But perhaps the prime minister might notice that the benefits of the economic liberalization that most countries in Latin America have pursued over the past 15 years are less evident to those around him than he might hope. In fact, as a senior UN development program official put it two years ago: "For the millions of poor, the slum dwellers, globalization now has the face of cruelty, of unemployment and marginalization..." The distribution of wealth and income in the region is the most unequal in the world and "the rise in daily criminal violence ... continuing drug-related problems, as well as the incidence of official corruption [are], in part, a manifestation of the unequal pattern of development."

It is not a great moment for advocates of globalization in Latin America. Argentina, for instance, was until lately a country cited as a fine example: it had a president who, despite his Peronist label, had implemented the policies of the free market, pegged the local currency to the dollar, controlled inflation and carried out wholesale privatization. Argentina appeared to blossom and bankers and financiers sang the praises of Carlos Menem from New York to Zurich. Now, though, ex-president Menem faces criminal charges, Argentina's external debt has reached a staggering £90bn, unemployment stands at 18% and the country is bankrupt.

In Brazil, things are only slightly better. There, too, the president is a liberalizer, but after a promising start, the economy has been plagued by recurring crises. Two years ago, with inflation running at nearly 20% and a general collapse in middle-class incomes, more than 100,000 people marched in Brasilia to demand the resignation of the president and an end to IMF reforms.

Then there is Peru - another case of a promising start gone wrong. Alberto Fujimori's regime ended last year in chaos, but he also was once the darling of international finance - a man who appeared to have tamed inflation and was liberalizing the economy. Today he is hiding out in Japan, a country of which he recently admitted to being a citizen. (If he had owned up 10 years ago, of course, he would have been disqualified the presidency of Peru.) His government collapsed in a corruption scandal of breathtaking proportions and he is reduced to posting messages on his website, singing his own praises.

Colombia also has a president who is keen on liberalization - but his main preoccupation is the fact that his country has become, with Plan Colombia, the latest arena for the theater of American military illusions.

Plan Colombia has notched up the achievement of uniting most Colombians against the environmental disaster of enforced aerial spraying of toxic chemicals and further victories are in the pipeline - a growth of paramilitary human rights abuses, escalation of military activity and the likely export of Colombia's problems to her neighbors are all on the cards.

But there is one major Latin American country that is bucking the trend of liberalization: in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, the still popular president of the country that boasts one of the largest oil reserves in the western hemisphere, offers an interesting exception to the general rule.

In most of Latin America it is the poor and the newly impoverished middle classes - the teachers and health workers who no longer have jobs, the pensioners who no longer have pensions - who articulate the opposition to economic liberalism. They have the bad grace to point out that, so far at least, it has brought dramatic increases in inequalities in the distribution of incomes and assets.

In Venezuela, though, it is the president who says so. Chavez is an old-fashioned nationalist caudillo who prefers the company of Fidel Castro to that of George Bush or Tony Blair. Chavez seems determined to introduce to Venezuela some Cuban-style social control though, so far, this does not seem to have dented his domestic ratings. He's a wild card who might not matter but for those oil reserves.

In the 50s and 60s, behavior such as Chavez's would certainly have invited destabilization and a military coup to save his electorate from the communist menace. The menace is not what it was, so I trust that the rumors circulating in Washington about US encouragement for a coup against Chavez are ill founded. Otherwise, it might seem as though democracy is to be encouraged only in countries that elect leaders who are willing to make the world safe for globalization - and that can't possibly be what Mr Blair and his new friend President Bush believe, can it?

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001

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