MEDIA REACTION: WESTERN HEMISPHERE, VENEZUELA, CHAVEZ; SAO

UNCLAS SAO PAULO 000935 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE INR/R/MR; IIP/R/MR; WHA/PD DEPT PASS USTR USDOC 4322/MAC/OLAC/JAFEE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP ETRD BR SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: WESTERN HEMISPHERE, VENEZUELA, CHAVEZ; SAO PAULO "A Risk For Mercosul" The leading editorial in center-right national circulation daily O Estado de S. Paulo (11/21) maintained: "Venezuela's Mercosul membership does not interest Brazil at the present moment. There is no economic or diplomatic justification to receive in the bloc the nation led by President Hugo Chvez.... There are more than sufficient reasons to refuse, under today's circumstances, Venezuela's claim to participate in the bloc. If, agreeing with President Lula's pressures, the [Brazilian] Congress approves Venezuela's admittance, it will be complicit in another serious foreign policy mistake.... Chvez has already declared that he wants to enter Mercosul to change it. He has not explained what these changes will be, and President Lula does not seem concerned with that.... What kind of association accepts on its board a partner who announces his intention to transform it according to his personal plans?.... It is irresponsible to evaluate Venezuela's Mercosul membership without considering its current president's projection of power and the possibility of a new regime being installed in that nation soon. It is not a matter of interfering in a neighboring nation's policy. It is a matter of prudently avoiding a Mercosul that accepts as a partner a nation that may soon be submitting itself to a strongly armed new regime capable of threatening regional stability." White