Nations should stop vying for U.S. favors

Carlos Alberto Montaner

President Barack Obama will be the star at the Fifth Summit of the Americas. Among the hemisphere's leaders, he is the most lively and admired. This time, the reunion will be held in Trinidad & Tobago, from Friday to Sunday. Leaders of the 34 states affiliated with the Organization of American States will attend.

Cuba won't attend because its government was expelled from the OAS in the 1960s for attacking Rómulo Betancourt's democracy in Venezuela. Nevertheless, Hugo Chávez, accompanied by his well-rehearsed 21st-Century-Socialism Choir Boys -- Evo Morales, Rafael Correa and Daniel Ortega -- will be there to defend the point of view of the Cuban dictatorship. Chávez already has warned that he will take along some fine ''artillery.'' I don't doubt that.

Some experts berate Obama, saying he does not bother with the lands south of his border. It's a recurring complaint. They said that about George W. Bush, although the previous president muddled heroically through the Spanish language and visited Latin America more frequently than any other U.S. president.

That had no bearing on the events in Mar del Plata in 2005, during the Fourth Summit, when then-President Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, in cahoots with Chávez, turned the gathering into a less-than-friendly lynching of the gringo visitor.

I don't think they will be as harsh with Obama. Trinidad & Tobago is home to a black, West Indian and mestizo population that sympathizes intensely with the U.S. president.

In any case, there is something pathetic in this obsession by certain Latin Americans to be noticed by the United States. U.S. presidents don't agonize over Switzerland or Belgium, and I've never seen a citizen from either country exhibiting neurotic concern over Washington's indifference. Mature nations keep their commitments, maintain good relations with the other states and endeavor to solve their own problems. They don't pine for relief or salvation from abroad.

In the 1960s, the United States, under the baton of John F. Kennedy, launched the Alliance for Progress, and in a decade the country wasted $20 billion. Easy to say, but that figure is almost double the aid given to Europe through the Marshall Plan -- and nothing happened in Latin America.

Actually, something worse than nothing happened. After the Alliance for Progress, which supposedly was created to develop the region within the parameters of market-place capitalism, a grim period began. From one side emerged the state-run, anti-American dictatorships -- Torrijos and later Noriega in Panama, Velasco Alvarado in Peru, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. On the other side, the right-wing military regimes lorded it over the continent, atop a mountain of cadavers -- Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.

I fear the United States already has discovered that it can do very little to bestow economic prosperity or political freedoms on Latin American countries. But that limitation does not prevent any nation from getting ahead. Trinidad & Tobago, for example, has a per-capita GDP greater than any Ibero-American country, has never endured a dictatorship and or experienced a military coup.

Perhaps that's a good topic for discussion during the Summit, one that might engage President Obama's attention: How come the islands of the British or Dutch Caribbean are not only stable democracies but also, in some cases, have managed to surpass the Hispanic societies in many aspects? Some attribute that characteristic to the parliamentary system. Others believe that the predominance of Protestantism and the British tradition and values are essential.

I'm not sure of anything, but I don't think that the non-Hispanic states share the adolescent love-hate relationship with the United States that is found in Latin America. That's a good starting point.

April 15, 2009

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