http://www.latimes.com/wires/winternat/20010414/tCB00V2995.html Americas' Summit Could Be Crucial Associated Press Writer MEXICO CITY--Not too long ago, Latin America was awash in military juntas, closed economies and shantytown slums. People lived in fear of government death squads and guerrillas, and argued about who had the right idea: Fidel Castro or Ronald Reagan. The leaders gathering in Quebec City for next weekend's Summit of the Americas come from a new generation that has tamed its generals, embraced free-market economics and eschewed most ideological debate in favor of the almighty dollar. These rulers were elected democratically, after military dictators voluntarily handed over power to the voters, sometimes after long and bloody struggles. From Mexico, with its recent change of presidents, through Argentina and Brazil, to the Cold War battlefields of Nicaragua, elections have become almost routine, and cliches like "banana republic" and "Yankee go home" have become anachronisms. The April 20/22 summit, to which 34 leaders are invited, could prove historic if it adopts a plan being pushed by President Bush to expand free trade to the point where two whole continents with their 700 million people become a barrier-free region stretching from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego. Success has become all the more urgent, because across Latin America, a perception has set in that the prosperity that was supposed to trickle down from free trade hasn't materialized. Now, with an economic downturn looming in the United States, some fear Latin America is headed back to the 1980s, known here as "the Lost Decade" because of the economic stagnation and inflation that in some countries reached thousands of percentage points a year. Kidnappings and muggings have raised crime to epidemic proportions and the civilian democracies have been largely unable to offer people the personal security that their military predecessors achieved by force and repression. In some countries, voters have recently elected leaders similar in style and background to the military rulers they booted out -sometimes even the very same leaders. And throughout the region columnists are openly questioning whether Latin American countries need a stronger hand to guide them through troubled times. "If democracy doesn't reduce the economic disparities very soon, there could be a nostalgia for dictatorships," Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes told The Associated Press. "If there is no social improvement, democratic institutions will show themselves to be very weak." Already, there are signs of such challenges. Peruvians swept Alberto Fujimori into power in 1990 elections as a protest against the democratic governments that had failed to better living conditions. Within two years Fujimori engineered a "self-coup," sending troops to shut down Congress and the courts and engineering a new constitution to give himself a second term. Voters loved it, and overwhelmingly re-elected him in 1995. "If you want, you can call it a civilian dictatorship, but it was a dictatorship," Peruvian author Oscar Ugarteche said of Fujimori's rule. "The fact that the man was a civilian with military backing -a military mafia -does not mean it was less of a dictatorship." A corruption scandal eventually brought Fujimori down last fall and sent him into exile in Japan. Now Peruvians are in the midst of restoring their democracy by electing a new president. In Venezuela, voters elected a man even more entwined in the military regimes of the past: Lt. Col. Hugo Chavez, who led a failed 1992 coup. Since taking power, Chavez has purged corrupt judges, dismantled Congress and rewritten the constitution to extend his term and enable him to run for re-election. Venezuelans -especially poor Venezuelans, who lost faith in their leaders during a 40 -year two-party democracy -love him for it. Others believe the former paratrooper is dismantling democracy and establishing authoritarian rule. "Venezuelans elected Chavez, I'm sorry to say, because they wanted a dictator," said Manuel Caballero, a leading Venezuelan historian. "It's the old Latin American myth that only soldiers can impose order." Bolivians elected a soldier in 1997: former Gen. Hugo Banzer, their dictator from 1971 until 1978. Like Fujimori and Chavez, he has governed on a populist platform ever since. And in Guatemala, President Alfonso Portillo is a close ally of former dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, the elected president of congress. The party both men belong to is trying to revise the constitution so Rios Montt himself can run for president. The supreme court has ordered Rios Montt to step down as a legislator in a corruption scandal, but with the full support of his democratically elected protege, he has refused, threatening to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis. Could it happen elsewhere? In the last five years, Ecuador has seen two military-backed coups and Paraguay has seen three attempts. Haiti's questionable elections and strongman politics have thrown its democracy into crisis. Argentina's political system is in turmoil because of a 33 -month recession. Fidel Castro -the only hemispheric leader not invited to the summit -continues to rule Cuba without legitimate elections. And Colombia's guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and powerful drug smugglers are posing a growing challenge to its decades-old democracy. "I don't predict it's very probable we'll see military coups in the classic style" in Latin America, said Farid Kahhat, a Peruvian scholar at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, a Mexico City think tank. "What could happen is that people who are democratically elected exercise their power in an undemocratic manner." But Latin Americans also have much to be proud of. In Chile, democracy has not only taken root after the bloody years of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, but Pinochet himself is under indictment on charges he covered up political killings during his regime. Mexico for 71 years was under nominally democratic, single-party rule that critics described as "the perfect dictatorship." Then an opposition man named Vicente Fox won the presidential election, setting off hopes for a new, truly democratic Mexico. Fox has been adamant about maintaining a separation with the judiciary and legislative branches -which previous presidents had bossed around -and is pushing several democratic reforms. Brazil, Latin America's largest nation, emerged from dictatorship in 1985, and aside from the impeachment of a president in 1992 on corruption charges, there have been few challenges to its vibrant democracy. Peruvians may have had a rough ride under Fujimori, but they got rid of him without bloodshed. Daniel Ortega, whose leftist revolution wielded power in Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, is trying to make a comeback, but it would have to be through an upset at the ballot box in November elections. But in none of these countries has democracy done much to narrow the social divide, and the violence, crime and drug abuse that come with it. The determining factor in Latin America's political future is widely thought to be the economy. If democratic governments can't deliver growth, their legitimacy will be endangered and dictators -or at least populist strongmen -will claim justification for moving back in. Many Latin American countries draw hope from Bush's vision of expanding NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement of the United States, Canada and Mexico, into something much more ambitious -a Free-Trade Area of the Americas. "The sooner we can get a free-trade agreement in the hemisphere the better," Bush said recently. "As to whether or not it's 2003 or 2005, we'll just have to see if we can't convince our friends in South America of the wisdom of doing it as soon as possible." For Bush to promote the pact effectively, he will need special negotiating power from Congress -and may need to make concessions to Latin American countries, like Brazil, which are reluctant to widen their markets to the United States. "The success or failure of the Summit of the Americas will be determined by the concessions the United States is willing to make to its neighbors," said Roberto Ampuero, a Chilean radical who is now a best-selling novelist. But opposition is strong not only in the United States, where unions are still enraged over NAFTA, but also within Latin America itself. Leftists still have bitter memories of U.S. support for dictators like Pinochet, and many see the expansion of free trade as a new form of imperialism that will bring more poverty and a threat of subjugation as serious as that posed by the strongmen-in-waiting. "It's just the same, just that today, instead of troops, the invasion is by capital," said Brazilian theologian Frei Betto. "Wealth is privatized, poverty is globalized." - - -
