Gore Calls for a Hemisphere Community : Diplomacy: Vice president says in Mexico that Clinton will convene a summit of regional democratic leaders in 1994.

Vice President Al Gore, implicitly apologizing for harsh statements some Americans made about Mexico during the recent free-trade debate, called Wednesday for Mexico and the United States to use the new trade pact to help create a “Western Hemisphere community of democracies.”

“We, the sovereign states of the Americas, share the same obligation--to create nations in which all have equal access to land, jobs and education--and together we dream of a future in which no person is exploited for the well-being of a few,” Gore told an audience of several thousand business leaders, government officials and students here. The speech was broadcast live throughout Latin America by CNN.

As a step toward building that community, Gore said, President Clinton will invite “the democratically elected heads of state” from throughout the hemisphere to a summit next year. Clinton discussed the idea with the seven Central American heads of state he met with Tuesday in Washington but left it for Gore to announce.

White House officials have not set a date or place for the conference, but officials said the idea will be to use it as a forum for discussing ways of moving toward greater economic integration and political cooperation among the nations of North, Central and South America.

The Western Hemisphere conference will be the fifth international conference on Clinton’s calendar for 1994.

One major unresolved question is precisely which leaders should be considered “democratically elected.” Cuba’s Fidel Castro “is clearly out,” a senior Administration official said after Gore’s speech.

“I would not think Cedras would be among the number,” he added, referring to Haiti’s military leader, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras. Peru’s President Alberto Fujimori, who was elected democratically but later suspended the constitution, poses a complicated question, the official said.

The conference, Gore said, will be an opportunity for a “joint enterprise” to rethink and update the relationship between the United States and Latin America.

“We will seek to make explicit the convergence of values that is now rapidly taking place in a hemispheric community of democracies, increasingly integrated by commercial exchange and shared political views,” Gore said.

Gore’s speech drew a friendly reception from his audience of Establishment figures, with some of the loudest applause coming as he implicitly offered amends for some of the anti-Mexican rhetoric that marked the debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“You heard many harsh things said about our Administration and your country,” Gore said, adding that “some of the statements made during our bruising debate were fueled by lack of information and insensitivity.”

But, Gore added, the final vote on NAFTA “saw the people of the United States come to a decision. We could have voted against a closer relationship with our neighbor. We voted for one.”

Gore hailed decisions by Mexico, Argentina, Chile and other Latin American nations aimed at curbing trade restrictions, liberalizing their economies and reducing the size of their government deficits. “We have arrived at a consensus about the right way to grow,” Gore said, citing what he called a “commitment to the principles of open trade . . . economic reform and integration” in most of the region’s governments.

But, Gore said, the region must also address “common social needs”--including the problems of drug trafficking and environmental cleanup.

“Trade should be looked upon as one element of a strategy for growth, along with education, worker training, wages, environmental protection, the survival of children and the growth of democracy,” he said.

But Gore stepped carefully around the subject of the status of democracy here, where the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party has ruled without interruption for 64 years and where the current president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, last weekend named the man who is all but assured of being elected the country’s next president in August.

During his NAFTA debate with Ross Perot, Gore offered some criticisms of Mexico’s system, saying that it does not fully correspond with American ideas of democracy but that the passage of NAFTA would increase U.S. ability to influence democratic development here. Those remarks drew criticism from nationalist politicians here, and Gore was careful to avoid repeating them.

The closest Gore got to that sensitive subject was to say that “by promoting cultural exchange and economic decentralization, (NAFTA) promotes democracy.”

“It is very clear that President Salinas has caused Mexico to turn a corner in every respect,” the senior official said. “The vice president respects that.”

Gore’s speech was the central point of a brief visit here in which he also met with Salinas and other Mexican officials. To avoid any suggestion of interfering with Mexican political affairs, however, Gore did not meet with Salinas’ designated successor, Luis Donaldo Colosio.