Latin America Is a Job for Bush

President Bush’s highly touted effort to soothe Latin American resentment over the U.S. invasion of Panama is off to a bad start.

This week both Mexico and Venezuela, two of the most important and friendly Latin American nations, politely declined to schedule official visits by Vice President Dan Quayle, who is to be Bush’s point man in the campaign. Through official channels, both governments made it clear that they have nothing against Quayle, but warned that an official visit would not be welcome right now, because it could set off street demonstrations and other kinds of trouble they don’t need.

Latin Americans are deeply divided in their feelings about the Panama invasion. With few exceptions, they’re glad Gen. Manuel Noriega is out, and say so privately. But they really fear the precedent set by the Panama invasion, and dozens of previous U.S. interventions in their region. From Mexico to Argentina, people genuinely worry that we might do the same thing to them someday, if we felt it was in our interest.

Consider how negatively Colombia reacted to recent reports that the U.S. Navy was deploying an aircraft-carrier group to sail off its shores and interdict drug smugglers. For all the problems that bloodied nation has with drug cartels, it still did not want the United States to play the role of the heavy and thus undermine the growing political consensus in Colombia against the drug traffickers. Bush ended up having to order the Navy to change its plans and promised President Virgilio Barco no more would be done without prior consultations.

Then consider the Mexican government’s fiercely defensive reaction to a recent television movie on the murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena, which suggests that corrupt Mexican officials are deeply involved in drug trafficking. There are otherwise reasonable people in Mexico City who believe that this is part of a propaganda campaign to prepare the American public for sending U.S. troops into Mexico like they went after Noriega.

This may sound as if people south of the Rio Grande are hypersensitive, but the fact is that Latin Americans remember the history of U.S. military actions there better than most of us do. To his credit, Bush knows that history, and tries to be sensitive to Latin sensibilities. That’s why he moved to explain our actions against Noriega as quickly as he did--and history may yet prove that it was one instance where an American intervention left a Latin American nation better off than before.

But in the meantime, we are going to need the full cooperation of Latin America if we are to effectively engage the war on drugs and deal with dozens of other issues--from trade to debt to migration--in a constructive manner. Quayle’s chilly reception should persuade Bush that he has serious fence-mending to do in Latin America--and maybe he should do the tough job himself.