Word: chavez
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...face, the stunning move by Bolivian President Evo Morales to bring his nation's recently discovered natural gas reserves, South America's second largest, under state control would seem to be a triumph for Chavez and his quest to integrate Latin America under his leftist "Bolivarian Revolution" (named for South America's independence hero, Simon Bolivar). But while Venezuela has the hemisphere's largest oil reserves, Bolivia is still a bit player on the world energy stage. And while Morales' nationalization decree was certainly a strong rebuke to the U.S.-backed capitalist reforms that have swept the region over...
...Those are deals that Morales apparently feels Chavez, his political mentor, can broker for him. Chavez was characteristically boisterous Wednesday night when he flew into La Paz, Bolivia, to meet with Morales before the pair left for Puerto Iguazu. "Bolivia and Venezuela," he announced, "are always working on a big common strategy...
...behind closed doors, say analysts, Chavez has to help devise a way for Bolivia to realize the steeply increased share of gas and oil revenues it wants, while making sure foreign companies like Brazil's Petrobras and Spain's Repsol don't face expropriation of the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investments and infrastructure they have staked in the Andean nation. That balance will probably require Venezuela to help subsidize the nationalization by pouring some of its own prodigious petro-wealth into Bolivia's threadbare state energy company, YPFP...
...What's more, not all the parties to the negotiations feel such a high degree of left-wing solidarity. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva may be a leftist himself, but he views Chavez's more radical "21st-century socialism" with a dose of skepticism and concern. It is quite possible that the nationalization may have enhanced the bargaining position of Morales - who told TIME before his January inauguration that "the foreign companies have to be subordinate to the Bolivian people." But Mares and other experts warn that the fact that Morales sent armed troops into the country...
...Bush Administration has long argued that Chavez is a would-be dictator in the mold of Fidel Castro and a threat to hemispheric stability. But if Chavez can use his combination of financial clout and pan-Latin charisma to keep the Puerto Iguazu parties united, it would undoubtedly help raise his standing from an anti-U.S. firebrand to the sort of regional coalition-builder Latin America has never had. Alex Main, a former international relations advisor to Chavez, concurs: "This is the first time we've seen a real challenge to the unity of the new Latin American left...