John Hockenberry, The Takeaway: So, when the summit of Americas happened over the weekend, it was kind of a surprise to see Barack Obama chumming it up there with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and the President explained it this way. No harm done.
President Barack Obama [on tape]: Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States. They own Citgo. It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don't think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so.
John Hockenberry: Well, some folks are looking. Today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton goes before the House International Relations Committee. Republican Mike Pence is promising to grill the Secretary of State over what he calls "deeply offensive images" of the President shaking hands with Hugo Chavez. Former Ambassador to Venezuela for President Ronald Reagan and a former senior Special Envoy and diplomat in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush joins us now. Ambassador Otto Reich, from Miami. Thanks for joining us, Ambassador.
Otto Reich: Thank you.
John Hockenberry: Do you find the images of Barack Obama sort of chumming it up there in a couple of moments during the Summit of the Americas offensive?
Otto Reich: Well, they send the wrong signals, and I think that for such a smart person, I think President Obama just made some comments that indicate he doesn't quite understand the importance of symbolism in international relations. The chummy-ness, to continue using the term, sent a signal that was very confusing to our friends and our adversaries in Latin America. In Latin America, Hugo Chavez is the least popular leader according to a hemisphere-wide poll that was released before the Summit, because people know that he's undermining democracy in Venezuela, that he's supporting, has supported, terrorists next door in Columbia, and that he has tried to rally the hemisphere against the United States. For the President to go down and pretend that those things have never happened is quite confusing to those leaders who have tried to be friends with the United States, to say the least.
John Hockenberry: But what do you say to the argument that by setting Hugo Chavez up and the Castros also by implication in Cuba as something of a great Satan here in the western hemisphere that, in fact, we elevate them, we inflate their status rather than diminish them?
Otto Reich: Well, I don't think anybody is setting them up as any great Satan, that would be equally incorrect. That would be also not understanding the importance of symbolism. In fact, it's interesting that it was Hugo Chavez who called George W. Bush the great devil, the devil in his now famous speech at the United Nations, so we don't have to demonize people to recognize the fact that they, for example, the Castros have executed over 7,000 Cubans, they've exiled 15% of the population, they have promoted revolution, violent revolution all over this hemisphere, to take it seriously. We have to take it seriously.
John Hockenberry: Do you think, taken seriously is one thing but do you support regime change in Cuba or/and Venezuela?
Otto Reich: I support democracy. I don't believe that democracy and freedom should be the sole province of northern, white, blue-eyed, educated people. I think that freedom should be, is in fact, the best system of government for everybody. I think it's incorrect to think that people in Cuba have chosen to live under dictatorship. They haven't had a free election since long before Batista.
John Hockenberry: So you don't support regime change in Venezuela?
Otto Reich: I support democracy and freedom in Venezuela. I think Chavez has undermined democracy, he has censored the press, he has eliminated many, many freedoms in Venezuela. He just exiled yesterday, for example, every day there's something, yesterday the mayor of the 2nd largest city in Venezuela, Maracaibo, had to get on an airplane and flee the country. The freely elected mayor of the 2nd largest city, and fly to Peru to seek political asylum because Chavez was seeking to throw him in jail. This is not the kind of government that we should have the President of the United States shaking hands and slapping on the back and smiling. The President has to be diplomatic, he has to be cordial, but he doesn't have to slap people on the back who are literally extinguishing the flames of freedom in their own country.
John Hockenberry: Finally Ambassador, what would you say is the constructive consequence of the policy of disengagement of the Castros in Cuba during your tenure in government?
Otto Reich: I don't know what you mean by disengagement.
John Hockenberry: What has it accomplished? The embargo and the not dealing with the Castros directly has accomplished since Ronald Reagan?
Otto Reich: First of all, we have diplomatic relations with Cuba, so we do deal with the Castros directly, we have an intersection, a diplomatic intersection in Havana. The Cubans have an intersection in Washington, so we do have diplomatic relations. What we don't have is we don't have Ambassadors, but we conduct diplomatic relations. The embargo is a unilateral action by the United States. The United States is the single largest provider of food to Cuba, I mean a lot of people don't realize this, they think that we have blockaded the Cuban ports or something like that. In fact, that is the language that the Cuban government uses, the blockade, they don't even call it the embargo. The United States shipped $700 million worth of food last year, which is more than the next several countries combined, to Cuba. We are not the reason why the Cuban people are poor and hungry. The reason they are hungry is the communist government of Cuba which has not changed its philosophy or its policies in 50 years.
John Hockenberry: Alright Ambassador, we're going to leave it there. Ambassador Otto Reich, U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela for Ronald Reagan and Special Envoy for George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, he spoke with us from Miami. Thank you, Ambassador.
