But there are three big reasons to believe that, despite claims by Venezuela and a few other countries that the new group will replace the US-based Organization of American States (OAS) and challenge US foreign policies, it will be something very different.
First, many of the 32 countries that participated in the Feb. 22-23 summit are behind in their annual payments to the United Nations, the OAS and other international institutions, and don’t want to create a new bureaucracy.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón, who chaired the summit, said the newly formed group – provisionally called the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States – will be a “mechanism” to bring the region’s leaders together on political and economic issues. He denied any intentions to replace the OAS.
‘Flexible summit’
Rafael Fernandez de Castro, Calderón’s top foreign policy advisor, told me that the new group will be a “flexible” summit that will meet either annually or every two years, but will most likely not have a building nor a permanent staff. Rather, each country hosting the next summit will be the group’s temporary chair and will provide the staff to prepare the next meeting, he said.
“Mexico doesn’t want to create a new organization, nor a binding agreement,” Fernandez de Castro told me. “We don’t want to spend money on new international bureaucracies.”
So what will this group be? I asked him. The idea behind it will be to reduce – rather than increase – the number of regional summits, he said.
While there are now two annual summits that bring together Latin American and Caribbean leaders without the United States or Spain – the Rio Group summit, which focuses on political issues, and the Latin American and Caribbean Integration and Development Summit (CALC), which deals with economic issues – the new group would merge the two meetings into one, he said.
“This should be like the Asia-Pacific APEC summits, which nobody wants to miss,” he said.
Working group
The second reason why the new organization is not likely to become an anti-Washington forum is that the six-country commission appointed to draft a mission statement consists of a majority of countries that don’t want to antagonize the United States.
The working group is made up of Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, and it will have to present its recommendations in time for a 2011 summit in Venezuela, or – more likely – a 2012 summit in Chile.
“We did what governments do when they don’t want something to happen: We created a commission,” a foreign minister who is part of the six-country working group told me. “Venezuela is the minority view in the group.”
The third reason is that the Rio Group – the main foundation of the new group – will be presided over for the next two years by Chile, whose right-of-centre President-elect Sebastian Piñera takes office on March 11. In a recent interview, Piñera told me that he intends to work hard to strengthen the OAS democracy and human rights provisions, which are anathema to Venezuela’s authoritarian ruler Hugo Chávez.
Mexico seeks clout
My opinion: What lies behind the creation of the proposed community is an effort by Mexico to regain a foothold in Latin America, after three years in which the Calderón government has allowed Brazil to virtually displace it from the region’s diplomatic community.
Over the past three years, Brazil has consolidated its South American UNASUR diplomatic bloc, which automatically excluded Mexico for geographical reasons, and allowed Brazil to become Latin America’s undisputed leader.
Mexico, meanwhile, was asleep. Calderón has tried to mend relations with Venezuela and Cuba, perhaps to avoid problems with Mexico’s radical left while he pursues his war on drug cartels, at the cost of abdicating his country’s previous defence of democracy in the region. Now, without changing its spineless foreign policy, Mexico is trying to create a larger regional group where both Brazil and Mexico will be perceived as leaders. That’s what lies at the core of the newly created regional community, more than a secret plot to defy the United States.
© The Miami Herald, 2010. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Media Services.
