The Pendragon's Hall

Intriguing news from the Lands Down Under (under the US anyway): Peruvian presidential frontrunner Alan Garcia has announced that a large part of his platform will be to resist the domination of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who is, in the words of Mr. Garcia, "a scoundrel." This is interesting because the Pendragon spearheaded a (thus far failed) attempt to boycott CITGO gas because it supports the government of Mr. Chavez and was informed that Chavez was simply aiding downtrodden Latin Americans to stand up to the hegemony of the United States. Mr. Garcia's opposition seems to suggest that not all countries welcome the fact that Chavez, far from leading them out from the domination of one nation into an era of autonomy, simply wants to substitute himself and alienate South America from the rest of the world. According to a Newsmax press release, Peru looks to be the second government, the other being Colombia, who rejects the Chavanistas rosy-eyed view of the world and tries to take an independent route. I applaud them for this and I hope the United States, rather than getting in some kind of rhetorical war with the bigmouthed dictator in Caracas, will quietly push their economic ties with Colombia and Peru, two nations who have rejected the charisma without results pattern so widespread in Latin America. Way to go, Mr. Garcia!