Volume 1 Number 2, Winter 1989

Hemisphere Volume 1 Article 1 Issue 2 Winter 1989

1-1-1989 Volume 1 Number 2, Winter 1989

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Hemisphere

A MAGAZINE OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN AFFAIRS

Winter 1989 Volume One - Number Two Five Dollars

EDITORIAL STAFF LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Editor: Anthony P. Maingot Deputy Editor: Richard Tardanico Associate Editor: Mark B. Rosenberg Book Review Editor: Eduardo A. Gamarra COMMENTARY Bibliographer: Marian Goslinga Realities by Anthony P.Maingot Editorial Assistant: Sofia A. L6pez New Geopolitical Advertising, Circulation, and Forging Consensus by Mark B. Rosenberg Distribution Manager: Adolfo Leyva Marketing Director: Gonzalo Soruco Graphic Designer: Juanita Mazzarella Baert Copy Editor: Rick Eyerdam REPORTS Student Assistants: Rene Ramos, Martha A Year of Elections by Don Bohning Schoolman Freedom and Democracy by Mario Vargas Llosa CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Ecuador: The Politics of Locos by CatherineM. Conaghan Janet M. Chernela Raul Moncarz Rodolfo Cortina Dario Moreno A Political Obituary: Arnulfo Arias of Panama by Steve C. Ropp DennisJ. Gayle Lisandro Perez The Sandinistas and the US Press by Pablo Antonio Cuadra Jerry Haar Luis Salas Peter Habermann Mark D. Szuchman The Contra as Political Gypsies by Joe Eldridge Suzanne Koptur C. Manuel Torres Zoning the Amazon: Rond6nia by JanetM. Chernela EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD A Martyred Environmentalist by William T. Vickers Francisco Rojas Aravena AnthonyJ. Payne Bernard Diederich Guido Pennano Gustav Franco Alejandro Portes FAXFILE Wolf Grabendorf Sally Price Harry Hoetink David Ronfeldt Vaughan Lewis Selwyn Ryan FEATURES Larissa A. Lomnitz Steven E. Sanderson Abraham E Lowenthal Saskia Sassen Decolonization inthe Dutch Caribbean Frank Manitzas Carol A. Smith Richard Millett Arturo Villar Upside-Down Decolonization by Rosemarijn Hofte and Gert Oostindie Andres Oppenheimer Juan Yanes Politics and Militarism in Suriname by Gary Brana-Shute Robert A. Pastor Crisis in the Backlands by Adiante Franszoon Hemisphere (ISSN 08983038) is published three times a year (Fall, Winter, and Spring) by the Latin American Mexican Challenges and Caribbean Center of Florida International Univer- sity, The State University of Florida at Miami. Produced Toward Democracy in Mexico? by JonathanFox at a cost of $4.12 per copy. Copyright© 1989 by the Latin An Ex-President's Memoirs by JulioMojuel American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University. All rights reserved. Mexico-Bashing in Washington by George W Grayson Hemisphere is dedicated to provoking debate on the problems, Initiatives, and achievements of Latin America The Quest for Business Survival by Francisco Valdes and the Caribbean. Responsibility for the opinions A Repoliticized Military? By StephenJ. Wager expressed lies solely with the authors. EDITORIAL, CIRCULATION, AND ADVERTISING Grassroots Challenges by Luis Herndndez and Laura Carlsen OFFICES: Latin American and Caribbean Center, Flori- by Luis Herndndez and Laura Carlsen da International University, University Park, Miami, Flo- Rural Struggle rida 33199 Telephone: 305/554-2894. FAX: 305/554-3593. Please address manuscripts and editorial correspondence to the Deputy Editor. BOOKS INREVIEW SUBSCRIPTIONS: US, USVI, PR, and Canada: $14 a year. Elsewhere: $22 a year. Please make check or money Family Business, Mexican Style by Alan Knight order (US currency only) payable to Hemisphere. Typography by Supertype, Hialeah, FL 33010. Printed by Mexican Struggles, Cuban Expression, Taking Shape, Flesh and Blood, Southeast Graphics, Inc., Pembroke Park, FL 33023. Growing Pains, The Underside, Regional Affairs Hemisphere's Inaugural Issue: The Readers Respond

Hemisphere seems to be one of those Thefollowing commentary is uate the bloody spiral of violence rare initiatives that fills a unique excerptedfrom a feature editorialon that plagues the hemisphere. This is niche. It promises to become Hemisphere's inauguralissue, in nothing to scoff at. indispensable almost immediately. El Nuevo Herald (November3, 1988). Jose R. Ceardenas It manages somehow to be punchy, The readers would be better Director of Research thoughtful, and exciting at the same equipped to analyze the ideas pre- and Publications time. I'll look forward to the next sented and reach their own con- Cuban American issue. Everyone here found clusions on [Central America] if National Foundation something he or she wanted to read opposing points of view appeared in Washington, DC in the first one! the same issue. This is especially Alex Wilde true for a magazine that is published Congratulations from a severe and Director, Washington Office only three times a year. Given such discerning critic for your head start on Latin America long interludes, any magazine that in publishing Hemisphere. I liked it contains only one position on an very much, even though I disagreed issue cannot achieve the balance This first issue has established with about 65 percent of the writers necessary for arriving at just and Hemisphere as mandatory reading for -especially Carlos Monge's "The correct conclusions. Hemisphere's those concerned with Latin Ameri- Political Eclipse of Mario Vargas first issue suffers from this defect. can and Caribbean affairs. Alert to Llosa,"' which I sense is sheer fan- Roberto Sudrez contemporary trends, the magazine tasy/wishful thinking. Editor, El Nuevo Herald succeeds in combining the read- In addition, Andres Oppen- Miami, FL ability of a weekly news journal with heimer's "Cuba to the Aid of the analytical rigor of the academic Noriega?" misses the point. The literature. Comprehensive in its geo- real story is Noriega's aid to Cuba in graphic and thematic coverage, How lucky we are to have Andres the matter of drugs, a story that Hemisphere provides a venue where Oppenheimer ("Cuba to the Aid of has grown steadily and disastrously be many different points of view can Noriega?") to assure us that the over the years. aired. Recognizing that no perspec- presence of Cubans in Panama is Jack H. Vaughn truth is tive has a monopoly of the not something the US should be Senior Advisor in Natural Resources the a first step towards achieving concerned about. and Environmental Management elusive goal of understanding the Does it matter that the New York ROCAP/USAID direction in which our hemisphere Times reported that General Noriega Guatemala is moving. is relying on agents from Cuba's Sergio Diaz-Briquets notorious America Department to Director, Commission for Hemisphere will no doubt fill a vac- Research counsel him on standing up to US the Study of International uum in the Caribbean because of its pressure and bolstering his domestic mix of serious journalism and read- Migration and Cooperative power? Economic Development able academic writing. Oppenheimer's report propagates Carlos A. Romero Washington, DC the myth that Fidel Castro has for- President, Asociaci6n Venezolana saken his subversive and violent poli- de Estudios del Caribe Hemisphere is very interesting read- cies of the past in order to "mend ing on the sort of subjects fences" with the countries of Latin that are right down my alley. The America. I dare say no evidence I hope you are very proud of production is also of a very high exists whatsoever that this is so. Hemisphere. The breadth of the standard. Whether it is one Cuban or one first issue's content is impressive. Geoffrey Barcant thousand in Panama, we can rest It is a first-rate magazine. Managing Director, assured Cuba's mission is to contra- Lynne C. Rienner Smith, Robertson & Co. Ltd. vene US policy, further isolate the Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Boulder, CO Trinidad, WI US...... from Latin America.• and Aperpet- I

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Bravo! Hemisphere is most impressive Below is a brief review that I will Congratulations on a fine first issue, and -informative, handsome, a fine mix share with the several libraries with an excellent balance of opinion topics and range of viewpoints. which I am associated, as well as the analysis, and a very wide range of of Judith Vecchione New England Council for Latin issues covered with exemplary com- Executive Producer, American Studies, the New England petence. I would love to contribute WGBH/Educational Foundation and the New some time soon. Journalof History, Boston, MA England Historical Association. TomJ. Farer "... This is a newly-established Director of Law and journal that has come off the International Affairs American University presses in full stride-an 'adult The On behalf of the editors of the birth': mature, confident, outspo- Inter-American Review of Bibliography, ken, balanced. I recommend Hemi- Congratulations! I currently sub- I wish to express to you my warmest sphere enthusiastically as a source for scribe to a number of foreign affairs congratulations for Hemisphere, students, instructors, or anyone who journals, but I found your publica- which is an excellent addition to the wishes to inform him/herself on tion much more useful and interest- literature on our region. Latin America and the Caribbean." ing than most of the others. It is a The caliber of the contributors, JamesJ.Harrington pleasure to see "think pieces" and the diversity of their perspectives, Chair, Social Studies Department feature articles by some of my col- and the sponsorship of Florida Bridgewater-Raynham Regional leagues (Andres Oppenheimer, Ber- International University and its School District nard Diederich), as well as scholarly focal geographical location, are Bridgewater, MA works in such a publication. The assets that all readers will deeply focus on Latin America and the appreciate. You are off to a great start and have Caribbean is automatically of inter- The content of the first issue ade- responded to a clear need for a est to me. But it is the quality of the quately reflects Hemisphere'sgoal: broad variety of topical articles. The contents that makes Hemisphere a "a magazine of interest and quality." first issue reflects the high quality of welcome item in the mail box. Celso Rodriguez the contributors and the relevance Greg Flakus Editor, Inter-American Review of the subject matter. I will be look- Chief Correspondent, of Bibliography ing forward to each issue. Voice of America Washington, DC Ambler H. Moss Jr Dean, Graduate School in Congratulations on your first issue International Studies of Hemisphere. I was very impressed University of Miami with its contents. I hope you con- Congratulations on the publication fair- tinue to maintain the same high of Hemisphere. It is a balanced, future issues. minded issue. The interview with Hemisphere is beautifully produced standard in Victor Bulmer-Thomas Leslie Manigat is a coup in itself. and forward looking, with impres- Louis Horowitz Professor of Economics, Irving I read Anthony P. Main- sive articles. Queen Mary College Distinguished Professor got's editorial on new Caribbean University of London Rutgers University politics, and wish I had the power to make it compulsory reading for all or Caribbean leaders-not just busi- Editor'sNote: Articlesfrom Hemisphere's inauguralissue (Fall 1988) have been reprinted Latin ness people and politicians but extensively discussed in the following publications:Commodities Report (September 15), 3 and 15), The Orlando educators and the press. American Weekly Report (September 22), El Nuevo Herald (November (December). Sir Philip Sherlock Sentinel (December 4), and Trinidad and Tobago Review Executive Vice President, Hemisphere welcomes letters to the editor.Letters must be typed, double-spaced, and may be submitted Caribbean Resources in English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish. All letters are subject to editingfor clarity and length. Development Foundation Please address letters to the Deputy Editor,Hemisphere, Latin American and CaribbeanCenter, Miami, FL FloridaInternational University, University Park, Miami, FL 33199; FAX (305)554-3593.

Hemisphere Winter 1989 M M

New Geopolitical Realities by Anthony P. Maingot

of a club of ex-presidents. Manley reduce regional tensions. They can of geography on politics, and Perez continue to be vice presi- all turn then to addressing the fun- continues to be central dents of the social-democratic damental concerns shared by nearly Scopolitics,to any analysis the influenceof US- Socialist International. Bosch, after all who border the Caribbean Sea. Caribbean Basin rela- leaving the PartidoRevolucionario Two of these are critical in the short tions. The nature of the Dominicano, shifted strongly to the term: immigration and corruption. problems and opportu- left, but then moved closer to the nities presented by geographical center as he became a truly viable proximity do change, however. candidate. All three figures promise Immigration Only a decade ago the Carib- to restore diplomatic relations with Immigration is not a new phe- bean Basin was blanketed by the Cuba. It remains to be seen, how- nomenon in the Caribbean region. rhetoric of ideological confrontation ever, whether these will be "normal" Whether it is migration to the US or and revolutionary challenge, as well state-to-state relations-devoid, to other areas of employment oppor- as by the predictable Great Power thus, of unorthodoxies such as tunity in the region, Caribbean responses. Why this is no longer so "internationalist" party-to-party peoples have moved, adjusted, and is not hard to discern. Ideological agreements and Third World prospered. The countries of the fervor has served neither side well, as "vanguardisms." Reason and logic Caribbean face an economic the Jamaican case illustrates. Nei- say they should. dilemma. On the one hand, they ther Michael Manley's "politics of Nothing, in the Caribbean or in need a migration outlet for their principle" of 1976-80 nor Edward the international community, justi- work forces, which are growing Seaga's version of Reaganomics has fies 1970s-type adventures. Manley, faster than any of the Caribbean's made any difference to the Jamaican for one, seems to have understood economies. On the other hand, the masses. The reduced price of oil and this. Before a Miami audience of countries can ill afford to lose their the end of the North American bankers and business people he was technical and professional people. recession, as it affected the tourist adamant: "...we do not ever intend The brain drain hurts these trade and the price of bauxite and again to allow the relationship with developing economies in two ways. alumina, have much more to do with Cuba to become internally divisive First, because education, right the Jamaican economy's recent or a source of trouble with Washing- through professional training, is slight improvement than with ideo- ton." No one expects a reap- invariably free, the brain drain rep- logical formulations. The Jamaican pearance, therefore, of one of the resents a subsidy to the developed electorate made this clear on Febru- amazing features ofJamaica's turn countries. In 1982, for instance, 50 ary 9, when it reelected Manley. This to the left in the late 1970s: the influ- percent of the 1977-80 graduates of promises to be a different Manley. ential role played by the communist Jamaica's training institutions had He has repeatedly said that he has Workers' Party of Jamaica and its migrated. The costs of training "matured" and "learned a few les- intellectual leader, Dr. Trevor these migrants, according to sons" from the bitter and fruitless Munroe. The suspicion that they Jamaica's National Planning Agency years when exhilarating friendships represented a minute part of the in 1982, was $348 million. The with Fidel Castro, Maurice Bishop, electorate was verified in 1986 Agency made a political point when and Daniel Ortega seemed to over- when-in the party's first outing as it compared that amount to the $84 shadow more mundane concerns of an independent movement-it million in US loans and grants state. received 0.2 percent of the vote. The received by Jamaica, 83 percent of ideologically-charged atmosphere, which had gone for loan financing. AClub of Pragmatists which gave such groups relevance in Second, these countries are los- the Caribbean, is gone. ing the technical and managerial Manley will join Carlos Andres By emphasizing a pragmatic skills that are essential to their ongo- Perez of Venezuela-and possibly foreign policy towards the US and ing transition from raw-material that other veteran of Caribbean Cuba, the new Caribbean leadership production to manufacturing and electoral politics, Juan Bosch of the will be presenting both Washington the provision of services. For exam- Dominican Republic-in something and Havana an opportunity to ple, what employment benefits has

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Y

Trinidad derived from the millions then-prime minister Eric Williams, The issue of seeking foreign help invested in its steel industry left a fortune estimated at Can.$500 to deal with corruption in independ- (ISCOTT), when it has had to hire million. Needless to say, little, if any, ent countries raises many ticklish managers, first from Germany and of the money was invested in Trini- questions about sovereignty and now from India? And this at a time dad. It was all plowed into Canadian extraterritoriality. The issue is not when thousands of educated Trini- shopping centers, office buildings, limited to North-South relations, as dadians are entering Canada with and housing projects. Piece by evident in the unfolding insider- the outrageous claim that they are piece, a firm of Canadian "forensic trading scandal involving the pur- "refugees" suffering political and accountants" has provided a record chase of American National Can racial discrimination. Throughout of secret commissions on an array Company by the French state-owned the region hospitals are short of of projects upon which Trinidad Pechiney, S.A., for five times the nurses, skilled managers are at a launched its "independence" from original market value of the shares. premium, and the promising tourist foreign domination: the oil industry, The US Securities and Exchange industries are losing their chefs to the airline, infrastructural projects, Commission (SEC) revealed the the booming cruise-ship business. even the race track. Also linked to scandal, using the well-named Calls on the US and Canada to the payoffs was Francis ("Boysie") "RICO" (Racketeer Influenced and set limits on the number of visas Prevatt, the longstanding chairman Corrupt Organization) Act. The granted to certain technical occu- of the then-ruling People's National scandal reaches right into the pations will not work. Caribbean Movement (PNM) and a man often French cabinet. The SEC's involve- people regard migration as a appointed acting prime minister ment, states one French stock fundamental human right and will whenever Williams absented himself analyst, "has preempted our usual not tolerate state interference with from the island. means of burying political scandals." that right. The situation calls for The degree to which the local The complexities of tracing dirty bilateral attention. taxpayers subsidized foreign inter- money are enormous and often ests is evident in reading the testi- beyond the reach of small states. Corruption mony of an American executive who The sheer volume of transactions Corruption, the other matter in negotiated an oil contract with the creates a great gray area in which need of immediate attention, is no Trinidad government. The $2 mil- legal and illegal funds get easily con- longer an issue of mere personal lion in bribes, he noted, was "a good fused. In 1987 $25.6 billion-one- greed. Corruption has become so deal ... a trifling amount in relation fifth of the total market transactions rampant and brazen that it is dis- to the long-term benefits to a small of US securities-were purchased torting development and eroding company [Tesoro]." Indeed, based and sold abroad. Billions more of confidence in the Caribbean's demo- on its "killing" in Trinidad, Tesoro foreign moneys are invested directly cratic institutions. Much of the went on to become a Texas oil com- in US businesses and real estate problem is fueled by the drug trade, pany of respectable size. There is while even more goes into the off- but it precedes the arrival of this much more to be revealed, as any shore banks. noxious new commodity. Not unlike Trinidad entrepreneur will tell you. Geography has made the Carib- the brain drain, corruption repre- Word is that what has been pub- bean a neighbor of the world's most sents another subsidy to the metro- licized so far about government bobol powerful economy. Money and politan centers of the world. (graft) is but the tip of the iceberg. human talent flow northward like a A case now making headlines in A 1987 muckraking documentary river defying all geographical con- Trinidad illustrates this fact of by the Canadian Broadcasting Cor- ventions. In between, there are a "reverse development flows" Just as poration embarrassed the Trinidad dozen islands with hundreds of "off- Trinidad is seeking a standby loan government into taking action shore" operations to facilitate the from the International Monetary before the Canadian courts. Is this minority bent on an illegitimate pas- Fund for $120 million, it has been foreign "intervention" in the island's sage. It is time to set some of these revealed that the late John O'Hal- affairs? Not to the people in the items on the agenda of the new loran, a former minister of Petro- street who welcome Canadian help leaders in Washington and the leum and Mines and intimate of in this case. Caribbean. .

Hemisphere. Winter 1989 Commentary

Forging Consensus by Mark B. Rosenberg

Soviet and Cuban interference in ica, given the hesitant efforts in the ings in January, Secretary Latin America is still perceived by US to curb the nation's demand for of State James A. Baker many t his confirmation hear- as the major threat to US illicit drugs. A said, with reference to security in the region. This view, Supply and demand are related. Latin America, "I don't however, underplays the importance To expect help from Latin Ameri- see an issue coming to us of a wide array of entrenched prob- cans before the US initiates major any quicker than this lems. These include the impact of antidrug efforts is to invite bilateral one. It's going to be right on our the debt burden on government, cynicism and tensions. The Bush doorstep when we take office." economy, and living standards; ram- administration's appointment of As pointed out in The Third Cen- pant corruption; weak and overbur- William Bennett, former secretary tury: US-Latin American Policy Choices dened justice systems; and a of education, to the new post of for the 1990s (Washington, DC, 1988), deteriorating natural environment. "drug czar" is a sign of growing US the Bush administration faces "an maturity. Bennett's nationwide ties avalanche of tactical Latin American with educators promise to direct decisions." Early progress is impera- serious attention to the demand side tive for the amelioration of Mexico's of international drug trafficking. debt crisis, a prelude to a summit with other debtor nations. Mean- while, Central America remains a Debt Crisis stern test for US policymakers: the The magnitude of the Latin Ameri- Arias peace plan, US-Nicaraguan can debt makes it a matter of both relations, and elections in El Sal- finance and security. Yet, as Henry vador continue to generate divisive- Kissinger stated, "The dominant ness and paralysis. The Bush view in the US government and the administration faces these problems major banks still denies that there is in a context of Latin American an emergency" (Washington Post, impatience and frustration over US January 11, 1989). foreign policy. Regional complaints The debt problem calls for focus on Washington's penchant for urgent, high-level response. US paternalism and its inattention to banks have proven incapable of ris- basic matters of economic recovery ing above their short-term interests and multilateral consultation. Such problems can be constructively to concert a reasonable debt strat- What is needed is a fresh, more addressed only through bilateral egy for their Latin American clients. responsive US approach to Latin and multilateral forums, channels Furthermore, US manufacturers American affairs. The key is to forge that demand a posture of mutual have allowed the banks to define the a consensus in Washington around respect. The US must become more agenda, thereby losing millions of three critical issues: national security, skillful in dealing with its friends dollars in exports to the debt- antidrug policy, and the debt crisis. and adversaries. Democratic allies in constricted markets of the Americas. Latin America must be encouraged It is time for the US government to National Security to participate actively in the resolu- fill the void by providing an inter- tion of diplomatic problems. American forum for the develop- The fundamental concepts of ment of policy options. "threat" and "national interest" must be defined: What are the secu- Antidrug Policy rity concerns of the US in Latin The US needs to recognize that it Making ItWork America? How can they best be confronts a national crisis of drug During the Reagan years, excessive addressed, balancing objectives abuse, exacerbated by the spread of partisanship and preoccupation against means? Can they be publicly crack cocaine. US narco-diplomacy with Nicaragua led to disjointed US debated and congressionally and drug-eradication campaigns policy toward Latin America. To mandated? have little credibility in Latin Amer- avoid this trap the Bush administra-

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 tion must begin laying the ground- terized relations between Assistant they help to set the news agenda on work for bipartisanforeign policy. Secretary for Inter-American Affairs foreign affairs. Knowledgeable This approach demands that the Elliott Abrams and House and Sen- Latin Americans aim much of their government's executive and legisla- ate leadership. The new assistant lobbying energy at the staffers. tive branches work together to secretary not only must know Latin Perhaps most important, execu- define a shared agenda concerning America; knowledge of Capitol Hill tive leadership must smooth the way the principal objectives and the and good working relations with to improved relations with Latin means to achieve them. both political parties are also essen- America. This role is crucial in view For example, if the US seeks to tial. In addition the assistant secre- of the ascendancy of populist politi- continue encouraging Latin Ameri- tary must speak to the "parochial" cians in the region, like President can democratization, a thorough interests of congressional districts. Carlos Andr6s Perez of Venezuela. interagency review of the matter Members of Congress and their Such politicians can serve either to needs to be carried out. Simul- staffs must also address the links cement US-Latin American cooper- taneously the Department of State between their constituencies and ation or to undermine prospects for needs to coordinate its activities Latin American affairs. a common inter-American agenda. with Congress. A close relationship Coordination among the President Bush's longstanding inter- is especially necessary in light of the foreign-affairs staffers on Capitol est in Mexico is a reassuring sign upcoming debates on war powers, Hill would further promote policy that he and his advisors will be sensi- intelligence oversight, and the coherence. In practice the staffers tive to the concerns of Perez and his micromanagement of foreign policy. wield considerable influence. They counterparts. On Capitol Hill the legacy of lay out policy alternatives, monitor A bipartisan spirit is needed in intense partisanship means that pol- their executive-branch counter- Washington. If finger-pointing, icy coherence will be hard to obtain. parts, and serve as quasi-diplomats excessive partisanship, and a "we- The task of overcoming this legacy when receiving foreign dignitaries at told-you-so" attitude persist, then calls for a special effort to avoid the home and traveling abroad. As US-Latin American relations will Reagan-era antagonism that charac- information sources for the media, continue to suffer. .

QUE PASA EN AMERICA LATINA?

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Hemisphere * Winter 1989 AYear of Elections by Don Bohning

ne of the biggest electoral tive, the most critical votes in Latin gressional elections and is given a demonstrations in recent America are those in El Salvador, good chance to win the presidency Latin American history Argentina, and Brazil. Chile and in 1989. Although Alfredo Cristiani, is taking place in 1989, Panama also are being closely ARENAs US-educated presidential as voters in eight coun- watched. In the English-speaking candidate, has helped to moderate tries elect new gov- Caribbean, Jamaica and Grenada the party's image, observers fear an ernments. The wave of are attracting the most attention. ARENA victory could mean an even elections tests the region's demo- greater polarization of Salvadoran cratic trend and poses potential new society and jeopardize further US policy dilemmas for the Bush admin- assistance for the beleaguered coun- istration. In addition to the Latin try. "If the right wins, I see El Sal- American contests, there could vador as a major test for our policy be as many as six national elections in terms of our staying power," says in the countries of the English- one US official involved in regional speaking Caribbean. policymaking. Venezuela provided a preview of Elections in Argentina and Bra- Latin America's 1989 electoral zil pose a different set of problems. parade December 4, when it over- Both countries are burdened with a whelmingly elected former president heavy foreign debt. Both countries Carlos Andres P&rez, the candidate have recently emerged from military of the Democratic Action Party, to a dictatorships, with fragile civilian five-year term as the country's chief governments in their first term. And executive. The results of both the in both countries old-style populist Venezuelan election and a Novem- candidates are the early front- ber 15 municipal vote in Brazil also runners for the presidency, which offered a hint of the emerging some see as a potential test for the nationalistic populism that may con- continued democratic process. front the new US administration. In Argentina, Carlos Menem, the The first Latin American elec- Peronist governor of La Rioja pro- tion of 1989 is scheduled for March Latin America vince, held a large and early lead in El Salvador. It is followed in May over Eduardo Angeloz, governor of by elections in Panama, Bolivia, and During the eight years of the C6rdoba province and the govern- Argentina. Brazil, Uruguay, and Reagan administration, the US ing Radical Party candidate to suc- Honduras hold elections in Novem- pumped $3 billion in economic and ceed President Rail Alfonsin. In ber. And Chile's election is planned military assistance into embattled El Brazil, where next November will for December. Salvador, where a decade-old guer- see the first direct election for presi- In the English-speaking Carib- rilla insurgency has claimed more dent since 1960, the early front- bean, elections are constitution- than 60,000 lives. Most of the US runner is Leonel Brizola, a populist ally required during 1989 in Jamaica, assistance has gone to build the Sal- of the left who has been anathema to St. Kitts-Nevis, Antigua-Barbuda, vadoran military and to support the Brazilian military for three and St. Vincent. They are likely President Jose Napole6n Duarte's decades. Brizola returned to Brazil to be called in Grenada and Belize, centrist Christian Democratic in 1979 from a 15-year exile and was although elections in these two government. elected in 1982 to a four-year term as countries could carry over into But with Duarte dying of cancer governor of Rio de Janeiro state. early 1990. as his five-year term nears an end, The strength of the Brazilian left From the Washington perspec- the Christian Democrats are in dis- was demonstrated in November 15 array. The opposition rightist municipal elections in which Don Bohning is Latin American editor ARENA party won control of the Brizola's Democratic Labor Party of the Miami Herald. National Assembly in the 1987 con- won victories in the state capitals of

Hemisphere . Winter 1989 R T S

Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Maceio, b and Sao Luis, and did well in smaller A33 cities. The smaller and further left Workers' Party also demonstrated surprising strength, winning in Sao Paulo and two other state capitals, Porto Alegre and Vitoria. Menem and/or Brizola presidential victories could trigger a mor- atorium on the hefty foreign debts of both countries, much of which is owed to US banks. In Brazil a Brizola victory also could exacerbate trade disputes over the country's protectionist policies. As for Argentina there are fears that a Menem victory could bring back the chaotic days of the Isabel Per6n presidency and, in turn, trigger a military coup. "Those are the three [El Sal- vador, Argentina, and Brazil] seen as most critical," said one US official. "And a new administration in Washington is going to have to deal with them at a time when it is going to be hard to shake this [the Reagan] administration's obsession with Nicaragua." In Venezuela the Bush administration will have to deal with another left-of-center populist after Perez's February 2 inauguration. In the early 1980s, Perez-who served as president from 1974 to 1979-angered the Reagan administration with his outspoken support of Nicaragua's Sandinistas, from whom he has lately distanced himself. While Perez continues his rhetorical commitment to Third World causes, he has moderated earlier positions. Thus Wash- ington is confident the US can work with him. In Panama the May 7 election is expected to define the future role of General Manuel Noriega, the country's military strongman, and his position vis-a-vis the Bush adminis-

Hemisphere . Winter 1989 I II V II.. I.IV

NNP in the elec- tration, if the situation is not presence and harboring the US- elected to lead the It is clarified before that time. Some financed Nicaraguan contra rebels. tion planned for December. existing observers believe the election could In addition Honduras is beset with possible none of the four which provide an out for both parties. The the pressure of an increasing parties will gain a majority, outgoing Reagan administration number of Nicaraguan and Sal- means that erratic former prime continued to recognize Eric Arturo vadoran refugees, an upsurge in minister Eric Gairy could be a factor Delvalle as Panama's legitimate pres- death-squad activity, and the in forming the next government. ident, although he was ousted by the reported involvement of the military In Antigua, the Bird family Noriega-controlled National Assem- in drug smuggling. -father and sons-which has dom- bly in February 1988 after he tried inated island politics for more than to fire Noriega as Defense Forces four decades, is expected to retain commander. As a footnote, the Pan- control of the government despite ama election, if held as scheduled, family feuding over who would even- will mark the first in 50 years in tually succeed Vere Bird Sr., the which the late three-time president family patriarch and present prime Arnulfo Arias is not a factor. Arias minister. died in Miami last August. In St. Vincent centrist prime While less important from a US minister James Mitchell is a heavy strategic standpoint, Chile's presi- favorite to be back for another term. dential vote in December 1989-the In St. Kitts some observers think first since 1970-will be closely Prime Minister Kennedy Simmonds watched to see the fate of General could be in a bit of trouble but Augusto Pinochet, the country's mil- probably not enough to lose an elec- itary president since he led a 1973 tion. military coup. Voters rejected eight In Belize the election is shaping more years of a Pinochet presidency up as another confrontation in a yes-or-no referendum last Octo- between former prime minister ber. As a result, a constitution George Price and incumbent prime approved in 1980 calls for a wide- minister Manuel Esquivel, who open presidential election late in ended Price's long domination of the 1989. There is some speculation that country's politics in 1984. Esquivel's Pinochet himself might run or, more United Democratic Party has inter- remotely, might decide to cancel the nal problems, and some observers election and continue in power. give Price a good chance at regain- There is not likely to be much The English-speaking Caribbean ing power. anguish in Washington over the Bolivian election in May, with none In the English-speaking Caribbean Political Consequences? of the leading candidates being the big election was Jamaica's contest cause for official concern. Perhaps of February 9. The election pitted No matter who wins, election results the most interesting thing about the conservative prime minister Edward in the English-speaking Caribbean Bolivian election is that it is likely to Seaga, a favorite of the Reagan -with the possible exception of be held. That in itself is an achieve- administration, against former Jamaica-are not likely to signifi- ment for a country that had 175 prime minister Michael Manley, cantly change current direction. In changes of government in its first whose "democratic socialism" and St. Vincent, Grenada, and St. Kitts, 162 years of independence. Neither leftist rhetoric of the 1970s caused however, the results could have a is the November election in tradi- consternation in Washington. Man- bearing on commitment to a falter- tionally democratic Uruguay-where ley, who has moderated his nation- ing unity movement among the a rare decade-long military dictator- alistic Third World and anti-US smaller Eastern Caribbean states. ship gave way to an elected civilian rhetoric since losing to Seaga in The case is different in Latin government in 1985-expected to 1980, won convincingly. America, where one official US rock the hemisphere boat. In Grenada, the other featured regional specialist suggests the 1989 That might not be the case in Caribbean-election attraction, elections will provide an indication Honduras, which also selects a new Prime Minister Herbert Blaize's New of whether the democratic transition president in November. As the Cen- National Party (NNP)--hammered "is more than just a fleeting phe- tral American conflict has escalated together in the wake of the 1983 US nomenon and whether people are in recent years, Honduras has invasion of the island-has frag- committed enough to democracy to increasingly become an American mented. Keith Mitchell, minister of give it a chance over the longer satellite, hosting a major US troop communications and work, has been term." m

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Freedom and Democracy by Mario Vargas Llosa

reedom is, perhaps, the high standing, have served, through is on the defensive. With the excep- most disquieting paradox complacency or enthusiasm, the tions of Cuba, El Salvador, Peru, of history. It nourishes cause of right-wing dictatorships, and Colombia, the myth of armed humanity's most profound sometimes at the very moment when revolution is a panacea for our accomplishments and these were committing their worst ailments is no longer attractive. aspirations, but it also is crimes. Increasingly this myth seems to be the abyss into which an ideology of marginal groups, humanity often falls and destroys bereft of popular support. itself. Paradoxically, freedom engen- The Peoples' Vision Perhaps the greatest significance ders the fear of adopting liberty and The peoples of Latin America have of this democratizing trend is that, the temptation to suppress it. demonstrated a vision of freedom unlike the period after World War II that is far superior to that of many when a wave of democratization also the continent, it neither has The Attitude of Intellectuals of the intellectuals. This is some- swept thing that Latin America can show resulted from external pressures Renouncing freedom is one option, the world with pride. It is true that nor has it been the exclusive work of of course. Individuals and groups our countries display scandalous local "elites." This time, as freedom sometimes give in to this temptation inequalities-that the spectacle of and consensus replace the arbitrari- under the spell of a religion or ideol- poverty repeats itself like a recur- ness of force and personal power, ogy. It is only an apparent paradox ring nightmare from the Rio the impetus has been the humble cit- that among those who do so are Grande to the Strait of Magellan. izens of our countries-the anony- intellectuals and artists who depend It is true that, in education, health, mous men and women, usually poor on freedom as lungs depend on oxy- labor, and law, we have much to and uneducated. gen. The case of Plato is not excep- accomplish. And yet we Latin In analyzing the recent Latin tional. It is merely the first in a long Americans can say that, compared American elections a consistent pat- sequence of events in the course of to what happened decades ago in tern emerges. Whether the elected Western civilization. Liberty puts a Europe or to what frequently occurs parties and officials are of the mod- terrible burden on our shoulders; in the Middle East, the Far East, and erate left or moderate right, they and no one carries this burden more Africa, our peoples have only occa- unequivocally represent the demo- intimately than creative people. sionally fallen to the spell of despot- cratic option of cohabitation in a We know the case of Latin Amer- ism. When they have done so, as in setting of lawfulness, freedom of ica very well. Great creators have Per6n's Argentina and Castro's expression, and alternation of given our literature its worldwide Cuba, they soon regretted the fact. power. By voting in small and some- renown and have extraordinarily Never during our republican tra- times insignificant numbers for enriched our language, our imag- jectory have so many Latin Ameri- the parties and officials of both ination, and our sensibility. But can governments been born out of extremes, the consulted peoples many of them have not vacillated in more or less clean elections. Coun- have punished those whose putting their prestige and their tries where, 25 years ago, no elected ideologies constitute a threat to word at the service of ideologies and official could complete his term, freedom. regimes that stand at odds with free- today are models of pluralism and dom. Some have succumbed to the coexistence. The remaining dictator- Learning a Lesson Marxist spell. Others, sometimes of ships or semidictatorships find themselves on the defensive. Some of The lesson could not be clearer. Editor's Note: Translatedexcerpts of them, such as Noriega in Panama Our intellectuals and other leaders "The Enrique Benavides Lecture on and Pinochet in Chile, seem to be in should learn from it. In spite of Freedom," by Peruviannovelist Mario the midst of their last dying gasps as hunger, economic injustice, and the Vargas Llosa, on October 23, 1988, in they confront their peoples' thirst lack of jobs, schools, and hospitals; SanJose, Costa Rica. The lecture was for morality, decency, and freedom. in spite of misfortune and despair, sponsoredby the newspaper La Naci6n. In Latin America today the the predominant way of life in Latin © Mario Vargas Llosa, 1988. Cuban model of violent revolution America, our peoples have not lost

Hemisphere Winter 1989 Reports: Politics

their appetite for freedom. Our them, the common citizens of our The blind globetrotting bard, peoples cling to democratic regimes America, they most probably would who, according to legend, gave life in the face of their fragility and the give us vague and uncertain rea- to the Homeric poems, also inaugu- painfully slow pace of attempts to sons-what Sartre would have called rated a tradition that infused improve living standards. Can any "their choice." It so happens that the humanity with a fundamentally new Latin American dictators boast of option of freedom often manifests dimension. It opened the doors of having the popular support enjoyed itself as an instinctive and blind social and individual life to a secret, in the past by Mussolini and Hitler, hunger from the depths of the silent lady who, little by little, trans- or today by the Ayatollah? No. The psyche, rather than as a conscious formed history and the human con- best proof is the brutal repres- and reasoned effort. It is a myste- dition with her magic wand. She did sion-the torture, censorship, and rious desire to reach a complete and not bring with her happiness. If any- crimes that our dictatorships must supreme individuality, breaking thing, she deprived us of it. But she carry out to remain in power. We away from the undifferentiated col- did bring progress, greater justice, must not lose sight of this fact. In lectivity. It is the sovereignty of and, for those nations that enthroned the midst of the great difficulties our being that can be attained only by her as their queen and submitted countries are going through, in the experiencing the utmost respon- themselves to her whims and bewitch- midst of the economic crisis that is sibility: to make one's own choices, ing charms, a substantial improve- drowning us, sometimes threatening to decide one way or another about ment in the quality of life. to disintegrate us as nations, this the most vital issues, to be the Even in the worst of circum- popular commitment to democracy true maker of one's destiny. stances our peoples offer her joyous represents hope. Despite all of our The Homeric poems were born hospitality, and when they lose her problems the peoples of Latin Amer- from a people who felt these deep- they yearn for her, fight for her, and ica continue to see freedom as the seated urges, who, even amid the always end up resuscitating her. This best option. They may be poor, grayish darkness through which they is proof that, in spite of dictators uneducated, frustrated, and for- moved, longed for their emancipa- and fanatics, material failings and lorn; yet they know what they want: tion. Even as confused ideals, these great disequilibria, freedom cannot freedom. longings marked the birth of the be separated from the culture and To be sure, they cannot theorize West, the beginning of a culture of dreams of Latin Americans. . about freedom. If we were to ask freedom. (Translatedby Lourdes Sim6n)

INSTITUTO DE ESTUDIOS CUBANOS: XX ANIVERSARIO "CUBA: ISLA Y DIASPORA"

23-25 de junio de 1989 * Harvard University

* historiografia * literatura y cultura * cuba - isla * cuba y las superpotencias * cuba intemacional * cuba didspora * IEC: proyecto y perspectivas

Para informaciony detalles escriba a: IEC P.O. Box 142063 Coral Gables, FL 33114-2063

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 ---~-~ ---

Ecuador: The Politics of Locos by CatherineM. Conaghan

o one can claim the a leading Guayaquil businessman Febres-Cordero years and the candidate of a rightist elec- were boring. From 1984 toral coalition, won a narrow victory to 1988 President Leon in 1984 on a platform aimed at Febres-Cordero stood retracting state interventionism and at the center of Ecua- introducing business values to dor's increasingly con- public administration. But inconsis- flictive and often bizarre polity. In tencies within the administration 1986 there were two abortive mili- unraveled his promise to deliver tary uprisings, and in 1987 Febres- economic growth and political cer- Cordero fell victim to a kidnapping tainty. Instead of serving up at the hands of air force para- pinstriped conservatism, Febres- troopers. Struggles between the Cordero experimented with an executive and other branches of erratic mixture of right-wing popu- government were chronic. The lism and authoritarianism. Thus the national police teargassed members military was repoliticized, the pub- of the congress, and an executive lic's trust in government plummeted, order physically barred supreme and a new bombastic populism court justices from entering their became entrenched in Ecuador's offices. By the end of the Febres- political repertoire. Cordero years, high government An essential problem was that officials were fleeing to Miami Febres-Cordero neither tolerated to avoid prosecution on corruption the play of democratic institutions charges. The "sleaze factor" had nor respected his peers in the party come to Ecuador. system. His own political ascent The deteriorating mood and Politics on the Skids relied heavily on his ability to grab political conduct culminated in the the public spotlight by denigrating carnivalesque presidential election The strangeness of Ecuador's recent rival party leaders. Febres-Cordero of 1988. The populist candidate con- politics reflects the deeper malaise routinely referred to his rivals as sidered to have Febres-Cordero's at work inside its political culture, "cowards":' "tramps,:' and "Marxist support, Abdala Bucaram, took parties, and government institu- clowns:' and frequently ques- campaign politics to a new low. He tions. The economic crisis since 1982 tioned their masculinity. His disdain accused his social-democratic rival, has steadily eroded the character of extended to the Ecuadoran party Rodrigo Borja, of everything from political discourse and public man- system, including his own Social alcoholism to a low sperm count. ners. In the absence of strong insti- Christian Party. Febres-Cordero was Bucaram went on to lose the May tutions and new ideas, Ecuadoran quick to declare his government run-off election to Borja, but only politics has devolved into a highly would not be one "of parties,:' and after personally recording his own personalized and often trivialized his appointment of apolitical campaign song and music video. He arena of intra-elite struggle. A key technocrats and businessmen to liked to close his campaign rallies task facing President Borja, who the cabinet underscored this point. with a lip-synch to the tune that pro- took office on August 10, 1988, is to Febres-Cordero viewed the presi- claimed, "Por eso, me Ilaman loco, reinject sobriety and credibility into dency as an opportunity to deregu- todos los oligarcas" ("All the oligarchs the abused democratic system. late the economy, which he had call me crazy"). The irony of Ecuador's political advocated as leader of the Guayaquil slide is that much of it occurred dur- Chamber of Industry. His initial ing an administration that promised goals were economic-decontrolling CatherineM. Conaghan is assistant to eliminate corruption and to prices and exchange rates, while professor ofpolitical studies at Queen's enhance political efficiency and eco- creating a hospitable investment University, Canada. nomic productivity. Febres-Cordero, climate for local and foreign firms.

Hemisphere Winter 1989 Reports: Politics

Surrounded by a coterie of ortho- the government to forge a majority own movimientos to back particular dox economic technocrats, Febres- for the 1985-86 legislative session. candidates. Cordero chafed at any attempt to But the respite from conflict was Parties of the left split over the subject his economic management short-lived. The center-left opposi- presidential candidacy of air force to consultation and negotiation. The tion won the 1986 mid-term elec- general Vargas Pazzos. Known as fact that leftist and centrist parties tions and solidly defeated the "El loco Frank:'Vargas declared him- controlled the congress served to government's plebiscite proposal to self a "man of the left." Although harden his antiparty stance. change the law governing political two leftist parties nominated him for The president's strategy for parties. A growing climate of vio- president, the Frente Amplio de defusing the opposition ranged lence paralleled the continuing scuf- Izquierda (FADI), which included the from physical intimidation to ignor- fles in the institutional sphere. The Communist Party, endorsed Maoist ing the demands of contenders, government repressed antigovern- Jaime Hurtado. The pro-Vargas regardless of the constitutional or ment labor demonstrations, parti- members of FADI responded legal implications. The government sans of Febres-Cordero assaulted by forming their own party, while enacted many key economic mea- congressmen, and international other center-left leaders left FADI to sures as emergency decrees, thereby organizations began to cite Ecuador back right-wing populist AbdalA circumventing the need for congres- for human rights violations. Bucaram. And one populist group sional approval. When the congress The administration's credibility broke into warring factions as two increased the 1985 minimum wage was further strained by continuing Bucaram brothers, Avicenas and in excess of the executive's request, economic troubles and increasingly Averroes, and their followers battled Febres-Cordero threw the measure incoherent economic policymaking. in the streets of Guayaquil over lead- in a legal limbo by refusing to pub- The March 1986 earthquake inter- ership positions and presidential lish it in the Registro Oficial. He rupted Ecuador's oil exports and endorsements. followed the same course with the seriously aggravated the govern- Electoral politics on the right congressional amnesty granted to ment's already weak financial posi- turned equally fractious. Each party Frank Vargas Pazzos, the air force tion. Despite his antistatist rhetoric of the Frente de Reconstrucci6n Nacio- general who led the 1986 uprisings and falling oil prices, Febres- nal (FRN), the electoral front that against the president to protest gov- Cordero did not restrain public had united rightist parties behind ernment corruption and meddling expenditures. Cultivating a populist Febres-Cordero's 1984 bid, launched in the armed forces. Although the flourish, he turned the completion its own presidential candidate. The Tribunalde GarantiasConstitucionales of public works projects-many of most notable of the right's candi- upheld the legality of the measure, which were of dubious value-into a dates were Sixto Duran Ballen and Febres-Cordero refused to imple- major goal. At the same time his CarlosJulio Emanuel. While Febres- ment it. Thus he prompted air force attempts at deregulation faltered. Cordero had marginalized FRN paratroopers to pressure for com- Although the economic team had from his government and channeled pliance by kidnapping him in Janu- boasted that its economic reforms patronage through ad hoc govern- ary 1987 In September of that year would "last a thousand years"' a ment committees, many voters the executive-legislative conflict fevered demand for dollars forced blamed the rightist parties for reemerged as Febres-Cordero defied Febres-Cordero to reinstate controls Ecuador's political and economic the congress by refusing to remove over the exchange market in March plight. The administration believed, Minister of Government Luis Robles 1988. nevertheless, that it could engineer a after he was censured for human rightist victory. The idea was that, if rights violations. The administration the votes for the center and left were regarded as a personal attack vir- The Electoral Circus widely dispersed across the various tually every congressional attempt Electioneering for the 1988 presi- Marxist, populist, and reformist par- to exercise its oversight functions. dential and congressional races ties, the rightist Duran Ballen would Febres-Cordero responded to con- did nothing to add sobriety to the take the second spot in the January gressional actions by accusing its political atmosphere. Each of the first round and go on to face center- members of corruption and libel. 16 legally-registered parties sought leftist Borja in the May run-off for Febres-Cordero matched these differentiation by choosing a well- the presidency. frontal attacks on authority with known figure to head the ticket. This In an attempt to dilute the maneuvers to wear down and disor- practice led to controversial choices center-left's vote, Febres-Cordero ganize the opposition from within. that created serious fissures inside permitted AbdalA Bucaram, an Offers of cash and patronage lured some parties and discord among exiled party leader and the former some opposition congressmen away prospective electoral partners. It mayor of Guayaquil, to return from from their parties. A combination of clouded an already confusing politi- Panama. But this Machiavellian desertions and deals with two "inde- cal spectrum as factions split off decision misfired. Bucaram won 17.5 pendent" populist parties enabled from regular parties to create their percent of the vote to edge out the

Hemisphere . Winter 1989 rightist Duran Ballen for second mercial featuring popular enter- frustrations with Borja's program. place. Bucaram's second-place tainers singing, "Rodrigo Borja ama Bucaram's sister, Elsa, is currently finish gave him a spot in the May su gente" ("Rodrigo Borja loves his the mayor of Guayaquil. Unless the run-off against Borja, who won first people"). The circus-like campaign character of the Bucaram discourse place with 24.8 percent of the vote. reflected a fundamental problem of changes, bombast and personal The various rightist parties gar- Ecuadoran society: the exhaustion attacks may be permanently nered only 17.4 percent of the first- of ideas and programs in the con- entrenched in Ecuadoran politics. round presidential vote and won text of the nation's economic crisis. only 10 of 71 congressional seats. Personality became the focal point Bucaram's promises of free of the campaign because neither Democratic Prospects? school lunches, free maternity care, side formulated a fresh set of alter- Borja assumed office last August and public works articulated the natives to Febres-Cordero's policies. with only a modest mandate and dissatisfactions of the lower classes, Bucaram and Borja rejected the with economic conditions that particularly the poor people of president's half-hearted attempt at reduce his ability to satisfy the Guayaquil. But his provocative com- neoliberalism. In doing so both can- demands of the populace. Crashing ments and personal style became didates resurrected old-fashioned international oil prices and uncon- the primary issue of the campaign. Keynesian, CEPAL, and dependency trolled government spending during Among his most offensive ad-libs thinking. Febres-Cordero's last year left Borja were his praise for the political acu- The lack of fresh choices and the little choice but to enact an austerity men of Adolph Hitler and the com- carnivalesque atmosphere of the package. In September he imple- parisons he drew between himself campaign generated public disaffec- mented the initial measures. They and Jesus Christ. His emotionally- tion with the candidates. Street included a 75.6 percent devaluation charged campaign speeches grafitti proclaimed, "Borja o of the currency, tax increases, attacked the "oligarchy"-a category Bucaram, sigue la crisis" ("Borja or import restrictions, and a ban on in which he lumped Febres-Cordero Bucaram, the crisis continues"). As vehicle imports. The measures hiked along with Borja and his supporters. the election day neared, rumors cir- fuel prices by 100 percent and elec- Reminiscent of the populist rhetoric culated that the military was poised tricity prices by 30 percent. A 15.8 of Latin America's past, Bucaram to intervene if Bucaram won. percent increase in the minimum called his supporters "los humildes" The election took place on May wage tempered the social costs of and "los descamisados." His campaign 8 without disruptions. Borja took the program. commercials featured martyr-like 46 percent of the votes cast, while While unhappy with the images of himself (e.g., Bucaram in 41 percent went to Bucaram, who measures, the Frente Unitariode an outstretched position like Christ swiftly conceded defeat. Nonethe- Trabajadores(the umbrella labor on the cross) and his family (e.g., his less, trouble spots in Borja's elec- organization composed of the major son looking as if he were beaten, toral victory may prove problematic trade-union confederations) did not smothered in catsup to simulate for his administration. The voters mobilize against the package. Borja blood). He even extended the reli- split along regional lines. Borja's has stressed business-labor coopera- gious imagery to Borja, pictured in a support was overwhelmingly con- tion, and has made it clear that his commercial with devil's horns. centrated in the interior provinces; administration will respect the labor Bucaram appeared on television he did not carry a single coastal pro- movement. But he has also reached with two empty whiskey bottles and vince. Hence the 1988 presidential out to the private sector by appoint- declared the bottles represented run-off was the most regionally ing well-known businessmen to key Borja's daily alcohol consumption. polarized contest in Ecuador's positions in his economic team. Bucaram's unpredictability and recent history. Given the traditional Recent events in Ecuador under- mass base frightened many on the animosities between the coast and score the key role that politicians political right. Still, some rightist the sierra, Borja can expect little play in strengthening or undermin- leaders confessed privately to sup- tolerance from costenfos, should his ing the institutions and civic culture porting Bucaram as a lesser evil and government falter. of a fledgling democracy. During the as a president they could control. Bucaram turned in a remarkable last four years, leadership's bellig- And the Isais family of Guayaquil, a performance-eating away at Borja's erence, intolerance, and aggressive powerful industrial and financial overwhelming lead in the polls to a political style have brought Ecua- group, contributed financially to margin of just five percentage doran democracy to the edge Bucaram's campaign. But many points. The results legitimize of breakdown. The politics of machos Quito businessmen leaned toward Bucaram as a national leader and and locos has taken its toll. In spite of Borja. assure him a role as a future presi- almost a decade of civilian rule, the Borja responded to Bucaram's dential contender. As such, consolidation of Ecuadoran democ- style with his own personality-based Bucaram and his powerful political racy stands as a formidable chal- campaign, which included a com- family are sure to articulate coastal lenge to President Rodrigo Borja. .

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 1 Reports: Politics

A Political Obituary: Arnulfo Arias of Panama by Steve C.Ropp

or half a century, Arnulfo against US imperialism and its Pan- and volatile new electoral mass. Arias was Panama's lead- amanian allies. This populistic com- It is unlikely, though, that ing political figure. There mitment explains the durability and Panameftismo will remain a major is little question that the size of Arias's political constituency, political force. Even in its heyday, imposition of a military- particularly in the urban centers of Panamefiismo was a highly personal dominated regime in 1968 Panama City and Col6n. movement, not an institutionalized stemmed from domestic party. Arias had great faith in the resistance to the possibility of an masses but little faith in mass orga- Arias presidency. Just as current nizations as vehicles for social developments in Argentina cannot change. This fact, as well as the be understood without reference to refusal of the Panameflistas to the legacy of Juan Per6n, analysis of strengthen their machinery by par- Panamanian politics must start ticipating in national and local elec- with the legacy of "El Hombre" tions between 1968 and 1984, means Born in 1901 in the interior pro- that the party could quickly become vince of Coclk, Arias attended the an empty shell. Unlike Juan Per6n, University of Chicago and Harvard who left Argentina with both a class Medical School. On returning to constituency and mass organiza- Panama in the 1920s, he became tions, Arias left Panama with merely active in a civic movement called an ill-defined mass following. "Community Action." The move- Panama is ostensibly moving ment's leaders were mestizo profes- toward "pure and clean" democratic sionals from the interior provinces, elections in May 1989. A civilian such as Arias himself. Its popular president, two vice presidents, 67 base consisted of urban workers. members of the National Assembly, These professionals and workers felt and 505 local representatives are excluded from the political alliance to be elected for five-year terms formed by Panama's urban-commer- beginning on September 1, 1989. cial elite and supported by the US. At first glance the death of Arias Arias's political philosophy con- seems to have improved Panama's tained elements of racism directed prospects for democracy because it primarily against black West eliminates a major barrier to the Indians. This philosophy arose from Arguably, Arias's death on military's acceptance of democratic the US preference for hiring West August 10, 1988, was Panama's most government. After all, the military Indians, a practice that excluded a important domestic political event ousted Arias from the presidency in wide swath of Panama's population of the year, in terms of potential 1941 and in 1968 because it regarded (including Spanish-speaking blacks) consequences. It rivaled the more him as a political threat. And in from the fruits of the Canal-based dramatic confrontation between the 1984 the Defense Forces resorted to economy. Arias's flirtation with Nazi Reagan administration and General electoral fraud to prevent him from philosophy during the 1930s was no Manuel Antonio Noriega. An obvious assuming the presidency. charade. What it masked, however, question is whether Arias's Paname- Yet Arias's death has not was his more fundamental commit- ifista Party will survive the loss of its improved relations between civilian ment to indigenous populism charismatic leader. Because Arias parties and the current military lead- regularly commanded the loyalty of ership. The cocaine colonels-boxed Steve C. Ropp is professor ofpolitical 35-40 percent of the electorate, loss in by the US drug indictments and science at the University of Wyoming. of party vigor could create a large by domestic opposition to their polit-

Hemisphere Winter 1989 ~ ---

ical dominance-cannot afford to and legal order of the Republic of manders seek to preserve their relinquish the reins of power to a Panama." The 16-member commis- domestic safe haven against extradi- civilian government. It is therefore sion includes only representatives of tion. Democracy, or even its sem- likely that the scheduled 1989 elec- the military-controlled political par- blance, may play a minor role in this tions will be a stage-managed affair. ties, the mass organizations, and the effort. As in Haiti, direct military Some of the evidence for this Defense Forces. Such membership rule would lead to continued eco- political scenario is inferential. suggests that Noriega will tightly nomic decline. Cuts in government Clearly the military leadership bears control the elections and exclude services and employment, coupled high costs in maintaining the politi- the democratic opposition from with efforts to raise additional reve- cal status quo. But it would bear meaningful participation. nue at the expense of the middle equally high costs in permitting the A less likely scenario is that of class, would result in increased establishment of a civilian democ- "Haitianization," which would leave middle-class emigration. racy. By default, what is likely is a the Defense Forces in direct and Arias's demise has vastly stage-managed election that pro- open control of the government. improved Panama's long-term pros- duces another military-controlled This scenario involves the possibility pects for democracy by narrowing government. that Noriega may see no need for a the differences between the military A more tangible indication of democratic fig leaf. Alternatively, as and the civilian political parties. Noriega's intent is the fact that in happened in Haiti during 1987-88, Nonetheless, the short-term prospects August 1988 he founded the Consul- a failed attempt to create a demo- are bleak. Barring a civilian uprising tation and Political Advisory Com- cratic fig leaf could result in a quick or a coup by progressive junior offi- mission. Its main purpose is "to return to direct military rule. cers, Panama will experience addi- organize the 1989 elections within "Haitianization" assumes that, tional years of direct or indirect the framework of the constitutional above all, the military's top com- military rule. m

PUBLICACIONES EL COLEGIO DE MEXICO

Pilar Gonzalbo Soledad Loaeza y Rafael Segovia (comps) Las mujeres en la Nueva Espafia. Educaci6n La vida polftica mexicana en la crisis y vida cotidiana Takabatake Michitosbi, Lotbar Knauth y Daniel Cosfo Villegas (coord) Michiko Tanaka (comps) Historia general de Mexico (2 tomos) Polftica y pensamiento politico en Jap6n, 1926-1982 Varios Historia minima de Mexico Joseph Hodara Prebisch y la Cepal. Sustancia, trayectoria y (versi6n en ingles contexto institucional A Compact History of Mexico) Carmen Ramos (comp) Ana Pizarro (coord) Presencia y transparencia: la mujer en la Hacia una historia de la literatura historia de Mexico latinoamericana Varios Gerardo M. Bueno (comp) Hacia una renovaci6n del crecimiento Mexico-Estados Unidos, 1986 econ6mico en America Latina

Publicaciones peri6dicas

* Historia Mexicana * Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispanica * * Foro Internacional * Estudios de Asia y Africa * Estudios Econ6micos* * Estudios Demograficos y Urbanos * Estudios Sociol6gicos *

Para mayores informes: Departamento de Publicaciones de El Colegio de Mexico, A.C. Pedidos por correo: Camino al Ajusco 20, 01000 Mexico, D.F. Pedidos por telefono: 568 6033 Exts. 388 y 297

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Reports: Nicaragua

The Sandinistas and the US Press by Pablo Antonio Cuadra

ne of the peculiarities of that liberated it from colonial rule, North American press has enjoyed Central American his- and that is the legacy of its heroes, more freedom, but for that very rea- tory resides in the fact and whose prestige is unsurpassed son has been less concerned about that it has fallen to the in the minds of our peoples. How- the lack of it. In Central America the press to defend the ever much and however frequently most elemental struggle for freedom rights of people against the cause of liberty has been betrayed, of expression is permanent and those who have held it has ignited every revolution on dramatic, in a way that our North power and sought to expand it at this continent. American colleagues have never the expense of individual rights. experienced. That is why they fre- Newspapers have been our only quently appear to be strangely, dis- compensation for weak legislative couragingly insensitive to our and judicial branches, confronted struggle, a struggle that, by rights, by executives perpetually tempted should affect them as much as it to excess. Nicaragua is a case in does us. point. There, the daily La Prensa has North Americans do not struggle been called "the republic of paper." against power, with rare exceptions, The Somozas constantly sought to but rather against a different politi- break or stretch the bonds of consti- cal party. They fight not for democ- tutional limitation and erode liber- racy but rather within democracy. ties, searching for greater and Thus their consciousness of freedom greater power. In our newspaper the is very different from our own. republican conscience was born and Their perspective is naive-virginal, survived by stating plainly what con- without history as it were-when the gressmen or judges were too venal unexpected news item suddenly or frightened to say. The people erupts in their crystal ball. I have remembered as much, and this is the always had a special terror of that way they learned to identify their kind of "objectivity" The last rights. Somoza, educated at West Point, For, in fact, there are two ways to The Press and Freedom: knew how to speak English well. In be a democrat. One can either Contrasting Styles truly deplorable fashion he managed establish and practice from the seat to convince the North American of power itself, or one can fight for For Central Americans the press press that, as hard as he had worked it from the outside. Spanish America and freedom of expression repre- at it, the Nicaraguan people were is more a democracy of desire than sent more than the free play of opin- not ready for democracy. Years later, of fulfillment. But that desire is ions. They also represent that Tomts Borge-who lacks neither informed by a greater vehemence invisible wall of containment and intelligence nor a certain charm- and force of tradition precisely defense against an equally venerable also managed to convince the best because it has cost so much in blood tradition-that of the "strong man, newspaper people in the US that as and sacrifice. Democracy is and whether Spanish or Indian, the interior minister he was the greatest remains our collective ideal; so product of a history at once morally guarantee for keeping the extrem- much so that tyrannies of the left and racially violent. ists and radicals at bay. and right pay it the ultimate compli- Our newspapers have thus But Borge was one of the found- ment of hypocrisy. They speak of played a different role from those of ers of the Sandinista Front and themselves as "authentic democ- the US. There, freedom has enjoyed has openly declared his Marxism- racies," thus indirectly paying trib- a multiplicity of defenses. The three Leninism on many occasions. No ute to the system that made America, branches of government are inde- matter! All that is history. pendent of one another. The private The journalist's art would seem Pablo Antonio Cuadra, writerand sector and individual rights enjoy an to consist of viewing matters with a poet, is editor-in-chiefof La Prensa. almost sacred status. Thus the spurious objectivity, which somehow

Hemisphere . Winter 1989 supersedes history itself. We should wrong their country's policies have In effect, we have lost our histor- not be surprised then that in been. After Vietnam, indecision ical privacy. For eight years we have Somoza's day a fair number of Amer- would appear to be the best decision been the biggest story in the world ican reporters categorized La Prensa of all. But we Central Americans do press, but also the biggest lie. We as a passionate opponent of the not have the luxury of fighting have completely destroyed our econ- government and therefore not within democracy. We are fighting to omy in spite of the advice and objective. Likewise, in today's revo- establish it. That is quite another, admonitions of high officials of the lutionary age, Stephen Kinzer of the less comfortable, less easy matter. regime since resigned; we have sac- New York Times patronizingly called Then you have the "liberals." The rificed a unity that our political his- La Prensato task for lack of objec- liberal American journalist has the tory has almost never known; we tivity. The article was entitled "La largest conscience Diogenes's lan- have provoked a civil war that con- Prensa: Gadfly of the Sandinista tern will ever light upon. Unfor- sumes the same peasants and same state. The editors don't let the facts tunately, its very breadth contains a Indians for whom we fought; we get in the way" (March 7, 1988). crucial contradiction. Such journal- have provoked the hostility of neigh- Many years have passed since ists are humanitarians who close boring countries, all to the benefit Alexis de Tocqueville recorded the their eyes to offenses against human of a single beneficiary, not our peo- peculiar myopia that characterizes rights. In my comfortless experience ple, but a foreign power, the one American politics when it regards I can testify that, among the Ameri- least respectful of the values of other countries. This would seem to can liberals I have known, the great- nationalism that we proclaimed to be an inheritance that the American est nobility coexists with an be our banner. We have taken in vain press has made no effort to correct, incorrigible naivete. the name of our 30,000 dead and particularly when it moves south pushed a revolution off the rails. of the Rio Grande. Another Sellout Instead of a state for the people, we As a poet I sympathize with have the people for the state. Pablo Antonio Cuadra-my other If I were so inclined, I might luxuri- Instead of power for the people, persona, editor of La Prensa-who ate in the attention the American once more, we have dictatorial has been forced to endure, for the press gives to President Daniel power imposed upon the people. nine years of the Sandinista regime, Ortega's strident attacks against the Once more, too, the pharaonic pyra- the almost daily visits of American US government. After all, we still mid is repeated: the ruler above, journalists. They always ask the have a few scores to settle with "the obedience below. On high a "van- same questions-almost all of them Yankees;' and even a verbal reprisal guard" enjoys privilege. Below fervent admirers of what the Sandi- is a delicious treat for the Nicaraguan the salt lies the broad, submissive nistas have told them, contrary to nationalist sensibility. But it is multitude. what they might read in the not-very- impossible not to notice the things "Who can say that this is commu- objective La Prensa. And after the that are working precisely in the nism?" a member of the US Con- questions and answers, the result opposite direction-the submission gress asked me one day, with evident is always the same: a total lack of to Castro and the intervention of the sincerity. "It is not," I replied, "just comprehension. USSR and the entire Soviet bloc in as the scaffold is not yet a house. We It could be, of course, that we the internal affairs of our country. are too close to the history of Cuba are the ones who do not understand. The strangest spectacle of all is the not to see that what has been built Possibly American journalists are wave of improbable foreign- so far is an imitation of that model." not really interested in the Nicara- ers-Vietnamese, Cambodians, It may be quixotic to ask the press guan problem but in certain internal North Koreans, Bulgarians, East of democratic countries-and above political problems in the US. It is Germans-flooding our landscape, all the press of a country that guides not that they are against the so- while a contrary current of thou- the destinies of the free world-to called "contras"; they are against sands of Nicaraguans, young people take the effort to distinguish Reagan. Their objective is not the above all, flee into exile. We have between plagiarism (covered by a victory of peace and democracy in emptied Nicaragua of human deceptive populist liturgy) and the Central America but of the US resources and replaced them with genuine creative liberty of a people. Congress against the White House. people at once strange and totally Up to now Don Quixote has On other occasions the lack alien to our history, our customs, not received a gentle reception. The of understanding or the miscon- our culture. The Russians and the big lie seems to be more welcome ceptions are the result of a guilt PLO kiss us on the lips. We are than a bloody truth. . complex, sometimes quite well addressed with endless bows by the developed. We may think they are servants of Kim II Sung; we are looking at the future; in truth, they advised by Cuban neo-imperialists; Editor's Note: Edited version of an are contemplating their own past flocks of blond students help us, articlepublished in Resistencia, 2:4 and ours. They recognize how badly, to pick coffee. (August 1988).

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Reports: Nicaragua

The Contras as Political Gypsies by Joe Eldridge

could destabilize the region? Wash- ugees is often exploited by contra Bush's feeble declara- ington's scenarios, while providing supporters to emphasize Sandinista tions of commitment to political refuge for the politicians, tyranny. Others opposed to aid President George Sespitethe Nicaraguan contras, fundamentally neglect the genuine sometimes become so preoccupied both Democratic and humanitarian needs of the contras with discrediting the contras that Republican members of and the political needs of Honduras, they overlook the serious mistakes of Congress have declared Washington's staunchest Central the Sandinistas that have led to the the contra project dead. Last fall American ally. Nicaraguan exodus. Repatriation Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary The mass exodus of Nicaraguans becomes a distinct possibility only to of state for Latin America and a to South Florida and California is the extent that errors are recog- long-time contra booster, even already putting severe strains on the nized-and corrected-on all sides. referred to the need for a "post- job market and social services of While many people have fled contra" policy. This need became those two areas. The addition of Nicaragua to escape the draft, more pressing when, in February, contras and their families, on a large others have left because the meddle- the presidents of Central American scale, will exacerbate the problems. some Sandinistas wanted to exert nations renewed their commitment Supporters and critics alike have state control over many aspects of to the regional peace process. With- neglected the humanitarian needs of their lives. Hundreds of peasant out increased military aid the war the contras. To the Bush admin- farmers have left Nicaragua pre- will continue to wind down, leaving istration, the contras are strategic cisely because they wanted to be left stranded in Honduras thousands players helping to carry out an anti- alone. They did not want to be told of contra combatants and their Sandinista foreign policy. To Hon- what to plant, when to plant, and to families. duras, the contras represent a threat whom to sell their crop and at what Twice in 1988 Congress to social peace and territorial integ- price. approved contra-aid packages that rity. To the Sandinistas, they are an As in most wars the majority of included food, clothing, and medi- implacable foe intent on rolling the refugees abandoned their homes cine. The last appropriation, engi- back the revolution. To the US Con- to escape the fighting. In interviews neered last fall by Senate Majority gress, the contras are a nettlesome at camps in Honduras, many refu- Leader Robert Byrd, provided problem that refuses to go away. gees have indicated to me and other $27 million in emergency relief. The Rigid stereotypes about the con- observers they would consider issue of contra aid will reemerge in tras (and the Sandinistas) have dis- returning to Nicaragua if the war the spring when the 101st Congress torted the issues and undermined ended and if the Sandinistas would again tackles this troubling legacy thoughtful debate. Critics of US pol- give them iron-clad guarantees that of Reagan's Central American policy. icy tend to portray the contras as they would neither suffer reprisals cutthroat mercenaries, neglecting to nor be drafted. Obviously a decision Who Wants the Contras? mention that many of the foot sol- of this magnitude requires the com- diers are humble peasant farmers mitments of the Sandinistas, the What will happen to the contra swept up by chaos. The supporters contras, and the US government. forces and to the tens of thousands reserve similar epithets for the For other fighters and their of Nicaraguan refugees living in Sandinistas, viewing the contras as families, a return to Nicaragua is Honduras? What will happen to the virtuous freedom fighters and unthinkable, at least for now. The political stance of Honduras, which democrats. These images impede distrust is too deep and the ideologi- has provided sanctuary to the serious discussion about the ulti- cal divisions are too pronounced Nicaraguans? What steps can be mate fate of the contras and their for healing to occur. taken to prevent the armaments and families. Because abandoning these fighters from spawning bands of stereotypes would be tantamount to On the Road Again marauders and drug traffickers that surrendering one's political bona- fides, critics and supporters alike Honduran tolerance of the contras Joe Eldridge is a consultant on Cen- make little effort to look beyond the has reached its limit. With the tral American affairs to the United polemics. retirement of Ronald Reagan, their Methodist Church. The plight of the Nicaraguan ref- most formidable advocate, and with

Hemisphere Winter 1989 the chronic ambivalence of Con- who are now fleeing to the US, the duras? Emotion-laden language gress regarding military assistance, onus necessarily falls on Congress must give way to dialogue about the the Hondurans have asserted their and the Bush administration to for- genuine needs and desires of the own political interests. Over the last mulate a policy that responds to the fighters and refugee families. On several months thousands of com- genuine humanitarian needs of the the one side, Nicaragua must guar- batants and their families have contras and their families. antee total amnesty under the super- crossed the border into Honduras The fighters and the refugees vision of international monitors. to receive US aid. Nevertheless, the are already feeling the pain of aban- The Sandinistas must also offer presence of contras in Honduras is donment by the US. The contras incentives, such as land, to encour- unacceptable to the vast majority of who mutinied against their Reagan- age the return of the fighters and that country's citizens. A high for- backed leadership have been refugees. On the other side, Hon- eign ministry official recently told ostracized and ignored. One former duras must participate in finding me that the government considers combatant, interviewed last summer opportunities for the permanent the contras a more serious problem in Miami, said he felt like the "paper resettlement of those Nicaraguans for Honduras than for Nicaragua. cup of this war, used and discarded" who do not want to return home. In September special envoy (MiamiHerald, July 18, 1988). International agencies have Morris Busby created a furor when, A humanitarian solution to the expressed their interest in assisting asked about the status of the con- plight of the contras and other with this process in Nicaragua, tras, he replied, "They are in Hon- Nicaraguan refugees is difficult but Honduras, and Costa Rica. duras." Since then the US embassy not impossible. We can learn much The Nicaraguan government has in Tegucigalpa has tried to reassure from the partial successes already voiced its desire to facilitate the Honduras that the US will not leave achieved in the repatriation of the repatriation of the thousands of ref- Honduras holding the proverbial indigenous peoples-the Miskitos ugees living in Honduras and Costa bag. Unsatisfied with US assurances, and Sumus-who were uprooted Rica. Further, war-weary peasants Honduran foreign minister Carlos from their homes on Nicaragua's are willing to bind up the nation's L6pez Contreras used the occasion Atlantic coast. Over the last several wounds by focusing on the task of of last fall's UN General Assembly months thousands of Miskitos and domestic reconciliation. When I meeting to propose the creation of a Sumus have gone home, deciding asked if they would live alongside the multilateral peace-keeping force to that putting up with the hardships contras, peasants who had just police the Honduran borders. The of Nicaragua is preferable to life experienced a contra attack prompt rejections by Secretary of in Honduran refugee camps. The answered: "Why not? Nicaragua has State George Shultz and the contra growing impatience of the Hon- land here for everyone. What counts leadership highlighted the pro- duran military, which recently is that we live in peace." posal's importance. The Hondurans unleashed a campaign of harass- The Bush administration must hoped the peace-keeping force ment and intimidation against be prepared to play a pivotal role in would disarm the contra fighters. Nicaraguan Miskitos and Sumus this process whether the ultimate The Hondurans have insisted all living on the Honduran side of destination of the contras and their along that the contras are Washing- the Coco River, has contributed to families is Central America or else- ton's problem. After all, they argue, the desire to return home. Also pro- where. Many of the contras, who the US funded and trained the con- moting repatriation has been an believe they are actually defending tras. Recent reports of contra traf- unusual degree of cooperation the White House's interest, hope to ficking in weapons and in US- among the Honduran government, resettle in the US. The Honduran donated food and medicine have the Sandinista government, and the government expects Washington to heightened Honduran anxiety and UN, which have guaranteed safe "take care" of the contras-in the resentment. passage. US if necessary. Regardless of their Despite their reluctance, mate- Several organizations have destination the Nicaraguan exiles rial incentives can probably per- joined together to ease the trauma need material assistance. suade Honduras to accept some of of relocation. The International Red Political oratory and expediency the contras and their families. The Cross, the UN High Commission must not take precedence over majority of these Nicaraguans will on Refugees, other private develop- humanitarian needs. Central Amer- inevitably have to look elsewhere. ment organizations, and the Sandi- ica's war is winding down. Without Honduras has suggested that reset- nista government have helped thou- more US military aid, negotiation will tlement could occur in Costa Rica sands of Miskitos and Sumus to supplant the fighting. The US-from and Guatemala, the region's neutral resettle in Nicaragua by providing the earliest days the central protag- countries. Predictably both coun- food, clothing, and building onist-must insure the contra fight- tries have seemingly closed the door materials. ers and their families have the chance on this alternative. As indicated by What should be done to the to rebuild their lives wherever they the problems of the Nicaraguans Nicaraguans who remain in Hon- choose to resettle. a

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Reports: Brazil

Zoning the Brazilian Amazon: Rond6nia by Janet M. Chernela

he use of zoning to pre- ing national security. One of the the approval of the Ministries of serve critical areas of the goals is to protect indigenous peo- Agrarian Reform and the Interior, Amazon Basin was one ples and others who earn their living seems to be an effort to repair the of the principal ideas in extractive activities such as fish- damage caused by the controversial espoused by Francisco ing and rubber tapping. The docu- Polonoroeste project. A combina- "Chico" Mendes Filho, ment voices concern for "the tion of roadworks and colonization, the Brazilian ecologist territorial integrity of these commu- Polonoroeste has brought 160,000 and labor leader who was assassi- nities" and their protection from newcomers a year into Rond6nia nated on December 22, 1988. "the impact of external forces." since the late 1970s. In just a decade Mendes suggested the demarcation the project has removed one-fifth of the state's forest cover. The World of forested areas as "use zones," IV A3M restricting some zones to the extrac- 3 Bank, as the principal lender for tion of resources such as rubber. Polonoroeste, has been widely crit- His objective was both to preserve icized by international environmen- the forests of Amazonia and to tal groups. The environmentalists maintain their productivity for tra- contend the Bank's requirements for ditional economic activities like rub- ecological safeguards are either ber collection. Mendes was not alone insufficient or not enforced. In in espousing a zoning, or multiuse, response to such criticism the Bank method of resource management. has become increasingly attentive to The same method is the earmark of ecological issues. Consequently the the UNESCO Man in the Biosphere Rond6nia proposal was undoubt- Program. But Mendes was remark- edly a product of "Bank diplomacy." able in demonstrating the conserva- There are several potential prob- tionist and economic viability of a lems, however. For example, the pro- traditional approach to forest man- posal fails to specify what portion of agement and in integrating the Rond6nia would fall under zoning approach into a visionary model of regulation. If the entire state is to be large-scale zoning. regulated, as the document sug- On December 15, 1988-a week gests, why would the project benefit before Mendes's assassination-the only 55,000 families when the total state government of Rond6nia pre- population of Rondonia is 1 million sented a proposal for the "socio- people? Perhaps the most serious economic and ecological zoning of flaw is that the proposal inade- Rond6nia" to a visiting delegation of quately discusses means of imple- US legislators (Didriodo Pard, mentation. It is unclear how the Belem, December 16). The proposal According to the document, project, if approved by the Brazilian outlines a series of objectives: to 55,000 poor rural families will bene- government and the World Bank, preserve natural ecosystems; to fit. Ninety-five percent of these fam- would be carried out. restore environmentally-degraded ilies work in small-scale agriculture Nonetheless, a plan for resource areas; and to set aside areas for and the remaining 5 percent are management in Rond6nia is long managing sustainable resources, for engaged in extractive activities. The overdue. Environmental zoning, preserving traditional economic initiative contains incentives for which simultaneously addresses eco- activities, for developing new eco- the cultivation of cocoa, coffee, rub- nomic and ecological problems, is a nomic activities, and for maintain- ber, and wood. It anticipates a total promising approach. The imple- cost of $250 million and requests mentation of a well-conceived zon- Janet M. Chernela is assistantpro- that the World Bank provide ing project in Rondonia would serve fessor of anthropology at Florida $150 million. as a model for resource manage- InternationalUniversity. The proposal, which must win ment in other Amazonian states.

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 A Martyred Environmentalist by William T Vickers

occur as scattered individuals because of the traditional scarcity of December 22, 1988, throughout the forest. Each tapper labor in Amazonia. Some rubber Francisco Mendes has his own estradas, or trails, that barons employed private armies that uring the evening of D Filho, a leading Bra- he works on alternating days. He enforced the virtual enslavement of zilian environmentalist, makes fresh cuts on the tree trunks their rubber tappers. The tappers' was killed by a shotgun in the morning and collects the latex attempts to escape often resulted blast as he stepped out- after the midday meal. Later in the in torture and death. side his home in the frontier town afternoon or evening the collector Although it abused human of Xapuri, Acre. Mendes was the curdles the latex by slowly ladling it beings, the traditional rubber sys- president of the Union of Rural onto a spit that he rotates over a tem did not destroy the rain forest. Workers, a labor organization of the smoky fire, eventually forming the The dispersed rubber trees dictated seringueiros,or rubber collectors, crude rubber ball that he sends to a dispersed labor force. In the hey- whose livelihood depends on the market. day of the rubber boom most collec- wild rubber trees of the Amazon tors did not clear gardens for food; rain forest. A man of humble birth, traders provided their staples to Mendes had been a simple rubber maximize collecting time and hence collector ("tapper") who was known profits. Amazonian rubber lost its to his friends as "Chico." His leader- dominance in the market after 1912 ship qualities emerged in the when most of the production shifted mid-1970s as he helped to organize to more efficient Asian plantations, the Union of Rural Workers. He causing a dramatic decline in world later manifested these qualities in a prices. The glittering excesses of difficult and bloody struggle to Brazil's rubber boom era faded as defend the tappers' territories the Amazon entered a period of eco- against expropriation and deforesta- nomic depression. Nevertheless, the tion by cattle ranchers, lumbermen, main economic activities of the and settlers. region continued to involve the Mendes proved to be an effective piecemeal extraction of forest prod- spokesman and lobbyist for forest ucts, including rubber. conservation. Primarily through his Francisco "Chico" Mendes came efforts the concept of the "extrac- from such circumstances. He was a tive reserve" gained currency and tapper who collected latex, Brazil was officially implemented in the nuts, and other products from trees state of Acre and elsewhere in the The physical conditions of rub- in the forest. It was a hard life with Brazilian Amazon. The creation ber collecting are lonely and harsh. barely enough earnings to cover the of such protected areas placed But the traditional system of labor needs of a family living in an iso- Mendes's movement in direct con- relations in this extractive enter- lated hut beside a jungle river. But, flict with ranchers and would-be prise was even worse. A system of insofar as the rain forest survived, landowners, who made repeated debt-peonage prevailed in which all it was a sustainable life. attempts on his life and the lives of of the collectors on a particular river By the 1970s a wave of settlers, other rubber tappers and activists. or section of a river worked under a ranchers, lumbermen, and miners Historically, rubber tappers have trader or seringalista.The trader threatened the Amazonian forests. been among the most abused labor- provided basic supplies to his collec- This wave resulted, in part, from ing classes in Brazil. Like many tors and purchased their rubber. government development schemes tropical plant species, rubber trees Because the traders manipulated and tax incentives. Mendes and the the account books, most rubber other members of the Union of William T Vickers is associateprofessor tappers quickly fell into debt and Rural Workers conducted many of anthropology at FloridaInterna- became bound to their traders. This demonstrations to block the razing tional University. relationship benefited the traders of forest lands. Mendes's soft-spoken

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Reports: Brazil

nature and nonviolent tactics led small-scale collection of renewable This road would connect with the some to call him the "Gandhi of the resources such as rubber, fruits, and trans-Andean highway to Lima and Amazon." He was certainly a man nuts. These special reserves will ben- its Pacific port of Callao. Melo of courage, for he knew well that the efit Amazonian Indians and the rub- argues that, because Brazil's ports history of Amazonian conflicts is ber tappers. In this context, whites are much farther away, the 1,000- written in blood, not compromise. and natives forged a conservationist mile route is a key to the effective In rural Brazil brute force and alliance, with about 10,000 Indians marketing of Acre's forest products. the law of the gun often prevail. joining Mendes's Union of Rural The route would also facilitate the Ranchers, mine owners, and other Workers. In 1987 the UN Environ- export of Brazilian soybean, grain, landholders hire pistoleiros, or gun- mental Program recognized Mendes's and meat to the Pacific Rim. men, to intimidate or kill peasants, effectiveness as a conservationist Much to the chagrin of environ- squatters, Indians, priests, and any- when it honored him with a Global mentalists, Melo has approached one else they wish to evict from their 500 Award. Japan concerning the financing of claims. The Brazilian government Mendes's rising star aroused the the estimated $300-million project. rarely prosecutes such crimes. ire of ranchers who coveted the The world's foremost consumer of Indeed, the large landowners por- lands now designated as protected tropical hardwoods, Japan sees tray themselves as champions of forest areas. In the aftermath of his Amazonian timber as a replacement order and progress in the struggle murder, the police launched an for its declining sources in Malaysia against leftist agitators, subversive investigation and arrested several and Indonesia. elements, and foreign influences. members of a prominent Xapuri Melo contends the road should be Their powerful organization, the family for their alleged involvement built under his administration to Rural Democratic Union, is an in the crime. National and interna- insure that environmental safe- effective opponent of agrarian tional protest and media coverage guards will be observed. Despite his reform in Brazil. have forced the police to respond. attempt to align himself with the leg- In 1987 Mendes lobbied the With breathtaking speed, Chico acy of Chico Mendes, experience Inter-American Development Bank Mendes has become an inspiration shows Amazonian road construction against a loan to finance the con- and martyr for the environmental unleashes processes of colonization struction of a highway of penetra- cause. and deforestation that resist all tion into Acre. In order to secure The struggle to protect the rain attempts at regulation. If the Rio the loan the Brazilian government forests of the Amazon requires con- Branco-Pucallpa highway is com- announced its intention to establish stant vigilance. Acre's governor, pleted, Acre's forests are likely to a number of ecological reserves. Flaviano Melo, is promoting the suffer the massive devastation that The government designated some of concept of a new highway to link the has occurred in the neighboring these as "extractive reserves" to state capital of Rio Branco with the state of Rond6nia. . protect the forest while allowing the Peruvian frontier city of Pucallpa.

Central American Studies: Toward a New Research Agenda Social Science Research Council Working Group on Central America

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Hemisphere. Winter 1989 The first international scholarly journal to focus exclusively on Mexico!

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Hemisphere Winter 1989 Insider briefs on people and institutions shaping Latin American and Caribbean affairs

Saying One Thing, State Department's recent "diplo- believes that a second-place finish in Doing Another ... macy of defeat" in dealing with the May 1989 presidential election is communist regimes in Nicaragua, as good as a victory because neither Two recent developments indicate Afghanistan, and Angola. But the left nor the right can tolerate a that, despite Fidel Castro's emphasis Menges does not stop with State. victory by the other. With this dead- on anticapitalist "rectification" and His Inside the National Security Coun- lock the electoral outcome will be his skepticism about Soviet-style cil (Simon and Schuster, 1988) is one determined by the congress, which "perestroika,"Cuba is eager for for- of the few conservative critiques of will opt for Sanchez, the candidate eign investments in specific sectors. Oliver North's activities while at the of the incumbent party, the Movi- One of these is petroleum-where NSC. No wonder Menges is known miento NacionalistaRevolucionario. the country is now producing by friend and foe alike as "Constant According to the publication, San- 1 million tons of crude a year-half Menace." chez "speaks Spanish with a marked from Matanzas province. Spanish North American accent, but his and Soviet investments have financed mentality is Bolivian hasta la medula a new oil terminal in the Bay of Matan- (to the bone marrow)." zas at a cost of about $60 million. Capital Flight Panama's foreign exchange reserves ... they've shrunk from about $20.6 Cueca Solo (They Dance Alone) billion at the end of 1987 to about "Foggy Bottom Freedom Fighter"? $7 billion in July 1988. An estimated Have you listened to Sting's latest Important nuggets of information 30% of this capital flight has found song, "Cueca Solo," on the album can be found in Elliott Abrams's its way to Miami. ... Nothing Like the Sun (A&M exit interview on Reagan policy in Records)? Based on the "cueca," Latin America. The former assistant Chile's traditional courting dance, secretary of state for inter-American Presidential Pecadillos "Cueca Solo" asks "Why are these affairs assesses Latin America's women here dancing on their own?" recent experience with and pros- Andres Oppenheimer reported in The song resulted from the 1986 pects for democracy, and discusses the Miami Herald (December 11, Amnesty Tour, when traveling musi- other matters such as relations 1988) that Presidential Concubines cians had the opportunity to meet between the executive branch and (1988), written and published by victims of torture and government Congress on Central American Carlos Capriles Ayala, is the hottest repression. issues. According to Abrams, House selling book in Venezuela. Alleging speaker Jim Wright was "impossible that all of Venezuela's presidents, to work with." While Abrams was from Bolivar to Carlos Andr6s Roots Rock complimentary of the foreign serv- Perez, have had mistresses, the book has sold more than 45,000 copies. Hot new albums that will appeal ice, he argues the "Department of to Latin music buffs are Ruben State as an institution has shown an The issue of presidential mistresses has had a growing public-affairs Blades's Antecedente and Los inability to defend itself from one of Lobos's La pistola y el coraz6n. its greatest enemies on earth, the US impact because of the high profile of Blanca Ibaiez, Jaime Lusinchi's Blades is the Panamanian musician Congress" (Policy Review, Winter who popularized "crossover" music. 1989). companion during his recently completed presidency. His latest album reflects his feelings for the people and places of Pan- ama. Los Lobos highlight the use of iQuidn tiene la culpa? iEl gringo del altiplano? indigenous guitars and harps in their most recent album interpreta- The latest hammering of the US for- In Orbita-Bip... the Bolivian politi- tion of traditional Mexican music. eign service comes from Constan- cal leader Gonzalo Sanchez Lozada tine C. Menges, whose Policy Review has been given the nod to be the Watch Out (Fall 1988) article emphasizes the country's next president. Why? According to the Caracas-based Three US journalists were recently Edited by Mark B. Rosenberg publication, "Goni," as he is known, awarded Alicia Patterson Founda-

Hemisphere Winter 1989 E

tion grants to write books focusing You May Need These Lillian Pubillones, formerly on the on Latin America. Sam Dillon of the staff of the House Subcommittee on Miami Herald, Pam Constable of The Center for Immigration Policy Western Hemisphere Affairs, is now the Boston Globe, and free-lancer and Refugee Assistance at George- executive director of the Coalition Michael Massing will use founda- town University has published a set for the Advancement of Foreign tion support to examine respectively of useful and timely studies on Cen- Languages and International the contra war, Pinochet's impact tral American migration to the US. Studies (CAFLIS). CAFLIS brings on Chile, and US counterinsurgency An analysis by Segundo Montes and together 128 national groups repre- doctrine. Juan Jose Garcia VAsquez estimates senting the foreign language, teach- that there may be as many as 900,000 ing, and social studies communities Salvadorans now living in the US. in the US. It hopes to convince The CBI: A Second Look (El Salvador's population is approx- US policymakers of the vital link imately 5 million.) Another study, by between competitiveness and inter- In Gateway, the Greater Miami Sergio Aguayo and Patricia Weiss national education and language Chamber of Commerce's interna- Fagen, calls for greater involvement training. A major agenda item will tional economic development pub- by the United Nations High Com- be the possibility of creating lication, international trade attorney a missioner for Refugees in imple- "national endowment for interna- Lee Sandler has suggested that menting refugee and safe-haven tional studies," similar to the pending legislation on the CBI protection in the US. National Science Foundation. (CBI-II), sponsored by Rep. Sam Gibbons (D-FL) and Sen. Bob Peter Eisner, senior editor of for- Graham (D-FL), should focus on eign news at Newsday for five years, is risk reduction. Questioning the On the Move moving to Miami to resume work as common wisdom that expansion of a foreign correspondent. The for- duty-free treatment for imports is Susan Kaufman Purcell is now vice president for mer Associated Press reporter the means to enhance CBI's impact, Latin American affairs already has extensive experience in Sandler suggests that the lack of the Americas Society. Formerly with the Council Latin America, having covered the of adequate or available insurance of Foreign Rela- news in Central America, Mexico, coverage is a significant obstacle tions, where she published Debt and Venezuela, and Brazil. to potential investors. The solu- the Restructuringof Mexico (June tion? "Increase OPIC insurance 1988), Purcell will coordinate a series of study groups focusing on Roberto G. Fernandez recently coverage." published Raining the impact of Europe '92 on Latin Backwards (Hou- ston: America and the US, and the impact Arte Piiblico, 1988). The surreal 806.30-807.00 Redux of detente on Soviet and US rela- novel is a series of short auto- tions with Latin America. biographical vignettes about a multi- The US International Trade Com- generation family of Cuban exiles in mission has released a multivolume Miami. report on the use and economic Antonio Valle Vallejo, who was impact of tariff items 806.30 and Gabriel Garcia MArquez's assistant Jackie Tillman, formerly director 807.00. These measures provide duty at the Foundation of New Latin for Latin America on the National concessions for domestic products American Cinema in Havana, was Security Council, was named that are reimported to the US in assigned by the novelist to represent executive director of the Cuban conjunction with foreign processing him last June at a film festival in American National Foundation in and/or assembly. Leading supplier Bogota. Valle accepted the assignment Washington, DC last October. A countries are Mexico (54%), Canada -it would be his first trip outside the Jeane Kirkpatrick protege, Tillman (14%), and the Caribbean states island. Once in BogotA, he found has worked in the United Nations (10%). Prepared for the House Sub- the US Embassy, asked for asylum, and at the American Enterprise committee on Trade, the studies are and is now in Miami. Reports are Institute. Under her tutelage expect useful instruments for researchers that an indignant Garcia MArquez more public affairs conferences and and investment analysts concerned belatedly requested that Colombian publications addressing the human with the employment impact of off- president Virgilio Barco return rights situation in Cuba and that shore manufacturing. Valle. country's foreign policy.

Hemisphere Winter 1989 Upside-Down Decolonization by Rosemarijn Hofte and Gert Oostindie

it is not out of the question that in minister of Social Affairs and pendence of Holland's case of further fragmentation of the Netherlands Antilles Affairs, Jan de Caribbean possessions Netherlands Antilles, smaller islands Koning, his Excellency volunteered arehe prospectsclouded by for questions the inde- such as Saba, Bonaire, and St. his view on decolonization. Koning of economic viability Eustatius would eventually opt for preferred the term "decolonializa- and political fragmenta- the status of the 13th province of the tion" to "decolonization." This was tion, as well as domestic Netherlands. Saba and Bonaire have not meant to be a play on words. He politics in the Netherlands. The already expressed their interest in emphasized that, since the signing Antilleans understandably hold that doing so. of the Statuut, relations in the Dutch these problems need to be solved If some, or all, of the islands system are no longer regarded as before changes in the relationship choose to become a sort of Depart- "colonial," a fact recognized by the with the Netherlands can be ment d'Outre Mer, each island would UN. The minister underlined that addressed. become a separate municipality with the Netherlands, the Netherlands With Aruba things are different. a so-called "Article 12" status. This Antilles, and Aruba are equal part- According to the 1983 amendments means that each island would be ners, even though the former nation to the law (Statuut)that governs under the financial tutelage of the supplies financial and technical decolonization, this island must Dutch state. Such an arrangement assistance. Moreover, in the area of become independent in 1996. But could provoke the possibility of foreign relations the Netherlands neither the Aruban government nor growing Antillean resentment Antilles and Aruba are included in the population is willing to take this against renewed Dutch involvement relevant negotiations and treaty final step because they are content in local affairs. signings. In short, the Caribbean with their present status as an When discussing the decoloniza- partners possess a high degree of autonomous partner in the Dutch tion of small islands, such as the autonomy, in spite of the social and Kingdom. Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, cultural traces the colonial past may The most extreme scenario one wonders why the metropole have left. would make the Netherlands Antil- wants such mini-states to become Koning's remarks are justified. les a Dutch overseas province. The independent. What is the burden it Yet they are telling with regard to almost unanimous opinion of politi- finds too heavy to carry? Sociologist the Dutch concern with world cians in the Netherlands and the Harry Hoetink has suggested that image. Many Dutch felt the events of Dutch Caribbean is that this option Dutch policymakers fear two things: May 1969 severely tarnished this is not preferable. The larger islands a revisit to the social unrest and riot- image. Even though no shot was certainly would not want to take ing of "Willemstad 1969" and mass fired and the Dutch were required such a regressive step. Nevertheless, migration from the Netherlands by Article 43 in the Statuut to Antilles and Aruba to the Nether- restore order, the episode left a bit- Rosemarijn Hofte and Gert Oostindie lands. A third fear might be added: ter taste for two main reasons. are anthropologistsin the Caribbean the financial costs. First, the Dutch, especially the Section of The Royal Institute of young, believed the Netherlands Language, Geography and Folklore, Responsibilities and Image should lead Europe and the US in in Leiden, The Netherlands. In our interview with the Dutch improving relations with the Third

Hemisphere Winter 1989 S

World. They resented their country's nomic inequalities and patronage, is external security is the disputed seeming reversion to its old role as not always appreciated by the more point. In contrast, Koning thinks a colonial power ready to intervene Calvinistically-inclined officials and the obligatory Dutch guarantees of when its interests are threatened. politicians in The Hague. internal security and decent admin- Some politicians like Koning still In addition to internal order, istration under Article 43 are the talk about May 1969 as a nightmare Article 43 covers the external secu- main problems, because they inter- for both the Netherlands Antilles rity of the Netherlands Antilles and fere with the autonomy of the and the Netherlands. But the major- Aruba. External defense is a hor- Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. ity of the Dutch do not think the nets' nest. The Antilleans and The latter problem seems easier to international community still labels Arubans cannot defend themselves, solve than the external defense the Netherlands as a colonial power, yet the Dutch are not able to do issue. or did so even in 1969. Ironically, much more than show the flag in the In short, the provision for inter- pushing the Netherlands Antilles hope it will thwart outside aggres- vening in the case of internal or into independence today might be sors. At present, such external external threats will probably serve considered a repulsive colonial act. threats seem relatively remote. The as a stimulus to Dutch desires to A second difficulty concerns Dutch presence in the Caribbean decolonize and an irritant in future Article 43, which mandates the still provides some stability in a vol- relationships between the Nether- Dutch to guarantee "adequate atile region, much to the satisfaction lands, the Netherlands Antilles, administration" of their overseas ter- and Aruba. ritories. Article 43 stipulates that the Dutch government may be called upon to control internal unrest. Migration "May 1969" suggests this provision The inhabitants of the Netherlands is no dead letter. Most Antillean pol- Antilles have Dutch passports and iticians do not resent the "colonial" are thus entitled to unrestrained set- connotations of this part of the arti- tlement and social benefits in the cle, but would not mind if it were Netherlands. Independence will take removed. Henny Eman, the former away Dutch nationality and close the prime minister of Aruba, has said borders. It may thereby limit mass that internal defense and adequate migration to the Netherlands. For- administration are "our own tunately the future of the Nether- responsibility; we will never call of the US and Venezuela. Major lands Antilles is not a major issue in upon the Netherlands for help as far problems, however, could develop if the Netherlands; Dutch political as these are concerned." the Statuut is changed or revoked, parties do not openly seek to capital- The Dutch are still uneasy, leaving no adequate provisions for ize on latent xenophobia. All parties though. Despite their obligation to defense. The vacuum could be filled deny that racism or xenophobia intervene, they are not supposed to by other powers, thereby threaten- plays any role in their decisions. exert any influence on Antillean pol- ing Antillean sovereignty. Instead, other reasons, such as costs itics. Nevertheless, with the constitu- It seems Article 43 will become incurred to the islands by the brain tional and economic problems in the one of the major issues in discus- drain and the bad employment situ- Netherlands Antilles, Dutch involve- sions regarding constitutional ation for Antilleans and Arubans in ment has intensified to the dismay of changes in the Statuut. Minister the Netherlands, are used to defend politicians in the Netherlands. With Koning and former Netherlands measures limiting the number of this growing involvement Dutch prime minister Barend Biesheuvel incoming migrants. disaffection with the political sys- are most specific in identifying why The liberal-conservative Peoples' tem in the Netherlands Antilles has the Netherlands wants to discard its Party for Freedom and Democracy increased proportionally. The responsibilities vis-a-vis the Nether- (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Demo- nature of Antillean politics, includ- lands Antilles and Aruba. Both refer cratie, VVD) yearly calls in parlia- ing relatively large social and eco- to Article 43. Biesheuvel argues ment for stricter admission rules, yet

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Features: The Dutch Caribbean

never receives support from any and Arubans are holding in their consequence in the debate, and other major party. The VVD seems negotiations with The Hague. Of some even call the amount of finan- to be guided by the spectre of the course this could also be a self- cial support "peanuts." Only the Surinamese exodus of the 1970s. On defeating argument, prompting the VVD representative expresses some the eve of independence in 1975, or Dutch to curtail free immigration. reservations. His party thinks the shortly after, 150,000 people (one- remittance of money from the third of the total Surinamese popu- Netherlands to the Netherlands lation) settled in the Netherlands. Antilles and Aruba is "excessively The VVD claims this led to political high." Two arguments are used. and economic disaster in Suriname Poorer countries in the world may and represented a burden on the have stronger claims and the Dutch Dutch welfare state, because Sur- have experienced painful cuts in the inamese immigrants-as Dutch citi- social and educational budgets. In zens-were entitled to social other words, the money might other- benefits. A brain drain will leave the wise be used to balance the budget Netherlands Antilles and Aruba in the Netherlands. with a shortage of trained execu- Antilleans counter these argu- tives. The problem with this arguments with arguments of their own. ment is that it easily might be First, the Netherlands Antilles and abused to cover less noble motives Aruba have a 300-year-old tie with to limit migration. the Netherlands that makes them The total "ethnic" population of special. This argument is supported the Netherlands is an estimated by some Dutch politicians, especially 700,000 people, or less than 10 per- older ones. Second, Antilleans cent of the population. Approx- rightly claim that they must cut their imately 50,000 of these "ethnics" are budget more drastically than their from the Netherlands Antilles and Dutch colleagues. Another argu- Aruba, islands which have a total ment is that development aid sus- population of 260,000. More than 40 tains a high standard of living and percent of these Antillean and high wages in the Dutch Caribbean, Aruban migrants are unemployed. Finances a disadvantage in the intra- This situation makes their position Former Aruban prime minister Caribbean competition for invest- in the Netherlands vulnerable. It Eman thinks Dutch financial sup- ments and employment. Antilleans also gives rise to local resentment port is a factor in decisions regard- correctly stress, however, that this against "the foreigners" who put ing the future of the Netherlands standard is not a consequence of pressure on the Dutch entitlement Antilles and Aruba. One of the most development aid but of past indus- structure. Support for racist parties important goals of his administra- trial activity, particularly in the oil declined in the parliamentary election was to become financially inde- sector. tions of 1986. Nevertheless, it seems pendent: "Money should not cloud Even though most Dutch say that many Dutch citizens have decisions on your constitutional they want the amount of aid to reached the limits of tolerance and future,:' he said. remain the same, some of them sug- acceptance of foreigners. This, too, In these islands development aid gest that the donor country should may influence Dutch policy. per capita is among the highest in have a larger voice in allocation. On the other side of the ocean, the world. The Netherlands dis- This is a new development. During the Antillean and Aruban govern- burses about 25 billion guilders per the past two decades, presenting the ments use the migration issue to put year to its partners overseas. This money with strings attached was pressure on their Dutch counter- amount excludes defense, adminis- "not done." In the 1980s even social part. They sometimes cunningly tration of justice, and occasional democrats support Koning's view- threaten that immigration to the budget support. The sum is fixed at point that the Netherlands should Netherlands will escalate if the 5 percent of the Dutch development direct and control the spending of Dutch, for example, refuse to aid budget, which in turn is fixed at its development aid. Stimulation of increase their financial assistance to 1 percent of the total budget. Per social and economic development, balance the budget or if the Nether- capita, this is Dfl1000 or $500, many not theaters or community develop- lands tells them to prepare for inde- times more than the aid from all ment projects, should be its thrust, pendence. Such threats, which other sources that the English- they say. indeed frighten many Dutch politi- speaking Caribbean receives. Dutch politicians deny that the cians and citizens alike, seem to be Most Dutch politicians we have possible independence of the Carib- one of the few trumps the Antilleans talked to confide that money is of no bean partners, most likely followed

Hemisphere Winter 1989 by a commonwealth construction, set off against cutbacks in the Dutch the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba would have consequences for the welfare system. mainly because of their qualms amount of Dutch aid to the Nether- Even among policymakers, whose about a colonial relationship as we lands Antilles and Aruba. A VVD actions are guided predominantly by approach the magic year 2000. spokesperson suggests that aid may Dutch interests, a total absence of Words such as "unnatural," "anach- be reduced if the status quo is main- concern for citizens in the West ronistic," and even "futureless" are tained, rather than when the islands Indies seems no ground to push the used to express these misgivings. become independent. The Nether- Netherlands Antilles into indepen- Supposedly, the wheel of history dic- lands Antilles and Aruba, nonethe- dence. Some genuinely believe inde- tates that independence is the next less, may express some reservations pendence would help the development logical step for the Caribbean part- about Dutch guarantees for devel- of the territories. This argument, ners. A member of the Dutch parlia- opment aid. After all, following the rejecting continued dependence, ment, however, implies it is not so so-called "December murders" of receives support in Aruba and the much the wheel of history as it is the 1982, when the Surinamese military Netherlands Antilles. When we asked wheel of politics that directs the junta executed 15 members of the the Aruban pro-independence future of the Netherlands Antilles opposition, the Dutch suspended all politician, the late H. S. "Betico" and Aruba: "It is hard to retrace economic aid to the former colony. Croes, why his country should one's steps if there exists no immedi- In short, the islands may rightly feel become independent, he answered, ate reason to do so." the Statuut offers more guarantees "That question has been answered On the other hand, Antillean for financial support than any other by more than 140 countries. You have resistance to any clear-cut and treaty between the Netherlands and to fend for yourself and accept immediate independence might the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba your own responsibility." Antillean tempt the Dutch to use the idea as a ever will. premier Maria Liberia Peters ex- threat, indeed, as a punishment, to presses it even more crisply, "It's your achieve two goals. First, the threat Why Independence? pride, it's your dignity." applies pressure on the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba to balance their Do the Dutch want to extricate budgets and reorganize their dis- themselves from their "colonial" proportionately large civil services. relationship because of political Obviously the Dutch minister of pressure from the rank and file in Antillean affairs cannot reveal the metropole or because there is a whether he employs the threat of lack of interest for the welfare of the independence as an incentive to citizens overseas? Or is it just the ensure that the islands change their opposite: Dutch concern for the financial and administrative ways. welfare of their overseas territories? But some experts doubt such a line There might, of course, be another of action would have any effect, reason for decolonization: using the since nobody reckons with a forced threat of independence as a lever to independence. Secondly, and much influence Antillean and Aruban pol- more effectively, the threat sup- itics. Finally, there may exist a gen- presses possible inclinations in eral uneasiness about the idea of other islands towards attaining a having "dependencies" in the late separate status. When, for example, 20th century. St. Maarten in 1988 expressed its The first two motives seem desire to become a separate country unlikely explanations of Dutch pol- within the Kingdom, the Dutch icy, since the overseas territories are answer was clear: the choice is not a political issue in the Nether- between participating in the Antilles- lands. One Curagaoan politician As real as these nationalist senti- of-five or outright independence. even complains about this "detri- ments are, they do not reveal the The upshot is that decoloniza- mental lack of interest." Probably actual dynamics that characterize tion in the Dutch Caribbean departs the only way the overseas territories the present decolonization process. from previous patterns and experi- could move into the limelight is Indeed, to the Antillean, the idea of ences. It is an "upside-down" when the Netherlands Antilles or independence is a long-term one, process. Since a colonially-imposed Aruba make negative headlines, as not a matter for immediate imple- independence is not expected, what happened in May 1969, or when mentation. The Dutch, though, are is unfolding is a complex and often demagogy gets the upper hand, faced with a dilemma. On the one perplexing, but in the final analysis expressed in xenophobia, or if the hand, many policymakers in the eminently-civilized, minuet between cost of keeping the islands afloat is Netherlands want independence for metropole and colonies. .

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Features: The Dutch Caribbean

Politics and Militarism in Suriname by Gary Brana-Shute

ments that excluded the Hin- tional social organizations at the of Suriname's 370,000 dustanis from power. The country grassroots level. population resided in and was tense and angry; development efore the 1980 coup most B around the capital and policies were corrupt, shortsighted, Transition only city, Paramaribo. and vague. The Creoles (Afro- In Suriname each ethnic group has Surinamese) dominated its own array of social, religious, and the urban and suburban areas and political organizations. One exam- high positions in civil service and ple from the urban Creoles should business. The Hindustanis (East suffice. Most urban Creole women Indians) and the Javanese (Indone- belong to a variety of clubs, soci- sians) were agriculturalists. The Syr- eties, and associations that are ver- ians, Lebanese, Chinese, Dutch, and tically integrated from the household Sephardim were found in urban level to the highest levels of national trades, mid-level civil service posi- political power, where the organizations, modest shops, and importing tions serve as instruments of power- houses. The vast and underex- holders. Anthropologist Rosemary ploited savanna and rain-forest inte- Brana-Shute reports that "teams" rior was home to several groups of of women are bundled together at American Indians and six groups of the household (oso) and subneighbor- Bush Negroes (Maroons). hood (birti)levels in mutual exchange Three parties dominated the and support networks. Building on political scene through the 1960s The brittle structure of power these, the women have created burial and 1970s: the Creole Surinamese finally snapped. The result was a societies (fonsoe), rotating credit National Party (NationalePartij Suri- coup fomented by 16 army noncom- organizations (kas moni), and social name, NPS), the Hindustani Pro- missioned officers. For many there clubs to celebrate shared rites of gressive Reform Party (Vooruitstre- was joy and hope that the young ser- passage (straativereniging). vende Heroormings Partij,VHP), and geants would restore a balance to As political arms (politiekekernen) the Javanese Indonesian Peasants politics, clean up corruption, and of NPS, most of these social groups Party (Kaum Tani PersatuanIndo- move the country ahead. But the remained active throughout the nesia, KTPI). They divided power sergeants proclaimed a revolution, revolutionary period. The groups among themselves in an atmosphere collaborated closely with small were permeated by symbols of of political wheeling and dealing, groups of radical leftist politicians, "womanness,"' particularly the role including patronage that greased established relationships with Cuba, of mother-nurturer, respectful, disci- palms up and down the social struc- Grenada, and Nicaragua, and ruled plined, sexually active, and, often, ture. Party politics worked best with a heavy and increasingly bloody defiant of the whims, boastings, and when both NPS and VHP were hand. By late 1982 the people's sup- unreliability of men. Much of their members of a coalition government. port evaporated and the military activity was articulated with the KTPI regularly joined with either resorted to thuggery to maintain Creole religious system (winti) and the Creoles or the Hindustanis when power. gatherings often took on a deeply the latter two groups could not col- Seven civilian cabinets followed. spiritual air when African spirits and laborate, thus providing the swing They themselves were maneuvering ancestral ghosts joined in the pro- vote in times of acute Creole- to gain power. But neither the mili- ceedings of the living. Hindustani rivalry. Two narrow tary nor the civilians gained mass The Peoples' Mobilization Creole-Javanese victories in 1973 support. Despite efforts to create a attempted to graft its priorities "top and 1977 led to consecutive govern- revolutionary Peoples' Mobilization down" onto these neighborhood (Volks Mobilisatie), these cadres, red- groups through the instrument of Gary Brana-Shuteis an anthropologist olent with promised patronage and Peoples' Committees (Volkscomitees). nerks did not connect with tradi- at the University of Utrecht in Holland. ,erksdi no.. n...... They failed for a number of reasons,

Hemisphere. Winter 1989 Hemisphere

A MAGAZINE OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN AFFAIRS

Provoking debate on the region'sproblems, initiatives and achievements ... Providingan intellectual bridge between the concernedpublics of North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. Hemis here

A MAGAZINE OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN AFFAIRS

Provokingdebate on the region'sproblems, initiativesand achievements ... Providingan intellectual bridge between the concernedpublics of North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. Hemisphere

A MAGAZINE OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN AFFAIRS

Provoking debate on the region'sproblems, initiativesand achievements ... Providingan intellectual bridge between the concernedpublics of North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. Subscribe now! And get a year (3 issues) of Hemisphere.

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Please make check or money order (US currency only) payable to: Hemisphere Latin American and Caribbean Center da International University ni, FL 33199 isphere is published three times a year (Fall, Winter and Spring). perhaps the most profound being The revolution got no further the margin. The old parties entered that their orientation was entirely than the "Peoples' Palace"' the mili- into dialogue with the military to male. Young soldiers (i.e. "sons") tary barracks, and select bank secure elections. Many were fearful entered, uninvited, backyard parties accounts that were swollen by graft the military would renege its prom- of clubs (i.e. "mothers") dressed in and thievery. The military's fate was ises. During this time the public combat fatigues and black jump sealed when, in December 1982, it countenanced no pessimism. Civil- boots with Uzi submachine guns tortured and murdered 15 promi- ians threw themselves into the des- slung, cavalierly, over their shoul- nent dissidents, unceremoniously perate political game that eventually ders. Young males were appointed dumping their bodies at the hospi- became a messianic reality. Peoples' Committee leaders and tal. Surinamese believe the souls of Throughout 1985 and into 1986 charged with organizing men, the deceased who are not properly the dialogue was going nowhere. women, and children into revolu- dispatched to the afterworld return It was at this time that, in Dutch tionaries, dedicated to the cause of to involve themselves in the affairs sociologist Johan Huizinga's words, labor, development, and political of the living. a "spoil sport" emerged. A young consciousness-building. Women Bush Negro named Ronnie attended, ate, drank, and politely lis- Brunswijk, formerly in the army and tened to the oratory. But they a one-time bodyguard of Bouterse, returned home to dismiss the pro- began a small, poorly-equipped ceedings with a sharp hiss of the insurgency in the Bush Negro areas teeth (churi) and, in reply to of eastern Suriname. Brunswijk repeated questions of why they went denounced Bouterse's regime and in the first place, answered, "I am promised a return to democracy via not a fool. If food and drink is avail- free elections. His support primarily able I will take it." Opportunists consisted of Maroons. By 1987 he signed up for ration cards available controlled one-third of the country- only to members. Virtually everyone side. was playing the military for the fool. Brunswijk's efforts were de- Concepts of Surinamese negri- nounced by the democratic hopefuls tude were also violated. Many of the in Paramaribo. Why? In the eyes young soldiers did not present their of urban residents Bush Negroes orations in Sranan Tongo, the Cre- occupy the lowest rung of the ole mother tongue and lingua national social hierarchy. Their franca of Suriname. Instead they did Afro-American culture is self- so in school-book Dutch. European servingly excoriated as unrefined, if cadence and metaphors did not not barbaric. Despite their heroic stimulate the cultural juices of the battles against white armies in the masses nor play well in the back- 18th century-the very inversion of yards of Paramaribo. colonialism-their exploits were The military had deposed the unappreciated by ethnic Para- police from power. The police in maribo. Suriname had the reputation of Did ethnic Paramaribo fear that "good sons." They were replaced the Bush Negroes would garrison with military police heavies. And, in The Game Paramaribo and destroy Afro-Asian an irony common to neocolonial dominance there? Or did they societies, the military offended many By 1983 domestic and international oppose the Bush Negroes because by its crude denunciations of the support for the revolution had evap- the "spoil sport," as Huizinga says, mother country, the Netherlands. orated and Commander Desi Bou- "by withdrawing from the game ... The abstractions of Dutch exploita- terse was compelled to enter into reveals the relativity and fragility of tion fell flat because many natives dialogue with the "old" political the play-world in which he had tem- genuinely liked the Netherlands and leaders. Everyone knew democracy porarily shut himself with others"? wrapped much of their sentiment had to be restored. They wanted it Brunswijk dared to challenge the around Queens Wilhelmina and and Bouterse needed it as he pre- messianic hopes of the civilians and Juliana. Railings against the Dutch sided over his bankrupt, demor- thereby scorned their gaming strat- were perceived as rude and bold alized fiefdom. The Dutch and the egy. In so doing he reaped the bitter (vrijpostig), an attribute of the mis- Americans supported dialogue, harvest of being banished from behaving young and disrespectful while the Cubans, Libyans, and Paramaribo's reality. (no abi lespeki). Analogous failure Soviets, knowing the military char- Nevertheless, it was Brunswijk took place with other ethnic groups. latans for what they were, moved to who ultimately moved the military to

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Features: The Dutch Caribbean

concede to civilian elections. Bou- serious premature baldness and military/NDP too closely with the terse had to secure his urban flanks mouth-encircling mustaches and Creole ethnic group. The linguistic against jungle attacks and he prom- beard. On state occasions he wore politics mirrored reality: the military ised elections for late 1987. a European-cut three-piece pin- and its profiteers were dominated by stripe. He appeared discomforted. Creoles. Although the Miami look is in for The Front selected as its song a Old Shoes Don't Hurt the young who can afford it, his cos- pop number in Dutch that extolled the virtues of ethnic collaboration. By early 1987 the rival political tume did not generate the expected Dutch, the colonial language, groups began organizing in earnest youthful enthusiasm. For many it affront to no one. Dutch is for the election. The military trans- was precisely the military's disas- caused that many Surinamese formed its political arm into the trous fiscal policies that prohibited the language to hate and a mastery of it indi- National Democratic Party (Nation- them from acquiring such garb. love Innocent and ale DemocratischePartij, NDP). Sev- Envy is a very powerful emotion. cates respectability. nonthreatening, the kind of ditty eral political parties-NPS, VHP, dad would sing after a few KTPI, and a number of smaller par- mom and Front" ("Stem Fron- ties-confederated, not united, into drinks, "Vote "Everyone is a the Front for Democracy and Devel- taal") promised: country is healthy opment (HetFront voor Demokratie en front, then the Front, Surinamers all. Ontwikkeling). NDP dominated the again, vote Democracy and development, that is mass media. State and private radio, brother don't lose television, and newspapers were the whole thing, crowd ended by effectively censored. (To avoid your vote." The "That is that thing" blatant charges of censorship the roaring out, and the air was government denied licenses to ("Dat is dat ding"), waving V-for-victory fin- uncooperative publishers for the filled with on the street import of paper and ink.) gers. People meeting and The Front held its first mass ignored normal conventions with "Dat is dat meeting in August 1987, drawing greeted each other ding," while motorists, whose driv- together 40,000 celebrative citizens, that of the largest body of people ever ing panache rivals only waved V-signs at one another. assembled in the history of Suri- Rome, name. The citizens were addressed Front leaders Henck Arron and by the leaders of various parties, Willie Soemita, both in their 50s, who appeared jointly on the dais. wore tailored Caribbean shirt-jacks Such public gatherings were sched- and campaign caps with the logo of uled up to two days before the elec- either the Front or their own politi- tions, and on two later occasions Rival theme songs were broad- cal party (for Creoles the flambeau drew even larger crowds. For four cast daily, sung spontaneously in the or flame, for Javanese the Wajang months it was Mardi Gras in Para- streets, and blared endlessly at gath- puppet). Another Front leader, maribo and, dizzy with their collec- erings. NDP selected as its testi- Jaggernath Lachmon, 70 years old, tive energy, Surinamese began, for monial a rap-rhyme number sung in played to the humility and tradi- the first time, openly criticizing the Sranan Tongo. Again aiming at the tional outfit of the Hindustani military and especially Commander young, a young black performer in farmer: old black lace-up shoes, Bouterse. obligatory sunglasses and gold black slacks, white shirt open at the The keystone of revolution in chains rocked and chanted, "One collar, and all cinched up by a belt Suriname and, indeed elsewhere, we stay, two we do, three we see, four doubled back through the first two was to mobilize the young. Bouterse, we go, five we are not afraid." If loops. His cap was either the VHP handsome and fit at 42, constantly explicit behavior counts for double, elephant or the Front emblem, railed against the old "grey heads" this gambit also failed. The young which contained each of the three and promoted his acolytes as young, mockingly recited the verses, invert- symbols in its own circle surrounded vital, and hip. Eschewing his military ing them into negatives, and raining by a larger circle. Slow, lumpy, and uniform, the commander began ridicule on the singer while merrily cumbersome, "Lach" was just what appearing in Miami Vice-style garb: singing out the theme song of the the people wanted. woven shoes, silk stockings, linen Front. Older Creoles referred to the Slogans were popular and suit with sleeves pushed to the singer as a "street negro" ("straati threaded throughout the campaign's elbow, gold chains, a boldly-colored nengre") and protested that they did discourse. Bouterse's NDP contri- tee-shirt, and aviator sunglasses. not like the beat. Sung in Sranan, bution to political opera was "only Disjuncture was provided by his the NDP theme song associated the love" ("soso lobi"), which was offered

Hemisphere. Winter 1989 up by candidates in a gooey mix of degree. Bouterse was the keynote the order. This was interpreted as wide smile, open arms, and silky speaker at an NDP night meeting the last desperate commands of a pronunciation. People had difficulty and was going to arrive three hours weak and demoralized dictator. As relating this slogan to the murders late. Free food and beverages had he began to wobble, he was escorted of 1982 and the ravages perpetrated already been consumed and the off stage while yanking at his slip- by the military against Bush Negro crowd was getting restless. The rap ping pants. women and children in the interior singer was growing hoarse. When The Front won 90 percent of the insurgency. Love is a highly-charged Bouterse arrived he was clearly votes cast and secured 40 of the 51 word and many considered NDP's intoxicated. Surrounded by his Cre- seats, despite the fact that NDP slogan further evidence that their ole lieutenants, Bouterse mounted had barred the Front from running daughters were under siege. "Only the podium, wearing sunglasses and candidates in the war zones. The love" ("soso lobi") shortly became a shirt more than discretely open, Front even carried the vote in areas transformed into "only trouble" that were heavily populated by NDP ("soso trobi") and "only losers" supporters (insofar as housing and ("soso lasi"). land tracts were granted to them in In a revelation that brings to exchange for political support at mind V S. Naipaul's The Suffrage of one time or another). The result was Elvira, the Front selected an old a massive psychological and political shoe (oru su) as its symbol. Old shoes victory for the people of Suriname. began appearing all over Para- The night of the election, as maribo: hanging from flagpoles, returns were pouring in, Lachmon, nailed over doorways, mounted on in a moment of braggadocio, hoods of automobiles, and, as the announced, "Gentlemen, the game election neared, carried about by is over, you have to go home." the faithful. The caption for the old But alas, it was not. As the crowd shoe was "old shoes don't hurt." grew evermore festive and spilled Front meetings were carefully onto the streets singing and waving staged in public terrains rather than flags, Lachmon once again rose to the headquarter yards of political the podium. In his strictest and parties. Each group sported its own most commanding voice he ordered ethnic costume-Creole women in the crowds to go home, not to tor- koto, Hindustanis in sari, Javanese ment the military, and to stay off the in sarong. There was no pretense of streets. There were still a few hands merging the identity of the ethnic of the game left to be played. groups into one national culture (as By January 1988 a president NDP sought to do). The goal was (Hindustani), a prime minister (Cre- unity in diversity and the US motto, wobbled a bit, mopped his brow, and ole), and a cabinet (carefully bal- "United we stand, divided we fall," launched into a discussion of how anced Creole, Hindustani, and was widely used in the original socialism would remove the perils of Javanese) had been assembled. As English. Ethnically-exclusive meet- multiethnicity. Groping for a meta- they have for years, Surinamese ings were scheduled at different phor, he claimed Suriname no scrupulously observed which ethnic times in separate political party longer could have "Hindustani pan- groups obtained which ministries. yards. Even though the military and dits [priests] huddled in their tem- Indeed, the faces were new but the its revolutionary administration ples going 'kakara, kakara, kakara.'" ethnic assignments were old. Larger were predominantly Creole, the The live broadcast became the issues were left unresolved. Would Front never referred to them in eth- talk of the town. Not only had Bou- amnesty be granted to the military nic terms. The opponent was the terse singled out one group for for the murders of 1982 and other ethnically-faceless army. Recogniz- excoriation but he had insulted its times? What would be their role in ing its delicate confederated plu- language by using a crude onomato- power or power-sharing? Would the rality, the Front dared not refer to poeic description. He then made ref- police take over the administration the ethnic identity of its opponent. erence to the fallen comrades of the of law? Would the military continue NDP offered up a recipe of love revolution and demanded that the to absorb a huge piece of the and socialism. Like the Front, the members of the audience remove budget? Would the war in east Suri- NDP made no mention of ethnicity, their campaign caps for a moment name continue? And what would save one occasion with disastrous of silence. Some did, some did not, eventually happen to Bouterse, who results. Two nights before the elec- and in an outburst of anger he told still commands the military? It is tion it was clear that NDP would them to put their caps back on and likely that these questions will remain lose; the question was merely one of to remove them again when he gave unresolved for a time to come. .

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Features: The Dutch Caribbean

Crisis in the Backlands by Adiante Franszoon

ethnically-diverse societies in South later Bouterse led a bloodless coup America. Blacks, East Indians, Indo- against the government of Henck nesians, Chinese, Europeans, and Arron. Hailed as part of the new Amerindians comprise the popula- "socialist" revolution sweeping the tion. The blacks consist of two sub- Caribbean, Bouterse was especially groups: Creoles, who tend to be close to Grenada's new revolutionary urban, and Maroons. The latter are leader Maurice Bishop. The Cubans the descendants of African slaves also had important missions-civilian who escaped from coastal Suriname and military-in Paramaribo. Virtually between the mid-17th and late-18th unchallenged, and with this external centuries. help, Bouterse soon gained control After more than a half century of all aspects of the government. of brutal guerrilla warfare against The peaceful appearances changed colonial troops, the Dutch recog- when, at dawn on December 8, 1982, nized Maroon independence in the Bouterse rounded up 15 prominent 1760s. This treaty allowed the Surinamese, and tortured them Maroons to occupy a large part of before executing them on the grounds the interior of Suriname, which has that they were plotting a countercoup. been their homeland ever since. The A shocked population turned against Maroons of Suriname thus were the regime. Doubting the loyalty of among the first people in this hemi- urban Surinamese, Bouterse began sphere to gain their independence to recruit Maroons into the army. and for hundreds of years their iso- Soon his own personal bodyguard lation allowed them to develop a rich was largely composed of Maroons. community and cultural life. Today One of these was a young there are six Maroon groups total- man from the Djuka tribe, Ronnie ing around 65,000: the Djuka, the Brunswijk. A former sergeant in the Saramaka, the Matawai, the Aluku, Surinamese army, he was Bouterse's the Paramaka, and the Kwinti. personal bodyguard before they had While they do some trading with the a falling out in 1986. On one level uriname's current politi- urban populations, the Maroons are the present situation in Suriname cal crisis is rooted in the as distinct as any Indian tribe from could be described as a personal feud deep tensions that exist the Amazon heartland. They are between Bouterse and Brunswijk. between its ethnic com- ethnically, linguistically, and demo- During the years of close "revolution- munities, as manifested graphically separate from the rest of ary" association between Bouterse in the civil war between the Surinamese, who blend Dutch and Cuba, Brunswijk was among the Maroons and the language and culture with other those sent to Cuba for military train- national army. multiple ethnic strains. ing. The main cause of the civil war, Formerly known as Dutch however, is the age-old contempt Guiana, Suriname became independ- with which many urban Surinamese ent from the Netherlands in 1975. A Military Strongman view Maroons. Its citizens live in a country the size The military strongman, Desi We do not know exactly why of Illinois. Despite its small popula- Bouterse, is a Creole product of Brunswijk was dismissed from the tion, Suriname is one of the most that blend. A sergeant and physical army. We do know that he did not education instructor in the Dutch- take this blow lying down. His Adiante Franszoon, a Maroonfrom Surinamese army until Suriname Maroon background and identity Suriname, is a member of the Suriname became independent in 1975, he came into play. Before he left the Maroon Resettlement Fund, Inc., in then joined the newly-formed Suri- army, he took arms and munitions Baltimore,Maryland. namese national army. Five years into the jungle. Acting as a modern-

ephere * Winter 1989 day Robin Hood, he "appropri- tle or no connection with the guer- bauxite, which once provided 70 ated" money from Creole society to rilla leader. Bouterse even hired percent of foreign earnings, has build homes and help elderly people Amerindians to hunt Maroons for also fallen. And the government has in his tribal community of Mongo him, just as the colonial troops had depleted its foreign cash reserves. Tapu. His popularity among the done in the 18th century. At the The fall in bauxite prices, poor gov- Maroons grew. same time the army was attacking ernment administration, and the In June 1986 Bouterse re- Maroon villages, the US Committee withdrawal of foreign aid have sponded. He unleashed his mili- for Refugees (in February 1987) said caused Suriname's economy to con- tary-including field artillery, aerial the army was also carrying out a tract dramatically. In 1985 it had a bombardment, and tanks-on the policy of arrests and murders of the gross domestic product growth rate defenseless village of Mongo Tapu. Maroon residents of Paramaribo. of negative 50 percent. Yet Bouterse The army claimed it was looking for manages to keep an army of 2,700, Brunswijk. In the following months The Ramifications of Violence armed with some 30 modern similar violent actions were taken Brazilian-built small tanks and per- against other Maroon villages. In Suriname enjoyed one of the highest sonnel carriers, and several modern December 1986 the New York Times per capita incomes in the region. aircraft converted for aerial bom- reported that 244 Maroons had But Bouterse's actions have taken bardment. Suriname's military been killed. the country down with him socially, budget for 1985 ($44 million) was Bouterse's pogroms were no economically, and politically. After double that of Jamaica, which had more successful than those of the Suriname gained independence in six times its population. Facing this Europeans centuries ago. The 1975, the Netherlands agreed to pro- army is the lightly armed 200-300- Maroon resistance stiffened. Many vide $100 million annually in aid for man 'Jungle-Commando" army of felt that if, as Bouterse claimed, he 15 years. Following the execution of Brunswijk's Suriname Liberation was merely looking for Brunswijk, it the 15 civil leaders in 1982, the Army. was needless and excessive to prac- Dutch suspended their aid and the How could such a depressed tice a scorched-earth policy against US cut off its annual subvention economy sustain such an army and communities that, until then, had lit- of about $1.5 million. The price of such a war? The well-documented

GA * * ACAMPU F

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 ill ...... ,._ I

Features: The Dutch Caribbean

answer is that Bouterse has been was held as a desperate attempt by cal parties from Paramaribo, the financing the conflict through drug Bouterse's regime to have the sus- capital, took part in it. As a result trafficking. In November 1986 Bou- pended foreign aid restored to its the Maroons have no representative terse's closest aide, Captain Etienne former level. A few months after the in the new government. The new Boerenveen, was sentenced in election, the political and military constitution, which Bouterse him- Miami to 12 years in federal prison. situation in Suriname had changed self helped draft, has given the army He was found guilty of conspiring to little. Despite the election of a new wide control over the affairs of allow drug dealers to use Suriname's government, the National Assembly the country. With this constitution airfields as a base for their opera- remains under military control. Bouterse can still do whatever he tions into the US. The fee was pleases, and he has repeatedly said alleged to be $1 million per load he will not rest until he has elimi- (New York Times, June 18, 1987). It is nated all the Maroons from also alleged there is a heavily- Suriname. guarded cocaine-processing factory The Maroon situation remains in a remote western corner of the grim. Despite the presence of a civil- country. ian government, the army continues During my recent visit to the to hold power-only now from Guianas, one informant claimed to behind the scenes. On December 31, be a former drug salesman for cer- 1987, while many people were trying tain military officers. He nervously to get home for New Year's Eve, an and very reluctantly described the army unit randomly pulled eight trafficking to me. The raw materials, young Maroon men out of a bus and and some already-processed murdered seven of them. The other cocaine, he said, come from Colom- was severely injured. The army bia and, to a lesser extent, Brazil. sealed off the Saramaka and The cocaine is shipped out by Bra- Matawai regions of eastern Suri- zilian fishing boats from Para- name. No one could go in or out, maribo to Cayenne and Brazil. Most and no food or medical supplies of it goes to Brazil. From Brazil and were allowed to be taken to the Cayenne it is transshipped to Euro- area's 26,000 residents. In June 1988 pean and North American markets. the army mounted an offensive All the salesmen, he said, are from against Brunswijk's rebels in the the army or are close associates of same regions and incurred heavy Bouterse. The informant added that casualties. Shortly thereafter, the Bouterse already had bought land Since the election, Brunswijk, army reduced its presence in the and houses in Brazil. the Suriname Liberation Army area and established a system of The source also said the drug leader, has openly invited the gov- checkpoints that allows people hold- runners had to adhere to a formal ernment to negotiate. The governing passes to enter and leave. The agreement that, if they were caught, ment, however, has turned down the catch is that one must get a pass, their supplier would never be re- offer. Some church groups have which is only available from the vealed. He said the drug runners taken upon themselves the search army in Paramaribo. As long as are paid well, to the point that they for a peaceful solution to the crisis, these conditions prevail, democracy do not mind the risk involved. but they are working without official in Suriname remains an illusion. Brazil's fishing boats are always mov- guidelines or government coopera- The immediate challenge con- ing in and out of the port of Para- tion. Bouterse has repeatedly said cerns the fate of the more than maribo, but have yet to be seen there is no way he will negotiate with 14,000 refugees. At least 10,000 of loading or unloading fish. Brunswijk. Bouterse is the dominant them are Djukas, Paramakas, political force in Suriname. Even Alukus, and Amerindians, who have IsThere Hope? after their landslide victory, civilian fled across the Maroni River into leaders Jaggernath Lachmon and French Guiana. In addition there Suriname held a referendum in Arron, who promised during the are 4,000 refugees within Suriname, September 1987 to ratify a new con- campaign they would sweep away as Maroons have fled from the Sar- stitution, and in November held an military influence in the govern- amaka homeland. Before Suriname election to choose a new government, have subdued their claims. can again become politically stable, ment. These only came about as a The role of the military in the gov- and before questions concerning result of intense internal and inter- ernment is untouchable. the future of the Maroons can be national pressure and the increasing Few Maroons were included in answered, the issue of the Bouterse isolation of Suriname. The election the election; only people and politi- dictatorship must be settled. .

Hemisphere. Winter 1989 ~

Hemisphere . Winter 1989 Features: Mexico

Towards Democracy in Mexico? by JonathanFox

nJuly 16, 1988, in Mexico's total control led the government to the students' lead, charting new largest opposition electoral resort to the "perfecting of the pop- paths towards autonomy from PRI's mobilization ever, more ular will," as commentator Carlos top-down controls and calling for than a quarter of a million Monsiviis quipped. the government to put its rhetoric of into citizens protested the gov- Last summer marked a turning social justice and democracy ernment's crude efforts to point in Mexico's political transition. practice. Peasants and slumdwellers manufacture a sliver of an Divisions in Mexico's governing elite began bypassing their official repre- electoral majority. An outsider might created opportunities for ordinary sentatives, business leaders began have expected to find rage, with over- people to influence events to an forming their own organizations, tones of violence. Indeed, the moment unusual degree. Hundreds of thou- and workers continued pressing for of silence in memory of the election- sands of citizens, many already trade-union democracy. These eve murder of candidate Cuauhtemoc democratically organized at the emerging grassroots movements, Cirdenas's top antifraud expert cast a community level, participated which expressed a new sense of citi- dark shadow over the crowd. But the actively in electoral politics for the zenship, became one of the driving general mood was far more festive first time, catching analysts com- forces of today's electoral opposi- than angry. Owners of jewelry stores pletely by surprise. Mexican politics tion. facing the overflowing plaza did not will never be the same. The regime's credibility was even shutter their doors. Cheery briefly revived by a limited electoral marchers flowed in "self-organized The Opposition Emerges reform, combined with the oil- and order," as opposition strategist Adol- debt-driven 1978-82 economic boom. fo Gilly put it, avoiding the rigid Since the 1930s, when President Interest groups contended for contingents of official and opposi- Lizaro Cardenas incorporated the pieces of a rapidly growing pie. Then tion street traditions. masses into the fledgling official oil prices fell, interest rates shot up, For the first time, the result of party, the Mexican regime's leader- and capital flight spiraled out of Mexico's presidential election was ship has continually frustrated control. The government responded not a foregone conclusion. People periodic foreign predictions of its with the halfhearted 1982 bank believed that their votes mattered. imminent collapse. The 1988 elec- nationalization that discouraged The candidate of the new center-left tion, by undermining the legitimacy private investment without provid- coalition probably would have of the Institutional Revolutionary ing an alternative to replace it. received the most votes in a free and Party (PRI), thrust the regime into After six years of policies to fair contest (including equal media an uncertain transition from one- attract private investment, the econ- access), though it is possible that the party dominance to a fluid new mul- omy remains in crisis. As long as official candidate came in with a tiparty system. debt payments preclude recovery, no plurality. We may never know the The story of the 1988 election improvement is in sight for the "true" figures. Fear of less than began at least 20 years ago. Peaceful majority of Mexicans, whose real student protests during the summer income has fallen by more than 50 of 1968 were followed by the army's percent since 1982. Their resulting JonathanFox is assistantprofessor of massacre of untold hundreds on dissatisfaction is exacerbated by politicalscience at the Massachusetts October 2. By the mid-1970s a wide government budget cuts that have Institute of Technology. range of social groups had followed sharply reduced the regime's long-

Hemisphere Winter 1989 standing capacity to divide and con- many FDN votes were also in favor were cast in rural precincts, where quer dissent with selective economic of an effective electoral opening. We ballot security is more difficult to concessions. still do not know which attitudes assure than in cities. Political bosses The 1988 election surprise was best explain the wave of support for were able to manipulate more rural clearly driven by unending austerity. CArdenas: dissatisfaction with eco- than urban votes because of the But poverty alone does not explain nomic policies or the quest for dem- rural opposition's restricted access the nature of dissent, nor where and ocratic government. Because exit to media and limited poll-watching how it is expressed. After all, Mex- polls were banned, only the future presence and experience. ico has not experienced classic food evolution of the opposition will tell. Salinas effectively competed for riots, the burning of buses, or the Cardenas's support from moder- organized peasant support in some mass pillaging of supermarkets seen, ate voters and disaffected PRI regions, proposing creative policies for example, in the Dominican bureaucrats was greatly reinforced and treating peasants as citizens. Republic and Brazil. Even after the by the fact that he was a mainstream But austerity and Mexico's heritage opposition exhausted the limited figure from within PRI and not a of agrarian reform still led signifi- legal recourses to protest fraud, radical outsider. Because of rigid cant rural areas to vote for CAr- Cardenas's firm moderation pre- electoral procedures, most of the denas. It was difficult, however, for vented his followers from resorting democratic urge was expressed the opposition to penetrate those to violence. through votes for pro-Cardenas par- rural areas, such as Chiapas, ties that, until recently, were mere Oaxaca, and Veracruz, where there shells-small, often corrupt and is little freedom of assembly and Electoral Competition: authoritarian electoral machines, association. In cacique-dominated What Happened? sponsored by the government. The Pinotepa, Oaxaca, for example, Cardenas's National Democratic candidate of the new, independent CArdenas's campaign stop was the Front (FDN) won Mexico City, home Mexican Socialist Party (PMS) with- first public-opposition assembly to about one-fourth of the country's drew late in the race, throwing his in memory. population. His electoral victory was support to Cardenas. A widely-accepted official result linked to the 1985 earthquake, which No presidential candidate is is that only 52 percent of the regis- provoked a spontaneous, self-help likely to have received more than a tered electorate voted at all (prob- mobilization of hundreds of thou- slim plurality of votes. The official ably a massive increase over past sands of metropolitan residents. returns gave PRI 50.7 percent of the elections, when participation rates This left an indelible mark on city vote. FDN was awarded 31 percent were seriously inflated). Taking the politics, as democratic, grassroots and the conservative National unregistered and annulled votes organizing bypassed official agen- Action Party (PAN) totaled 17 per- into account, 57 percent of the cies and opposition parties. Since cent of the official count. But FDN's potential electorate did not vote. In the government later made signifi- analysis of available election data many areas suspected of opposition cant concessions to the mobilized indicated that PRI received only 36 sympathies, large numbers of voters earthquake victims, people saw that percent, leaving PAN with 23 per- were reportedly purged in advance their collective action could make a cent of the vote and FDN with a from the rolls. Many voters were difference. Impatience with official 42 percent victory. also apparently added to the rolls austerity and authoritarianism deep- Neither FDN nor the official where opposition oversight was lack- ened the following year. A broad totals are definitive, however, ing. Official figures claimed that new democratic student movement because only slightly more than half only 13 percent of the electorate began at the National Autonomous of the ballots-54 percent-were were not on the rolls. But, according University of Mexico. And thou- made available for public scrutiny. to Gallup's reputable pre-election sands of citizens expressed unheard- These ballots showed Cardenas lead- poll of nearly 3,000 citizens, 24 per- of public defiance when they booed ing Salinas by a five-point margin: cent were unregistered. The gap and cursed President Miguel de la 39 percent to 34 percent. The gov- indicates room for manipulation of Madrid at the inauguration of the ernment claims that the 46 percent election results that may have been 1986 World Cup. of the ballots that were not made much more important than the Some Cardenas voters wanted public provided an overwhelming often reported stuffing and destruc- to reject the official candidate or to majority-67 percent for Salinas to tion of ballot boxes. renew PRI's commitment to reform- 20 percent for Cardenas-and deter- After the election, attention ism and nationalism. Others wanted mined the outcome of the election. shifted to the congress, which is to democratize the internal work- It is doubtful Salinas's actual share constitutionally mandated to ratify ings of PRI, as Cardenas's dissident of the unexamined ballots would the results. PRI held a small but suf- Democratic Current emphasized have been sufficient to swing a ficient majority of seats. Lack of in 1987, before being expelled and majority. unity around legislative candidates forced into the opposition. But Most of the questionable ballots cost the FDN coalition at least 50

Hemisphere. Winter 1989 Features: Mexico

official less-than-majority congressional seats. Thus tensions Current with a wide range of lib- ognize an if they had wanted to. In emerged within FDN between those erals, nationalists, and socialists. win even the official sliver of a affiliated with political parties Given the choice within FDN this scenario probably represented a (a minority) and those unaffiliated between the combination of majority compromise. (a majority). government-spawned parties and precarious the Federal Election Since July several state and local the socialist PMS, it is not surprising The night computers "went elections have shown that both right that Democratic Current chose to Commission's government of and center-left opposition parties express its own identity. The chal- down," the outgoing clearly chose stability generally lack effective grassroots lenge, however, is to build a party De la Madrid How will the structures. Nevertheless, when that does better than other parties over democracy. this choice in analyzing the combination of PRI in reaching the grassroots move- Salinas team confront of their electoral sweeps and the extremely low turn- ments and the unorganized popu- the future? In light difference between out rates in these races, continuing lace. If the leadership builds yet compromise, the and "dino- fraud and media monopolies must another conventional party, then it PRI's "modernizers" not be underestimated. will turn away many of the citizens saurs" has blurred significantly. who last summer were talking poli- Both factions defend heavy state tics for the first time. intervention in social and political Opposition Dilemmas The third challenge is to demon- life and are moderately nationalist in What distinguishes Three challenges await the Car- strate that the opposition can actu- foreign policy. is their free-market denista movement. The first chal- ally govern. Cirdenas proved an the modernizers their greater toler- lenge is to build on Cirdenas's mass effective governor in the past, but as inclination and dissidents. support without provoking repres- a man of the system rather than as ance for political Camacho, for example, sion. The base for mobilizing to an opponent. Will Salinas break the Manuel ideologue and an overturn the official victory was lim- ice and be the first president to Salinas's principal 1994 presidential ited, given the degree of abstention, allow victorious opposition candi- oft-mentioned his modern-style the lack of unity between left and dates to become governors? The prospect, honed with the post- right opposition, and Mexicans' opposition needs to demonstrate bargaining skills movements. This long memories of past official that it can win overwhelmingly, earthquake protest considered a "posi- repression. Cirdenas's initial victory probably in a state not considered effort is widely partici- claim, lacking public proof, briefly "strategic." If elected, the Car- tive-sum" success-most Both Cama- boxed him into a political dead end. denistas need to make the difficult pants won something. had raised hopes But he modified his stance to stress transition from an opposition move- cho and Salinas process the need for official review of the ment to an effective governing coali- that the 1988 electoral than in the past. In contested election results-an tion. Clearly the Cardenistasare would be cleaner was, because of equally unwinnable but more politi- seeking power within the system. the cities it probably citizen vigilance of cally sustainable demand. The oppo- The question remains: what would unprecedented percent of the sition coalition's decision not to they do with that power if they an estimated 80-90 of the state and pursue civil disobedience in defense attained it? polls. The course since July has not of its claim to the presidency helped local elections raised hopes of an electoral opening avoid unpredictable results. In Mex- Are Democratization and Political ico the difference between limited in the near future. Stability Compatible? 1 inaugural civil disobedience and open rebel- Salinas's December short on specifics, lion is not always clearly defined, Some insiders contend PRI's manip- speech, though public commitment to either by participants or security ulation of the rolls and its election- reiterated his forces. By exercising caution, FDN day irregularities were insufficient, dialogue, electoral democratization, who hoped seems to have avoided causing an leading the party to snatch victory and social reform. Those the reformists on official backlash. by means of a massive, last-minute for the success of secre- The second challenge is to computer intervention. Two con- the Salinas team consider his to be transi- develop creative strategies that tending positions seem to have tarial appointments reformists recall encourage grassroots participation. emerged as the returns came in: the tional. Optimistic chose to Having exhausted the legal channels "traditional" hard-line faction in that several past presidents directions in the for challenging the election results, favor of a clearly-exaggerated major- dramatically shift Camacho, ini- Cirdenas directed his political ener- ity vote versus the technocratic course of their terms. secre- gies into the construction of the new "modernizing" faction, which might tially expected to be named ministry Party of the Democratic Revolution have accepted a clear plurality. The tary of the interior, the key up with (PRD). PRD becomes the fifth mem- technocrats, forced to rely on the of police and politics, ended the ber of the FDN coalition, uniting "dinosaurs" (such as the union the thankless job of running hard-liner former Priistasfrom the Democratic bosses) to win, were too weak to rec- Federal District. Instead,

Hemisphere . Winter 1989 Fernando Gutierrez Barrios cap- ship of the Oil Workers' Union to president in decades. Yet his history tured the Interior Ministry. Gutie- other union bosses. Salinas's honey- has shown him to be stronger than rrez Barrios previously ran Interior's moon with big business has contin- he first appears. His surprise move feared political police, and he is widely ued, since the rise of a center-left against the mafia of the Oil Workers' believed to have something on opposition put a damper on its pre- Union reminded observers of a key everyone. vious flirtation with the right-wing element of the current situation: Salinas's inauguration was PAN. Whether the private sector's opposition inside and outside the marked by an unusually elaborate support will translate into renewed government remains divided. military parade and the presence of domestic investment remains to Many of the leaders of the grass- eight foreign heads of state, ranging be seen. roots movements that drive the Car- fromJose Napole6n Duarte to Fidel The official PAN vote of 17 per- denista opposition-slumdwellers, Castro. Apparently the military cent was far below the expectations trade unionists, peasants, and teach- did not play an active role in the of the right wing on both sides of ers-were shaped by the student electoral process, wanting to avoid the border. PAN has since been protests and massacre of 1968. So, tarnishing its political image. divided between defense of democ- too, were the Salinistas. But the Throughout his campaign, CAr- racy and opposition to Crdenas. Its "bottom-up" vision of the Car- denas, the son of a general, ad- leaders claimed the unprecedented denistas contrasts with the "top- dressed himself respectfully to the FDN senatorial victories in the Fed- down" vision of the Salinistas. military, winning some rank-and- eral District were fraudulent. PAN's According to the latter, Mexico's sta- file votes. presidential candidate, Manuel bility depends on the commitment What does the rise of national "Maquio" Clouthier, called for the to "modernization" from above opposition mean for the future annullment of the entire electoral -opening the system up within prospects of governance in Mexico? process, in sharp contrast to CAr- limits and backing off when the Not surprisingly, the breadth and denas's attempt to separate clean pressure from the traditional politi- intensity of last summer's opposition from fraudulent results. Salinas has cal establishment becomes too mobilization proved impossible to recognized the Church as a legiti- great. Both contenders have years of sustain. Like the 1985 post-earth- mate political actor, a striking experience sizing up one another. quake upsurge, some of the freshly- change in Mexican affairs. The pro- And each has become increasingly politicized sectors will find channels Church PAN began a rapproche- skilled (and even respectful) in bar- for sustaining their activity. But ment with the Salinas administra- gaining with the other. Mexico's many will not, waiting for future tion. A sign of improved relations is democratization depends in large opportunities to become political that, in a departure from its usual measure on the capacity of the two contenders. practice, PAN accepted federal- groups to develop and sustain new Right-wing and left-wing elec- election support funds. rules of the game. toral mobilization has ebbed. Yet In any scenario increased con- Rapid and radical political democratic social movements that gressional opposition will tend to change is not on Mexico's agenda. predated the election and grew dra- check presidential power. PRI won Yet, after July's opposition upsurge, matically during the contest have 52 percent of the seats in the lower Mexico faces a choice between more endured as major players. Mobilized house-by far its lowest proportion democracy or more authoritarian- peasant grain producers have ever-and the 1990 congressional ism. The old system has eroded recently put on the national agenda elections are likely to provoke a new beyond repair. A new one, however, the terms of trade between agricul- round of opposition initiatives. PRI is not yet ready to take its place. To ture and industry, contending that will now have to form coalitions to continue a relatively stable transi- crop-support prices are as impor- pass constitutional amendments, tion to more democratic rule, Mex- tant as the minimum wage. Urban though the opposition's disunity will ico needs a "historic compromise." community movements continue to facilitate PRI's maneuvering. The Such a compromise would not be an press for more equitable and effi- government's first small concession alliance, but a flexible agreement cient service delivery. to "home rule" in the Federal Dis- among the contenders regarding the Organized labor remains a wild trict, the newly-created representa- boundaries for political bargaining. card. As workers reel from unem- tive assembly, is likely to outgrow its Reformist policymakers must choose ployment, trade unionists await the intended limits and become a fur- between their alliance with the passing of long-time boss and arche- ther opposition counterweight dur- "dinosaurs" and an opening towards typal PRI-dinosaur Fidel Velasquez ing the Salinas years. the grassroots movements that are to speed the transition to new inside and outside the official sec- collective-bargaining arrangements. tors. Conflict is inherent in both Towards a "Historic the We cannot assume that Salinas will Compromise"? choices, but one alone holds extend his longstanding personal potential for long-run political and political battle with the leader- Salinas may be Mexico's weakest renewal. .

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Features: Mexico

An Ex-President's Memoirs Mis tiempos by Jose L6pez Portillo. Mexico, DF: Fernindez Editores, 1988. by Julio Mojuel

portrays the Lopez Portillo administration in favorable light. He argues that his own administration was decidedly not an "Echeverristamaxi- mato"-a puppet of the ex-president Echeverria. Indeed, Lopez Portillo attempts to vindicate his own political persona by emphasizing his independence from the Echeverristas, who many consider a surviving nucleus of political resentment. As for the focal points of today's politics, Lopez Portillo is an enemy of De la Madrid and Salinas and a supporter of Cardenismo, the anti- PRI (Institutional Revolutionarv Party) movement led by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. The second incision made by L6pez Portillo is barely perceptible. In elliptic fashion the ex-president suggests that the policies of his sexe- nio (six-year term of office) were more original than those of his suc- cesor, De la Madrid. At the same time Lopez Portillo dismisses as "false" and "ill-willed" the charges of corruption and incompetence that taint his name in the pages of contemporary Mexican history. With these two incisions Lopez Portillo succeeds in conveying the aura of a Mexican president. Unin- tentionally, however, he illuminates how Mexico's political system oper- ates, behind a facade of democracy, according to secret, personalist, and authoritarian lines of power. This is precisely where the ex-president commits a major blunder: why reveal the intricacies of "his crime" and expose himself to wider condemnation? Lopez Portillo writes prolifically of "his crime," assuming that by doing so he glorifies his persona and somehow rescues it from his political legacy.

(Translatedby Lourdes Sinuimn)

Hemisphere. Winter 1989 Mexico-Bashing in Washington by George W. Grayson

most foreign aid and to oppose features on our "neighbor in dis- presidency last July, development bank credits to nations tress" and a CIA report ince his election to the estimated S Carlos Salinas de whose antidrug efforts fail to meet that there was a 20 percent chance Gortari has moved to US standards. Had the House fol- the Mexican political system would strengthen ties with the lowed the Senate's lead-fortunately, collapse within five years. Last US. By so doing he may it did not-only an executive veto year's Senate vote poured salt into preempt US-launched would have prevented a nasty these wounds before they could attacks on Mexico, which have bilateral rift amid the most crucial begin to heal. become so frequent in recent years Mexican presidential campaign in Why has Mexico been so vilified? that the neologism "Mexico-bashing" 50 years. It is of critical economic and strate- has entered the vocabulary of Wash- The spring 1988 brouhaha fol- gic importance to the US. It has ington decisionmakers. In addition lows, by two years, Senator Jesse undertaken an impressive offensive to meeting with president-elect Helms's emergence as the Mexico on drugs. Why have members of George Bush in late November, basher with the hardest punch. Dur- Congress and the executive branch Salinas has selected Gustavo Petricioli ing hearings of the Senate Subcom- openly accused Mexico of actions as his ambassador to the US. A mittee on Western Hemisphere they would never dream of saying 61-year-old economist and former Affairs, which he chairs, the North publicly about Canada, Taiwan, or finance minister who holds a mas- Carolina Republican treated Mexico Israel. Is there anything that Mexico ter's degree from Yale, Petricioli with all the tenderness of Cromwell can do to boost its influence here, possesses the stature to bring ruling Ireland. He charged that or will every philippic against drug coherence, dynamism, and greater President Miguel de la Madrid was trafficking and ballot-box stuffing effectiveness to Mexico's previously elected fraudulently in 1982 and incite a mean-spirited donnybrook? understaffed, overworked, and that the ruling Institutional Revolu- sometimes outflanked embassy. tionary Party (PRI) kept two sets of election books-"one private and Reluctance to Lobby Mexico-Bashing one public." William von Rabb, com- The Mexicans believe their impor- missioner of the US Customs Serv- tance to the US and their antidrug Despite efforts to improve relations ice, Assistant Secretary of State commitment are self-evident. Thus, with Capitol Hill, Mexico often Elliott Abrams, and other executive- unlike other large nations with finds itself the target of stinging branch spokesmen also pummeled interests at stake, they have failed to blows. The Senate hurled the latest Mexico for "engrained" wrongdo- devote the necessary resources to punch when it voted 61 to 27 in mid- ing and "widespread drug-related win friends and influence people in April 1988 to penalize Mexico for corruption." Washington. In the past a medley of inadequacies in its war on drugs. Mexicans greeted the Helms factors explained Mexico's reluc- Epithets such as "crooked'," "cor- hearings as the political version of tance to play the power game in an rupt," and "venal" suffused the fingernails clawing a blackboard. organized, assertive, and prominent speeches and corridor gossip that For them, the soft-spoken North manner. To begin with, lobbying attended this move. Carolinian embodied the spirits of means involvement in the affairs of The Senate was reacting to Minister Joel Poinsett, General another country and, as such, runs White House certification of Mex- Winfield Scott, General John "Black afoul of Mexico's cherished, though ico as "fully cooperating" on nar- Jack" Pershing, Ambassador Henry inconsistently applied, belief that cotics matters pursuant to the Anti- Lane Wilson, and other Americans nations should keep their noses out Drug Abuse Act of 1986. This stat- who had meddled egregiously in of each other's business. A variation ute, which was aimed at Mexico, their nation's affairs. on this theme is the antipathy the requires the president to terminate Attorney General Edwin Meese fiercely-nationalistic Mexican gov- III's apology to his Mexican coun- ernment has traditionally felt toward George W Grayson is the Class of 1938 terpart did little to quell a firestorm justifying its actions to anyone, par- Professor of Government at the College of anger. Resentment mushroomed ticularly to its mighty northern of William and Mary. when leading US newspapers ran neighbor. Even more troubling is

Hemisphere * Winter 1989 Features: Mexico

_ _ _ _ the possibility that attempts to influ- the cabinet as a designated advocate from the experience of the Cana- ence Washington would be seized for Third World unity, solidarity dians who, until a few years ago, upon to justify more blatant Ameri- with Nicaragua, and anti-US nation- were equally hesitant to push their can intrusiveness in Mexico. The alism. Such policies excite support cause in Washington. Obviously precedent was set when John Gavin, among vocal elements within PRI, Canada enjoys several advantages US ambassador until May 1986, the mass media, intellectual and aca- over Mexico vis-i-vis the US. Among assumed an extremely high profile demic circles, the Mexican congress, these are a mutual enthusiasm for and vehemently crossed swords with and segments of organized labor. democratic institutions and capital- detractors of him and his country. These constituencies are partic- ism, a cultural affinity, a shared lan- Of course, any appearance of ularly important for a government guage (except for the Quebecois), a pandering to Uncle Sam is political pursuing conservative economic history free of armed conflict since suicide for those Mexicans involved. policies to cultivate. Men and women the War of 1812, and common One of the many ironies of a 2,000- with Sepilveda's outlook resist defense ventures. mile cheek-by-jowl relationship is entanglements with the "imperialist" Still, many problems bedeviling that close association with the adja- US, which they regard as hostile to US-Mexican affairs also affect those cent country, considered highly Mexico's well-being in particular and between Canada and its southern desirable by US politicians anxious to developing states in general. neighbor. High on the list are trade, to propitiate Chicano voters, can be Mexican activism has also been protectionism, investment, fishing, the kiss of death to their Mexican discouraged in the past because of a US cultural penetration, and pollu- counterparts. fatalistic sense that nothing could be tion. Like Mexico, Canada is acutely Limited resources and cautious done to chill anti-Mexican senti- affected by Washington's actions or, ambassadors have nourished Mex- ment. Some Mexican officials were to quote former prime minister ico's timidity at a time when scores even convinced their country was Pierre Elliott Trudeau, "It's like a of other countries benefit from self- the target of an orchestrated defa- mouse and an elephant trying to promotion. Conversations with mation campaign. sleep in the same bed." dozens of Capitol Hill staffers reveal In March 1986, two days after a Traditionally Ottawa dealt with that Petricioli's predecessor, Jorge cover story on Mexico appeared in the red, white, and blue colossus in Espinosa de los Reyes, rarely sought Newsweek's international edition, the same understated manner now meetings with senators. He com- Deputy Jose Angel Pescador claimed typifying Mexican diplomacy. As plied graciously with requests for to speak for PRI when he said it recently as the 1970s, embassy regu- interviews, yet seldom took the ini- was "possible to suppose" that the lations prevented most Canadian tiative-except that his political magazine was "following the line officials from traveling the 17 blocks advisers encouraged contacts with assumed by some foreign publica- from their ornate Massachusetts such border senators as Lloyd tions that consistently have tried to Avenue chancery to Capitol Hill. Bentsen, W Philip Gramm, and distort the image of Mexico abroad When problems arose, a Canadian Peter V. Domenici. His inertness, and, at times, to degrade the Mexi- diplomat would register his coun- compared to other envoys, set the can people." Familiarity with the try's concerns with the appropriate tone for an embassy in which key press control exerted by their Tam- State Department desk and, possi- foreign-service officers, including many Hall-style regime leads many bly, with a White House official. then political counselor Jorge Pinto, Mexican politicos to see the US gov- The surge of protectionist pres- thoroughly understood the impor- ernment's heavy hand in American sures in response to a ballooning US tance of moving and shaking within media reports critical of their own trade deficit persuaded Canada- the beltway. In all fairness, Ambas- country. the US's largest commercial partner sador Espinosa and his embassy col- Many Mexican elites, like other after Japan-to change its tactics. leagues were active in communi- Latin Americans, view the US sys- The new phase in its Washington cating to congressmen the negative tem as the mirror image of their own diplomacy began with the December consequences of decertifying Mex- authoritarian, presidentially-dom- 1981 arrival of Allan E. Gotlieb as ico under the 1986 narcotics statute. inated regime, further impeding Canada's ambassador. Rather than They also actively communicated their nation's effectiveness above the tiptoe around the capital and craft their country's views on the Omnibus Rio Grande. This perception discreet notes to the State Depart- Trade Bill, which contained provi- blinded them to the mounting ment, the bespectacled Harvard sions detrimental to Mexico. involvement of Congress in foreign Law School graduate and former The embassy's press office has policy and to the enormous impor- Rhodes Scholar soon inserted him- shown remarkable attentiveness to tance of independent regulatory self into the power game. US journalists and other opinion- agencies. As he explained his actions to an makers. Still, former foreign secre- American journalist: "Your consti- tary Bernard Septilveda (1982-88) The Canadian Effect tution works on the basis of deal relished his highly-scripted role in Doubtless the Mexicans could profit making. The administration can't govern by itself. The Congress can't investment to their country and fos- US trucking services on the strength govern by itself. You need a 'treaty' tering US-Canadian joint-corporate of an obscure 1955 presidential to govern. I get caught in that. initiatives-activities that enlarged decree, the Teamsters and the Amer- The administration can't move the an influential pro-Canadian constit- ican Trucking Association retaliated Congress, so I've got to get my uency. Meanwhile, between 1978 and by convincing Congress to pass the hands dirty and try to move 1986, Mexican clients forked out but 1984 Motor Carrier Safety Act. Few Congress myself." a pittance on similar endeavors, Mexican truckers could meet the And move Congress he has, which helps explain the harsh treat- law's strict standards in order to thanks to an excellent flow of infor- ment inflicted on Mexico by Helms operate on US highways. mation from public-opinion surveys and his fellow critics. Ultimately the Mexicans for- and well-connected friends, cultiva- feited the legislative contest tion of American corporations with because, at the insistence of the links to Canada, mastery of Wash- Ministry of Communications and ington's social life, and aggressively- Transport, no representatives suave lobbying techniques. "No appeared at Senate hearings on the ambassador," according to Wyoming's safety bill. In the absence of opposi- Senator Alan Simpson, "understands tion the bill passed easily. "If you the jungle of our politics as well." don't show up, the guy who does, The Canadians enjoy a superb wins;' observed a lobbyist employed reputation for making their case in by several Mexican clients. "That's Washington. This adroitness bore the way the system works." In all fair- fruit in April 1987 when President ness to the Mexicans, it would have Reagan agreed to consider an taken a herculean effort to triumph accord on acid rain. In 1988 the two in a US legislative arena over the countries signed a sweeping trade combined force of the trucking pact to eliminate all bilateral tariffs firms and organized labor. over a ten-year period. Subsequently Finally, funds spent by Canadian Increasingly their American Reagan overrode opposition from clients for tourist promotion friends urged Mexican authorities Navy brass and approved a Cana- declined steadily in recent years, to hire a public relations firm to dian purchase of nuclear sub- even as their Mexican counterparts magnify their country's clout in marines using American reactor continued to lavish more than 90 Washington. In the aftermath of the technology. percent (94.9 percent in 1986) of scathing publicity beamed on fraud- The reasons for Canada's lobby- total outlays on a sector of marginal ridden state and local elections in ing success as compared to Mexico's political significance. mid-1985, the Office of the Mexican lack of success can be quantified Presidency recruited Mark Moran, from the reports of agents who have Mexican Stirrings a Washington lawyer originally registered with the Justice Depart- employed by the Hannaford Com- ment, under the Foreign Agents The Mexican government has pany, and now a partner in Sawn, Registration Act, to advance the made desultory attempts to improve Berger, Mann & Moran, to help tell interests of the private and public its standing in the US. Mario Mexico's story to US opinion clients. First, the number of Cana- Rodriguez, the embassy's University leaders. Despite hard work and dian agents more than tripled from of Texas-trained trade attache, goodwill, the ebullient Moran's 29 to 100. The total for Mexico (29) reported that in the early 1980s he modestly-funded efforts have scored declined. Second, in 1986, 88 of was sent to Washington "to change few points, as demonstrated by the Canada's 100 agents were "active" ... attitudes and communicate bet- periodic Mexico-bashing. compared to 21 of those signing up ter" with the US power circle on Salinas epitomizes a new genera- on behalf of Mexican entities. trade matters. To accomplish these tion of Mexicans who have traveled Third, public and private Canadian goals, he doubled the size of Mex- and studied in the US, speak English firms increased from 15.7 percent to ico's Trade Office, computerized his fluently, know American elites, com- 68.1 percent their funds earmarked files, and tried to keep in touch prehend the substantial differences for political and quasi-political pur- with key congressional aides. This between the US political system and suits, whereas Mexican entities con- stepped-up diplomacy was done qui- their own, and realize that Mexico tinued to disburse only several etly. "It's our way of solving prob- must not shy from exerting its influ- percent of their monies for such lems without creating others for ence in Washington. These relatively important purposes. ourselves;' said Rodriguez. young men and women understand Fourth, Canadian clients consis- Still, he was only one person and the growing interdependence of tently channeled 10.5 to 25 percent found it impossible to cover all the Mexico and the US and prefer ham- their resources into attracting political bases. After Mexico banned mering out pragmatic solutions to

Hemisphere. Winter 1989 Features: Mexico

mutual problems rather than gress, in the White House, in the The embassy should make com- indulging in demagogic rhetoric. State Department, among editorial mon cause with the Mexico-US Salinas's commitment to a trade- writers, and in the TV newsrooms if Business Committee, a binational focused development strategy has it can activate business leaders who organization composed of corpo- expanded Mexico's export sector, have an interest in both the coun- rate elites in both nations. The magnified the relationship between try's economic vitality and harmo- American component of the organi- internal and external policies, and nious bilateral ties. zation is the "US Council," which is forced Mexicans to increase their Intensive and systematic mobili- chaired by Rodman C. Rockefeller foreign contacts. This demarche zation of Mexico's oil clients is imper- and composed of 33 giant corpora- coincides with the declining ideolog- ative-with the Mexican ambassa- tions ranging from ALCOA to ical character of US policy toward dor, appropriate consuls general, Zenith. Latin America exhibited by the Bush and key cabinet secretaries cultivat- The Mexico-US Business Com- administration. ing the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana mittee is not a registered lobbyist. The key element in an energized oil patch. Equally prudent would be Nevertheless, its members have but- Mexican lobbying effort would be a mobilizing the scores of US corpora- tonholed key policymakers in both dynamic embassy, which must add tions that supply goods and services nations to oppose protectionism substantially to the 22 professionals to Petr6leosMexicanos (Pemex), the and support a bilateral framework working there in January 1989. The national oil monopoly, and to other for trade and investment. staff of 11 consulates and the experi- state firms. A letter or phone call Failure to develop an effective enced specialists in the Trade Office from a Mexican diplomat may presence in Washington militates should complement the embassy's impress-but not move to action--a against favorable laws and adminis- activities. As the Canadians have senator or representative. More trative acts. Worse still, it encour- done, the ambassador might assign likely, a contact from the chief exec- ages more bludgeoning by officials special projects to one of the big- utive officer of US Steel, whose who perceive Mexico to be an invit- league lobbying outfits or law firms profitable Marathon Oil subsidiary ing target. In turn, such diatribes that abound in Washington. is a key Pemex customer, will have an spark recriminations from Mexico The cultivation of legislative and activating effect. Few people realize City. Hence they provide ammuni- executive contacts should be an that hundreds of thousands of tion to the critics of pro-American invigorated embassy's first priority, American jobs are generated by leaders such as Salinas, who are followed by continued upgrading of trade with Mexico and that Mexican valiantly promoting the economic its standing with the media. Mexico political stability and economic well- and political advancement of their will loft its star in the halls of Con- being are important to US security. deeply troubled nation. . The Quest for Business Survival by Francisco Valdes

vival. It remains unclear which sec- Among the sectoral organizations Carlos Salinas de Gortari tors of domestic business, and which are confederations of industry, com- further exposes Mexican particular firms, will survive. What merce, banking, insurance, and agri- business to the rigors and is clear is that business associations culture, while among the regional risks of international have responded to the uncertainties organizations are Mexico City's competition, domestic of the 1980s sthe administration of by assuming a more Association of Vallejo Industrialists A firms are scrambling, active political stance. and Monterrey's Chamber of Manu- economically and politically, for sur- facturers. The organizations that The Old-style Politics of Business address wider business concerns (e.g., labor relations, fiscal policy, FranciscoValdes is professorof politi- Mexican entrepreneurs channel foreign investment) include cal science at the Centro de Investiga- their political actions through two COPARMEX, CCE, and CMHN. ci6n y Docencia Econ6mica, in Mexico kinds of business associations (see The various strata of the nation's pri- City, and a visitingprofessor at Brown table): associations based on sectoral vate sector-as divided by activity, University and the University of and regional concerns and those size, capital, technology, market, and Connecticut. built on wider business concerns. region-use such associations to

Hemisphere* Winter 1989

------I ---- Business Organizations and the State Moderate Faction Radical Faction Unconditional Moderate Strong Support Criticism Criticism I II III IV V CNPP CANACINTRA CANACO-MEX CONCAMIN COPARMEX CNPC CNG CCE CONCANACO AMIS CAMCO CMHN CNA AMCB

AMCB Asociaci6n Mexicana de Casasde Bolsa CNA Consejo NacionalAgropecuario Mexican Association of Stock Market Brokers' National Agricultural Council" AMIS Asociaci6n Mexicana de Institucionesde Seguros CNG Confederaci6nNacional Ganadera Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions' National Livestock Confederation" CAMCO Cdmara Americana de Comercio CNPC ConfederacibnNacional de Comarasdel Pequeho Comercw American Chamber of Commerce" National Confederation of Chambers of Small Com- CANACINTRA Cdmara Nacionalde la Industriade Transformaci6n merce* National Chamber of the Transformation Industry* CNPP Confederaci6nNacional de la PequerlaPropiedad National Confederation CANACO-MEX CtmaraNacional de Comerciode la Ciudad de Mexico of Small Property Owners" National Chamber of Commerce of Mexico City* CONCAMIN ConfederacibnNacional de CdmarasIndustriales Colzseio ~omtlinrulm Emhrpmrinl National Confederation of Chambers of Industry' Entrepreneurial Coordinating Council CONCANACO Confederaci6nNacional de Coimarasde Comercio (affiliates all national organizations)" National Confederation of Chambers of Commerce* CMHN Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios COPARMEX ConfederacionPatronal de la Repusblica Mexicana Mexican Businessmen Council Employers' Confederation of the Mexican Republic" (formed by 32 key heads of investment groups)" *Legally recognized as a mandatory affiliation and state-policy consultingorganization. "Voluntary affiliation organization.

pursue their political interests and government officials and in making administration of Luis Echeverria spread their vision of "what's good economic policy. (1970-76) for Mexico."' over its emphasis on popu- By the 1960s the upper rungs of list reforms, representatives of lead- The participation of business Mexican business had become a ing businesses founded the CCE. associations in Mexican politics is more powerful economic force, Its purpose was to coordinate the nothing new. It dates from 1917, having consolidated their position efforts of business associations in when, as the victors of the 1910 Mex- in finance, industry, commerce, and striving to make government ican Revolution began to recon- policy agriculture. The state's policies of more responsive to the interests of struct the nation's economy, major "stabilized development" dictated the private sector. The CCE remains entrepreneurs founded confedera- that government intervention in the a key channel for business initiatives tions of industry (CONCAMIN) and economy gradually give way to pri- in Mexican politics. commerce (CONCANACO) to rep- vate enterprise. As this process resent their interests. Private enter- occurred, state-business relations prise, like the military, was excluded entered a new phase. The heads of The New Politics of Survival from the official party of the Revolu- major firms were no longer content The Mexican economy is in the tion (which eventually became the to restrict their political involvement midst of painful, massive Institutional adjust- Revolutionary Party, to matters of economic policy; they ments. President Salinas's policies of PRI, whose membership comprises became increasingly concerned with economic restructuring, which he peasants, labor, and the amorphous shaping both public opinion and began to shape while "popular at the Ministry sector"). By the 1940s, state policy in general. In the early of Budget and Planning in 1982-88, however, the official party and Mex- 1970s business representatives push Mexico further into the com- ico's business leadership had agreed launched a campaign to end the petitive arena of the world market. on guidelines for the latter's involve- sector's "second-class" citizenship, These policies emphasize export-led ment in economic policymaking. claiming that "leftist groups" (i.e., industrialization, and thus the dis- Business leadership agreed not to sectors of PRI and various intellec- mantling of government protec- oppose, as a sector, the state's one- tuals in the press and in universities) tionism, as the path to economic party system, receiving in exchange dominated civic affairs. recovery. The political worries of the right to participate in selecting During a bitter conflict with the business focus on the exhaustion of

Hemisphere Winter 1989 Features: Mexico

Mexico's post-1940 pattern of eco- represents employers, and CON- response the factions are stepping nomic development and the uncer- CANACO, which represents cham- up their participation in the political tainties inherent in exploring a new bers of commerce. This faction arena. The most powerful organiza- economic path. aggressively pursues a right-wing tions, such as CCE, CMHN, and Mexican business is hetero- agenda in wide-ranging spheres CANACINTRA, focus on the cir- geneous. Firms run the gamut in such as labor relations, taxation, cumspect strategy of bolstering terms of specialization, size, capital, elections, education, and religion. their roles in the making of national technology, and market. The leading Ranging from less critical to mod- economic policy. The lower-tier organ- domestically-owned industrial, com- erately supportive are CCE, as izations are more likely to take the mercial, and financial enterprises already discussed; CMHN, which riskier path of becoming more are concentrated in three metro- serves the heads of Mexico's key active in electoral politics and in politan areas: Mexico City, Monter- investment groups (e.g., Grupo Alfa, spreading the "world view" of the rey, and Guadalajara. The country's Televisa, and Casa de Bolsa); and private sector. Yet both strategies northernmost region has become CANACINTRA, which serves the serve the same agenda: transformed into a booming, manufacturing industry. What the * Setting up a true partnership export-oriented zone of predomi- centrist associations share is a pref- between government officials and nantly foreign companies. erence not only for cautious stances business leadership. Numerous studies indicate that the but for direct, discreet negotiations * Establishing the direct involvement leading domestically-owned firms of with the government. Lastly, at the of business in government Mexico City and Monterrey domi- pro-government end of the spec- policymaking. nate the major business associa- trum are two of the least influential * Building a strong network of civic tions, such as AMCD, CCE, CMHN, associations, CNPC and CNPP, organizations to disseminate the COPARMEX, CONCAMIN, and which represent small business. values and broaden the political CONCANACO. Their differences aside, most influence of business. The politics of business associa- business factions agree that public During the Salinas administra- tions run the gamut from strident authority is excessively concentrated tion Mexico's private sector will con- criticism to unconditional support in the presidency, that state bureauc- tinue its quest to gain a leading of government policies (see table). racy is too involved in the economy, economic, political, and social role At the antigovernment end of the and that the private sector is poorly in charting the future course of spectrum are COPARMEX, which represented in government. In Mexican affairs. a A Repoliticized Military? by Stephen] Wager

he politics of Mexico's military: defending Mexico's sover- of the defense budget. As a percent- military stands in sharp eignty, enforcing the constitution, age of gross domestic product, contrast to that of its and preserving internal order. Since however, Mexico's military budget Latin American counter- World War II the military's principal continues to be among the lowest in parts. The fundamental mission has been the preservation of Latin America. Mexico's military is a difference is that the internal order. In light of geopoliti- closed institution; its activities have 1910 Mexican Revolution cal considerations, the choice of that long been shrouded in secrecy. Even depoliticized the nation's military. mission has been a judicious one, specialists, both Mexican and for- The Constitution of 1917, the cap- since defending Mexico against the eign, have trouble discerning the stone document of the Revolution, US is not feasible and defending pulse of the nation's armed forces. defines a threefold mission for the Mexico against Guatemala is hardly Many observers have assumed that necessary. since the mid-1970s the armed forces The present strength of Mexico's have had a burning desire to take Stephen Wager, a lieutenant colonel armed forces is approximately an active role in political affairs. in the US army and a doctoralstu- 135,000. In Mexico, as in the rest of dent in history at Stanford University, Latin America, the army is the domi- served as the US assistantarmy nant service, accounting for about The Crisis Unfolds attachiin Mexico City from 1985 75 percent of the active forces and During the mid-1970s deteriorating to 1988. receiving a commensurate portion economic conditions under Presi-

Hemisphere* Winter 1989

------I dent Luis Echeverria fomented extra troops to patrol streets and protesting students. The army's rumors of a military coup. In 1982, polling places. actions on that fateful day severely when President Jose L6pez Portillo tarnished its image. Today's leaders, nationalized Mexico's banks, the who were majors and lieutenant colo- atmosphere of tension and uncer- nels then, have taken precautionary tainty led to further rumors of mili- measures to prevent such incidents. tary intervention. But on both The army remains wary of perform- occasions the army, the military's key ing police-arrest functions. Instead sector, obediently remained above it prefers to intercede in potential the fray of national politics. Tradi- problems before they get out of tionally, presidential elections have hand. stimulated debates over the feasibil- During the De la Madrid years ity of a military candidate. Yet, in the army began a process of exten- contrast to other Latin American sit- Regarding the antidrug cam- sive reorganization that will likely uations, the overriding assumption paign, De la Madrid's government continue during the Salinas govern- in Mexico has always been that such concluded that the production ment. Army leadership views the a candidate would resign from the and transportation of illegal drugs reorganization, which emphasizes armed forces before accepting the required the attention of adminis- the institution's tactical divisions, as presidential nomination. trative and law-enforcement agen- an initiative to further depoliticize In 1988, for the first time in more cies. The armed forces continue to its role. A series of military educa- than 40 years, the Institutional Rev- participate in the antidrug cam- tional reforms has complemented olutionary Party (PRI) was engaged paign. The army is responsible for this initiative. Analysts of Latin in an all-out struggle against strong the eradication of illegal crops. And America have learned that profes- electoral opposition. Heading the the navy is responsible for the inter- sionalization is not synonymous with opposition was Cuauhtemoc CAr- diction of drug-transporting vessels depoliticization. Still, the Mexican denas, the son of ex-president in territorial waters. military is unique among the armed LAzaro Cirdenas. The older CAr- forces of Latin America, and contin- denas was an army general and The Military ued depoliticization may indeed be remains a powerful symbol of the under Salinas its future. Revolution's legacy of social reforms The direction the Mexican military Rumors about the building of a and nationalism. In opposing the will take under Salinas is unclear. Mexican national security apparatus PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Salinas chose a secretary of defense, have proliferated in recent years. Gortari, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Antonio Riviello Dazan, who If it does exist, such an apparatus courted the armed forces. Some ensures the military's loyalty. Doing could override the various reforms analysts suggest that, like the elector- so was crucial in the wake of the and lead the military into the politi- ate in general, the military voted in political uncertainties arising from cal arena. Yet the military would substantial proportion for Cardenas. last year's presidential election and likely confine its involvement to the The fact remains that the army the new administration's program of well-defined sphere of national secu- stayed at the periphery of Mexican economic restructuring. The mili- rity and thus avoid entanglement in politics, thereby ensuring a peaceful tary is expected to continue its alle- the nation's formidable economic and lawful election on July 6. giance to PRI in the near future. A problems. The army has been the subject of recent example was the army's role It is erroneous to equate the rumors in recent years concerning in January's lightning-like strike heightened visibility of the Mexican its growing role in deterring political against "La Quina" and the power- military with heightened political violence and instability and in ful Oil Workers' Union. The army influence. Moreover, the military enforcing the government's antidrug has demonstrated such allegiance remains insufficiently trained to policies. During the presidency of not only by actively supporting take over the reins of government. Miguel de la Madrid (1982-88), the Salinas against the oil-union leader- The next six years will probably not government increasingly anticipated ship, but also by parading on inau- provide the military with a crash problems of violence and demon- guration day, an uncommon course in heading the government. strated the military's strength before practice. As far as the military's leadership is the opposition could mobilize. De la Undoubtedly Salinas will call on concerned, this is all for the best. In Madrid's administration featured the army to handle additional con- light of the recent failures of mili- this strategy before and during state flicts. Nonetheless, the army will tary-led governments throughout elections. A prime example was the probably try to minimize the use of Latin America, the military leader- case of Chihuahua in the summer force. After all, it still bears the scars ship of Mexico welcomes the oppor- of 1986, when his administration of the 1968 Tlatelolco incident, tunity to stay out of the political forestalled violence by deploying when soldiers fired upon masses of limelight. a

Hemisphere Winter 1989 Features: Mexico

Grassroots Challenges by Luis Hern6ndez and Laura Carlsen

exico's presidential popular demands for government ther a formal nor legal organization. election of July 6, response. The government, however, The resulting flexibility makes the 1988, gave voice to a did not respond. As a result, grass- movement more resistant to govern- widespread phenom- roots organizations entered virgin ment co-optation and repression enon that has been terrain by providing urban services. and to its own in-fighting. By mak- quietly growing for The urban popular movement ing the movement accessible to years. Grassroots (UPM) displays several novel charac- neighborhood residents, the infor- movements-independent organiza- teristics. To begin with, its partici- mality also facilitates the leap tions of campesinos, workers, slum- pants come together because of from personal complaints to public dwellers, religious groups, feminists, their demands as consumers, not as action. Furthermore it lays the environmentalists, and others- producers. Thus their tactics consist groundwork for nationwide coali- prepared the ground for the massive not of strikes, which are the bread tions among all types of grassroots anti-PRI (Institutional Revolution- and butter of labor movements, but organizations. One instance is the ary Party) expression on election day. of sit-ins and marches. Another alliance between the Peoples' Union Such movements have evolved from innovation is that women form the of Nueva Tenochtitln, an organiza- the aftermath of the government's core of UPM's constituency. "Popu- tion of Mexico City tenants, and the antistudent repression of 1968, lar feminism" focuses attention on Venustiano Carranza National which spawned a generation of social the "quality of life"-family eco- Organization of Street Vendors. activists. But the movements have nomic needs, domestic work, bear- gained force as survival mechanisms ing and rearing children, personal Labor in a setting of authoritarian govern- relationships, crime, and sex dis- ment and economic crisis. The goal crimination. This aspect of UPM is The economic crisis has unleashed of the grassroots initiatives is survival full of contradictions: their practices considerable repression against -for families, communities, and notwithstanding, the women cling to Mexico's "rank-and-file" labor move- the nation. traditional conceptions of gender ment. This movement encompasses Grassroots movements provide and would never call themselves "independent" unions, which are the key to understanding the chang- "feminists." The fact remains that, officially registered but not affili- ing political climate of Mexico. Who through groups like the Women's ated with the government or labor are these groups? And what is their Regional of the National Coordinat- confederations; and "currents," political role? ing Body of the Urban Popular democratic movements within offi- Movement, they exert a growing cial unions. The latter have become The Urban Popular Movement impact on a broad array of grass- the more common of the two; since roots initiatives. 1972 the government has refused to As Mexico's cities became bloated An additional new feature is grant independent registration at with poor residents during the UPM's concept of "territorial" orga- the national level, with the notable 1970s, the urban masses began to nizing. The nucleus of the organiza- exception of the "19th of Septem- press for housing and neighborhood tion is always the people who live ber" Garment Workers' Union that services such as sewage, water, and side by side. This may include a formed after the 1985 earthquake. transportation. The onset of eco- group that invaded land to build Labor is the least likely of the nomic crisis in the early 1980s, as self-help houses, people who sought grassroots movements to advance its well as the 1985 earthquake and the to rebuild their neighborhood after interests during the Salinas adminis- 1988 presidential election, escalated the earthquake, or a community that tration. For one thing, the local and would no longer tolerate life without national labor arbitration and con- Luis Hernndez is a consultant, in basic services. Among the resulting ciliation boards, government author- Mexico City, on grassrootsorganiza- initiatives are neighborhood house- ities, PRI officials, and "charros" tions to the Inter-American Founda- building cooperatives, tenant-rights (official union bosses) oppose the tion. Laura Carlsen is on the editorial organizations, food cooperatives, rank-and-file movement, which chal- staffofThe Other Side of Mexico, in and crime-watch committees. lenges the entrenched lines of power Mexico City. A final novelty is that UPM is nei- and corruption. For another, thou-

Hemisphere. Winter 1989

I , _ -- _--L-- _ sands ofjobs have been lost not only ances hold a key to revitalizing the whose name derives from the to the national downswing but also labor movement and, more gener- scorched-earth tactics of the Mexi- to industrial reconversion, the ally, to forcing the Salinas adminis- can army in fighting the area's guer- government's project to improve tration to take seriously grassroots rilla insurgency of the 1960s. Those Mexico's productive capacity and pressures. residents who suffered imprison- reorient it to foreign markets. In ment and torture at the hands of the recent years the government has Campesinos government are Cardenistastoday. In guaranteed the proliferating addition are thousands of rural con- maquiladoras,or export-assembly The demand for land remains the verts without organized political plants, of the northern border driving force of campesino initiatives, experience who see in Cirdenas a region a cheap and docile work force but now it has company. Demands viable alternative to PRI. as part of a package of direct sub- for control over the marketing of There are also economic implica- sidies and decreased export taxes. crops and for democratic represen- tions. Salinas, when he served dur- Inflation, wage controls, and cut- tation have risen to prominence on ing the De la Madrid presidency in backs in social services worsen the the agenda of rural grassroots the Ministry of Budget and Plan- plight of working-class families. The movements. ning, developed a program of agrar- bottom line is that since 1982 the For decades opponents of PRI ian modernization based on the purchasing power of Mexicans has gained strength in the cities, but the principle of negotiation. Some cam- plunged by more than 50 percent. countryside remained the privileged pesinos, especially those who belong These conditions augur poorly terrain of the official party. This sit- to the National Union of Autono- for both independent and official uation dramatically changed in July mous Regional Campesino Organi- unions. Indeed, the longstanding 1988, when thousands of campesinos zations (UNORCA), adopted this privileges of the official unions are abandoned the ranks of PRI and style. Not only did they implement quickly eroding. Indications of the their state of apathy to back the can- successful cooperatives; they also latter are the devastating Economic didacy of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. reached accords with the govern- Solidarity Pact of December 1987 In Michoacdn, Oaxaca, La Laguna, ment regarding matters such as and Salinas's action against the lead- coastal Guerrero, and parts of price guarantees, marketing, techni- ership of the Oil Workers' Union Veracruz, PRI's near monopoly over cal training, housing, and social wel- (which was not simply a matter of the peasantry has finally been bro- fare. Apparently the government eliminating corruption, as com- ken. Rural discontent with PRI was willing to concede greater inde- monly reported in the US press). stems from government policies that pendence to the campesinos in Nevertheless, it is not yet time to encourage large-scale production exchange for more efficient produc- write eulogies for the Mexican labor for export, thereby concentrating tion. Signs are that, as president, movement. The emergence of the land, credit, and other resources in Salinas will continue this approach. Garment Workers' Union after the the hands of a few. Such policies PRI's agrarian proposals have earthquake, the success of workers' sacrifice rural living standards to openly incorporated the principles cooperatives (notably the Pascual export growth and industrial devel- of UNORCA's project and some of soft-drink factory), and the victory opment, a key reason for the massive UNORCA's advisors have consider- of Volkswagen workers in staving off migration from rural zones to able influence with Salinas. contract givebacks are signs of life Mexican cities and to the US. A sign The relationship between in the rank-and-file movement. of plunging living standards in the UNORCA and the government illus- Attempts to unify the independent countryside is that, according to trates one political avenue open to unions, particularly the three-year- researchers at the National Autono- grassroots organizations. This ave- old Union Coordinating Council, mous University of Mexico, from nue is potentially viable for two rea- are potentially important. 1982 to 1987 the terms of trade of sons. First, the traditional left has Equally significant, many unions agriculture with industry dropped failed to generate a workable pro- are beginning to view their objec- by 30 percent. gram of agricultural modernization. tives in broader light. For instance, Agrarian protest-more isolated Second, the Salinas approach, it rural teachers participate in cam- and severely repressed than that of seems, respects the independence of pesino campaigns to raise the official any other popular sector-has con- grassroots organizations. price of corn. Garment workers tinued unabated. In cases like the UNORCA's strategy, however, march alongside poor urban women Democratic Campesino Front of contains points of serious vul- to demand social services. Orga- Chihuahua, it has become regional nerability. The strategy underesti- nized professors actively support in scope. For some groups the presi- mates the co-optive powers of PRI students' demands for participation dential election was just the most in the form of the party's old-style in university decisions. And unions recent form of protest. A case in agrarian leaders. It therefore over- of all kinds have joined together to point is the Guerrero town of "El estimates the Salinas administra- protest electoral fraud. Such alli- Quemado" ("The Burned Town"), tion's willingness to sacrifice political

Hemisphere. Winter 1989 Features: Mexico

control, and overlooks the possi- by Indian groups to defend their face an old threat: co-optation by bility that regional campesino leader- access to natural resources. Mexico's government machinery. ship could become absorbed by the The context for the continued Professional politicians are inher- government bureaucracy. Further- development of grassroots initia- ently a risky bet as popular allies. more the strategy could benefit the tives is clear. During a period of Already several federal deputies, most favorably-positioned cam- economic crisis, the presidential who were elected as opposition can- pesinos-those who own decent land contest of 1988 opened the way for didates, have returned to PRI, hav- and produce exportable crops-at "ground-up" and "top-down" coming succumbed to the juicy offers of the expense of their "less impor- petition to gain the support of the the official party. tant" counterparts. vast middle sectors: the millions of Yet professional politicians of the In the meantime last fall's official Mexicans who neither participate in new electoral opposition have been announcement of low guaranteed grassroots organizations nor fill gov- forced to adopt new tactics. The prices for corn and beans elicited ernment posts. These sectors of elections proved they can neither massive rural protest. Campesinos Mexican society are becoming vocal win elections nor build democracy blocked federal highways, refused to -people who previously restricted without developing new political deliver crops, and seized silos, while their protests to grumbling around channels of mass participation. grassroots organizations maneu- the kitchen table or Friday- Enter the grassroots organiza- vered to form coalitions. What is afternoon griping in the neighbor- tions. One of their major tasks is to more, since the Salinas administra- hood cantina. ensure that the new Party of the tion began, almost three dozen cam- This is a time of strange bed- Democratic Revolution, linked to pesino activists have been murdered fellows, as political allies eye each the Cardenistamovement, under- in Chiapas, Guerrero, Jalisco, other suspiciously at meetings previ- stands this message. The grassroots Morelos, Oaxaca, and Veracruz. ously not thought possible. Not that organizations must take into These murders, including the killing the new scenario is without risks. account the many risks and the pos- of four activists and the wounding For example, in many states, anti- sible gains, move carefully but of 15 others during a municipal elec- PRI Cardenistafactions do not yet quickly, and constantly judge how tion on January 22 in Xoxocotla, constitute a viable democratic force. best to advance democracy under Morelos, are evidence that the By the same token, new movements unprecedented circumstances. . defense of traditional Indian culture and self-government is often a leading goal of campesino protest. This is especially true in the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, where indigenous culture forms the basis for alternative economic and community projects. The Challenge of What's to Come? The emergence of other grassroots movements-of, among others, stu- Interdependence: dents, Christian base communities, and environmentalists-is infusing new values and constituencies into the campaign for democracy. In doing so, these movements provide MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES myriad new combinations of grassroots alliances. For instance, Chris- the report of the Bilateral Commission tian base communities have joined on the Future of forces with UPM to provide health United States-Mexican Relations services in poor neighborhoods, with campesinos to fight for price orderfrom: supports, and with environmental- University Press of America ists to protest against the Laguna $14.95 paperback 4720 Boston Way Verde nuclear plant. And environ- $29.95 hardbound Lanham, MD 20706 mentalists have organized not only plus - handling and postage against Laguna Verde but in sup- (301) 459-3366 port of both Cardenismo and efforts

Hemisphere *Winter 1989 gIgXOCOA Family Business, Mexican Style by Alan Knight

A Mexican Elite Family, a work of anthropology, by anthro- category "mestizo" is absent from 1820-1980 pologists. (Or, at a pinch, it falls contemporary G6mez family dis- by LarissaAdler Lomnitz and Marisol within Paul Friederich's category of course (p. 196). Prez-Lizaur.Princeton: Princeton "anthrohistory," albeit squarely The anthropological analysis of University Press, 1987 294 pp. emphasizing the "anthro.") Histo- the modern G6mez clan is a differ- Paperback. $15.00. rians of Mexico will note with inter- ent matter. Here the authors move est those episodes in which with the assurance conferred by a Family Business, Past and Present macrohistorical trends impinged mass of detailed data and a sure upon family fortunes: the railway of the comparative and theo- Don Pedro G6mez grasp (all the names in building of the 1870s; the entrepre- retical literature. Their main point is this book are pseudonyms) was a neurial setbacks of the 1910s and that the G6mez family constitutes a Creole landowner in the Puebla 1930s; and the residential shifts three-generation region of Mexico grandfamily of during the late associated with the prodigious remarkable cohesion. This cohesion colonial period. The family he growth of Mexico City after 1940. is maintained by co-residence or fathered went on to prosper, first as close residence, shared rituals, a modest provincial entrepreneurs, durable family ideology (Catholic, then as powerful Mexico City cap- conservative, nationalist, and patri- italists. The family fortune took off archal), and an evolving along with the Mexican economy family memory, or "cognitive map." This during the Porfiriato,the "order and is chiefly compiled and main- progress" dictatorship of Porfirio "map" tained by the family's "centralizing Diaz (1876-1911). By the time of the women," who are the 1910 Revolution the G6mez family principal sources of the authors' data. owned stores, textile factories, lum- (This fact raises the unanswerable ber mills, banks, insurance ques- com- tion: to what extent have these panies, and real estate. Buffeted, sources colored the authors' anal- but not sunk, by the storms of revo- ysis, substituting family norms for lution, the G6mez's made an impres- practice?) sive comeback during the 1920s, So enveloping is the familial net- their familial trajectory again follow- work that escape proves difficult, ing the curve of national economic except for those individual deviants upswing. They continued to pros- jailed divorcee, a renegade fla- per, weathering the ugly challenge (a But the historical analysis is thin menco dancer) who are of Cardenismo (1934-40) disowned, and benefit- and includes some aberrations. or those poorer, provincial branches ing from the sustained boom of Diaz's Cientificos were hardly a "class of the family that are World War II and the postwar discreetly of professional bureaucrats"; the lopped off. Women decades of "desarrolloestabilizador" who marry into sketch of the 19th century is ques- the G6mez clan are grappled to it. ("stabilized development"). tionable; and in 1923 the Christero Their original family ties must atro- This diachronic process, how- [sic] War was still three years from phy. ever, is not the central feature of As one such affinal woman puts the starting (pp. 17, 18, 205). A more it: "The ideal of a G6mez man is to book. At its heart lies the synchronic serious shortcoming is the inter- marry a test-tube analysis of the G6mez family during baby" (p. 229). pretation of the Revolution as pri- Members of the family can run but the 1970s and early '80s. The main marily a movement of mestizo self- they can't hide. When a G6mez sources are oral accounts and first- assertion that led to a "new mestizo and went to live hand observations, supplemented daughter married by society" This interpretation takes with her new husband in the US archival work. The book is therefore too much at face value the rhetoric ("partly in order to get away from of the Revolution. Indeed, in one of the domination of the family"), "sev- Alan Knight is professor of history at their many illuminating observa- eral sisters bought properties near the University of Texas, Austin. tions, the authors note that the very them and on one occasion a plane-

Hemisphere Winter 1989

I _-- ,~ _ _ _ _ - - _ -e - - -- W

load of fifty-one ... relatives arrived We learn of a family that is aggres- Conversely Mexico's Indian heri- to spend Christmas with the would- sively Catholic yet displays a tage is disdained. The G6mez family be loners" (p. 101). strangely secular indifference to the affords further evidence of the shal- This suffocating solidarity priesthood. (This is not the only lowness of revolutionary indigenismo, reveals its utility in the realm of respect in which the G6mez's, at least among the country's elites, business. Unfortunately the book despite their elite status, resemble as well as of the pervasive impor- tells us little about the family's some peasant cultures.) We learn of tance of Spanish commerce and business operations. We learn the a family steeped in machismo: for immigration. Oddly the book makes G6mez's are suspicious of the state. the women, Kirche, Kiche, Kinder no mention of servants-their They loathed presidents Lazaro Car- (church, kitchen, and children); for numbers, role, and treatment. While denas, a "Communist," and Luis the men,feo, fuerte y formal (ugly, the existence of servants is implied, Echeverria, "a madman who was strong, and formal), according to the G6mez women, we are told, are tearing down everything that had the G6mez ideal of the kept mistress expected to breast-feed their been achieved in Mexico during ear- and the casa chica (the husband's ille- numerous children, change their lier decades." We also learn they re- gitimate family) (pp. 142, 210-11). diapers, get up at night when they vered Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, "a great We learn, too, of a family that is cry, and shepherd them to and from president," the scourge of students, aggressively nationalistic, in some- school (p. 212). To what extent are subversives and "intellectual bums," what knee-jerk and hypocritical these indeed daily practices, or who happened to attend G6mez fashion. Its members value Mexico's merely idealized norms? family weddings (pp. 199-201). None- modern image, typified by the Olym- Such questions aside, the theless, the character of the G6mez pic games of 1968, which President authors' patient cognitive mapping economic empire, its business opera- Diaz Ordaz providentially saved is valuable and illuminating. They tions, and its relations with govern- from domestic subversion. They penetrate the institutional facade of ment remain obscure. What we see flaunt traditional Mexican symbols the Mexican elite-the eternal is a view from the drawing room and -food, the Virgin of Guadeloupe, impersonal acronyms of parties and not the board room. and charro (cowboy) customs-and business confederations-and touch Hence the book contrasts with they see the 1938 petroleum nation- the intangible mentalit of Mexican those more conventional analyses of alization by President Cardenas as conservatism. They reveal some- Mexican business elites that focus his one positive achievement. Yet thing of its abiding strengths, its on public rather than private per- they salt away their money in foreign inner contradictions, and its sonae (e.g., Alex Saragoza's The Mon- banks, they deplore President Eche- forms of ideological self-reproduction. terrey Elite and the Mexican State, verria's replacement of French furni- Ritual is of key importance. It must 1880-1940, 1988). In addition the ture with "coarse Mexican handi- be said the G6mez's are a pretty bor- book contradicts the familiar thesis crafts" at the presidential residence ing lot. Despite decent educations, (first sustained by Sanford Mosk's of Los Pinos, and, for their lavish they have few or no cultural inter- IndustrialRevolution in Mexico, 1950, riding expeditions, they have dis- ests. Family, money, and politics (in and since repeated by Saragoza) carded Mexican for Spanish saddles. that order) dominate dinner-table that Mexico City entrepreneurial Their nationalism, it seems, has a conversations. Their lavish enter- groups, in contrast to their counter- strong taint of material self-interest. taining, horse rides, and foreign parts in the northern industrial city Despite frequent trips abroad, they excursions evoke somewhat Rea- of Monterrey, operate in close and have no time for foreigners or ganesque images. even sympathetic conjunction with foreign culture, and they entertain Thus, if the authors' lengthy dis- the Mexican state. The G6mez fam- Mexican stereotypes worthy of any cussion of the family's daily routines ily, at least in its rhetoric, spurns the petty bourgeois bigot. Only Spain and rituals sometimes palls, the fault state; whether its business practices and Spaniards escape censure: the lies more with the G6mez's than with match its rhetoric is not clear. family boasts Spanish roots, and the authors (ch. 5). Nor can the rites What is clear is the nature of Spanish capital and marriages have, of passage of such Mexican elites family ideology and ritual. Here the for generations, reinforced the compare, in terms of novelty and information and insights are telling. family business. exotica, with those of Melanesian

Hemisphere Winter 1989 Books inReview

primitives. Family conversations, we macho bragging, not sober delibera- to Alan Macfarlane's analysis of the learn, "present an important arena tion. Payrolls are padded with rela- historical roots of "individualistic for the process of adaptation of tives; indeed the family has its own Western societies" (p. 146) is conten- the family ideology to daily needs" (G6mez) doctor and dentist. tious and provides a slippery foot- (p. 181). But, apart from a growing Yet this apparent irrationality hold for grand comparison. awareness (and practice?) of birth has a perverse rationality. The family The same problems characterize control, it is not clear that the G6mez represents a tightly-knit, ideologically- the authors' analysis of the state. family's ideology has undergone sig- coherent, and socially-durable "The Mexican state," they write, "is nificant changes over the years; it is source of mutual support in what not a classical bourgeois state in the the clan's dogged familism, Catholi- -especially in the 30 years after 1910 sense that other capitalistic societies cism, anti-intellectualism, and con- -was a dangerous world. Like the are described as such....The Mexi- servatism that are striking. Like the 19th-century entrepreneurs described can power elite is not identical with Bourbons, the G6mez's have learned by David W Walker (Kinship,Busi- the class owners of the means of nothing and forgotten nothing. Or, ness and Politics: The Martinez del production: one deals in capital, the to take a more recent, quasi-regal Rio Family in Mexico, 1824-1867, 1987), other deals in power" (pp. 237-238). analogy, they seem to blend Reagan- the G6mez clan became an elite Again, the problem here is not the esque cultural tastes with a flair for version of the extended-family Mexican formulation, but rather the gemittlich, extended-family junket- networks that sustain peasants and implied contrast with an imaginary ings that resemble those of the new shantytown dwellers. capitalist norm, which supposedly American First Family, the Bush's. Since the 1940s, however, the points to the aberrant character of family modus operandi has become the Mexican case. Yet it is something Comparing Family Portraits outdated. In the more benign busi- of a commonplace that, as Karl ness climate of PriistaMexico, the Kautsky observed as long ago as Behind all this detail, humdrum yet rationality of the padded payroll has 1902, "the capitalist class rules but often fascinating, lies a thesis. The diminished; the need for techno- does not govern"; that, in Ralph Mil- authors argue the G6mez's exem- logical innovation (spurned by the iband's more recent formulation, plify a three-generation grandfamily G6mez's) has increased; and the "the economic elites of advanced typical of Latin American families, multinationals have shouldered capitalist countries are not properly rich and poor, and distinct from the aside these representatives of an speaking a 'governing' class compa- more or less Anglo-Saxon pattern older phase of familial enterprise. As rable to pre-industrial aristocratic of two-generation nuclear families. in the past, the fortunes of the and landowning classes" (The State Cultural norms thus display a G6mez family reflect secular phases in CapitalistSociety, 1973, pp. 51-55). marked consistency across coun- in the development of Mexican To the extent that capitalist relations tries, across classes, and across time. capitalism. broadly prevail, entrepreneurs do As Lomnitz and Perez-Lizaur say, The analysis of the G6mez family not need to have their hands "The basic elements of the kinship is convincing, though it would have directly on the levers of political system appear to have been essen- been strengthened by greater con- power. In this respect the G6mez's tially invariant since colonial times" centration on business activities per are not so different from entrepre- (p. 235). The Mexican bourgeoisie, se. But is the stark contrast drawn neurs in more "advanced" or "ratio- the Peruvian middle class, Mexican between irrational Latin and rational" capitalist societies. This does shantytown dwellers, and even Mix- nal Anglo-Saxon capitalism entirely not mean comparisons of this kind tec and Maya Indians, all share valid? The authors' rational- are inherently invalid. It means, three-generational, co-residential capitalist norm is drawn from Max rather, they are exaggerated, as con- family patterns that set them apart Weber, that is, from a deliberately trasts between Mexican reality and from British or American families. schematic "ideal type," a model that non-Mexican ideal types are almost These claims are bold and is contrived, utopian, and abstract. bound to be. significant. Actual business practices are a dif- It would be unfair to blame such In addition business activities ferent matter: irrational familism a penetrating case study for failing revolve around the family and (jobs for the boys) and an associated to construct a convincing compara- impart a distinct irrationality to its resistance to technological innova- tive framework. If the contrast decisions. For the G6mez's it is more tion have been regularly cited as between rational, individualistic important to preserve the busi- explanations of Britain's relative Anglo-Saxons and irrationally famil- ness(es) in family hands, to avoid industrial decline. (Conversely the ial Mexicans is overdrawn, at least it corporate anonymity, and to find now fashionable model ofJapanese emphasizes those aspects of the niches for deserving family mem- industrial organization contains G6mez family that are integral to its bers, than to pursue profit with strong familial strains.) Other ele- growth, survival, and character. ruthless entrepreneurial rationality. ments in this stark cultural contrast These aspects are reproduced else- Board meetings are occasions for are perhapsA overdrawn. Reference where in Mexican and Latin Ameri-

Hemisphere Winter 1989 can family structures. Lomnitz and mid-19th century, and the revolu- Chalco, Chiapas, Jalisco, the P6rez-Lizaur extend anthropologi- tion. For each he specifies the loci of Huasteca, and elsewhere helped to cal research beyond the village and rebellion and passivity, exploring the frustrate or delay the implementa- shantytown, to the inner sanctum of changing socioeconomic structures tion of new property arrangements. the bourgeois drawing room. In that gave rise to varying political But, under Porfirio Diaz, rural elites doing so they have shed light on a actions. For the first period he in many regions were able to profit class whose impersonal political focuses on the Bajio (the zone greatly at the expense of the direct agency is often invoked (e.g., Nora around Guanajuato), where popula- producers: coerced plantation Hamilton, The Limits of State Auton- tion growth and commercial workers in the center-south low- omy, 1982, pp. 282-85), but whose quickening led to lower wages for lands, despoiled villagers in the carnal embodiments have usually campesinos and reduced their access highlands, and insecure tenants and remained shadowy and anonymous. to land. Two disastrous famine years dispossessed smallholders in the A Mexican Elite Family puts flesh led to relief efforts favoring urban north. When economic crisis, elite on the skeletal bones of the Mexican elements, making rural masses avail- conflicts, and succession problems bourgeoisie. Historians, anthro- able to follow Father Miguel came together in 1910-11, a disparate pologists, and sociologists of Mexico Hidalgo into sustained insurrection. set of rural rebels took up arms in and of Latin America in general But neither the autonomous peasant what became a revolutionary strug- should be grateful. The G6mez's communities of central Mexico nor gle for land reform. As in 1810, may not be nice to know, but they the secure estate dependents north secure estate dependents played a are well worth knowing about. of the Bajio felt actionable griev- minimal part as insurgents. ances. The latter, in fact, provided When Tutino gives detailed the troops that suppressed accounts of particular struggles he Mexican Struggles Hidalgo's forces and the rebel bands introduces familiar factors from that arose inJalisco and San Luis other studies of revolution in Mex- From Insurrection to Revolution Potosi. ico and elsewhere: elite divisions, in Mexico: Social Bases of popular ascription to elites of Agrarian Violence, 1750-1940 responsibility for distress, and com- by John Tutino. Princeton:Princeton munal and religious traditions. University Press, 1986. 425 + xx pp. These factors are not themselves $50.00. defined. But Tutino's real interest is explaining variations in peasant The interpretation of insurrections grievances. For this purpose he has come a long way from the ste- works with four variables: material reotypical portrayals of unleashed well-being, autonomy, security, and animalistic mass violence, stories mobility. If declines in any of the about great heroes and villains, and first three are not compensated by accusations of "outside agitators" opportunities for the fourth, rebel- spouting alien ideologies. They have lion becomes probable. As elements gone beyond accounts of "neces- of a descriptive typology, these vari- sary" transitional steps between ables perhaps suffice. Historians of "inevitable" historical stages, or the old school may even find that alleged measurements of frustrated this much theory is an unwarranted expectations. The trend over the last The second half of the book cov- intrusion. Those who prefer a 20 years has been to combine struc- ers the "agrarian decompression" higher proportion of social science, tural social science with history (1810-1880) and "agrarian compres- however, may well be disappointed from below-in different propor- sion" leading to revolution that Tutino eschewed the oppor- tions. This approach has generated (1880-1940). After independence tunity to integrate analyses built understandings that typically are elites were weak and small holdings around capitalist encroachments sympathetic to insurgents while and tenancies grew more numerous. upon peasants with those built specifying the conditions under By 1840 elites had begun to use around class relations within dis- which they revolt and the limitations political means to secure new tinctive agrarian sectors. Nonethe- of their accomplishments. John resources, a tendency accelerated less, his synthesis of his own archival Tutino's synthetic history of rural after the passage of "liberal" legisla- investigations, the research of rebellion in Mexico represents a tion outlawing communal property. others, and recent theoretical cur- splendid example of this intellectual Mid-century rebellions occurred in rents make From Insurrectionto Revo- trend. the Yucatan, the Sierra Gorda, and lution a welcome contribution to the Tutino divides his long time span the isthmus of Tehuantepec. In the burgeoning literature in modern into three periods: late colonial, 1860s and 1870s peasant revolts in Mexican history. Attractively pro-

Hemisphere Winter 1989 Books in Review

duced as well, it symbolizes the high Manuel Moreno Fraginals and Jorge factors, and ignore the social anal- quality that has brought its pub- Ibarra aided in the demystification ysis that has been an important part lisher to the forefront in Latin of the historical process of Cuban of the Latin Americanist trade for American studies. independence that has now found the last generation. This book Walter L. Goldfrank an echo in literature. attempts to remedy these omissions University of California, Santa Cruz What differentiates La ultima and alert us to the fact that today's frontera is its proximity to a public political systems have their origins in made conscious and educated by a the past century. The work's com- Cuban Expression revolutionary process. The novel parative dimension may be its most does not follow the narrative guide- valuable contribution. We can see La ultima frontera: 1898 lines of European literary histories; clearly the 19th-century utilitarian- by Alfredo Antonio Fernindez. La rather, it represents a new language ism, liberalism, conservatism, and Habana:Editorial Letras Cubanas, in Latin America that merits critical positivism in a variety of contexts. 1985. 220 pp. n.p. attention. At times the text parodies The book will serve admirably as a pamphleteering with these charac- first-assigned text in a course on El Candidato (1978), Alfredo A. Fer- teristics, though it lacks the euphe- modern Latin America. nandez's first novel, obtained the mistic metaphors of that genre. The In keeping with recent theory PremioNovela UNEAC and broad book highlights the impact of popu- the authors stress the "corporatist popularity among Cuban readers. lar culture through an eroticism heritage" of Latin America rather La iltimafrontera reiterates the that lacks the controlling mecha- than class conflict. This emphasis is qualities that merited such fame. nisms that Cornelia and Jan Flora appropriate given our belated Fernandez writes in a historical for- attribute to the Latin American understanding of the importance of mat that Cuba's postrevolutionary soap opera and Virginia Erhart corporatism in Latin American cul- literature has profoundly revised. attributes to the works of Corin ture. A recurring theme in the vol- This novel tells of the adventures Tellado. ume is the inherent contradiction of a North American lieutenant who, La ultimafrontera is not a con- between corporatism and individual passing himself off as Stephen formist text or the porter of the freedom. Individualism is a "for- Crane, the correspondent of the hidden ideological messages that eign" idea that suffers many defeats London daily The World, disembarks characterize the continental but will not die. The volume's anal- on the isle a few months before the "fotonovela." If analyzed as an exam- ysis of economic change is thorough Hispanic-Cuban-American War. The ple of literature emerging from the and rewarding. Class analysis is novel presents an almost mystical processes of historical rupture and present when deemed relevant, but voyage through a historical period discontinuity, this novel establishes a the authors delight in exploring the that began with the explosion of the clear framework for a public that is multiclass nature of alliances in the Maine and culminated with the tak- witnessing the new literary expres- last century. For example, they cite ing of San Juan Hill by Teddy Roo- sions of Latin America. cases where artisans supported con- sevelt's "Rough Riders." In Manuel Cachan servatives when doing so saved the portraying both events the novel University of North Dakota former from the perils of "free emphasizes the presence of Crane's trade." Indians fought liberals if the imposter among the mambises Taking Shape latter went "too far" in attacking the (Cuban rebels during the Spanish Church's secular and religious role. domination of the island). The novel The Emergence of Latin America The authors' treatment of the impli- also highlights the events surround- in the Nineteenth Century cations of ideas for the groups is ing the mysterious explosion of the by David Bushnell and Neill Macaulay. realistic, even earthy. Maine. Fernandez's epilogue tran- New York: Oxford University Press, The work begins with two essays scends the barriers between history 1988. 335 pp. $3250. devoted to the formation of new and fiction. political, economic, and social sys- Fernandez presents the disjunc- David Bushnell and Neill Macaulay tems in independent Latin America. tion between the history-fiction provide a distinguished text for the We glean rich insights from Bush- and/or fiction-history genres that period of 1810-1880, a text that ade- nell's deep understanding of contexts such as Crouch's Riding with quately reflects current thinking flicts during the era of independence. Garciaand A Yankee Guerrilleroor and is wholesomely analytical. The chapters on the Brazilian empire Eliseo Perez Diaz's La rosa del cayo Although it suffers from a few small display refreshing interpretations (1947) have exhaustively examined. errors, it will stimulate teachers and derived from Macaulay's pioneering Fernandez knows quite well the students of Latin American history. work on the subject. The analyses epoch explored by historians such as Previous texts overstate the of Brazil and New Granada, or Foner and Hugh Thomas. The analy- personalismo at work in the 19th cen- Colombia, are the most stimulating sis that resulted from works by tury, grossly underplay economic and will force the redrafting of sev-

ere * Winter 1989 -~CL------~I~

eral sets of lecture notes. exemption was made for that pro- statistical models Teachers will fault and focusing on the work for vince (a part of the state of Coahuila historical themes, the book's con- its lack of maps, especially since the y Tejas) to avoid rebellion (p. 68). tributors strive to present the authors stress regional diversity Guerrero's wartime "extraordinary human element in their studies of within countries. Many place names powers" were not the issue upon modern Latin American history. In appearing in the text are not pres- which his government was ousted in this compilation of individual biog- ent on the map at the front of the December 1829; rather, it was fiscal volume. Specialists on raphies, flesh-and-blood people the 19th- bankruptcy and an underpaid army emerge from a historical context century history of Latin America that did the trick (as Santa Anna's fraught with obstacles, vicissitudes, will occasionally find cause for com- repeated letters to the chief had and social injustice. plaint in the chapters devoted to warned it would) (p. 69). Poinsett These individuals come from their particular countries of inter- was ordered out by Guerrero, his Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, est. Since my specialty is early Colombia, 19th- friend, before Bustamante came to Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Nica- century Mexico, I find it distressing power, not by the latter (p. 70). ragua, Panama, Peru, to encounter several Venezuela, errors in chap- Guerrero did not seek refuge on and Uruguay, and from walks of ter four, "Mexico in Decline (1821- Picaluga's ship but, rather, was life that are as diverse as the coun- 1855):' This chapter is the weakest; invited to dine. He was then tries that serve as it stresses detail the backdrop for at the expense of betrayed by Picaluga, on instruc- their personal dramas. analysis and, The editors, since the authors are tions from Minister of War Facio, however, do not give their criteria not experts on Mexico, the detail not Alaman (this error is present for excluding countries leads them astray. like Paraguay, twice, on pp. 70 and 193), who has the Dominican Republic, Allow me to El Salvador, point out several been cleared of suspicion. Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, errors. The Scottish Rite Lodge Had the same analysis been and Puerto Rico. existed prior Notwithstanding to the arrival of the applied to the Mexican case for the these omissions, the editors have British minister and was not char- 1820s and 1830s as was used in the attempted to adequately represent tered by him (p. 66). Alaman was treatment of other countries, the Latin America's "interior and heterogeneity. exterior minister" in authors would not have become What are the common denomi- Victoria's cabinet, not "foreign min- enmeshed in so much detail. Their nators that emerge from such ister" (p. 65). Interest in education basic scheme fits the early Mexican diverse biographies? What is the aim developed early on: schools were case as well as it does that of New of such an apparently founded in amorphous the 1820s, but they were Granada. They might consider this volume? The editors argue "the disappearing by the 1830s for lack of when they undertake (as they surely heritage so evident financial is the story of support. Santa Anna was will) a second edition. courage ... These are stories of not present at the suppression of HaroldDana Sims women and men who lived their lives the Bravo revolt in December 1827; University of Pittsburgh with pluck and determination." he was en route, They probably to join also emphasize these stories are of Bravo (p. 72). President Victoria's "ordinary, everyday" favored candidate people. in 1828 was Flesh and Blood A few of the individuals are well G6mez Pedraza, his minister of war, known: the colorful Chilean not General Guerrero (p. 67). And military The Human Tradition in Latin leader, Marmaduke Grove; Victoria did not join the revolt tango's America: The Twentieth Century greatest artist, Carlos Gardel; and against his own government, though edited by William H. Beezley the senior statesman and intellectual he did surrender to rebel forces and Judith Ewell. of Panama's West Indian commu- when he determined that the cause Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1987 360 pp. $12.95. was lost (and to avoid further nity, George Westerman. The major- blood- ity, however, are members of the shed) (p. 67). What do the lives of an Argentine obscure masses. Nonetheless, several In effect, the Acordada Revolt tango artist, a Chilean housewife of these men and women are extraor- brought down Victoria and G6mez whose son is among the desapa- dinary and heroic, while others seem Pedraza; G6mez Pedraza did not recidos, a Peruvian soccer star, an adrift in the course of their coun- attempt a "preemptive strike" per se urban squatter from Uruguay, a little- try's history. They encountered (p. 67). Guerrero did not order the known power broker from Yucatan, discrimination based on gender, expulsion of Spaniards in 1829; the a Mexican prostitute, and a Cuban nationality, ethnic or racial authority came from laws heritage, passed by Baptist preacher reveal about the economic class, and family status, the national congresses (as they human tradition in Latin America? and the difficulties of life under a had also in 1827 and would again in These are among the 23 people dictator. 1833-34-not mentioned in the text) who are profiled in The Human The "strategies for survival" (p. 68). Most important, slavery was Traditionin Latin America: The Twen- chronicled on the pages of The not abolished in Texas in 1829-an tieth Century. Rather than presenting Human Tralitim in LatintAmea Human Traditin in Itin Americ-,

Hemisphere Winter 1989

~slt Books inReview

include: artistic expression (dance office by the National Alliance for This collection examines dis- and music, literature, weaving, pro- Reconstruction (NAR), and many of courses that are familiar to those duction of arpillerasor tapestries); Williams's cronies had departed in who know Trinidad and Tobago. For pursuit of athletic prowess (organ- ignominious circumstances. Eco- example, it examines the theme of ized sports); adoption of leadership nomic hardship and social factional- "pure East Indian culture" being roles (as minister or priest, lay leader ism plagued the country as the NAR swamped by "African culture,"' and in a base community, feminist, splintered along ethnic lines. the countertheme of an East Indian regional cacique); and defiance of These events provide the chrono- "takeover" of the economy, that are authority and established social con- logical framing for Trinidadand picked up by not only local sociolo- ventions (Brazil's Patricia Galvio). Tobago: The Independence Experience gists but used with impunity by local In every case the authors introduce 1962-1987 Their significance is politicians. The collection trots out us to people struggling to bring indispensable for understanding the the "Carnival mentality" (i.e., a sup- meaning to their lives under political conditions that shaped this posed aversion to hard work) once extraordinarily difficult circum- collection of essays and commen- again, if only implicitly. It reminds stances, each demonstrating tenac- taries. The contributors are local us of government corruption, ity, perseverance, and trust in his academics, politicians, public serv- bureaucratic indiscipline and ineffi- future. ants, prominent business leaders, ciency, and of Williams and his "yes Steve Stein profiles Miguel Ros- men." And it discusses the symbolic taing, one of Peru's premier soccer importance of nationalizing the players in the early decades of this banks, which resulted in enhanced century. Venezuelan murderer Ligia local economic control, but perhaps ParraJahn is profiled by Judith more important for the public, Ewell who writes: "Cultural tradi- installed dark faces in positions that tions and values, often nurtured by had previously been reserved for gossip, limited modern women as light ones. Further, the volume pur- much as the laws did:' Leoncio sues questions of economic depend- Veguilla's suffering and imprison- ency and inequality among ethnic ment as a Baptist preacher at the groups. Finally, in the face of for- hands of Castro's government is eign cultural bombardment via the written by Harold E. Greer. These media, the book extols the legiti- and the other biographies of The mate, "indigenous culture" (usually Human Tradition in Latin America taken to mean "African"). clearly demonstrate that what is and some who wear a combination The contributors develop these political is also personal. of hats. While this diversity provides themes in interesting ways. For Elena M. deJongh insight into Trinidad and Tobago's example, the chapter by Gordon Florida International University development experience that goes Draper, though ponderously writ- beyond the views of academics, ten, analyzes the role of Williams in there is a negative side as well. the centralization and thus the near Growing Pains For example, Frank Rampersad, incapacitation of the government who was one of Williams's most bureaucracy. Trinidad and Tobago: trusted and influential advisors, In a rather surprising chapter, The Independence Experience reflects on the development experi- Earl Lovelace, one of the country's 1962-1987 ence in what comes off as a banal most gifted novelists, reaffirms "African" identity by valorizing the edited by Selwyn Ryan. St. Augustine: apologia, since he says little about role of the "indigenous traditions" Institutefor Social and Economic the period's attendant corruption of steelband, stickfight, Carnival, Research, University of the West and waste. In another chapter, for- Indies, 1988. 599 pp. n.p. mer university lecturer and present and the bongo dance. Despite a cor- NAR cabinet member Bhoe Tewarie rective that these traditions have In 1962 Eric Williams and the Peo- urges his fellow Hindus to reduce their meaning in the Caribbean ple's National Movement (PNM) led their public identification with the context, he is vulnerable to V S. polyglot Trinidad and Tobago to NAR and to reduce their expecta- Naipaul's acerbic remarks in The independence with a mix of eco- tions of patronage from the state. Middle Passage(1962). "Culture," nomic centrism, nonalignment, anti- The political message in his con- according to Naipaul, "is spoken of imperialism, and a nascent ideology tribution is clear- stop raising a as something quite separate from of Black Power. In 1987 Williams was ruckus-causing "confusion,"' as day-to-day existence, separate from six-years dead. The country's post- they would say in Trinidad-and advertisements, films and comic oil-boom economy was in shambles, your time for political spoils will strips. It is like a special native dish, the PNM had been drummed out of come. something like a callalloo"'The inde-

Hemisphere Winter 1989

__ pendence struggle of Trinidad and early 1980s. The Underside Tobago, however, was precisely a The contributions by Patricia struggle against being defined solely Mohammed and Rhoda Reddock Unseasonal Migrations: The in the terms of the tourist perform the overdue task of examin- Effects of Rural Labor Scarcity brochure. ing women's history. From Moham- in Peru Perhaps the most important med we learn about the changing by Jane L. Collins.Princeton: chapters are those by Selwyn Ryan, status of East Indian women and Princeton University Press, 1988. xviii Dennis Pantin, and Ralph Henry. their integration into the wider soci- + 207 pp. Cloth. $2750. Ryan, the author of the seminal Race ety. Reddock reminds us that,although and Nationalism in Trinidadand women were the PNM's vociferous In Peru and throughout Latin Tobago (1972), explains in his intro- foot soldiers, women's emancipation America, peasants are increasingly duction that the collection seeks is far from complete. While women turning to seasonal migration, wage to address the extent to which the continue to possess informal author- labor, petty commerce, and other PNM achieved the goals of eco- ity, access to formal power continues kinds of employment to supplement nomic development and political to elude them. income from agriculture. Unseasonal autonomy put forth in its charter of The book is billed as a "retro- Migrationslooks at one such case, 1956. In another chapter he argues spective:' but it frequently serves as diagnosing the reasons for this trend it is impossible to evaluate the con- a launching pad for commentary on and its destructive impact on peas- sequences of independence without present-day politics. This is unfortu- ant society and the environment. evaluating Williams and the PNM. nate in many ways, since the volume The setting is the Peruvian Ryan points to the PNM's consider- presents no sustained analysis of the department of Puno on the shores able accomplishments, such as those "February Revolution" of 1970 and of Lake Titicaca, where peasants in education. Nonetheless, he does the Black Power movement of the migrate seasonally to small coffee not mince words in criticizing Wil- same period. Arguably this was the farms in the nearby tropical low- liams and the party, and he blames most important period of the post- lands of the Andes' eastern slopes. the leadership of Trinidad and independence era because it not The family members who stay Tobago for allowing Williams to only represented an attempt by a behind in the highlands must work monopolize power and decision- subordinate group to fundamen- harder to compensate for the miss- making. tally redefine its identity, but it also ing workers, neglecting established Pantin, in a chapter on the past forced the predominantly-black reciprocal labor obligations between and future of the Point Lisas indus- PNM to support the redistribution households. In the lowlands sea- trial estate (a state venture), empha- of wealth. In addition the volume sonal cultivation leads to short cuts sizes the dangers of bureaucratic includes no discussion on or by in coffee production and environ- centralization. Point Lisas continues Lloyd Best or others on "the left," mental deterioration. Despite low to provide little employment and to not to mention early opposition pol- returns, coffee cultivation is neces- drain the treasury; it may soon be iticians. And it makes no serious sary to supplement highland agri- known as "Williams's Folly"' Pantin attempt to address the development culture income; the peasants are astutely locates the origins of this of religious cults, including the locked into an exploitative and venture in Williams's obsession with Spiritual Baptists and the Orisha, destructive system. steel production and in the political which continue to gain followers. Collins amply documents this contingencies of Black Power. Henry Nonetheless, the volume's com- phenomenon. She analyzes in detail questions the utility of the develop- mentary reflects the authors' con- the labor history of the region, the ment economist Simon Kuznets's cern with Trinidad and Tobago's causes of migration to the lowlands models of growth and equity for future, now that it appears less than since the 1930s, and the mechanisms what Henry calls a "plural society"' rosy. Trinidad (more than Tobago) keeping coffee prices low. Unseasonal He argues the PNM was committed has always been blessed with Migrations is a model for regional to redistributing wealth, within the extremely good luck: sugar busts studies of the relation of small- limits it set for itself by following gave way to booms, cocoa was holding cultivators to larger market W Arthur Lewis's "industrialization crowned king as King Sugar died for systems. by invitation" development plans. the last time, and oil rescued the Some gaps appear, however, in Moreover, Henry demonstrates that, society from the brink of who knows the data presented at the commu- during the 1960s, Trinidad and what. Such luck explains a rather nity level. Collins short cuts the eth- Tobago's income distribution actu- Pickwickian attitude of trusting that nographic descriptions, leaving but ally worsened when compared to everything will be all right. The tone one case study to document a major pre-independence levels, but that of the book indicates this attitude point. She cites a "consumption sur- thereafter it improved. Henry shows may be changing. vey," but gives no details about the that the income levels of blacks and Kevin A. Yelvington survey or sampling methods. The East Indians achieved parity by the University of Sussex role of migration in the peasant /

Hemisphere Winter 1989

-- Books in Review

household economy and the eco- argument-the specific state policies tors to this volume, Story does not nomic exchanges between house- perpetuating poverty-and recom- try to draw ambitious conclusions holds need further examination. mended new policies for rural areas. based on limited data. Collins omits these details in favor Ronald H. Berg Parts of this volume follow an of historical data on the region, for Latin American Scholarship unfortunate pattern characteristic example, on wool production since Program of American Universities of much social science research, 1850 and on average population where scientists are apt at describing density, making her book not an phenomena, but very sloppy at ethnography but a regional history Regional Affairs explaining them. An example is the informed by ethnographic field article by WilliamJ. Fleming, who work. Inter-American Relations: tests for a causal linkage between On the positive side, Collins's The Latin American Perspective foreign investment and infrastruc- regional analysis successfully com- edited by Robert E. Biles. Boulder and ture construction in Argentina in bines ecological and historical London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, the period 1854-1914, to draw lessons explanations, a difficult task. 1988. 236 pp. Cloth. $25.00. for contemporary Latin American Nevertheless, her attempt to place development. Fleming concludes this study within the context of the This volume is a collection of papers that this case indicates that, used Marxist literature on peasant econ- previously published in the Texas carefully, foreign-debt-driven eco- omy is less successful. Although her Journalof PoliticalStudies. Several of nomic growth can generate sus- summary of this literature is inter- the articles are the products of first- tained development. His research esting, the comparative material is rate scholarship and well worth pub- design and data, however, do not neither focused nor original, and it lishing as independent essays in a warrant this conclusion. He pre- intrudes on the author's own work, professional journal. But the value sents simplistic cross-tabulation sometimes obscuring the argument. of including them in a work entitled analyses (without all the relevant sta- Collins concludes with a sweep- Inter-American Relations: The Latin tistics that rigorous quantitative ing and simplistic condemnation of American Perspectiveis dubious. analysis requires) to test a hypoth- capitalism, claiming that as long Through a series of introductory esis of questionable relevance. as uneven exchange and surplus essays, the editor tries to develop Moreover, Fleming ignores the issue extraction through market forces common threads between the arti- of whether the differences in the persist, "the settlement of new land cles. These threads were to be woven nature of the current international only perpetuates poverty"' This into the Latin view of international capitalist system and that of the kind of statement only detracts from affairs in the hemisphere. The result earlier period under consideration her powerful, historically-specific is disappointing. allow for meaningful comparison. analysis. One of the better essays, by Bruce R. Drury's essay on agrar- The basic argument in the book, Philip Kelly, analyzes Brazil's role ian development and foreign debt in that labor scarcity causes difficulties in South America. Kelly speculates Brazil is another example of weak for peasant livelihood, is well docu- that Brazil "could, in time, assume a analysis. Pointing to hunger and mented. In addition, Collins makes hegemonic role over the Southern malnutrition in Brazil, he claims the striking conclusions about the causes Hemisphere similar to the authority major cause of the food crisis is the of this scarcity of rural labor. She held earlier by the United States, massive external debt. But he pro- argues that state policies favor Great Britain, and the Iberians.' He vides little solid evidence for such a urban consumers and intermedi- examines the parameters of Brazil's conclusion. Most observers agree aries at the expense of small-holding foreign-policy framework within the the origins of the food problem in peasants. The peasants stay poor, in context of potential or actual con- Brazil are much more complex than spite of their hard work and entre- flicts, and concludes "Brazil favors this article suggests; in fact, the preneurship, because of low prices stability and integration and conse- problem existed well before the paid to the producers of highland quently will exert a strong influence emergence of the recent debt crisis. food products and coffee, the mo- toward lessening regional conflict This volume does not signifi- nopsonistic power of the state- during future decades." cantly enhance our knowledge of run marketing cooperatives, and the Another valuable essay, by Dale the Latin American perspective on lack of credit to improve produc- Story, examines trade relations inter-American relations. Some of tivity of small-scale agriculture. between Mexico and the US. Story the articles are valuable. A selective, Thus Puno remains one of the most explains why trade with the US has well-focused volume on the Latin impoverished and underdeveloped become such a critical factor in both view of hemispheric affairs might departments of Peru. Unseasonal domestic and foreign policy for have justified their re-publication. Migrations could have made an even Mexico, and discusses the forces of This volume does not. more valuable contribution if it protectionism in both countries. MartinJ Collo had emphasized this aspect of the Unlike some of the other contribu- Widener University

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