Iran, democracy are priorities in Lat Am: US nominee

AFP, Washington, 8 Nov 2011 – Roberta Jacobson, the US official nominated to be the top US diplomat for Latin America, told members of Congress Tuesday that if ratified she would focus on democracy and Iran’s influence in the region.
‘I will speak out clearly and without hesitation when fundamental democratic principles are threatened,’ Jacobson told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which must ratify her nomination.
Jacobson, who is temporarily occupying the post, mentioned the ‘great concern’ US officials have over Sunday’s elections in Nicaragua, where leftist President Daniel Ortega was swept into office for a third term in a vote observers complained was marred by irregularities.
Jacobson also said that Washington reminded Venezuela to follow an Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling to re-instate the political rights of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez.
The regime of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has banned Lopez, a presidential hopeful in next year’s election, from holding any government job through 2014.
Jacobson said that US officials try to work ‘with groups in a nonpartisan way on ensuring that the processes are fair.’
Washington also takes ‘very seriously’ Iran’s growing influence in the hemisphere — ‘so seriously that we have taken action in a number of cases where Iranian action with countries in this hemisphere has violated either US sanctions or international sanctions.’
Earlier in the year ‘we took action against PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil company, for trade with Iran that fell under our sanctions,’ she said.
Since the sanctions were imposed ‘we have not seen a repeat of that activity,’ Jacobson said.