Cables about leaders cause ripples across Latin America

MEXICO CITY - Does Haitian President Rene Preval drink too much? Did a former Argentine chief of staff come to blows with a former president? Is Venezuela's government anti-Semitic?

The U.S. diplomatic cables on Latin America released by the WikiLeaks website raise a number of such questions and have caused a stir across the region.

One confidential cable from the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince in June 2009 offered a penetrating profile of Preval, calling him "Haiti's indispensable man," but describing him as a complex figure who is a "chameleon-like character."

The cable, signed by then-Ambassador Janet Sanderson, explored the reasons for Preval's "occasionally erratic behavior over the past year."

"Preval has increased his alcoholic consumption and often attends a Petionville night club with friends, but during our social interaction, I have never seen him drink to excess. Nonetheless, reports of heavy drinking are circulating widely," the cable said.

Nowhere in the hemisphere has the effect of the leaked U.S. cables been greater than Argentina, a nation that, according to one September 2009 cable, has a "rumor-plagued, conspiratorial society" and, according to others, is awash in drug money.

Marcelo Canton, an editor at Clarin, Argentina's largest newspaper, said in a video Thursday on Clarin's website: "We don't like to see ourselves in a mirror, and in this case, it is how we are seen abroad, how a foreign diplomat talks about the Argentina situation."

One cable described a Nov. 12, 2009, dinner, hosted by a businessman, with former presidential chief of staff Sergio Massa and his wife.

At the dinner, the cable said, Massa "made light" of press reports that he and the late former President Nestor Kirchner once "came to blows," but he went on to describe Kirchner as "a psychopath," "a monster" and "a coward," drawing expressions of concern from his own spouse.

Venezuela's populist leader, Hugo Chavez, on Monday hailed WikiLeaks for its "courage and valor" in publicizing the cables and called on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to step down.

Several of the cables mention Chavez in unflattering ways. One, from November 2009, noted that Jewish leaders in Caracas had voiced growing concern to U.S. diplomats about Chavez's ties to Iran and fretted that the Venezuelan leader had "merged his anti-Zionist views with anti-Semitic ones," a charge that Chavez has dismissed.