Latin America stable compared to other regions

By

Posted 9:51AM on Wednesday, March 20, 2002

WASHINGTON - In some ways, Latin America has been more successful than other regions. It is virtually all democratic, there are no significant cross-border or ethnic conflicts, and nobody is trying to build missiles or weapons of mass destruction. Compare all this with, say, the Middle East, and Latin America looks like it's on a roll. As President Bush heads for Latin America on Thursday, however, many think the region's roll is more backward than forward. Latin Americans have been fleeing their homelands in recent years by the hundreds of thousands. Income inequality, a chronic problem, appears to be worsening. The region's third and fourth largest countries - Colombia and Argentina - are in the midst of profound crises. In Venezuela, political polarization is deepening. Corruption is universally admitted to be widespread, institutions are weak and faith in democracy is faltering. Economies were stagnant for the most part last year, and only marginal improvements, at best, are expected this year. This will be Bush's first foray into the region since a brief stop in Mexico a month after he took office. Bush will make a return trip to Mexico on Thursday, traveling to Monterrey for talks with President Vicente Fox and to attend a global development conference. He is expected to reaffirm his commitment to the creation of a hemispheric free trade zone by 2005. He also will publicize a sharp foreign aid increase he recently proposed. Bush will travel to Peru on Saturday and to El Salvador on Sunday. At both stops, leaders from neighboring countries will be on hand for meetings. Bush's previous comments on Latin America were noted for soaring rhetoric and for focusing more on opportunities rather than problems. Attending a hemispheric summit in Canada in April 2001, he outlined his dream of making this ``The Century of the Americas.'' He said: ``We have a great vision before us: a fully democratic hemisphere, bound together by good will and free trade. That is a tall order. It is also the chance of a lifetime.'' In the past, culprits for an underperforming Latin America were easy to find: internal strife and dictatorships that cared little for the well-being of their populations. Today's culprits are less obvious. Most of the countries have been embracing economic changes advocated by the United States and the International Monetary Fund. Yet these economic overhauls have had little positive impact. Mark Falcoff, a Latin America expert at the American Enterprise Institute, says it is a mistake to blame the reforms. He says the crisis of the state persists in much of the region, pointing to underfinanced primary and secondary education, corrupt privatization transactions and a continued lack of independent judiciary systems. Public works, education, health and police agencies have been ``top-heavy with bureaucrats, which drastically shortchanged services at the end of the line.'' He suggests the United States and the West have put too much emphasis on the need for fiscal discipline and not enough on good governance. Michael Shifter, who watches Latin America at the Inter-American Dialogue, says that in many Latin American countries, ``There is rage and frustration at the inability of the political class to solve problems.'' Surveys show that support for democracy is ebbing throughout the region. The Chilean public opinion firm Latinobarometro found last year that pro-democracy sentiment dropped in every country in the region except Mexico between 2000 and 2001. In Mexico, the increase was one point, perhaps reflecting the afterglow of an opposition victory in presidential elections for the first time in 70 years. Still, the reluctance to subvert democratic processes in the region remains strong. There has not been a military coup in a Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking country in the hemisphere since the generals seized power in Argentina in 1976.