Democracies in Latin America

The article by Mario Vargas Llosa is a perfect example of the persistent shortsightedness of the pro-democratic middle and upper classes of Latin America. Their myopia is reflected in the prevailing U.S. attitudes.

Vargas Llosa judges Latin America to be making meaningful progress toward democracy merely by the fact that elections have been held in many countries and that the military leaders in them have been willing to exercise their powers from the shadows rather than as heads of state.

The fact that opposing voices can now be heard is significant to him, as it is to me.

However, what Vargas Llosa and so many others refuse to recognize is that real democracy entails shared powers. If the civilian governments are allowed to operate, as is universally the case in the countries he mentions, just so long as they do not make any significant attempt to address the overwhelming economic imbalances that have plagued Latin America since colonial times, then true democracy and stability cannot flourish . The vote is meaningless if the masses remain poor and ignorant while real power remains in the hands of a small wealthy minority.

One country that appears to be making a bona-fide attempt to achieve economic as well as political reform while remaining committed to a pluralistic society was not mentioned by Vargas Llosa: Nicaragua.

I have just returned from a visit to that country, where I heard the Sandinistas excoriated by the Communists for being capitalists and by the conservatives for being Communists. The fact is that 70% of the economy is still in private hands, but the public sector has made huge strides in providing universal education, health care, access to electricity, and, before the contra war, decent housing.

How ironic and disgraceful it is that after these brave people finally rid themselves in 1979 of the vicious Somoza dictatorship that the United States had imposed on them, that we now judge this new society and seek to destroy it before it has barely begun.

What perpetuates this kind of injustice is the myth sustained by Vargas Llosa and others like him: that democracy is sociopolitical; any attempt to redistribute the wealth of these countries is seen as communistic and therefore an evil that must be destroyed. It is this tragic, mistaken paradigm that makes true reform and democracy so seemingly unattainable in Latin America.

PHILIP J. NEWMAN

Sepulveda