CLAS invites Latino leaders
Joanna Wohlmuth
Issue date: 2/4/08 Section: Campus News
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Kendra Fehrer GS and former Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75, a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, went to South America to personally invite Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to a Feb. 12-13 conference held by the Center for Latin American Studies. Ideally, Fehrer said, they would have also met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but arranging that meeting was "more complicated" because of the political situation in Venezuela.
The conference, "Changes in the Andes: Realities, Challenges, and Opportunities for Inter-American Relations," will focus on the democratic transformations taking place in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.
The meeting with Correa never occurred because of evacuations caused by eruptions of Tungurahua - a volcano in central Ecuador - but the pair met with the Foreign Minister of Ecuador instead. They did meet with Morales and other important political figures from Bolivia, Ecuador and the Andean region.
"There was a sense of really having a meaningful and significant encounter with the political process in each nation," Fehrer said. "I think involving Brown in that is fantastic for the University because it puts it on the cutting edge."
Fehrer, who had studied and worked in several Latin American countries before coming to Brown, became involved with the conference through a chance meeting with Associate Professor of History James Green, who is the director of the CLAS. Green approached Fehrer after she expressed interest in Venezuela at a panel event. He then asked if she wanted to organize the conference, Fehrer said.
Though none of the three presidents will be able to attend the conference, Morales is expected to visit Brown at the end of February and Correa is expected to make a trip in the next six months, Fehrer said.
"People don't understand how big a deal this is," Green said. "Brown doesn't get a lot of heads of state; we get former heads of state."
Green said Morales is an important symbol in Latin America because he is the first fully indigenous head of state in Bolivia, whose population is approximately 60 percent indigenous almost 500 years after Spanish colonization.