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03/01/2005:

"Uruguay Inaugurates First Leftist Leader"

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) - A doctor took office as Uruguay's first socialist president Tuesday, joining the ranks of left-leaning leaders in Latin America - now six in all - governing a majority of the region's people with a cautious approach to U.S.-backed free-market policies.

In one of his first official acts, Tabare Vazquez restored full diplomatic ties with communist Cuba, more than two years after a diplomatic row divided the countries.

Thousands of Uruguayans - many waving flags and chanting ``Ur-u-guay!'' - filled Montevideo's streets for the inauguration of Vazquez, a 65-year-old cancer specialist whose swearing-in ended more than 170 years of power by two moderate parties.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

How Latin America turned to the left
Today Washington's unqualified, 100 per cent loyal allies to the south of its border with Mexico are no more than one or two - El Salvador and Honduras certainly, but who else? Even Chile defied the superpower by refusing to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a slight not yet entirely forgotten in Washington.

Instead, a de facto centre-left bloc is emerging across the continent. Its members vary greatly from Chile, the economic poster-boy, to Washington's bugbear Venezuela. One thing, however, they have in common. They may not be necessarily opposed to the US on every issue, but they are no longer beholden to it.

Their drift away is testament to an historic failure of American foreign policy. In recent years the US approach to Latin America has been hopelessly distorted by its fixation with one modest-sized island 90 miles south of the Florida Keys. In economic and military terms Cuba is of little significance, but its symbolic importance has been vastly magnified by the attentions lavished upon it by Washington.
Full Article: independent.co.uk