Latins See Mexico Break From the Pack : Quincentenary: Spain calls a party to celebrate Columbus, but hard times in the hemisphere make for envious guests.

The heads of state of every Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking nation in Latin America are meeting today and Friday in Guadalajara with Spain’s king and prime minister and Portugal’s president to commemorate, in as diplomatic a way as possible, the encounter-discovery-conquest that began five centuries ago.

The meeting was originally conceived by Madrid as a way of associating the New World in Spain’s celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ trip to America without bruising sensitivities or creating awkward situations. But Latin America is taking both the meeting and the quincentenary as an opportunity to present its achievements and setbacks in as favorable a light as possible. The region’s leaders will take stock of their present plight and perspectives for the future and explain, each in his own fashion, their rationales and purposes. Two of these explanations are likely to attract the most attention.

The first, predictably, will be Fidel Castro’s. He is inevitably the star of the show, if only because he is by far the most well-known, long-standing and media-celebrated leader in the hemisphere. But his participation will also be watched closely for hints of what he intends to do to extricate himself and his revolution from Cuba’s most serious crisis since the 1962 U.S.-Soviet showdown over missile bases in Cuba.

Castro’s predicament is obvious. He needs something to substitute for the tight and highly favorable relationships his country enjoyed with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Given the absence of a U.S. option, Latin America appears to be his only alternative, even if, from a strictly economic perspective, the potential is limited.

The possibility of making an opening to Latin America could be attractive to Castro. He probably would find even more attractive a series of initiatives toward the United States, but those would require concessions with uncertain prospects for U.S. reciprocity. At present, U.S. conditions for normalization of relations amount to Castro’s virtual departure from power.

So, despite the expectations surrounding Castro’s appearance in Guadalajara, and the ever-present possibility of a surprise, it is most likely that his speeches and comments will be addressed mostly to the Cuban audience, thirsty for some assurance that their country is not totally isolated. It is, but atmospherics, photo opportunities and Fidel’s magic can still go a long way, even in today’s Cuba.

The other head of state who will be closely watched is, of course, host Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Mexico’s decision to pursue a free-trade agreement with the United States is viewed with envy and resentment by many in Latin America. In a continent starved for capital, and still shouldering an overwhelming debt burden, Mexico seems to have squared the circle: attracting investment, credit and capital repatriation thanks to the prospect of economic integration with the United States. Although virtually every Latin American government is trying to follow the same macroeconomic policies as the Salinas team, Mexico’s situation is exceptional. Brazil and Argentina, for example, can only dream of having one advantage enjoyed by Mexico and Chile: a state-owned foreign currency earner like copper (Chile) or oil (Mexico) to pay the foreign debt incurred by that very state.

Similarly, Argentina and Brazil, as well as other besieged regimes in the hemisphere, long for Salinas’ leeway in applying unpopular austerity and wage-containment policies made possible by peculiarities of the authoritarian Mexican political system. But the most important source of envy and resentment in many countries south of the Suchiate River is the privileged financial treatment Mexico receives from its northern neighbor--the help in obtaining credit, foreign investment and access to the U.S. market.

Much of the resentment stems from what is perceived as Mexico’s break with the rest of the hemisphere. Mexico has always played a key role in Latin America’s relationship with the United States, and has often acted as the others’ spokesman or defender, so its recent tilt toward Washington is not viewed with great favor. The United States gains a partner, cheap labor and raw materials; Latin America loses the one nation that has stood between the rest of the continent and the North in more ways than one. Mexico gets money for now and the promise of prosperity later--and an unpredictable future.

Spain, too, will encounter some scrutiny in Guadalajara. Its relationship with the world it conquered five centuries ago will be affected in unforeseeable ways by the one it entered upon joining the European Economic Community.

As Europe looks eastward and inward, whatever remained of its 1970s and ‘80s relationship with Latin America has largely been reduced to the marginally economic and cultural. And Spain’s vocation is clearly European. As border immigration controls are eliminated among eight of the 12 EEC members, Spain will require Latin Americans to obtain visas for entry to the nation many of them have considered a second homeland.

The symbolic import of this is greater than the substance, but symbols often count more than substance in the Iberian heritage being commemorated this week in Guadalajara.