No More Good Neighbor

LAST week's bomb explosion near Secretary of State George P. Shultz's motorcade in La Paz, Bolivia points to one characteristic of the Reagan Administration's Latin American policy that was previously in doubt: the United States will support governments that wage a war against drugs.

After the bombing, which the Bolivian government said was the work of local cocaine traffickers, Shultz gave a talk entitled "Winning the War Against Narcotics" at a La Paz hotel. Schultz praised Bolivia's anti-drug efforts and said that Congress "has looked at your law and your performance with great interest, and I trust that your steady commitment will convince the members of our legislative body of your serious intentions. To sum up, the drug traffickers are in trouble in Bolivia."

To sum up, the United States has told its Southern neighbors to Just Say No.

Most of the time, that is.

While Schultz was placing laurels on the heads of committed anti-drug Bolivians, the situation in Panama--where Gen. Manuel Noriega, a suspected cocaine dealer, still holds power--has not changed. The Reagan Administration has talked endlessly about ousting Noriega for his actions. But the drug dealer is still around.

Is Panama then just an exception? Or can it be that, as with the rest of the Reagan Administration's Latin American policy, the U.S. has no clearly-defined goals for the region?

It denounces drugs in Bolivia, but ignores Noriega in Panama. It praises democracy in Costa Rica, but does nothing to change the situation in Chile, to say nothing of El Salvador or Paraguay. The U.S. calls for peace all over Latin America, but still funds the contras in Nicaragua.

THE Reagan Administration's Latin American policy has become so contradictory as to be meaningless.

Take the case of Chile, for example. Gen. Augusto Pinochet has ruled since 1973. Before he came to power, Chile was one of Latin America's most stable democracies until fears of Salvador Allende's "evil Socialism" began tp trouble his neighbors to the North.

Although Allende won the presidential elections of 1970 by a democratic vote, the United States, allegedly through the work of the CIA, supported the coup of 1973. Fifteen years later, Pinochet still rules and maintains "order" in Chile. Not once has President Reagan singled out Pinochet's regime as being a threat to democracy.

Just last week at one of his many campaign stops, Vice President George Bush talked about the need for democracy in all of Latin America.

Is Chile then the exception?

Nicaragua would have never caused so much stir in the U.S. if Daniel Ortega's government were not Marxist. But that fact alone is enough to convince the Reagan Administration that this Central American nation about the size of Arkansas threatens the security of the United States. It is this threat that makes Reagan push for more contra aid. Yet at the same time, he calls peace the final goal in Central America.

Never mind that the United States did not initiate the peace talks of the five Central American nations. That honor went to the Oscar Arias-Sanchez and the Costa Rican government. Instead, the Reagan Administration believes that peace can be achieved only through the funding of more weapons. The peace it really looks for is an end to Ortega.

IF the United States had a choice to replace Ortega with either a right-wing dictator who would restore "order" back to Nicaragua or a newly-developed democratic system, it would likely choose the dictator. It did so in El Salvador.

Another contradiction arises in the current case of Mexico. Where was the United States when the elections in Mexico resulted in charges of fraud by the losing party? Will the U.S. allow the PRI, which has ruled Mexico for nearly six decades, to ignore the charges? So much for the democratic process that supposedly favors the periodic change of political parties.

So much for democracy in all of Latin America.

One-party rule in Mexico or one-man rule in Chile benefits the United States more than an open, democratic system because the U.S. would rather have order in Mexico City and Santiago than chaos in both cities.

Such a policy will never change, as long as the United States sees Latin America as a group of nations unable to achieve any semblance of government without some form of American intervention.

WHY should the United States be concerned with democracy in Latin America? Maybe because the United States views itself as the world's defender of democracy. Maybe because the United States is the symbol of democracy that many Latin American nations long to be. But when it comes to Latin America, the United States does not defend democracy, it distorts it for its own interests.

What then can Latin American nations do? Imposing a anti-drug policy might keep U.S. support alive, both diplomatically and financially. Yet the time has come for Latin American nations to control their own destiny, especially in terms of achieveing democracy. U.S. intervention must become as antiquated as imperialism or no true democratic change in Latin America will occur.