Yankee Interventionism Pays Off : Panama: The ‘experts’ are wringing their hands over the ‘cost’ of the invasion. But Latin behavior, rather than rhetoric, suggests they need not worry.

The hand-wringing was predictable. Despite the liberation of Panama from dictatorship, the resulting blow to drug trafficking and the outpouring of jubilation in that country, U.S. “experts” on Latin America are bemoaning the “cost” of our invasion in terms of U.S.-Latin relations. But no such cost exists, as both history and the current Panama case demonstrate.

Every U.S. intervention invariably encounters overheated Latin rhetoric denouncing our violation of the sacred principle of “nonintervention.” In the case of Panama, we again heard about imperialism, Yankees, gringos , etc. But it is evident that Latin governments chiefly use this rhetoric to mollify their domestic left; they do not, in fact, act on it.

U.S. officials are frequently advised in private to pay attention to Latin behavior and ignore the bombast. (If this seems cynical, do you know of any American politician who has never said one thing and done another?) Peru’s president, Alan Garcia, has been the loudest critic of the Panama invasion.

Yet he recently reversed himself and decided to meet next month with President Bush and other Latin leaders in Cartagena to discuss the drug war. The actual impact of the invasion on Latin behavior--as distinct from Latin oratory or votes in the Organization of American States--is nil. Trade, finance, military contacts, political relations--all go on as before.

The best proof of the myth of “costly” U.S. actions in Latin America may be the Falklands War. When the United States backed Britain against Argentina, the hand-wringing “Latin experts” nearly wore the skin off their palms. They groaned that the United States had destroyed its position not only in Argentina but in all Latin America, for several milleniums. In truth, American relations with Argentina are better now than they have been for decades.

Similarly, U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and in Grenada in 1983 produced no lasting damage to American interests in Latin America. As in the case of Panama, no Latin government broke relations with Washington, no Latin country stopped trading with us, and there was no evidence that Latin leaders suffered deep psychological wounds that required nursing.

On the contrary. In my own travels to South America last fall, I was often asked “Why don’t you people do something about (Gen.) Noriega? Why do you continue to put up with him?”

This is not to say that every U.S. intervention would be greeted with a shot of rhetoric, followed by quick acceptance. The Panama and Grenada cases shared the goal of restoring democracy, of which the new democracies of Latin America are well aware. In the Falklands, we supported a democratic ally against a military dictatorship. Acting on principle is as attractive to Latins as to Americans, and when we can defend our actions on this ground, they take notice.

Still, why must we put up with the abusive language when we are acting on principle and in favor of democracy? The Latins again seek cover behind “nonintervention,” but it is inadequate. Latin democracies have often abdicated their role in the fight for human rights in their region: They have been silent about the political prisoners and human-rights abuses in Cuba; they did not participate in U.S. and European efforts to pressure Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship into holding free elections in Chile.

It is long past due for human rights to become a Latin issue, and for Latin America’s new democracies to realize that in protecting the human rights of their neighbors, they help protect their own. There was no excuse for the spectacle of Latin democracies voting in the OAS to seat Manuel Noriega’s ambassador, while the representative of Panama’s people was excluded.

That decision was reversed in a matter of days, but still leaves a bad taste in the mouth of many Panamanians, and rightly so. It is not enough for the Latins to accept U.S. actions quietly, or applaud them privately, while speaking against them in international forums.

Happily, the current trend is a positive one, and Latin criticism of Noriega last year was a good start. For the first time, some Latin democracies were willing to speak up against political repression in a neighboring country. Should one of the new democracies suffer a military coup, let us hope the chorus of condemnation from Latin America would be as loud as that from Washington.

Meanwhile, let’s not condescend to the Latins. Let’s take them to be as principled as we in their desire for liberty, and as intelligent as we in their understanding of the need for any nation to protect its interests.

When we act to promote our principles and interests, as we have in recent years in Panama, Grenada and the Falklands, Latins understand and respect what we are doing. And that is precisely why these American actions do no lasting damage to U.S.-Latin relations.