro (right), makes a point to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (left) during a visit to Jamaica, September 6, 2005. The U.S. considers both Latin American leaders as thorns. At centre is P.J. Patterson, who was then Jamaica's prime minister. - file

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters):

While some Latin American leaders deliver headline-grabbing harangues against the United States, the economic reality of living so close to the world's superpower puts the brakes on outright hostility by many politicians in the region.

They may eye new Asian markets as an alternative, slam U.S. immigration policy and the war in Iraq, or even call President George W. Bush the devil, as Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez did last month at the United Nations.

Chávez, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Cuban leader Fidel Castro are at the forefront of slamming Washington, and other Latin American leaders such as Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner are often critical of the Bush administration.

But Latin American presidents cannot afford to turn their backs on the giant economy to the north, even if they have to display to their voters they can be independent of U.S. influence, analysts note.

"Many of these same leaders seek meetings with administration officials in Washington as if to say, 'I have to speak against you or I'll look weak back home, but I know our political and economic interests are inextricably linked,'" said Jack Devine, an ex-CIA specialist on Latin America and now president of the Arkin Group risk consultancy in New York.

United States is unpopular

The United States is unpopular in a region that has long seen it as meddling in domestic affairs with such policies as its economic embargo on communist Cuba and support for right-wing Central American death squads in the 1980s.

Even moderate politicians tap into that resentment from time to time, as Brazil's Lula did in a Sunday presidential debate by comparing his opponent, Geraldo Alckmin, to Bush.

"If Bush had the good sense that I have, there wouldn't be any war in Iraq. He could have followed Brazil's advice. Instead he thinks like you, Alckmin," Lula said.

But, as the United States is Brazil's top trade partner, "anyone who campaigns in Brazil on the basis of anti-Americanism would lose," said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Taken from The Sunday Gleaner, October 15, 2006