Armed with a thick black notebook crammed with facts about Central America, President Kennedy prepared to fly this week to San Jose, the tree-shaded capital city on Costa Rica’s central plateau. In the city’s massive National Theater building, he was to spend three days in conference with six Central American Presidents, underlining again his expressed belief that Latin America is “the most critical area in the world today.”
Costa Rica is a congenial site for such a conference. With only two successful armed uprisings in this century, far below par for Caribbean nations, its elections are so free that since 1948 the opposition party has won every time. As a whole. Central America has responded smartly to U.S. prodding toward economic cooperation. Its own Common Market includes Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, which have knocked out 95% of the restrictive tariffs that existed between them. It has set up an effective regional bank and has made some 54,000 agricultural loans.
Cutting the Line. Kennedy expected to praise his presidential peers for such efforts and make a few suggestions for further progress. But by far the most serious talks would revolve around ways to check the subversive activities of Communist Cuba. The specific U.S. aim—to be pushed by Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs Edwin Martin and Alliance for Progress Coordinator Teodoro Moscoso—is to cut the travel line to Cuba. At present, almost any Latin American can travel to Mexico on a regular passport, pick up special papers there to fly to Havana, then return home as a trained Red agent.
The problem of Cuba-spawned subversion is. of course, one for all of Latin America. Although Mexico seems unconcerned, responsible leaders in many 6f the other nations realize that the Soviet presence in Cuba is a bigger threat to them than to the U.S. Their growing willingness to do something about it is. from the U.S. viewpoint, one of many encouraging signs in Latin America. The trend is such that one overenthusiastic State Department official last week crowed: “I defy anyone to find any year in the last 150 when so much progress has taken place in Latin America.”
Certainly, there is more stability. Only in Argentina did a constitutional government fall last year by military coup—and the army there now promises to hold elections this June. Peru’s rejuggled junta is also steadfast in its election promises. Venezuela’s Romulo Betancourt seems destined to become that nation’s first freely elected President to serve a full term. And the Dominican Republic has held its first free election in 38 years.
Economically, the combined gross national product in Latin America rose by roughly 5% in 1962, and some $200 million in private U.S. capital is flowing into the area annually. Last year this was offset by the fact that investors staged a massive withdrawal from Venezuela. But now, reflecting faith in the stability of the Betancourt government, they are starting to put money back in. Most investors seemed reconciled to the fact that the days of the fast, fat return are over and .that long-range, better-protected returns are likely. This should help eliminate the frequent monetary crises of Latin American nations.
Tougher on Taxes. There is also evidence of a new spirit of fiscal responsibility by individual governments. Chile, for the first time in its history, is prosecuting a tax evasion case and has a tax reform bill pending in its Congress. Democratic and long-stable Uruguay instituted a personal income tax. increased its corporate tax two years ago. saw its revenues jump 22% last year. Argentina has added 200,000 residents to its tax rolls. Brazil’s leftist President Joao Goulart not only is prodding his tax collectors, too, but is trying seriously to cut his federal budget and check inflation. His finance minister, San Thiago Dantas, came to Washington last week and, instead of begging for new loans, asked merely for more time to repay old ones (see HEMISPHERE).
Land reform is making progress, however slowly. Some 55,000 families have been given 3,900,000 acres in Venezuela. In Chile, where about 70% of all productive land is held by 5% of the landowners, an agrarian reform law has been enacted, is gradually being enforced. Bolivia has distributed some 6,500.000 acres to 58,000 families. Even Paraguay’s Dictator General Alfredo Stroessner has granted land titles to more than 10,000 squatters.
Just how much of Latin America’s advance can be attributed to President Kennedy’s celebrated Alliance for Progress is doubtful, since that amorphous program seems to mean something different to each Latin American official. But by its mere expression of U.S. interest, it undoubtedly has contributed a measure of psychological lift.
One Hard Fact. Perhaps more effective has been Kennedy’s insistence that Latin American nations earn their U.S. grants by self-improvement deeds, along with such action as his order to knock the irresponsible government of Haiti off the U.S. aid list. Assistant Secretary Martin’s sharp direction of the State Department’s dealings with Latin America has helped, as has the plain talk of several able U.S. ambassadors in the hemisphere.
Every hope for continued progress, however, runs smack into the hard fact of Cuba. Nikita Khrushchev’s thrust into that island turned Fidel Castro from a hero to a puppet in much of Latin America. When Kennedy forced Khrushchev to retrieve his long-range missiles and bombers, respect for the U.S. soared. Yet much of that has been dissipated by the realization that Cuba’s potential for troublemaking in the hemisphere is still growing. That threat alone meant that there would be much worth talking about at the Presidents’ meeting in San Jos&3233;.
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