U.S. offers grim view of Latins' gains on poverty

The miami herald Posted on Tue, Apr. 29, 2003 BY TIM JOHNSON tjohnson@herald.com

Secretary of State Colin Powell

WASHINGTON -In a series of grim reviews, senior Bush administration officials Monday warned of entrenched poverty and heavy debt levels in Latin America, and said many citizens feel that democracy has not brought better lives.

''We told them that democracy would work. . . . We made many promises,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell said.

''If we collectively do not deliver, then democracy has no meaning, the free-market system has no meaning,'' Powell told business leaders.

Powell joined Treasury Secretary John Snow and Otto Reich, the White House special envoy to the hemisphere, in telling business executives gathered for the annual Council of the Americas conference that discouraging setbacks overshadowed progress in many areas in the past year.

GENERAL OUTCRY

Their comments represented the first time in months that ranking officials of the Bush administration have focused on Latin America, amid a general outcry in the hemisphere that U.S. policy has neglected a region President Bush once called a fundamental U.S. priority.

At one point, Powell focused on Cuba, the only nondemocracy among the hemisphere's 35 nations. He called a 6-week-old crackdown by the Fidel Castro regime on leading dissidents a ''vain effort to stamp out the Cuban people's thirst for democracy'' and said U.S. policy toward Cuba is under review.

In Latin America, Powell and other officials said, poverty and corruption sap the aspirations of people.

A third of the people in Latin America ''are living on less than $2 a day, poorly fed, poorly housed and poorly educated,'' Reich said.

The ''trend lines overall may be positive'' in the region, Reich added, but ''entire regions are struggling'' with recession, crime, issues of injustice and other problems.

Snow, who recently returned from a trip to Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia, said he was struck by the ``huge problem of debt and the need to work down debt levels . . . in ways that don't tip the apple cart.''

BRAZIL'S SURPRISE

Amid their somewhat glum assessments of the region, Powell and Snow brightened in speaking of Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former trade union leader who has surprised the business community since taking office Jan. 1.

Snow described Lula's ''great political skill'' in combining sound economic policy with strong social goals aimed at easing poverty. At a recent talk to Sao Paulo's chamber of commerce, Snow said he reminded the attendees of the fears they had of the populist Lula before he came to office and his subsequent success in revaluing the currency and calming financial markets.

The region as a whole, Snow said, ``needs growth. Latin America's growth rates are too low.''

He said slow economic growth, however, is a global matter, and that the nations of the hemisphere should redouble efforts to reach a Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005, a goal set during the Clinton administration.

''We're anxious to get the negotiations moving. They are not moving at a rapid enough pace,'' Snow said.

`NO ILLUSIONS'

Reich, a Cuban-born former ambassador to Venezuela, noted that the Caribbean region has been hard hit by terrorism-related declines in tourism, and that Andean countries have ''suffered reverses'' in fighting narcotics, achieving economic growth and respecting the rule of law.

''We have no illusions about the challenges in the hemisphere today. There have been setbacks,'' Reich said.

Snow praised Ecuador's new president, Lucio Gutiérrez, but noted that his nation faces ``a thoroughly tough, tough, difficult environment [with] heavy debt overload problems.''

The White House's nominee to become assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega, criticized Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide as two populist leaders who have ''willfully contributed to a polarized environment'' in their countries.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, responding to a question about Colombia, whose leader, Alvaro Uribe, meets with President Bush this week in Washington, said he believes governments should enter peace talks with outlaw groups involved in criminal activity ''with the highest level of caution -- maybe never.'' The remark brought applause. Uribe, a law-and-order leader, faces a demand by insurgents to enter a new round of negotiations.

REFORMS

Many leaders in the region have implemented reforms that have ameliorated the economic crises that once buffeted the hemisphere.

''The old demons are gone,'' Powell said. ``Inflation is largely tamed. Countries are increasingly open to foreign trade and investment.''

But Powell said average citizens still do not savor many of the benefits of democracy.

''People have sacrificed, and they want to see the results in their pocketbooks, in their pay packets and in their polling places,'' he said.

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