Weapons, Drugs and Democracy

There is no doubt that today’s Latin America offers governments of varying orientations. Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic are all places of moderation. Some identify more with the left and some more with the center, but none leave the democratic space nor traditional relations with their neighbors.

Military spending keeps rising, even though nothing would make anyone predict a military conflict in Latin America.

Venezuela is notorious for acting differently. Its president ostensibly meddles in the internal politics of other countries, announces wars or threatens to invade and pretends to deny the evidence of its support for the Colombian FARC guerillas. His self-proclaimed “21st century socialism” has been transformed into a form of populism that is disrespectful of people's rights, just as the progressive restriction of freedom of expression of thoughts. Ecuador, with better models, has been joining this line of thought, especially since the frontier episode of Colombia's attack on a guerrilla force in the neighboring territory of Ecuador.

The situation has been deteriorating since Colombia announced its decision to expand its cooperation with the U.S., which inspired suspicions and protests from those who do not view this foreign presence favorably. In light of history, no one is happy about it but the question remains; if not the U.S., who will be there to help Colombia in its solitary fight?

For seven years now there have been suspicions about Plan Colombia and talks about a U.S. intent to invade the region. What has happened, though, is very different. Colombia has advanced in its struggle with the drug guerrillas and could defeat them for good if its neighboring states collaborate in the effort. The U.S., for its part, didn't produce any mistakes during the Bush era and it is more difficult to expect such mistakes under Obama.

The sad part about this history is that it serves as a pretext for the continued rise in weaponry expenditures. South America invested US$34,100 million last year, or 50 percent more than in 1999. The world average, despite all the conflicts, is considerably lower, at approximately 2.4 percent of world GDP, a percentage that is widely surpassed by Colombia and Chile at 4.1 percent, and by Ecuador at 3.6 percent. Curiously, Venezuela, the most aggressive, doesn’t show up in the available statistics as having made such vast expenditures. This is for the simple reason that its armament, which has expanded, is not thought to be in preparation for international conflicts, but for conventional, domestic confrontations.

Inversely, Brazil, which has put forth the most pacifist rhetoric, has drastically expanded its military expenditures from 1.2 percent of GDP to 2 percent, reaching an historic high that represents a larger share of GDP than anything else. This is in addition to an important strategic agreement with France that involves the construction of nuclear submarines.

Is it possible to think of a military confrontation? To begin with, it would be a monumental lack of common sense. No imaginable, reasonable motive would lead to it because there is no indication that the U.S. intends to use its presence in Colombia for anything other than the support of that country. Likewise, Venezuela, despite its rhetoric, wouldn’t be in a position to confront the now powerful Colombian army, given its recent success confronting the guerrillas.

Except for the increasing publicity that, in times of conflict, always excites feelings of nationalism, circumstances do not indicate that there will be an escalation to large scale confrontation. The ideological confrontation does not go beyond the discourse, and, since the end of the Cold War, neither Russia nor the U.S., nor effervescent China, have followed in those tracks. Territorial disputes have not intervened either, like those remaining between Chile and Bolivia, which constantly demands a the border with the Pacific that it lost in 1884.

In this light, what is at stake is the new U.S. foreign policy and the proclaimed Brazilian leadership that everyone recognizes, implicitly or explicitly, despite the lack of evidence that it will be effective. In reality, Mercosur has stagnated in spite of Brazil's dominance in the region. In the Andean conflict that extends from Venezuela to Ecuador, its part hasn’t been anything more than elegant neutrality. We are still waiting for a more active Brazil that will have a voice today in a role of arbitration with the support of the U.S., which is not very enthusiastic about direct involvement.

While one gambles on the old wars, the social problems of the hemisphere persist and the numbers say that the fabulous boom of 2003-2008 has not brought drastic change. Something reduced the level of poverty, although expectations were not met. The educative results continue to be as unsatisfactory as always, mortgaging prospects for the future. We add to this panorama the Honduran alarm, which announces to us the fragility of democracy, and turn around to be smacked in the face by the realities of what it costs to maintain the optimism originally caused by high prices of mining and agricultural goods in recent years. It is true that the world crisis did not strike South America as badly as Europe or the U.S., but no one can imagine rosy times for these poor countries when it is a gloomy time for the rich ones.