Brutal dictatorships and violent military interventions often plotted in Washington, says the scholar, are definitely out, while people going to the polls in massive numbers and selecting their leaders through democratic processes are marking the trend.
While proven criminals like General Augusto Pinochet who threatens to cheat Chilean justice from sending him to prison, elsewhere Latin America nations demand that political ruffians Alberto Fujimori (Perú), Arnoldo Alemán (Nicaragua), Alfonso Portillo and Efraín Rivas Montt (Guatemala), Raúl Cubas (Paraguay) and Juan Bordaberry (Uruguay) be brought to trial on a myriad of charges which include assassinations, corruption, fraud, nepotism and money laundering.
Obviously a new era has dawned in the Hemisphere, says Valle-Garay. Cuba’s peaceful transfer of power, the re-election of presidents in Brazil and Venezuela, and the election of new governments in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Nicaragua are evidence that times are changing.
Latin Americans are now consistently sending to the presidency a decidedly socialist slate, all this peacefully and matter-of-factly highlights the York University scholar.
The White House, however, has reacted in utter shock. As if losing the wars against Iraq and in Afghanistan were not sufficient catastrophic signs of a US President out of touch with reality, “losing” Latin America only confirmed that the mouse that roared could not handle the cat and the cheese at the same time.
Giving President Bush credit for even thinking about Latin America amounts to absolute nonsense, says the expert. "The US President has absolutely not a single original thought regarding Latin America, or the world or in the United States for that matter", affirms Valle-Garay.
The President and the pundits have again underestimated Latin America’s ability to set its own political course and to choose government leaders independently of Washington’s nefarious influence, much in the same fashion as they disastrously underestimated Iraq’s ability to defend itself against the US invasion.
The outcome of the recent vote in Latin America indicates that the current move towards unique, tropical variations of socialism is the inevitable result of political maturity.
The relatively new political and social approach entails a rather practical response to the profound social problems of a Hemisphere in dire need of comprehensive social reforms which must benefit nearly 70% of a population barely surviving below the poverty line, underlines Valle-Garay.
Practically every newly elected Latin American President has made firm commitments to combat poverty, illness, illiteracy and unemployment.
Without exceptions the new socialist governments have pledged support to the private sector, have encouraged local and foreign investors to participate in economic development, and expressed hope to maintain friendly relations with the United States as long as these relations as well as Free Trade are based on mutual respect.
While the scholar thinks it is too early to tell how the socialist trends will translate into concrete measures, Bolivia has already nationalized hydrocarbons and the land, engages in a massive literacy campaign and improves its health system with outstanding results already in a few months.
Venezuela has done that and much more under the Hugo Chavez administration, as it is bringing together a continent divided until now with cooperation projects already in operation like the groups Petrosur and Petrocaribe, selling cheap oil to destitute communities throughout Central and North America, including the United States.
According to the Canadian scholar, the newly-elected left seems to be heading in the right direction. That they do so while willing to risk criticism for its radical departures from the more traditional left-leaning political perspectives, is a tribute to their ability to challenge conventional structures.
They are willing even to risk a White House response like the brutal embargo and the criminal attacks unleashed by Washington against Cuba for half a century.
It will be a difficult course to navigate, warns Valle-Garay. The bottom line nevertheless is that the new governments really have no options. They must change the course and curse of past experiences, whether Washington or any other forces think differently.
The Latin American electorate expects results from its leaders and it has demonstrated that when corrupt leaders fail to deliver, the voter will democratically throw them out of power, send them before the courts and sentence them to long terms in prison.
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