Word: vez
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Those forces have now turned Zelaya, an otherwise middling President, into the same sort of political martyr Chávez became seven years ago. Their dispute with Zelaya, in fact, arose from their fear that he was making a bid to become another Chávez. Earlier this year, Chávez, a democratically elected President who has enfranchised Venezuela's poor but has been widely criticized for undermining the nation's other branches of government, won a referendum that lets him seek re-election indefinitely. (Other Latin Presidents, like Bolivia's Evo Morales, have also pushed through constitutional changes...
...Charter," insisting that the crisis "must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference." It was a good start - as was the announcement by Obama's ambassador in Honduras later in the day that the U.S. will not recognize any government installed to replace Zelaya. Chávez himself led an aborted military coup in 1992, before he was elected Venezuela's President in 1998. But Obama needs to remember how sorely the memory of a failed 2002 coup attempt against Chávez still lingers in Latin America - and how convinced the region remains (not without reason...
What underlies this crisis, however, is a sort of Cold War reprise vexing the start of Latin America's 21st century. The Chávez-led, anti-U.S. group came to power because Washington-backed capitalist reforms so often simply widened the region's epic gap between rich and poor. But the bloc's socialist ideology, which critics say is a throwback to the authoritarian leftism of a bygone era, has élites across Latin America spooked in ways their parents and grandparents were when Fidel Castro still had influence in the hemisphere...
...coup attempt in Venezuela - which failed when a popular counteruprising compelled the military to restore Chávez to power - was a reflection of the region's new upper- and middle-class fear. But the Honduran coup seems more troubling because it feels more archaic. And that gives Chávez and company even more political fuel for their rhetorical assaults on Washington, which they can use to strengthen not only their regional sway but also their domestic power, which currently faces serious challenges as their economies struggle...
...Honduran crisis smartly. His call against "outside interference," to respect national sovereignty in ways Latin America felt the Bush Administration too often ignored, is particularly savvy. In fact, because Obama has been so measured in his response to Iran, Tehran's allies in Latin America, including Chávez, have had trouble gaining anti-Yanqui traction over that crisis. "Latin America's leftist governments have all been waiting for Obama to blow his cool, but it's not happening," says Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "It throws them off base...