CORNWELL@IUBACS.BITNET (Dor-E-N-E Cornwell) (02/21/90)
I'm shamelessly reposting this from CHILE-L to see if disarm-l
types beside me have strong reactions to it. Flames to follow...
Dorene Cornwell
Reut 02/19 0043 U.S. EXPERTS SEE GLOOMY FUTURE FOR LATIN AMERICA
By Bernd Debusmann
WASHINGTON, FEB 19, Reuter - Latin America is sliding into a new Dark Age.
The region's prospects have never been so dismal. Its Decade of Democracy has
been a decade of disillusion.
"Much of Latin America seems headed toward the failure of democracy and a
plunge into a new Dark Age," said David Ronfeldt, a political scientist at the
Rand Corporation, a California think tank.
"Its hallmarks will be...Violence and chaos under a new generation of
dictators."
After years of cautious optimism, U.S. Experts on Latin America are
predicting a bleak future for the region despite democratic advances in the
1980s which saw one military dictatorship after another replaced by elected
governments.
"As a long-time student of Latin America, I have never seen the prospects
so
dismal," said Howard Wiarda, a political science professor at the University of
Massachusetts.
"Both the future of Latin America and of U.S. Relations with the hemisphere
look very clouded."
Washington views Latin America as a "black hole" for U.S. Aid programmes
and
has all but given up on the region, he added.
"The sense is strong among high officials that Latin America has become
like
sub-Saharan Africa -- a hopeless region that...Is very low on our priorities
and
that has no intrinsic worth or value," Wiarda added.
One of the chief reasons for the pessimism is the failure of democratic
governments to repair their countries' troubled economies and fulfil the hopes
raised by free elections. "The 'Decade of Democracy' has been a decade of
disillusion," according to Douglas Payne, director of Hemispheric Studies at
Freedom House in New York. "The triumph of the ballot box has yet to bring
relief from sharply falling living standards."
In the experts' view, the problems of most Latin American countries --
excluding Mexico and a few others -- will be aggravated as the United States
and
the Soviet Union disengage from the region politically and economically.
With superpower interest and aid focused on East European economies, aid to
Latin America will dry up, compounding the region's difficulties.
"If the industrialised world turns away, Latin America is going to
deteriorate and there will be a throwback to the brutality of the past," said
Larry Birns, director of the liberal Council on Hemispheric Affairs in
Washington.
"Latin American democracy is broad, but not deep, and the military are
waiting in the wings. In many countries people are beginning to look at the
military past with nostalgia," Birns said.
The security concerns which governed U.S. Policy in Latin America in the
past no longer apply and, therefore, Washington could leave the region to its
own devices, said Mark Falcoff of the conservative American Enterprise
Institute.
"It is implicit in the day-to-day conduct of U.S. Policy that the two
halves
of the (Western) Hemisphere have split and are drifting apart," he added.
Diminished security concerns would result in the United States returning to
a policy of "benign neglect" of Latin America, said Susan Kaufman Purcell of
the
Americas Society in New York. One of the problems in U.S.-Latin relations, now
and in the future, is that "the American public associates Latin America with
negative things -- drugs, refugees, environmental destruction," she added.
Peter Hakim, a political moderate and director of the Inter-American
Dialogue organisation, disagrees with the gloom-and-doom scenario of his more
conservative colleagues but agrees that much of Latin America is heading for
troubled times.
Hakim cited Argentina as a prime example of a country where succesive
governments have been unable to implement coherent economic reforms and said
the
administration of President Carlos Menem was rapidly losing credibility.
"Some countries will do well," he said, "but others won't. Those likely to
do well are Mexico, Chile, Uruguay and Costa Rica."
Those for whom U.S. Experts see the least hope include Peru, Colombia,
Argentina and El Salvador.
The superpowers' disengagement from Latin America could result in more
bloodshed since in the past they tended to exercise at least a measure of
restraint on the region's armed extremists, Rand's Ronfeldt said.
"With the United States and the USSR out of the picture, ideology would
decline while racism, regionalism and religion would increase as motives for
violence," he said in a report.
"Hence, not only would terrorism against individuals increase but also the
massacre of groups and communities would become a more viable and desirable
option for some extremists. Large-scale migrations and refugee flows would
ensue."
It is difficult to assess to what extent such predictions influence foreign
companies that could invest in the region and thereby improve its economic
conditions.
Direct U.S. Investment in Latin America has declined steadily over the past
two decades, from around 20 pct in the early 1960s to about 12 pct now.
Wiarda foresees a continued exodus of U.S. Firms to areas "that give them
more profit and less grief."
REUTER