Subject: Latin American Affairs Agenda
Dear Colleagues:
Attached is a draft copy of the Latin America and Caribbean component of a
Global Affairs Agenda being prepared by the Foreign Policy In Focus
project. An overriding goal of the Foreign Policy In Focus project is to
forge a new global affairs agenda for the U.S. government and the U.S.
people-one that makes the U.S. a more responsible global leader and global
partner. Over the coming months, we will gradually compile and send out
other sections of this agenda for comments. Many of you have already
participated in the project as authors or readers of our In Focus policy
briefs. We now invite you to comment on this draft Latin America Affairs
Agenda.
The principles, analysis, and recommendations contained in this agenda
will represent the synthesis of the essays we have assigned, the
recommendations of the Foreign Policy In Focus briefs, internal
discussions, the presentations at our forums, and comments by the network
of analysts and organizations that have contributed to the more than 130
policy briefs and reports distributed by this project. In addition, we plan
to integrate (with appropriate credit) elements of the reform agendas of
other organizations that focus on U.S. policy in different regions and on
specific issues.
Like the Foreign Policy In Focus project itself, the effort to formulate
and popularize a new global affairs agenda strives to be inclusive and to
build on the excellent work of organizations and experts throughout the
world. Once comments are integrated, the entire global affairs agenda will
be circulated for endorsements as part of an effort to push forward a more
responsible foreign policy with electoral candidates and with the next
administration.
For more information about the process of constructing and promoting the
agenda, please visit the Global Affairs section of the FPIF website:
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org
We solicit your comments, suggestions, and critiques on the accompanying
draft.
Hopefully we will have a robust discussion on the listserve but comments
are also welcome via mail, fax, or direct email (by April 15) at:
Email: irc_tom@zianet.com
Fax: 505-388-0619
Mail: P.O. Box 2178
Silver City, NM 88062-2178
Sincerely,
Tom Barry and Martha Honey
Codirectors, Foreign Policy In Focus Project
Erik Leaver
Communications Director, Foreign Policy In Focus Project
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Global Affairs Agenda: Latin America and the Caribbean
(First Draft, February 22, 1999)
Policy Overview
* Acknowledge that the agenda of "enlargement and engagement" has not worked. Open economies have shown themselves to be unstable, and democracies throughout the region are threatened by nonparticipation and the rise of authoritarianism, as millions have failed to benefit from economic growth or democratic transitions.
* Adopt a cohesive agenda that focuses on promoting durable democracy, peace, and sustainable development instead of focusing on policies like drug control that are driven by domestic political considerations or ones like NAFTA-modeled economic integration that are driven by economic elites.
Political
* Using all diplomatic channels, U.S. officials should speak out more forthrightly against all transgressions against existing democratic systems in Latin America and the Caribbean,
* The president should order broad declassification of documents relating to U.S. collaboration with security forces and regimes involved in patterns of human rights abuses or engaged in undermining democratic transitions, and he should order new investigations into U.S. operations as needed.
* Congress should immediately pass legislation, such as the Human Rights Information Act, that would declassify documents about human rights violations in Guatemala and Honduras and establish a process for the release of other human rights information.
* Continue to play a leading role in supporting multilateral mediation efforts to resolve disputes between nations, such as the critical role it played in brokering the settlement of the border conflict between Peru and Ecuador.
* Support efforts to bring General Augusto Pinochet to justice by privately and publicly supporting extradition requests, releasing all documents regarding the crimes of the Pinochet regime, including those that may implicate the U.S., and demanding Pinochet's extradition to the U.S. to stand trial for murders committed by Pinochet's agents on U.S. soil or against U.S. citizens in Chile.
Cuba
* End the big-stick policy toward Cuba, which is driven by domestic electoral concerns (mainly in Florida and New Jersey).
* Half-measures to reestablish ties with Cuba, like those announced in January 1999 by the Clinton administration, are insufficient. It's time to end the embargo against Cuba and to begin a mutual search for new terms of U.S.-Cuba engagement in such areas as trade, aid, investment, and cultural exchanges.
* End all efforts to internationalize the Cuba embargo by threatening other countries and non-U.S. companies with sanctions if they trade in or invest in Cuba.
Drug Control
* End the annual certification/decertification evaluation of the cooperation by other countries in U.S. drug control programs. This unilateral, scorecard approach by the world's largest consumer of illicit drugs angers Latin Americans across the political spectrum, strains bilateral relations, and undermines cooperation and other U.S. objectives in Latin America.
* Recognize that current drug control programs do more harm than good. Not only have these programs failed to stop the flow of drugs into the U.S., but they have also contributed to a rise in human rights abuses and have strengthened the military and police at the expense of civilian institutions.
* Cease financial and political support for Latin American military involvement in drug control operations, given the problems and risks associated with Washington's militarization of its antinarcotics programs.
* If Congress continues to fund drug control programs by the State and Defense departments, it should institute adequate safety mechanisms to ensure that counternarcotics aid is not used for counterinsurgency and does not go to human rights abusers.
* Shift resources away from coca eradication and toward alternative development programs for the Andean nations, recognizing that poor farmers will continue to grow coca as long as there are no viable alternatives.
* Rehabilitate U.S. drug control policy in the following ways:
- Drug policy must be linked to economic alternatives, both at home and abroad.
- Drug addiction must be viewed largely as a medical problem; emphasis should be on harm reduction--educating people about the dangers of using addictive drugs and medically treating those who are addicted.
- People should not be sent to prison for nonviolent drug use or for growing drug-related plants for the traditional market (such as coca growers); those arrested should be wholesalers and money launderers.
- The U.S. needs to draw on successful models from other countries (Holland, etc.) and from our own past (experiments under the Kennedy and Nixon administrations).
- Before adopting new drug control programs, the U.S. needs to review its own history of drug policy to understand the political and economic motivations that shaped successive drug control laws and how they have played on racial and ethnic hatreds and fears.
Security Forces
* Recognize that military solutions to internal conflicts are ineffective when political systems such as those in Mexico, Peru, and Colombia do not allow for meaningful participation by dissident groups and the rural poor.
* Reimpose the moratorium on the sale of advanced military equipment, such as jet fighters, to Latin American governments.
* Establish new restrictions on all U.S. arms sales to the region, halting efforts to boost U.S. exports by increasing arms sales. (The U.S. supplied three times as many weapons to the region as any other arms exporter.)
* Close the School of the Americas. This symbol of U.S. affiliation with abusive militaries is so tarnished that no amount of adjustment to its curriculum and operations could salvage its image. Closing the School of the Americas would send a clear message to everyone in the region--military and civilian--that fostering democratization and demilitarization are at the top of Washington's regional agenda.
* The administration should provide Congress with a unified annual report that contains information about all training activities involving Latin American police and military--whether for counternarcotics or other purposes and regardless of what laws authorize them or the agencies that administer them. Such a report would greatly enhance the ability of Congress to exercise its oversight function and to ensure that these programs do not undermine such stated objectives as promoting democracy, respect for human rights, and respect for the rule of law.
* Promote regional demilitarization by doing the following:
- Propose a regional convention calling for numerical and technological limits on military hardware and modeled on the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. The goal would be to build security within the region by limiting offensive capabilities.
- Foster additional discussions on confidence- and security-building measures (CSBM), which would require a defensive positioning of military forces and the creation of crisis management teams to aid in the peaceful resolution of disputes.
- Encourage nations to consider adopting the demilitarization proposals promoted by former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, which would convert existing military institutions into police agencies controlled by civilians.
* Any U.S. military training should focus on peacekeeping, should bolster military respect for civilian control, and should provide inexperienced civilian authorities with the expertise necessary to exert that control. Congress should stipulate that no military training be used to initiate new operations-- such as infrastructure construction, drug control, and crime control--that give Latin American armies new missions and additional power.
* Close all military bases in the Caribbean and Latin America and implement an overseas cleanup policy that eliminates double standards and is consistent with domestic cleanup requirements.
* End aid and training for police forces and judiciaries implicated in human rights abuses.
Economic
* Allow countries to determine their own development paths, ending bilateral programs that condition trade and aid on the implementation of certain economic policy reforms. Although officially promoting democracy strengthening, the U.S. sends Latin American countries the conflicting message that they must adopt reforms advocated by the international financial institutions and the U.S. Treasury Department without first subjecting these proposed reforms to public debate.
* Increase development aid, which has dropped dramatically since the mid-1980s, for programs that address impoverishment.
* End the push for a hemispheric free trade alliance (Free Trade Area of the Americas) by year 2005 in recognition that successful economic integration requires better mechanisms to protect vulnerable sectors, ensure national food security, and incorporate environmental and labor standards.
* U.S. trade and investment policy--which should promote regional prosperity, not just increased trade and investment--must consider the great disparities of wealth and economic development that exist between the U.S. and most of its hemispheric neighbors. This means accepting the lack of competitiveness exhibited by many economic sectors, particularly basic grains production, and granting Latin American and Caribbean nations preferential access to U.S. markets (by way of nonreciprocal tariff rates, for example) as well as the right to impose performance requirements (obligating industries to purchase a certain percentage of their inputs from domestic sources, for example) on foreign investment so as to foster local economic development.
* Address the dramatic rise in crime throughout the region not by strengthening security forces but by supporting programs that create jobs, alleviate poverty, and broadly distribute the benefits of economic growth.
* Washington should assume a leadership role in reducing the crippling debt affecting many countries in the region by forgiving the bilateral debt owed by the poorest nations and by insisting that the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) agree on substantial debt reduction for countries whose debt payments keep their population impoverished.
* U.S. representatives to the international financial institutions should thoroughly review all structural adjustment and sectoral loans to ensure that these loans stimulate broad-based economic reactivation. Loan conditions should not increase high levels of unemployment, harm poor people, restrict credit to small farmers, or encourage export production at the expense of the environment or the development of the domestic market.
* The U.S. Treasury should continue to be concerned about liquidity crises in the region, most recently in Brazil, but it should acknowledge the failures and shortcomings of the economic reform policies it has advocated. These policies have benefited foreign and domestic holders of short-term investments and have had a devastating impact on the unemployed, on workers, and on small businesses. Instead, the U.S. should support initiatives that impose controls on short-term investment. In addressing issues of financial and economic stability in Latin America, Washington should shift the focus of its reform agenda from targeting national policies and practices to addressing the destabilizing impact of the global system of unregulated capital flows, of which it has been the main architect.
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Erik Leaver
Communications Director
Interhemispheric Resource Center
Box 4506
Albuquerque, NM 87196
Voice: 505-842-8288
Fax: 505-246-1601
Email: leaver@swcp.com
Web: http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org
http://www.zianet.com/irc1
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