The Brasilia South American Summit (30 August – 1 September 2000) brought together for the first time in history the presidents from the twelve countries in the subcontinent (in addition to Brazil and the nine Spanish-speaking South American republics, Suriname and Guyana were also present). It comes as a surprise to learn that in a world in which summits featuring heads of state and governments no longer even make the news and are often devoid of any real new interest, the South American countries had never previously organised a meeting of this kind.
There are already various high-level multilateral forums in the region. The summit of Latin American countries (with the participation of Spain and Portugal) has convened every two years since 1991, while the Washington-based Organisation of American States (OAS, or OEA in Spanish) goes back much further, and since the 1980s the Rio Group has been a forum for political discussion dedicated to the defence of democratic values and human rights involving twelve countries in the Iberian American subcontinent plus Mexico and Panama. But the geographically South American countries had never created their own specific forum. In a cursory analysis of what was discussed in Brasilia, we see why this kind of initiative has only been implemented now and how the South American summit fits into a crucial time of transformation for Latin American countries at the turn of the twentieth-first century.
The Brasilia summit focused on three key topics: the defence of democracy and human rights in the region, the promotion of economic development and integration, and the lack of region-wide infrastructures to encourage such economic development.
At the summit the consolidation of democracy and the promotion of human rights were seen as the essential conditions for boosting the development of countries in the region and for their economic integration processes.
The democracy clause, already introduced in MERCOSUR, was extended to the whole of South America. The respect for democracy is considered to be a sine qua non for admission to further summits and for involvement in regional political negotiations. In short, any country failing to respect the rules of democracy will be ostracised from the SouthAmerican community.
The existence of this democracy clause in MERCOSUR was crucial in curbing any authoritarian drifts in the various Paraguayan crises. The most recent were in February 1999, when President Cubas Grau was deposed and replaced by the president of congress, González Macchi, now president of the country, and the subsequent attempted military coup in May 2000, apparently orchestrated by elements linked with the exiled general Lino Oviedo.
Although the Paraguay situation can still not be considered stable, the tough line adopted by the three members of MERCOSUR (Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay), stressing at every opportunity that an authoritarian outcome would have automatically meant the expulsion of Paraguay from MERCOSUR exercised a positive influence on developments in the country. Now all Latin American countries are aware that authoritarianism will lead to isolation, and isolation, in turn, leads to economic depression. In this sense Latin American democracy – often criticised as being in crisis on the grounds of past performance than any up-to-date rigorous assessment of the current situation – is practically forced to exist, almost out of a lack of alternatives. The old-style dictatorships are simply no longer feasible in the context of economic openness and globalisation.
The crisis in the progress of Latin American democracy is – if anything – of a different nature. Although fundamental democratic forms can no longer be called into question, the current great challenge, after almost two decades of democracy in the region, is to eхtend substantial democracy and equal oрportunities to the vast majority of the population. This is still a distant prospect, if we bear in mind the dramatic inequalities in education and the economic field throughout the region.
The Brasilia summit thus reiterated the key importance of democracy in the family of South American nations. At the time, however, another prevalent issue in the minds of most was of course the Peruvian situation.
The newly re-elected President Fujimori kept a low profile at Brasilia, happy to be in the shade of Colombian President Andrés Pastrana, who was faced with the difficult task of defending the Colombia Plan launched together with Clinton on the previous day at Cartagena. But more of this below.
Described in a recent article in this magazine (Acque & Terre 3.2000), the Peruvian situation has become even more complicated since the Brasilia summit. The fiercely challenged re-election of President Fujimori, criticised byalmost the whole ofthe international community, was not the object of sanctions, despite Us efforts to convince the Organisation of American States to adopt them.
Various Latin American countries, and especially Brazil, although deploring the evolution of the situation in Peru and sparing no criticism of Fujimori, did not welcome Us activism, considering it to be excessive and verging on interference. The OAS thus simply sent some observers to Lima to help the Peruvian government adopt measures to improve the workings of democracy
in the country.
This mission was already underway and the main weaknesses in the system had been identified as the excessive power of the secret services and the army, as well as a complete
lack of pluralist information, when a local television programme denounced the activity of Vladimir Montesinos, the president’s eminence grise, who had corrupted an opposition member of parliament by cajoling him into supporting Fujimori. This led to completely unforeseen developments.
Having used all the legal and illegal means to obtain a second term of office only a few
months earlier, and totally ignoring all international pressure, Fujimori, confronted with this clear demonstration of the vast network of complicity holding up his regime, announced his retirement, albeit in a year’s time, but still much earlier than the end of his term of office in 2005.
Faced with protests from the opposition, led by Alejandro Toledo, who demanded new elections immediately, fearing that this was simply another ploy by the unpredictable
Fujimori, the president shilly-shallied for a while withoutclearly stating his intentions.
In the meantime Vladimir Montesinos who had left the country and the army – previously suspected ofplotting a coup – declared hisbelief in democratic institutions. Montesinos spenta month in Panama where he unsuccessfully applied for political asylum, and then at the end of October unexpectedly turned up again in Peru, where Fujimori had been personally directing operations to trace him. In the meantime, the Minister of Justice had presented a plan of national reconciliation involving a wide-ranging amnesty for any abuse of power by the army as part of the struggle against terrorism or drug traffic: the opposition came out against this move in very vehement terms.
At this point, the Vice-president and former foreign minister, Francisco Tudela, the leading light of moderate Fujimorism and probable Oficialista candidate for the presidential elections next year, threwin the towel and resigned. Now total chaos reigned in Lima.
In this situation, the enlarged MERCOSUR (including Chile and Bolivia) issued an official statement warning Peru of the negative consequences of any authoritarian developments: further proof of the new ‘Brasilia doctrine’.
At the time of writing, the prime minister Salas has announced the forthcoming resignation of the president, currently in Japan. This could mean bringing forward the next elections, planned forApril 2001, due to mark a kind ofnew beginning for Peruvian democracy, which has been sorely strained by the abuses of power under Fujimori.
What conclusions may we draw about the Peruvian question? The situation in the country was undoubtedly the most complex in the firmament of Latin American democracies and also seemed to be the most hopeless. But even in this case the explosive cocktail of ‘economic crisis and political authoritarianism’ was eventually defused. We are no longer in the 1970s, and democracy is taking hold in South America despite a host of difficulties. The whole political system in Peru must be reconstructed, since the traditional parties had crumbled because of their lack ofcredibility and Fujimori’s initial successes during his first term of office. But the response bycivil society in the last election of Fujimori suggests there is hope for the future, despite the at times alarming institutional confusion in Lima today.
Although the consolidation of the democratic dimension in the region was the main focus at the Brasilia summit, the two other big issues tackled were stepping up economic integration processes in the region and the launch of an initiative aimed at closing the structural gap penalising the whole of South America.
The 1980s in South America saw monumental economic transformations compared to the past. The massive reduction in state intervention in the economy, the opening up to foreign investments, the removal of tariff barriers, and the spectacular progress in economic integration processes – especially MERCOSUR, Wwhose success has overcome decades of diffidence between the two large countries in the region, Brazil and Argentina – are all signs of the consolidation of new political and economic values, which seem to be unrivalled (although there is now also a certain focus on the concept of economic nationalism, a major force a few decades back in Latin America).
In this picture the countries on the sub-continent are beginning to develop an almost completely new vision of economic integration on a continental scale. This is not a question of removing frontiers Shengen-style, but transforming them from impermeable barriers- as they have been for two centuries – into factors of economic development.
The two economic integration processes in Southern America – MERCOSUR and the Andean Community of Nations (the former Andean Pact) – are not destined to disappear but have become the starting points for a new process of aggregation on a continental scale.
The South American Free Trade Area (SAFTA, or ALCSA in Spanish) has been established as a short-term target to be achieved as early as early as 2002. It will be the outcome of negotiation process between MERCOSUR and the Andean Community, also involving Chile through its forthcoming membership of MERCOSUR (announced for the end ofthe year, but probably some time in 2001) and Guyana and Suriname through specific agreements.
The schedule is arguably over-ambitious, if we bear in mind the difficulties in the past or even recent negotiations between the Andean countries and those from the Southern Cone. On theother hand, time is short in view of the probable acceleration of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the hemispheric integration process in which the Latin American countries wish to participate as a joint front.
After the American elections, the FTAA will probably enter the active negotiation phase in 2001 and be concluded before the end of office of the new president in 2004, and therefore even earlier than 2005, the date previously generally targeted.
The Latin American countries already involved in negotiations on asub-regional rather than national basis (MERCOSUR, CAN, Central American Common Market, CARICOM, except for Chile and Mexico) have every interest in making their markets operational before the end of the FTAA talks, in order to increase their specific weight vis-à-vis the United States and Canada.
This is a crucial time for the destiny of Latin America in the twenty-first century. As some have observed, the strategic choices in the next five years will be decisive in deciding the future developments in Latin American countries.
From this point of view, it is vital that Latin America successfully modernises to keep
abreastof globalization, demonstrating that it will be capable of being the captain of its own fate. Hence the importance of domestic challenges (such as adopting successful models for economic and social development) and external challenges (such as the emergence of an original Latin American model in the context of a frontier-free world).
Latin American countries, and especially South American countries, must therefore seek to create independent mechanisms for dialogue and development, without a return to the closed-door policies ofthe past, but rather with a greater awareness of their own international role and the strength of their bargaining power.
The first five years of the newcentury will not only be characterised by a deepening of regional, sub-continental and hemispheric integration, but also by negotiations with the European Union, which had already began in the case of MERCOSUR and had been concluded in the case of Mexico, and by multilateral talks within the World Trade Organisation, they, too, of key importance for the future of Latin America as well as for world trade.
The set of interlocking scenarios creates a complex picture whose developments are difficult to interpret and it is very hard to forecast what international trade will be like in 2005, when the day of reckoning comes. But the Latin American countries certainly seem aware of the importance of what is currently at stake.
In this sense the Brasilia summit was no ordinary meeting, but a demonstration of a new fast developing awareness in countries in the region.
The lack of infrastructures (roads, ports, railways, and logistics) on a South American scale is a legacy of the past and arguably represents the more serious drawback to regional economic development.
On one hand, it is partly the consequence of the geographical features of the sub-continent: its dimension and the presence of formidable natural barriers such as the Amazon forest and the Andes.
But the current situation is above all the outcome of the approach adopted by South American countries in their plans for infrastructure developments. Even in the 1970s, when these great public works were being thought of (see, for example, the Itaipù damn or the Trans-Amazon roadway) they were always on a purely national basis. That was the dominant vision at the time, centred on closed economies and development based on the national economy.
But at the end of the century priorities changed. Latin America had no regional infrastructure and was prey to almost insoluble logistics problems weighing heavily on the competitiveness of their products. We only need point to the lack of transport infrastructure from north to south or east to west on the continent. Each country is self-contained and products from the north and north-east of Brazil must be shipped down to the ports of Santos (São Paulo) and Rio, and transported in the opposite direction towards the market in the north.
Occupying half of South America and with borders on almost all the other countries in the region, Brazil is much more keenly aware of the problem. In 1998, the launch of a large internal infrastructure plan (Avança Brasil) attempted to make up for the lack of logical infrastructure policies.
Beginning from the conceptual base of this plan, Brazil has now proposed involving its neighbours in setting up a complex infrastructure plan. A preliminary study was entrusted to Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The Andean countries can rely on a prestigious financial institution called the CAF (the Andean Development Corporation). MERCOSUR has no such structure but is able to involve the private sector in financing these structures. Naturally, the telecomcompanies play a leading role in the drive to modernise. This is an ambitious project, perhaps destined to fall shortof its current targets, because of the difficult financial conditions for Latin American countries in international financial markets.
But in this case, too, the Brasilia summit marked a significant break with the past in presenting a new look Latin America to the world. While democracy, economic integration and infrastructures were the main official themes of the summit, the situation in Colombia also inevitably attracted the attention of South American presidents. President Pastrana came to Brasilia after having welcomed President Clinton to Cartagena, where they jointly announced the launch of the Colombia Plan, presented as an aid programme for Colombia to help in the struggle against drug traffic.
What is the significance of the Colombia Plan? On one hand, its launch denotes the failure of the policy of dialogue with the guerrillas (FARC) which was one of the main issues in the electoral campaign of the Colombian conservative leader.
The talks, which had even led to a part of Colombian territory being handed over to be run by the FARC (the region of San Vicente del Caguán), were bogged down irremediably. But why did dialogue, which had successfully solved much more complexcrisis (such as those due to the Central American civil wars) fail in the Colombian case?
There is only one answer – drugs. The huge sums of money involved in drug traffic has upset all the balances in the country. Although years of struggle against the drug traffic cartels had led Columbia to the brink of collapse, the real subversive problem recently emerged are the ‘narco-guerillas‘. The guerrilla groups – in addition to the FARC the other main group is the ELN- have abandoned all ideological claims and concentrate on making money and self-financing from the drug traffic, thanks to their control over most of the national territory. The FARC alone is said to make an estimated 500 million dollars per year from drug traffic.
Far from demonstrating the guerrilla organisation’s effective capacity to govern, handing over the region of San Vicente del Caguán merely sanctioned the existence of an untouchable sanctuary for cultivating coca. The armed clashes between guerrillas and army continue, and dialogue must be declared a failure.
As regards the EIN, which was also given a protected zone in the south of the state of Bolivar, the creation of a group of ‘friends of dialogue’ (France, Spain, Switzerland, Norway and Cuba) whose aim is to aid negotiations, suggests there might be more positive developments, but the failure of the negotiations with the FARC leaves little room for hope.
In this situation, the United States government’s offer to the Colombian government of an aid package – mainly military in nature – of 1.3 billion dollars (out of a total of 4.5 billion for the plan, the majority share being paid by Colombia), marks a sharp change in tactics with the guerrillas. Dialogue having failed, at least as far as the FARC is concerned, more violent methods for re-conquering the territory and wiping out the crops, even using chemical means, have been adopted.
The initiative was given a very lukewarm reception by other countries in the region and by the European Union, always more inclined to a more co-operative approach to the problem.
In fact the European Commission has announced the offer of an aid package for Colombia of 105 million euro from 2000 to 2006 for the following sectors: economic and social development and the struggle against poverty, alternative development, reform of the judicial system, anddefence of human rights, to which must be added around 10.5 million per year for emergency and humanitarian aid.
The other South American countries look very coolly on the Colombia Plan. There is a real prospect of an escalation in this kind of conflict, and the presence of Us ‘military advisers’ in Colombia is reminiscent of disturbing scenarios, which no one wishes to see repeated in South America in the future.
Moreover, the military-type approach to the Colombian problem is nothing new. The United States had already proposed this method during the Republican administrations of Reagan and Bush, and it has now been put forward again with renewed vigour. The recent withdrawal of American troops from Panama must be seen as connected to this development.
South American countries, especially those bordering on Colombia, have expressed – both at Brasilia and the subsequent Conference of Ministers of Defence of the Americas (Manaus, 16-21 October) – their support for the struggle against drug traffic, but also their alarm at the possible consequences on regional balances due to any conflict in Colombia, which might give rise to flows of refugees, incursions by troops and environmental repercussions (e.g. the use of herbicides in the Amazon region).
The Brazilian Amazon border with Colombia is very difficult to control, and so Brazil is one of the most active in expressing its concern.
In conclusion, the Brasilia summit marked a particularly significant time for South America at the end of the twentieth century. A Brazilian initiative, madeat the behest of President Henrique Cardoso, the summit highlighted the major strategic changes now taking place in the region. Moreover, on the strength of its economic, demographic and territorial weight, and the success of its internal reforms and brilliant recovery from the financial crisis last year, Brazil wished to demonstrate that it is ready to take on the de facto South American leadership, which in the past it had been reluctant to assume.
Indeed, the fact that South American countries are showing an increasing awareness of their own international importance is probably a great step forward for the whole international community.