U.S. - Latin America relations: still waiting for some words of wisdom.

Wednesday September 8, I attended a meeting on Latin America held in Washington D.C. This was a very high-level meeting which included as speakers the Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, a man who has often served as an important bridge between the Obama administration and the “difficult” regimes south of the border, such as Castro’s Cuba and Chavez’s Venezuela; the Secretary General of the OAS, Jose Manuel Insulza; the president of the Andean Development Corporation, CAF, and promoter of the meeting, Enrique Garcia; the well-informed Michael Shifter, head of the Interamerican Dialogue; Arturo Valenzuela, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State; Gil Kerlikowske, the U.S. Drug Czar; Francisco Sanchez, the Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade. In the audience I saw distinguished former and current ambassadors such as John Maisto, Carolina Barco, Mike Skol, Guillermo Cochez, former presidents such as Carlos Mesa and Martin Torrijos; very distinguished academicians, Think Tank analysts, journalists, businessmen, courageous fighters for democracy from Venezuela (Guillermo Zuloaga) and other countries, embassy and members of U.S. government agencies and international organizations. It was an impressive audience, standing room only. I sincerely believe that CAF deserve kudos for the promotion of these meetings that are now in its XIV year.
However, I think the audience deserved better than it got during the two first sessions. The subject “The evolution of U.S. Policy toward Latin America” opened with a speech by Bill Richardson and a panel that included Valenzuela, Sanchez and Kerlikowske. At the end of the session we did not know much more about the subject.
The speech by Richardson was very pleasant. He has an excellent delivery and voice, he exhibits a sense of humor and his comments were generally positive. He was introduced by Insulza as “a special Ambassador of the OAS”. He started by saying that Latin Americans feel neglected although he does not think so. He emphasized the importance of Canada as a major player in the hemisphere. His speech outlined several main tasks that had to be tackled by the U.S. in relation to Latin America.
(1), The need to address the immigration issue. He considers this to be the main problem facing the U.S. and Latin America. He says that it has to be the object of bipartisan reform, that should emphasize U.S. national security by minimizing illegality and that a solution has to be found for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S.
(2), The U.S.-Cuba relation should be further improved. It is heading into a positive phase, he said. Traveling to Cuba should be made easier and special attention paid to political prisoners. He said he had just made a visit to the island. Did not mention that President Obama has just extended the embargo for one more year.
(3) He called for a new “Alliance for Progress”, the program put in place by John F. Kennedy in the 1960’s. This is an interesting proposal by Richardson considering that this program did not succeed in achieving its fundamental goals mostly due to lack of Latin American leadership. It was a partial success but it demonstrated that the relationship couldn’t be a one-way street, just a flow of money and aid from north to south. I do not believe that Latin American leadership today is any better equipped or more willing to cooperate in such a program than it was in the 1960’s. Military dictatorships then have been replaced with populist, authoritarian lefties regimes that hate the United States. Richardson’s call sounds very much extemporaneous and failed to touch upon the basic weakness of Latin America: the lack of a critical mass of citizens. This is the underlying malady in the region, one that generates most others and one that can be addressed through a well-planned, long-term program.
Unfortunately, this fundamental problem, which is not one of formal education but of insufficient civic quality, receives no attention from governments. This time around we did not hear Richardson or the panelists who followed him mention it.
(4), Trade should be further emphasized. He was positive that the panama and the Colombia FTA’s should be ratified without further delay.
(5) Tackling Energy and environmental problems.
(6) Curbing crime and violence in the hemisphere
(7), Incorporating the Latino community more fully into U.S. political and social life.
He ended his speech by saying that he wished he had as little opposition in New Mexico as Secretary General Insulza had in Latin America, his way to reciprocate for Insulza’s glowing remarks about him.
The panel that followed had created much expectative, given the importance of the topics to be addressed. Carla Hills did an excellent job as a moderator but this is almost as far as it went. The comments on the drug situation by Kerlikowske did not contribute any significant new piece of information. He defined the problem as a shared responsibility and as very complex. He mentioned his trips to Mexico and Colombia and emphasized the importance of prevention and mentioned the advances on treatment. I suppose that there was not much else that could be said. A similar comment can be made on Sanchez’s remarks. Clearly he is committed to his task and comes across as a very dedicated officer. He made the point that the U.S., contrary to perceptions, is very actively engaged in Latin America for good reasons, since trade within the hemisphere represents 42 percent of its total trade. He said that the Panama and the Colombia FTA’s would be signed but gave no timetable. “The economic well-being of Latin America is vital to us”, he affirmed.
Most disappointing of all was the participation of Assistant secretary of State Valenzuela, both for the things he said and for the things he did not say. His presentation was well organized. As I understood them he listed five main objectives of U.S. policy toward Latin America:
(1), Economic development and Social security;
(2), helping to minimize crime, violence and drug trafficking
(3), Developing alternative energy sources and tackling climate change
(4), Upgrading of institutions
(5) The support of integration efforts
He said that Latin America had made “excellent progress” in reaching the Millennium objectives of the U.N. that is quite arguable and that Latin America needed to move beyond the simple export of raw materials, easier said than done. He said that the U.S. had to intensify engagement with Cuba and that they were very pleased with the “decrease” of tensions between Colombia and Venezuela. In answer to a request from the audience to comment on the dismal political and economic Venezuelan situation under Chavez’s dictatorship, he said that the U.S. government had made their concern known in several occasions and repeated that they were pleased with the improvement of tensions between Venezuela and Colombia.
Again, it would be unreasonable to expect more candid statements from a high-level U.S. government officer and, yet, the audience seemed to be longing for a clear sign that the U.S. is meeting the Chavez-Ortega-Morales-Kirchner-Correa political circus with the degree of commitment to ideals that is the stuff official rhetoric is made of. The truth is that both the U.S and the OAS have made a policy out of having no policy and a posture out of having no posture toward the obscene show put up in the hemisphere by ALBA and its FARC subsidiary. It could be argued, rather successfully, that this no-policy policy is actually working well, since Chavez seems to be getting closer to an implosion, due to his numerous errors and ineptitude in both domestic and foreign matters and to the fact that his mentor Castro seems to be pulling the ideological rug from under his boots.
As the loyal baseball fans say in Chicago and Baltimore and Washington when addressing their continued frustration with the Cubs, the Orioles and the Nationals:
WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR!