WHEN SPEAKING OF LATIN AMERICA THESE DAYS ONE HEARS MOST OFTEN ABOUT ITS AWESOME DEBT PROBLEMS AND REVOLUTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R001200330024-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 7, 2008
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: September 26, 1984
• Content Type: LETTER

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EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT
ROUTING SLIP
c cu ive ecre ary
15 Oct 84
ACTION
INFO
DATE
INITIAL
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7 NOV
1984
2
DDCI
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EXDIR
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D/ICS
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DDI
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DDA
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DDO
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DDS&T
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Chm/NIC
10
GC
11
IG
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Compt
13
D/Pers
14
D/OLL
15
D/PAO
16
SA/IA
17
AO/DCI
18
C/IPD/OIS
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NIO
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N I
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United States Department of State
United States Permanent Mission to the
Organization of American States
Washington, D. C. 20520
September 26, 1984
Dear Bill:
Executive Registry
g4. 9187
When speaking of Latin America these days, one hears most
often about its awesome debt problems and revolutions.
One of the unrecognized revolutions taking place, how-
ever, is the dramatic move toward democracy in our hemisphere,
a reversal of a worldwide trend where it has been on a steep
decline elsewhere. Secretary Shultz said recently that 90 per-
cent of all the countries in Latin America now have, or are in
the process of moving to, democracy. This compares with only
33 percent when President Reagan took office. He has been a
leader in the support of this democratic revolution and this
support, like the CBI, is in our hemisphere one of his key
foreign policy accomplishments. The critics who say that
democracy is only a parenthesis in the long march of
totalitarianism or, that the benevolent turning over of power
is an aberration in the long sweep of history, are being proved
wrong in our hemisphere. In the final analysis, however, these
democracies will only survive if there is a viable middle class
and economic and security stability.
I enclose a first-hand article on the subject recently
prepared by the Department based on testimony by Ambassador
Motley before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs.
I wanted you to have a copy as a friend of the OAS. If you
need additional copies, please contact me.
With every best wish, I am
J. William Middendorf, II
Ambassador
Permanent Representative
The Honorable
William Casey,
Director of CIA.
C ,3
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Democracy in Latin America
and the Caribbean
August 1984
United States Department of State
Bureau of Public Affairs
Washington, D.C.
Support for democracy is one of the car-
dinal points of U.S. foreign policy in the
Caribbean and in Latin America as a
whole. This publication-based on oral
and written testimony by Ambassador
Langhorne A. Motley, Assistant
Secretary for Inter-American Affairs,
before the Subcommittee on Western
Hemisphere Affairs of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee on July 31, 1984-
discusses the status of democratic politics
in the region. It concludes that
democracy is proving to be a practical
path to stability as well as to freedom.
This conclusion, with the data that sup-
port it, parallels the finding of the Na-
tional Bipartisan Commission on Cen-
tral America that recent events have
"destroyed the argument of the old dic-
tators that a strong hand is essential to
avoid anarchy and communism, and
that order and progress can only be
achieved through authoritarianism."
THE BEST MEASURE
OF FREEDOM
Since November 1980, when the United
States last went to the polls to elect a
president, our southern neighbors have
cast some 150 million votes in 33 elec-
tions in 24 countries. That is more votes
in more elections in more countries than
in any previous 4 years in the history of
Latin America and the Caribbean.
In Latin America, voter participa-
tion has increased, sometimes
dramatically. In fact, recent turnouts, in
Selected Latin American Elections
in a20-Year Perspective
Country
Year
Type`
Total Vote
(thousands)
Argentina
1983
P, L
15,180
1963
P, L
9,326
Brazil
1982
L
48,440
1962
L
14,747
Colombia
1982
P
6,816
1962
P
2,634
Costa Rica
1982
P, L
992
1962
P, L
391
Ecuador
1984
L
2,024
1962
L
709
El Salvador
1984
P
1,524
1962
P, L
400
Guatemala
1984
CA
1,856
1964
CA
337
Honduras
1981
P, L
1,171
1965
L
551
Mexico
1982
P, L
22,523
1964
P, L
9,422
Peru
1980
P
4,030
1962
P
1,693
Venezuela
1983
P, L
6,741
1963
P, L
3,126
Current
Policy
No. 605
Adult
11* lotion
Votn{1"'
(%) _
89
71
81
45
68
35
87
76
53
34
69
35
57
18
79
70
75
59
49
42
90
91
*P= Presidential, L= Legislative, CA= Constituent Assembly.
'"Estimates based on votes cast as a percentage of total population age 20 or over as
reported in the United Nations Demographic Yearbook for the year in question.
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some cases, have doubled those of 20
years ago in relative as well as absolute
terms.
? More than 15 million Argentine
voters went to the polls last fall. In the
hotly contested election that ended near-
ly a decade of military rule, 9 out of
every 10 adults voted. Raul Alfonsin
became president with the largest vote
in Argentine history, exceeding even
Juan Peron's highest tally.
? In Brazil's 1982 congressional and
municipal elections, 48.4 million
Brazilians voted. This was more than
three times the 14.8 million who voted in
the 1962 legislative elections; the
percentage of adults voting rose from
45% in 1962 to 81% in 1982.
? In May of this year, an absolute
majority of all adult Salvadorans, some
1.5 million men and women, defied guer-
rilla violence to choose between
Napoleon Duarte and Roberto
D'Aubuisson. In the 1962 presidential
elections, only 400,000 voters, roughly
one-third of adult Salvadorans, had par-
ticipated in an election dominated by an
official military candidate.
? Two Constituent Assembly elec-
tions in Guatemala 20 years apart reveal
a similar evolution: in May 1964,
337,000 votes were cast, 40% of those
registered; in July 1984, the voters
numbered 1,856,000, or 73% of those
registered.
What lies behind this region-wide
upsurge in democratic politics? Long-
term development-including the revolu-
tions in communications and expecta-
tions-is clearly, if slowly, making itself
felt. A more immediate factor-one that
has impressed many observers at recent
elections-is voter desire to repudiate
both dictators and guerrillas. To most
Latin Americans, the uncertainties of
democracy are preferable to the violence
and abuse of leftist and rightist ex-
tremes.
The force of the democratic tide and
the rejection of extremism can also be
seen in what has not happened. Not a
single country that was democractic 4
years ago has lost its freedom. The
military coups predicted for El Salvador
and Honduras did not take place. Boliv-
ian democracy has not fallen. Not one
guerrilla movement has taken power
since 1979, when the Sandinistas re-
placed Somoza and abandoned their
promises to hold free elections. And to
Growth of Voter Participation in Selected Countries
(Estimate of Percent of Total Adult Population Voting)
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Castro's frustration and surprise,
Grenada's Marxist-Leninist dictators did
not prove immune to their own abuses
of power and were replaced by constitu-
tional authorities committed to holding
free elections by the end of 1984.
Elections by themselves cannot
remake society or solve every problem.
But competitive elections are, as
Secretary Shultz has noted, "a practical
yardstick of democracy. They are an in-
escapable test of public accountability."
It is, therefore, U.S. policy to support
free elections without reservation, see-
ing in them assurances that human
rights will be protected, that reconcilia-
tion will reflect the work of people and
not of guns, and that U.S. aid and
cooperation will have firm local founda-
tions.
The English-speaking Caribbean,
Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela
are solidly based democracies of long
standing. Over the last 5 years, elected
civilian presidents have replaced military
rulers in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Honduras, Panama, and Peru.
Additional countries as different as
Brazil and Uruguay, Guatemala and
Grenada are now also moving toward
greater democracy.
The result is that more than 90% of
the people of Latin America and the
Caribbean are now living in countries
with governments that are either
democractic or heading there. For a part
of the world often identified with dicta-
torship, this is something to cheer about.
As recently as 1979, two-thirds of
our neighbors lived under military or
military-dominated governments of both
left and right. Any shift so striking in-
vites skepticism. But measured in voter
participation and in competition at the
polling booth, today's democractic
resurgence is astonishingly deep.
Our neighbors deserve the credit for
the progress they are making. We can,
in turn, be proud that we are cooper-
ating with them. Freedom is not a zero-
sum game. Everyone wins when democ-
racy is strengthened.
Despite this extraordinary pattern of
progress, democracy in Latin America
still faces many problems.
Competitive elections can help
measure success or failure in dealing
with particular problems; the problems
themselves do not automatically disap-
pear at the ballot box, regardless of who
The Military and Democracy
Essential to the survival of dermoc-
racy is an apolitical military, establish-
ment-one which seeks not to dfend
one partisan interest or :another but .
rather one committed to institutional
democratic goverent..JOificantly,
the recent history of hedpherics
democratic advance has been that of
a transformation in which the
military itself has tat en an, active
part.
An example of this djlcult proc-
ess is today's El Salvador, which
owes its agrarian reform to military
support. After decades as defenders
of the status quo, 4inoe 1979 El
Salvador's security ford have made
considerable progress toward im-
proved field performance, greater
respect for human rights, and air
apolitical role in society.
wins. Democracy requires elections; but
elections alone are not enough.
Democracies must establish a track
record as problem-solving mechanisms.
If democratic institutions cannot solve
problems, they cannot survive. If we are
interested in the survival of democracy,
we must help democratic governments
deal with their problems-even though
it is they, not we, who must solve them.
Internal problems include unequal
access to education, justice, and employ-
ment; the clash of indigenous and im-
migrant cultures; great disparities in
wealth; government inefficiency and cor-
ruption; civilian caudillismo and military
intervention. These problems do not, of
course, all exist in every country. But
they do persist in varying degrees in the
region as a whole.
External problems include increased
costs for imported oil; the decline in the
global economy accompanied by reduc-
tions in export earnings and forced
reliance on increasingly expensive bor-
rowed capital; and active efforts by
hostile powers outside the hemisphere to
exploit local grievances and economic
hardship. Again, the mix can vary great-
ly from country to country, but these ex-
ternal pressures are felt throughout the
hemisphere.
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These problems combine to create
two immediate threats to democracy in
Latin America today: political ex-
tremism and economic recession. To
them must be added the growing inter-
national trade in illicit drugs, which
degrades the rule of law as well as
human dignity.
Political Extremism. The enemies
of democracy often point to under-
development and economic hardship to
justify violence and dictatorship. The
problem with their argument is that
neither left nor right extremes are
stable or productive.
Marxist-Leninist regimes have
tended to perpetuate both the political
and the economic backwardness out of
which they grew. When feuding Marxist-
Leninists plunged Grenada into
murderous disorder, the United States,
Barbados, Jamaica, and Grenada's
eastern Caribbean neighbors came to the
rescue. The result was restoration of
legal order. This was a major defeat for
the extremists and their Cuban and
Soviet supporters, who nonetheless still
support totalitarianism in Nicaragua and
oppose the consolidation of democracy in
El Salvador.
Like leftwing extremism, extremism
of the right is weakened by economic
development. Unlike leftwing ex-
tremism, it has few reliable external
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sources of support. But the consolidation
of democratic politics and reform has,
nonetheless, been hindered by such
phenomena as death squads and denials
of elemental equity.
Economic Recession. During the
last 8-10 years, economic mismanage-
ment and pressures for reform con-
tributed to the decline of several unrep-
resentative regimes. Yet if democratic
governments cannot produce economic
recovery, then they, too, can lose their
mandate. Today, many democracies
need to restructure their economies at a
time when living standards have already
declined.
The countries of Latin America and
the Caribbean constitute the developing
world's most indebted region. External
debt exceeded $330 billion at the end
of 1983. In 1982 and 1983, interest
payments alone added up to more than
$40 billion per year. These payments
were equivalent to more than 35% of the
value of the region's exports of goods
and services-the world's highest debt
service ratio. In some individual coun-
tries the ratio exceeded 100% before
debt rescheduling.
The region's real per capita gross
domestic product (GDP) has dropped by
over 10% from its 1980 level (by far
more in some countries), and there is lit-
tle doubt that per capita real economic
growth will again be negative in 1984.
In nearly all countries, unemployment
and underemployment are at levels not
seen since the Great Depression.
It hardly needs to be pointed out
how dangerous such conditions are to
any government that has to face elec-
tions.
The Drug Trade. Illicit narcotics
trafficking and consumption also
threaten democratic development by
fostering disregard for the law and cor-
rupting institutions as well as in-
dividuals. In some remote valleys, the
lure of extraordinary profits and the
absence of productive alternatives have
broken down social and political order;
lawlessness prevails and drug kings hold
sway, sometimes in symbiosis with guer-
rillas.
In the past, many Latin Americans
considered illicit drugs a "U.S. problem."
Some even welcomed the increased
employment and foreign exchange earn-
ings brought by the drug trade. Today,
they are increasingly aware of the enor-
mous threat narcotics pose to the moral
fiber of their own societies and to the
legitimacy of their own political institu-
tions. Democracy requires a collective
victory over the traffickers and their
allies.
U.S. POLICY IS TO
SUPPORT DEMOCRACY
It is U.S. Government policy to support
democracy and democratic institutions.
This approach is neither interventionist
nor a mindless export of ideology. It is
legitimate, it is in our enlightened self-
interest, and it works-not overnight or
in 6-month increments but over time.
? Democracy is the best guarantor
of human rights. A government respon-
sible to its people cannot abuse them
with impunity.
? Democracy is also the best long-
term guarantor of stability. Democratic
governments do not drive their people
into armed opposition nor do they
threaten or attack their neighbors.
American officials from the Presi-
dent on down have made clear our un-
equivocal support for democratic proc-
esses. During his trip to Latin America
in 1982, President Reagan insisted that:
The future challenges our imagination,
but the roots of law and democracy and our
inter-American system provide the
answers.... Together, we will work toward
the economic growth and opportunity that
can only be achieved by free men and
women. We will promote the democracy that
is the foundation of our freedom and stand
together to assure the security of our
peoples, their governments, and our way of
life.
Support for democracy can mean
everything from a public embrace for a
new president of Argentina to sending
qualified election observers requested by
a government in Central America. It can
mean encouragement of political
dialogue and communication, technical
exchange programs, specialized con-
ferences, and even analytical publica-
tions. It can mean support for a
strengthened administration of justice.
During the last 4 years, it has meant
all of these things-and more. We en-
couraged the open and competitive elec-
tions that took place in Honduras, El
Salvador, and Guatemala. We urged the
Sandinistas to honor the democratic
promises they have abandoned and
betrayed. We welcomed the return to
democratic rule in Argentina. We made
clear that we would favor a restoration
of democracy in Chile and Uruguay. We
showed our support for democratic
legitimacy when President Siles was kid-
naped in Bolivia. We let the Government
of Paraguay know we were unhappy
with the closing of the independent
newspaper ABC Color. We let the
Government of Haiti know of our con-
cern at the arrest and mistreatment of
opposition leaders.
In country after country in Latin
America and the Caribbean, U.S. Em-
bassies are today correctly perceived as
supporting democracy. Local officials
and citizens recognize in growing
numbers that our representatives are
patiently fostering democratic dialogue,
constitutional procedures, and respect
for political diversity.
We also have recognized that
government officials are not alone in
having a role to play in promoting
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Latin America and the Caribbean
Guadalajara Mer,da
Meaito* r
North
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Arrh'p,eiay,
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