Out of Focus

One of the things that frustrates Latin Americans when they deal with the United States is the unfortunate habit that many North Americans have of defining regional issues as they want to see them, rather than trying to comprehend them from the Latin perspective.

A classic case in point was a speech made before the U.N. General Assembly by Oscar Arias Sanchez, the president of Costa Rica, which has been seized on by the Reagan Administration to justify its obsessive crusade against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. In his speech Arias accused the Sandinistas of betraying the popular revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship in 1979. He argued that the Sandinistas bear part of the blame for the crisis in Central America, because by aligning their new government with the Soviet Bloc they created an East-West confrontation where none had existed before.

To hear U.S. officials like Secretary of State George P. Shultz talk about Arias’ speech, one would think that the Costa Rican president had volunteered to lead the U.S. Marines into Managua. In fact, he showed no enthusiasm at all for efforts to overthrow the Sandinistas. Arias said flatly that he would not allow his nation’s territory to be used by any armed group fighting a neighboring state--a clear reference to the contra rebels funded by President Reagan to overthrow the Sandinistas. Arias also said that the Contadora peace process is not dead, and that he would support a peaceful resolution to the Central American crisis “so long as there is one thread of hope.”

That sounds a great deal like what most other thoughtful Latin Americans are saying these days about Nicaragua and Central America. They have no illusions about the Sandinistas, but they also have no illusions about the overbearing Colossus of the North. While they want Nicaragua to have true freedom and democracy, they know that the contras can’t deliver those things any more than the Marines did during all the U.S. military interventions in Nicaragua during the 1920s and ‘30s. That is why every major democracy in Latin America supports the Contadora Group and has repeatedly urged Reagan to give up his war against tiny Nicaragua.

A more recent example of this was last week’s debate on the crisis in Central America at the meeting of the Organization of American States in Guatemala City. Some very harsh, and valid, criticisms were leveled there against the Sandinistas. But no one was willing to align himself with Reagan’s bloody strategy. The OAS resolutions on Central America called for democracy in the region--a slap at the the totalitarian Marxist state that the Sandinistas are trying to build. But they also called on the Contadora countries (Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama) to continue their patient effort to negotiate peace in the region --a slap at the United States.

Unfortunately, it is likely that the Reagan Administration will again focus single-mindedly on the implied criticism of Nicaragua and ignore the implied criticism of the United States. But that is par for the course in Washington. Whenever Reagan, Shultz or any other representative of the Administration hears criticism of the misguided policy in Central America, such as that offered on official state visits by Argentine President Raul Alfonsin and Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid, it is blithely ignored. But let any Latin American even whisper something negative about Nicaragua, and it is almost gleefully seized on as evidence that, deep in their hearts, our little Latin brothers want us to squash those bullies in Managua. What arrogance! What ignorance!