Close Ranks on Dictators, Shultz Asks Latin America

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that Latin American nations should close ranks behind a “new diplomacy” aimed at pressuring the region’s dictatorships into making democratic reforms.

“The time is right for a new diplomacy--a diplomacy based on democractic solidarity and on the aggressive advocacy of democracy by democratic states,” Shultz said in a speech prepared for delivery to Organization of American States foreign ministers.

Expanding on that theme while en route here for an eight-hour visit, Shultz said democracies in the region should consider ways to make Nicaragua “feel a sense of isolation” as a means of promoting democratic reform.

Shultz singled out Paraguay and Cuba as countries which have not been part of the democratic trend in the hemisphere.

Shultz criticized the OAS for what he regards as its indifference toward the hemisphere’s democratic development.

“This organization has not always been out front on issues concerning democracy,” Shultz said. “Too often it has been one step behind when it has needed to be one step ahead.”

He suggested that the OAS has been negligent in not insisting that Nicaragua live up to its 1979 commitment to a pluralistic political system.

“Agreements exist; promises have been made,” he said. “The dictators and the totalitarians must be told they are not free to subjugate their peoples.”