At a
time when there is on-going focus on the Panama Papers issue it seems
appropriate to focus on Panama and its region.
 |
| Panama City |
By
Pieter J Wolvaardt, Ambassador, Mexico City, Mexico.
Meintjeskop
Ditaba No II/1997
JOHN LE CARRE's latest novel, “The Tailor
of Panama" gives a colourful glimpse of the frenzy of Latin American city
life.
In this case the city in question is the
capital of Panama but those who know the continent will recognise familiar
elements; the sometimes charming, sometimes repellent realities which make it
such a complex and fascinating area to work in.
The Embassy in Mexico City Is responsible
for the following countries in Central America: Nicaragua, EI Salvador, Costa
Rica, Panama, Guatemala and Honduras, and the Head of Mission is already
accredited to the last four, where South Africa also has honorary
representation .
The Embassy in addition occasionally deals
with shipping and other matters in parts of the Caribbean.
Whilst Ie Carre's image represents one side
of Latin American life, it's important to recognise that with its "... cadre
of economic leadership experienced in running large free enterprises in
capitalist economies " ... the continent of manana is fast becoming the continent of hoy". (British House of Commons debate, 23rd July 1990)
During the "Link into Latin America
Conference" in London on 10 February
1997, Prime Minister John Major said: "Latin America has made remarkable
advances in the last decade:
• democracy
has been consolidated throughout the continent
• there
is peace in Central America;
• free
market economic policies are therule rather than the exception;
• hyper-inflation
has all but disappeared;
• and
there has been large-scale privatisation. "
He also noted:
• that Brazil's GDP is of the same order
of magnitude as China's and 50% larger than India's;
• that the Argentine .province of Cordoba
alone has a GDP equal to that of Bulgaria;
• and that Mexico is one of the most
important trading economies in the world, with imports and exports worth over 100 billion pounds in
1995." ...
Perhaps even more strikingly::
• the
Word Bank expects annual growth in Latin America in the next ten years to be
the highest in the world after south-east Asia;
• over
2,000 Latin American enterprises have been privatised since 1985. Between 1993
and 1995 alone privatisation in Latin America brought in over 10 billion US
dollars;
• the
average inflation rate in Latin America has fallen from 340% in 1994 to around
25%;
• and
trade between the four countries of Mercosur has more than doubled in the last
five years. It is now worth over 12 billion US dollars a year."
On the same occasion President Cardoso of Brazil stated that:"In the
year 2010, from the perspective of the United States, the Latin American market
will be larger than the European and Japanese markets combined. g the ten
countries considered to This is probably the reason why Brazil, Argentina and Mexico
were listed among strategic partners by the present government of the United
States."
President Perez Balladares of Panama
remarked that, "It has been said, in fact, that Latin America is a group
of countries separated only by a common language" and that, "judicial
systems must be transformed, bureaucratic redtape must be reduced, democratic institutions
must be strengthened."
Two facts about Latin-America are clear,
firstly, that much is still wrong and must be addressed, and secondly that massive
strides have been made during the last decade. In many ways parts of our own
continent and Latin-America are not dissimilar; who knows, the Sordwana land
theory that the two continents were once one is in fact spot-on?
My own fascination with and interest in
Latin-America however runs much deeper than the economic/political. To appreciate
lhis multi-faceted continent fully colleagues should make an effort to visit
out-of-lhe-way places: from Easter Island off the Chilean coast (a la Thor
Heyerdal), to the Argentinean ski resort Bariloche; Punta del Este, Uruguay's
sea-side resort; Paraguay where all the Stroessner
towns and buildings have suddenly changed names; La Paz in Bolivia and Lake
Titicaca where a plane takes forever to lift off; the greyness around Lima
where it almost never rains and many houses do not have roofs; the Galapagos
Islands of Ecuador where the wild birds still sit on one's shoulder and where
Darwin developed his theory of evolution; Brazil's Foz de Iquacu and the
alluvial diggers in the Amazon (where colleague Alex van Zyl and I once almost
landed in the line of real fire); Bogota's wonderful gold museum; the traffic
in Caracas; the Panama Canal (which could have been in Nicaragua had it not
been for the danger of earthquakes) and the sky-scrapers of Panama City; the
empty spaces of downtown Managua and its ruined cathedral, destroyed in a
massive earthquake, and a much alive volcano very near; Costa Rica with a small
English-speaking black community on the coast (descendants from the slave-trade
via the Caribbean) and allegedly more
hospitals than police/military (a trivial pursuit question); Honduras' hilly
capital Tegucigalpa; the fabulous Tikal pyramids in the jungle of Guatemala;
the expanse of Mexico with its rich culture.
Not all these places are easy to get to,
nor are they necessarily comfortable (on the contrary many require a
considerable spirit of adventure) but they as well as so many others, are worth
a visit, particularly as so many South Africans are by nature still very
euro-centric.
Despite Central America's continuing
problems, what has taken place over the last number of years, namely the
achievement of relative peace in all these countries, can almost be compared
with the miracle of transformation in South Africa.
When President Anti of Guatemala told me at
the beginning of 1996 that a peace agreement would be signed by the end of that
year between the Guatemalan Government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary
Unity (URNG), to end a 30-year old bloody conflict leaving reportedly more than
100,000 dead, I must confess that I was not fully convinced; however it took
place.
Nicaragua was impoverished first by the right
wing Somozas, then a bloody civil war aided by the superpowers. The left wing
Sandinistas did their fair share in this downward spiral towards the end of
their reign and the earthquake inflicted terrible hardship. However, in January
1996 my wife and I attended the inauguration of President Aleman, elected in
the first ever successive democratic elections in Nicaragua, with the
Sandinistas being defeated at the polIs. Ex-president Violetta Chamarro left
with grace and dignity.
In EI Salvador the erstwhile Farabundi
Marti revolutionaries took part during February 1996 in democratic elections
and, although defeated, gave the governing ARENA a good run for its money.
In Honduras, from where the American guided
"Contras" launched their infiltration into neighbouring countries a
relative quiet has descended.
Obviously, to state that all problems in Central
America have been resolved would be stretching the truth, and in this regard
Oscar Arias, a former President of Costa Rica and winner of the 1987 Nobel
Peace Prize, recently observed that "... even as Central American
countries have achieved important democratic advances, they are far from having
won the fight for prosperity.
The danger of popular disenchantment with democracy,
which could again make the region ungovernable or, worse, lead to renewed violence
is a major concern.
Serious historical, economic and social
imbalances will continue for many years to come, and sporadic flashpoints of
discontent will probably spark up. Narcotic trafficking and related problems
seem destined to become a bigger problem. I nevertheless believe that Central
American leaders have come to the conclusion that growth is in general not
possible without peace, an they should be commended for this, and supported.
There are comparisons to be drawn with Africa.
I have spent much of my 28-year career in or dealing with Latin America. I t was and
remains as stimulating as when I first arrived as a very callow Third Secretary
in Rio de Janeiro in 1970.
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