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Democracy's Uncertain Future
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13585 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1988 |
3,621 Words |
| Author
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Roger Fontaine
Roger Fontaine is Washington correspondent for Tiempos del
Mundo, a Buenos Aires-based newspaper. He was a member of the
National Security Council, responsible for Latin America, from
1981 to 1983. |
South America's 1988 map of freedom, according to the nonpartisan political institute Freedom House, is a distinctly happy one if you are a democrat.
The southern half of the Western Hemisphere, long stereotyped for its quixotic military dictators and strutting caudillos, is colored, for the most part, in white or "free." Eight nations fall in that category: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Four others are cross-hatched, that is, "partly free" (Chile, Guyana, Paraguay, and Suriname). Even the latter, a former Dutch dependency, is rapidly dismantling its military dictatorship, and Chilean voters will get a chance to say "no" to the continued rule of Gen. Augusto Pinochet later this year.
In separate rankings of political rights and civil liberties, South America, by world standards, once again scores very well. On a scale from one to seven--seven being the worst--South America is awash with ones, twos, and threes, with Chile and Paraguay turning in the worst performances from Freedom House's perspective.
In fact, the entire Western Hemisphere, again according to Freedom House, is stained this year by only one black spot ("not free")--Cuba.
This encouraging political chart is matched by the Department of State, which puts out a similar map. In fact, the State Department has two maps. The South America of 1976 shows that exactly two of the eleven completely independent countries were "largely or entirely democratic and open societies." The lucky two were Colombia and Venezuela. All the rest were "dictatorships or military regimes." Indeed they were. From the hard-nosed and left-wing military dictatorship of Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado in Peru to the tough, right-wing authoritarian government in Argentina of Gen. Jorge Videla, South America seemed a throwback to an earlier time.
A decade later, the situation had been reversed. Only two military-style regimes remained--in Chile and Paraguay. In seven countries, military juntas had been replaced with elected civilians, to the relief of nearly everyone, often including the militaries themselves.
Nor has the Reagan administration been stingy in its optimism about the process. "Liberty is on the march," proclaimed Secretary of State George Shultz to the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly gathered in Cartagena, Colombia, in 1985. A
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