Take That, Gringos.(public opinion on United States from Latin America)(Brief Article)

The smoke was still thick over lower Manhattan when Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso started working the telephone. Like millions of Latin Americans, Cardoso had watched America's morning of infamy in horror, and was convinced that only the broadest alliance could hope to restore world security. So he dusted off a half-century-old document-- the InterAmerican Reciprocal Assistance Treaty--and in a matter of hours had every Latin American leader lined up squarely behind the U.S. war on terrorism.

Winning Latin American hearts and minds, however, may prove to be much more difficult. Resentment of the United States is nothing new among developing countries. Within hours, in many parts of the world, the attack on America drew quite a different reaction than Cardoso's--a quiet satisfaction that the world's superpower had been taken down a notch. Latin Americans are no longer natural Yankee-bashers. But a lump of resentment at all things gringo can still rise, and Sept. 11 seems to have brought it to the surface. "I'm not against the American people," says Kiko Netto, a 19-year-old psychology major at Rio's Federal Fluminense University. "But the United States got what it deserved. You reap what you sow."

True, many Latin Americans were devastated by Black Tuesday, which claimed the lives of dozens of compatriots. Mourners donned white and marched for peace from Santiago to San Salvador, while scores of U.S. expatriates reported how friends and neighbors reached out to them in sympathy. Even the Colombian guerrillas weighed in with condolences.

But mere days after the attack, a different set of sentiments was roiling the radio waves, the op-ed pages and the buzz at corner bars across the region. "F--- the USA," and "Two towers are not enough" were just a couple of the e-mails sizzling through cyberspace. One English professor in So Paulo state was startled to hear her students tell her they were having second thoughts about studying "the language of imperialism." At a peace rally among Jewish, Arab and Christian merchants in downtown Rio de Janeiro, protest banners called for remembering more than the victims of the terrorist attacks. 150,000 DEAD IN HIROSHIMA. WHO DID IT? asked one banner. A MINUTE OF SILENCE FOR THE AMERICA'S DEAD. 59 MINUTES FOR THE VICTIMS OF AMERICAN POLICY, read another.

Intellectuals argued that the tragedy should, in fact, reduce U.S. swagger. ...