May 29, 2008
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PRESS RELEASE

TEN YEARS OF VENEZUELAN FOREIGN POLICY: Impacts on the Hemisphere and the World

May 29, 2008 │FIU University Park Campus, Graham Center Ballrooms

Tel: (305) 348-2894
Email: armstrom@fiu.edu and summit@fiu.edu
Release Date: March 14, 2008

The Summit of the Americas Center (SOAC) is organizing a major conference on Venezuela for May 29, 2008. This is the ninth in SOAC’s State of Democracy in the Americas Conference Series. The conference seeks to provide an open public forum where the real impacts of Venezuela’s unorthodox and aggressive global projection are discussed and evaluated by an array of world class experts.

European, Latin American and US experts will review Venezuelan foreign policy nearly ten years into the Chavez era, at a point where the many assertive and anti-globalization lines of “Bolivarian diplomacy” may fairly be counted as successes or failures.  Jorge Castañeda, former Mexican Foreign Minister, will give the keynote.

Regardless of one’s views on its contents and methods, the phenomenon of a Latin American country mounting a high profile and well-financed effort to influence and direct regional and international political development and public opinion is certainly unprecedented in recent times, and has caused significant shifts in regional and international political dynamics.

The conference is open to faculty, students and public and is expected to attract the business and diplomatic community. The conference panels will include discussions on country-specific (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico) and region-specific relations (East Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Middle East, North America), and special topics (preferential petroleum pacts, regional security and unusual associates-Iran, Belarus, et al.).
The conference will also look at the real influence of significant Venezuelan financial support to several countries and its effects, real or psychological, in the ongoing push-back against the International Financial Investment’s support. Related topics to be discussed will be the progress and obstacles to the Banco del Sur, the Argentine bond buys, the instigation and agitation for withdrawals from the International Centre for Settlements of Investment Disputes, and other financial and economics related examples of Bolivarian “outreach.”