Simón Bolívar's dream of a unified Latin American republic died hacking and wheezing in Colombia in 1830. Che Guevara's vision of a Latin American revolution took a bullet in the jungles of Bolivia in 1967. Tonight's attempt by MTV to rally the region around a music video awards show -- the first MTV Video Music Awards Latin America (VMALA) -- might appear a less lofty aspiration. But that doesn't make it any easier for the network to get kids from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego to turn on and tune in. What's hot in Managua is not in Santiago. That smash hit in Buenos Aires just won't play in Monterrey. How can a single show come off cool and connected to 22 different Latin American countries -- especially when the show is broadcast live from Miami Beach?Nevertheless, this pop-culture Bolívarian campaign is being plotted from a sixth-floor conference room at the MTV offices in the Sun Trust Bank Building at the corner of Alton and Lincoln roads. A replica of the astronaut who planted the MTV flag on the moon in early promos for the U.S. network looks down on a meeting of 40 tattooed twentysomethings and a handful of MTV veterans over 35 as they report on their progress sixteen days before... More >>>