by Jose de Cordoba
The Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2003

BUENOS AIRES-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has developed close links with Argentine radicals ranging from Communists to right-wing nationalists, some of whom, knowledgeable people here fear, have the potential to further destabilize Argentina as it struggles to emerge from its worst economic crisis in decades.

In the Caribbean heat of Caracas, a continent away from the mock-Parisian boulevards of Buenos Aires, Mr. Chavez is presiding over his own deepening economic and political crisis. But his domestic troubles haven't kept him from working hard to push his notion of populist revolution. In Argentina, which is struggling to emerge from its own economic debacle, some in the country's political leadership worry about the influence Mr. Chavez, who is due here for Sunday's inauguration of Nestor Kirchner, the country's new president, exerts over local radicals.

There isn't any evidence that the Venezuelan leader is working to overthrow governments. But his politicking comes at a very delicate time in Latin America. Fragile democracies throughout the region are struggling to cope with an economic downturn and growing popular resentment at the market-based economic policies pushed by Washington and Wall Street. Mr. Chavez, who has been accused of trying to turn Venezuela into a second Cuba, spouts a heady mix of nationalist, leftist and populist sentiments.

Last year, Argentina rejected Venezuela's candidate for the job of ambassador in Buenos Aires, Elias Jaua. The reason: Mr. Jaua was seen as a prime mover in organizing radical Bolivarian Circles, which are small cells of a dozen or so Chavez supporters, loosely patterned on Cuban neighborhood watch groups. "The wrong people were very happy he was coming, so we said he couldn't come," says one person with knowledge of the matter. Meanwhile, a senior Uruguayan official says authorities there worked with their Argentine counterparts to keep close tabs on the activities of Emiro Brito, a retired Venezuelan army officer posted to the Venezuelan Embassy in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital. People close to the matter say Mr. Brito, who left Montevideo in December, often met with radical Argentine and Uruguayan groups, including piqueteros groups of protesters who often use violent tactics to press their demands.

In Montevideo, a Venezuelan diplomat says Mr. Brito, the attache for "international affairs," had the job of explaining the Bolivarian revolution to university students. The Venezuelan embassy said it wasn't aware of Mr. Brito's current whereabouts and couldn't comment. In any case, just last month a high-level mission of Chavistas met with some 80 people in Montevideo. According to a written account by a participant, the visitors from Caracas explained the workings of the Bolivarian Circles and praised both Mr. Chavez and Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba.

Chavez supporters say there's nothing sinister about the Bolivarian Circles, which have sprung up, with a little help from Caracas, in Latin America, North America and Europe. In Argentina, the Bolivarian Circles put "internal pressure" on the Argentine government to support Venezuela in the Organization of American States and the United Nations, says Caracas university professor Samuel Moncada, a leading pro-Chavez intellectual. But while Mr. Moncada says Venezuela isn't exporting its Bolivarian revolution, he believes Mr. Chavez and radical groups in Latin America share common goals: opposition to a planned free-trade pact between the U.S. and Latin America, nationalism and the need for regional economic integration.

Argentines worry that while these groups have next to no electoral support, they could gain strength if Argentina takes a turn for the worse. Mr. Chavez has long been fascinated with Venezuela's southern neighbor. His first contacts in Argentina were while he was serving time in a Venezuelan military prison for his failed 1992 coup attempt. Mr. Chavez exchanged letters with right-wing military officers, known as Carapintadas, who were in prison in Argentina for their own attempts to overthrow civilian governments. Although Mr. Chavez has taken a sharp left turn since then, he still enjoys the support of a number of right-wing nationalist groups in Argentina, knowledgeable people say.

Last month, Argentina sent about a third of the 55 invited delegates from Latin America to an international conference on the Bolivarian Revolution in Caracas. Guests included Jorge Ceballos, the head of Neighborhoods Standing Tall, one of the leading piquetero protest groups. Mr. Ceballos is a 42-year-old lawyer and veteran of many battles in Argentina's far-left politics. He says his group commands some 20,000 activists and that he is inspired by Mr. Chavez's example in Venezuela. "We saw how the humblest people were taking an active role in Venezuela, countering the disdain that they had been held in by the dominating classes"
he says. And he believes common people in both nations face the same enemies"the U.S. embassy, the giant media conglomerates and the big labor bureaucracies."

** Marc Lifsher in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this article.
Write to Jose De Cordoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com