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The Two Paths of Castro's Legacy in Latin America
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"The leftist parties in Latin America had changed their initiatives long before Fidel got sick and stepped down," said Roy Cortina, a congressman from Argentina's Socialist Party. "The political projects that are in development in Latin America right now obviously respect all that has happened in Cuba, but they are pursuing their own objectives."
On Tuesday, Lula, the Brazilian president, called Castro "the only living myth in the history of humanity," adding, "I think that he built that with a lot of competition, a lot of character, a lot of willpower and also a lot of dissent."
The admiring words were characteristic of Lula, who recently visited Castro in Havana but has also built a solid relationship with Cuba's nemesis, the United States. Demetrio Boersner, a left-leaning historian and former diplomat in Venezuela, describes Lula's government as part of a social democratic-style left that would like to see the capitalist system evolve to benefit the poor but observing accepted rules of the game that ensure Brazil remains competitive and in the good graces of international investors.
"They are gradualists, evolutionary social democrats, and I think they are perfectly clear in regard to the need to keep the market economy in existence," Boersner said. "They don't believe in state control or state ownership of everything, but in a mixed economy where market forces provide the main drive for economic production and growth."
In both substance and tone, Venezuela has taken an entirely different path under Chávez, a former army lieutenant colonel whose first attempt to gain power was in a 1992 coup. As president, he has nationalized the oil sector, instituted price controls that have caused food shortages, and proposed a military alliance with Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador to counter the influence of the United States.
Chávez, who frequently hails Castro as one of the world's greatest leaders, has also reproduced many of the slogans and programs that have marked Castro's rule in Cuba. Some policies, such as providing direct medical care in poor neighborhoods, have won praise from Venezuelans. Others, such as the creation of citizen militias to defend Venezuela from the U.S. invasion Chávez warns about constantly, have generated sharp domestic criticism. Often, Chávez's dire warnings about U.S. designs on his country stir memories of Castro's long and divisive relationship with Washington.
"Chávez really regrets that the Cold War is over, and he speaks the language of the Soviet Union of the past and of Cuba, of Fidel Castro," said Boersner, the Venezuelan historian. "It sometimes seems he would love to be back in the old times with the Soviet Union on his side and the world divided among two camps."
Special correspondent Brian Byrnes in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.
