The Bush administration opened 2004 with a broad rhetorical salvo toward Latin American leaders not sufficiently heeding Washington's behavioral guidelines.

After being distracted by the now stuttering project to reshape the Middle East, and after the failure of the WTO talks in Cancun and the stalled Free Trade Area of the Americas, the Bush administration may be looking to make up for lost influence in its "own backyard."

On January 6 Roger Noriega, Undersecretary of State for Latin American Affairs scolded both Venezuela and Argentina for being too close to Fidel Castro.

Argentine Cabinet Chief Alberto Fernz responded, "Our relations with Cuba are an Argentina matter and ought not to be subject to international pressure." Later Condoleeza Rice downplayed the significance of Argentina's Cuba policy, and said that despite some differences, "Argentina is an important South American country."

Rice continued the US insistence that Argentina obey the dictates of the IMF. She said that the US wants the IMF to lend more money to debt strapped Argentina, but in order to do so, Argentina has to "deal with the very difficult debt overhang that it has." The Bush administration is also pressuring Argentina to "liberalize" trade. Perhaps flogging a dead horse, Rice added, "Of course, Argentina would benefit greatly in terms of its growth when we make movement forward on a free trade agreement for the Americas." She said that the US was "encouraging Argentina to take the difficult decisions that it needs to take."

Argentine President Nestor Kirchener said that he was going to "win by a knockout" his confrontation with Bush in the Summit of the Americas in January. Kirchner's refusal so far to give way to US and IMF insistence on issues like the debt and Cuba have given him an 80% approval rating.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's ties to both Castro and Venezuela's oil has made him an object of special attention from the White House. Condoleeza Rice did not make any conciliatory gestures toward Venezuela. "There are roles that Venezuela has played that have not been very helpful," she said. "And it is beyond me to understand why anybody who believes in democracy or wants people to believe that they believe in democracy would want to have anything, in that regard, to do with Fidel Castro."

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that the US is "concerned" that Venezuela and Cuba have teamed up to "impede fair and democratic processes" in Latin America. He said, "The close ties between Venezuela and Cuba raise concerns among Venezuela's democratic neighbors." US officials have reportedly been saying that the two governments are supplying money, political indoctrination and training to anti-American movements in the region.

The democratically elected Chavez has survived a series of US-supported coup attempts. By taking the petroleum industry, the army, and other institutions out of the hands of the US-allied oligarchy, and as one of the USA's main foreign oil suppliers, Chavez is the White House's poster boy for everything that is wrong with South America.

Mr. Ereli said that, "as far as our relationship with Venezuela goes," the Bush Administration is committed to supporting the Venezuelan government and opposition achieving a constitutional, democratic, peaceful, and electoral solution to the current political impasse there." Chavez is currently facing a possible recall election. The first attempt for a recall was thrown out in September 2003 by the National Electoral Council (CNE) for various irregularities. The opposition recently deposited the results of their second attempt with the CNE, which is supposed to finish counting and verifying the signatures at the end of January. The Chavez government claims that they can demonstrate that a large number of the signatures are fraudulent, and that the call for elections will fail.

An opposition legislator says that there is a "conspiracy" inside the CNE to impede the recall. He says that three of the five council members are using fraudulent means to negate the validity of signatures.

Spillover from the civil war in Colombia has added tensions to the Colombia/Venezuela border region. Colombia says that Venezuela is allowing FARC guerrillas to remain in its territory, while Venezuela complains of right wing paramilitaries crossing from Colombia. The State Department says that they have "expressed their concern" regarding "specific reports of terrorist elements operating along Venezuela's border with Colombia."

Plan Colombia is central to the Bush administration's South American efforts. Billed mainly as anti-drug assistance to Colombia, it includes efforts against the leftist guerrillas in Colombia's decades long civil war and has sinister ties with corrupt narco-generals and brutal paramilitaries.

The recent capture of Ricardo Palmero, aka Simon Trinidad, an important member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) recently arrested in Ecuador, highlights the expansion of Plan Colombia into that country. Ecuador credited information provided by the substantial CIA presence for the arrest.

Writing in La Jornada (1/2/04) Carlos Fazio says that the US is building up Ecuador as the base for the "second phase of Plan Colombia," which he says is the second phase of "a multinational military intervention against the FARC and ELN guerrillas in the first months of 2004."

An airbase at Manta, Ecuador is one of the key US military bases in Latin America. One hour flight time from the Colombian border, Manta and Ecuador are perhaps soon to play the role that Honduras played in the 1980s: the launching point for wide scale covert military and mercenary operations. Manta has become the USA's central Latin American electronic espionage site and hosts regular spy plane flights over Colombia. The US has several other military installations in Ecuador apart from Manta and is seeking access to key ports.

Playing an integral role in Plan Colombia are military and intelligence contracting firms like Dyncorp, which maintains a substantial presence at Manta and throughout the Andean region. Dyncorp has recently signed a secret contract with the Ecuadoran air force, and opposition members are denouncing the unconstitutional invasion by US forces.

In Bolivia, congressman Evo Morales says that the US government is behind a smear campaign. He says that the US embassy funded a slanderous TV program about the left wing campesino leader. Morales, leader of the "Cocaleros," small scale traditional coca farmers, was one of the key voices in the recent movement that forced former president Sanchez de Lozada out of office. Morales says that insinuations that he is connected to narcotraffickers are false. He also denies US allegations that he has been paid by either Cuba or Venezuela.

Perhaps playing a theme, the Bush administration appears to be intent upon defining a Latino axis of evil, consisting of Morales, Chavez, and Castro.

The US stepped up its anti-Castro campaign in October 2003 with the unveiling of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. The commission's goals are to "hasten a transition to democracy and an open market economy" in Cuba. After 40 years of a virtual US blockade, the commission stresses that it is interested in a "peaceful, near-term end to the dictatorship" and "creat[ing] the core institutions of a free economy."

The action plan includes: "Supporting the Opposition; Providing Humanitarian Support to the Cuban People; Denying Revenues to the Regime..." and "Encouraging International Solidarity." This last item may be the most difficult, as after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US position on Cuba has eroded to the point where it is virtually alone in its position. The UN general assembly voted to condemn the ongoing US sanctions against Cuba as "genocide." The US (along with Israel) was virtually alone in voting against the resolution.

Noriega warned that Castro's "provocative" efforts at "destabilizing democratically elected governments," said the "broken down old dictator," is "playing with fire."

The US recently called off bilateral talks with Cuba over immigration, in what the Cuban government calls pre-election posturing. The US says that Cuba has failed to undertake some key commitments necessary to go forward, such as fair processes for exit visas and accepting the return of Cuban immigrants determined to be "excludable" from the US.

In Paraguay, Human Rights groups, politicians and social leaders are complaining about the congress's approval of joint US-Paraguayan military exercises. There was already growing concern in the "Triple Frontier" region along the borders of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina over US military presence in the name of countering the "Islamic terrorists" said to be there. Many people in the region are said to be worried that the US's real interest lies in the enormous Guarani aquifer and the large oil reserves in the region.