Contemporary revolution in Latin America; Struggle for democracy

<v Speaker>[Announcer intro] The following program is produced by the University of Florida School <v Speaker>of Journalism and Communications under a grant from the National Educational <v Speaker>Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association <v Speaker>of Educational Broadcasters. <v Speaker>[Cantor] The struggle for democracy in Latin America is very complicated by the fact <v Speaker>that Latin America as a whole has never gotten over <v Speaker>the inheritance of the colonial period in its history. <v Speaker>[Cantor fades to a Paraguayan exile] The situation in the concentration camp is terrible. <v Speaker>They they have eh forced labor. <v Speaker>Then they they give you physical punishment. <v Speaker>Well, this is the real situation in Paraguay. [Latin music plays] <v Speaker>[Announcer 2nd intro]The University of Florida presents the Struggle for Democracy, the <v Speaker>third in a series of recorded documentary reports on the Contemporary Revolution

<v Speaker>in Latin America. <v Speaker>Your reporter is the distinguished American journalist and editor of the Christian <v Speaker>Science Monitor Erwin D. <v Speaker>Canham. <v Speaker>[Canham] The struggle for democracy in Latin America began with the wars of independence <v Speaker>during the first quarter of the 19th century. <v Speaker>The struggle continues today. <v Speaker>The United States can no longer sit back and view this struggle for self-government <v Speaker>by its neighbors with the same old indifference. <v Speaker>For the specter of the Cold War has permeated the issues. <v Speaker>And the failure of democracy in Latin America may well mean the loss of most <v Speaker>of Central and South America and the Caribbean to the communist bloc. <v Speaker>Western democracy is on trial in Latin America. <v Speaker>[Figueras] The real problem of Latin America is that these oligarchies that tried to stop <v Speaker>progress. There has to be economic development and it has to be a social justice.

<v Speaker>And this will not be done by the present day oligarchies <v Speaker>with whom the U.S. eh U.S. has been playing ball. <v Speaker>It will either be done by the liberal parties that are democratic and pro-West, <v Speaker>or it will be done by the international communist movement. <v Speaker>This is being proved every day. <v Speaker>[Canham] A pessimistic report from the former president of Costa Rica Jose Figueres. <v Speaker>[Figueras] We believe, and by we I mean we mean I mean the liberal parties of Latin <v Speaker>America. We believe that it can be done and it must be done. <v Speaker>The transformation of Latin Latin America has to take uh place <v Speaker>in our time. The difference is that other people want to do it in an alliance <v Speaker>with the Russians and the Chinese. And and still other people, the oligarchies, do not <v Speaker>want it done at all. Thats why we are in the middle. <v Speaker>I am sure that uh the net uh balance will be much more favorable <v Speaker>for our peoples if we follow the democratic line. <v Speaker>Well, I'm not sure that we can at the present uh moment.

<v Speaker>I think that the international forces that work against us have become too strong, <v Speaker>and unless there is a concerted effort by all the Latin American republics, <v Speaker>and especially by the United States as the leader of the Western world, I don't believe <v Speaker>that we can stop the tide. Latin America, incredibly, is <v Speaker>going the side of Russia and China. <v Speaker>No matter how what few ties uh we have with them geographical, <v Speaker>historical, cultural. <v Speaker>Sounds preposterous. Well thats the way things are going I'm very sorry to report. <v Speaker>[Canham'] Most students of Latin American affairs blame the influence of colonial Spain <v Speaker>for establishment of conditions unfavorable to the flowering of democracy. <v Speaker>[Cantor] The struggle for democracy in Latin Americans very complicated by the fact <v Speaker>that Latin America as a whole has never gotten over <v Speaker>the inheritance of the colonial period in its history. <v Speaker>[Canham] Harry Cantor is a political scientist at the University of Florida who taught <v Speaker>the past academic year in San Jose, Costa Rica.

<v Speaker>[Cantor] Unfortunately for Latin America, when the Spaniards came to the area, they <v Speaker>overcame the military opposition of the indians <v Speaker>and set up a society in which a small group <v Speaker>of basically Spaniards ruled a vast mass of indians <v Speaker>through the generations in the centuries have passed since then. <v Speaker>This idea that a small group, an aristocracy, <v Speaker>is entitled to dominate the political, social, economic and religious life <v Speaker>of the people has so permeated certain sections of society <v Speaker>that democracy has had a very, very hard struggle to become established. <v Speaker>[Canham] Latin American scholars are quick to point out a relationship in certain <v Speaker>countries between the rate of illiteracy and the existence of dictatorships. <v Speaker>Director of Hispanic Studies at Stanford University, Ronald Hilton, raised <v Speaker>this point at the 10th conference on the Caribbean.

<v Speaker>[Hilton] And there's rela a relationship between literacy and dictatorship. <v Speaker>The struggle going on today in Latin America between dictatorship and democracy <v Speaker>is closely related to the problem of literacy <v Speaker>and it's not surprising to find that uh the countries where you find <v Speaker>dictatorships are precisely the countries where you find illiteracy. <v Speaker>I wouldn't suggest that literacy immediately brings democracy. <v Speaker>There isn't that kind of a correlation, but there is the other correlation. <v Speaker>I I'm more or less convinced. <v Speaker>[Cantor] Permanent Secretary of the Superior Council on Education at the University of <v Speaker>Puerto Rico Ismael Rodriguez Bo elaborates. <v Speaker>[Bo] Dictatorships in our part of the world are notorious <v Speaker>for the meagerness of their budgets for education and <v Speaker>the lavishness of their expenditures for instruments of war and oppression. <v Speaker>I asked the commanding general of a military establishment, why

<v Speaker>almost all the soldiers were illiterates? <v Speaker>His answer was prompt. <v Speaker>When want soldiers we go to the rural areas and recruit <v Speaker>them. The more illiterate and un unpolished <v Speaker>the better. When we order them to shoot, they <v Speaker>fire without questioning. <v Speaker>Fortunately, these dictatorship is over by now. <v Speaker>All those as brutal are still on the saddle. <v Speaker>Few things have hurt the relationship between <v Speaker>the United States and Latin America more than the diplomatic <v Speaker>warm hand to dictators and the cold hand <v Speaker>to leave it on Democratic leaders.[speech fades] <v Speaker>[Smathers] Well, first thing, I don't think that this government is any position to be <v Speaker>criticized because we have not broken off relationships with some of these dictatorships.

<v Speaker>[Canham] Florida's junior senator George Smathers. <v Speaker>[Smathers] I think it's unrealistic, dreamy, visionary and completely <v Speaker>impractical for a lot of people who'ave , dreamy people <v Speaker>who get the idea that you can have the kind of a democracy in Haiti that <v Speaker>we have in Florida, when you stop to remember that the per capita income in Haiti today <v Speaker>is less than forty seven dollars per year per person. <v Speaker>The illiteracy rate is 87 percent of the people. <v Speaker>Now, Duvalier does not run a dictatorship, but eh you have to have a strong <v Speaker>man because you just cannot operate a government [dog bark] on a democratic basis <v Speaker>that you have a high level of education. <v Speaker>So I think it's a matter of being realistic. <v Speaker>What are the facts? And the facts are that uh that they are making progress <v Speaker>in Nicaragua. The facts are that Stroessner in Paraguay, I presume is making progress <v Speaker>there. I've never been in that country. I don't know him, but I hear that most of his <v Speaker>people are of direct indian descent, that they are uneducated,

<v Speaker>that they have not had any opportunity. And he's trying to bring about a slowly <v Speaker>developing economy for them and give them more opportunities than they have previously <v Speaker>had. <v Speaker>[Dubois] This is Jules Dubois, Latin American correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. <v Speaker>Well, Senator Smathers has a right to his opinion, no matter how erroneous it may be uh, <v Speaker>I do not uh agree with him that Stroessner, for example, <v Speaker>is a necessary evil because of illiteracy in uh Paraguay. <v Speaker>Uh Senator Smathers probably overlooks the fact that there are 400,000 <v Speaker>Paraguayans in exile across the river in Bueno in Argentina. <v Speaker>And a large number of them in Buenos Aires. <v Speaker>And they surely are not illiterates. <v Speaker>The same holds true ah in other places. <v Speaker>Haiti, for example, Duvalier is not a necessary evil <v Speaker>because of the illiteracy of the Haitian people. <v Speaker>The Haitian people have lived good lives, better lives

<v Speaker>under better government. <v Speaker>[Canham] If indeed a country's illiteracy rate is a strong indicator of the prevalence of <v Speaker>a dictatorship, then Paraguay fits the formula. <v Speaker>Illiteracy among the people, mostly indians or mixed bloods, hovers around 80 percent <v Speaker>in a country where political democracy has been virtually unknown. <v Speaker>Conditions in Paraguay in recent years have been an open invitation to the <v Speaker>military to take over the reins of government. <v Speaker>This has been done in the traditional pattern of caciquismo, bossism, <v Speaker>the rule of a military backed strongman. <v Speaker>A Paraguayan of part German descent, <v Speaker>General Alfredo Stroessner, is such a strong man. <v Speaker>He seized power in 1954 with the aid of the army garrison in Asuncion, <v Speaker>the capital. Despite growing opposition from all sides he has ruled firmly <v Speaker>ever since. What are conditions like in Paraguay under Stroessner's regime? <v Speaker>Recorded somewhere in Central America, an exile from Paraguay,

<v Speaker>one of hundreds of thousands who have fled the regime of General Alfredo <v Speaker>Stroessner, [Paraguayan exile] the concentration camp in Paraguay, are one in the <v Speaker>Chaco jungle and then one in Isla Margarita. <v Speaker>Its a concentration camp for <v Speaker>militaro an political. And one between Asuncion, eh Asuncion is <v Speaker>the capital. <v Speaker>You see Tacumbu is its name. <v Speaker>The situation in the concentration camp is terrible.They <v Speaker>they have eh forced labor. <v Speaker>Then they they give physical punishment. <v Speaker>Well this is the real situation in Paraguay. <v Speaker>I think that the United States and Bolsaro <v Speaker>they he can know, can investigate. <v Speaker>But maybe can inform directly to the <v Speaker>State Department. Well, I don't know if possible to.

<v Speaker>[sound of child crying and people speaking] Paraguay, we have 1,000,000 <v Speaker>and 500,000 <v Speaker>this is the population in Paraguay and outside Paraguay we <v Speaker>have 400,000 people <v Speaker>in exhile eh ,how you say, exhile, in Argentina. <v Speaker>400,000. This is the real situation in Paraguay. <v Speaker>[Canham] The often wide divergence between the principles of constitutional democracy <v Speaker>and the day to day practice of this most sophisticated of all forms of government <v Speaker>has resulted in a certain cynicism in Latin America as well as in this country. <v Speaker>In all fairness, the Latinos, if one reads their constitutions, are committed in theory <v Speaker>to democracy. And besides, the road to true democracy has never <v Speaker>been known to be a smooth one. Disaster may lie just around the next bend. <v Speaker>Despite all obstacles, however, democratic forces in Latin America do drive

<v Speaker>forward. A case in point is Colombia. <v Speaker>Here is a country that within the past decade has put to an end a disastrous bloody <v Speaker>civil war, has overthrown a dictator, restored order for the most part, <v Speaker>and is leading the people toward the goal of fuller constitutional democracy. <v Speaker>Storm clouds, however, are gathering over the republic. <v Speaker>The next presidential election could lead to a crisis for democracy and the <v Speaker>collapse of the National Front. <v Speaker>President Alberto Illeras Camargo presides over a unique coalition government. <v Speaker>A strange, precarious alliance of the two traditional political parties, the <v Speaker>Conservatives and the Liberals.[Sound clip of Liberal Party leader of Colombia speaking in Spanish] <v Speaker>[in Spanish] <v Speaker>[in Spanish] [Canham narrates over speach] A leader of the Liberal Party of Colombia, <v Speaker>?Jaman Zea?, now at the United Nations, explains how this unique experiment <v Speaker>in bipartisan government came about.

<v Speaker>[Zea speach in Spanish] [English translator for Zea] The reason for this eh the <v Speaker>getting together of the parties was first of on to ease the political <v Speaker>tension and political strife which had become acute, but also to get together <v Speaker>all of the best brains of the country and get them to put aside for a moment <v Speaker>the extremes of their political positions and reach <v Speaker>agreement on the basic questions facing the country. <v Speaker>Eh the Liberal Party eh took a major part <v Speaker>in the preparation of this agreement. Eh the now president <v Speaker>Lleras <v Speaker>,although he had been head of the Liberal Party, has fulfilled the pact eh most <v Speaker>faithfully. The Liberal Party today supports this government of national unity. <v Speaker>But there is a small group within the Liberals who <v Speaker>do not agree a particularly in relation to the alternation <v Speaker>of the presidency.

<v Speaker>This minority holds that the people should be free to choose the president that they <v Speaker>want without regard to party and not be obliged to to <v Speaker>choose first a liberal and then a conservative, and so on. <v Speaker>[Canham] One of the liberals who does not want to see the principle of alternation <v Speaker>between the parties continue and is not willing to have the presidency automatically <v Speaker>revert in 1962 to the Conservatives is the son of a former Colombian <v Speaker>president. Dr. Alfonso Lopez Michelsen represents a new <v Speaker>breed of Latin American politician. <v Speaker>A man of wealth who, contrary to his background, champions left tinged causes. <v Speaker>Some observers see in Doctor Lopez Michelsen, a demagog who seeks to gain <v Speaker>politically if and when he can topple the National Front. <v Speaker>In turn, he sees himself as representing a group who regard this <v Speaker>alternation of parties as a negation of democracy. <v Speaker>This absence of a real choice at the ballot box and the turning over of the presidency <v Speaker>to the Conservatives, Lopez told American newsmen, may cause the extreme left

<v Speaker>to turn to violence. <v Speaker>[Michelsen] I very much fear that in the long run this system, <v Speaker>if it works out, will cause a crisis in <v Speaker>the very first year of the next president.[car horns in background] I mean, <v Speaker>I believe that if we go back to the democratic <v Speaker>procedures and uh we let those who <v Speaker>are in favor of Castro, frankly, in favor of Castro uh, <v Speaker>seek the vote on their own ground <v Speaker>I believe that the Castro threat would eh would disappear.[coughs] <v Speaker>But if there is no room for them in the democratic <v Speaker>life of Colombia I very much fear that violence <v Speaker>is going to increase. <v Speaker>[Canham] One of the alternatives facing Colombia if the coalition fails, would be the

<v Speaker>return of a totalitarian movement. <v Speaker>In August 1962, liberal president Lleras Camargo will step down and <v Speaker>a conservative will take over. <v Speaker>Whether this can be accomplished smoothly and peacefully is the test. <v Speaker>Meantime, democracy hangs in the balance in Colombia. <v Speaker>Observers who are optimistic over the struggle for democracy in Latin America are quick <v Speaker>to point to the impressive string of dictators who have been toppled since the end <v Speaker>of World War 2. Vargas in Brazil, Peron in Argentina, <v Speaker>Odria in Peru, Rojas Pinilla in Colombia, <v Speaker>Perez Jimenez in Venezuela, Battista in Cuba. <v Speaker>And this year saw all the 31 year old dictatorship of Generalissimo Trujillo of <v Speaker>the Dominican Republic end in a blaze of machine gunfire. <v Speaker>We still must see, of course, whether his son carries out promises of free elections by <v Speaker>May of 1962. <v Speaker>Thus, only a few old style dictators still survive in Latin America. <v Speaker>The Somoza brothers in Nicaragua, Stroessner in Paraguay and Duvalier

<v Speaker>in Haiti. <v Speaker>The last days of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba rank among the most cruel and <v Speaker>violent of 20th century tyrants in Latin America save, perhaps Trujillo and Perez <v Speaker>Jimenez. And so it was natural that Cuban people welcomed <v Speaker>the bearded liberators who came down from the Sierra Maestra. <v Speaker>The overthrow of the Batista regime may be regarded as unique in the annals of revolution <v Speaker>in Latin America. It was one of the few times that a force of armed civilians has <v Speaker>defeated a tyrant whose power rested upon a well-equipped army. <v Speaker>Thus, at its start, the Castro revolution appeared to represent a real <v Speaker>victory for democracy in Latin America. <v Speaker>Later came the sad awakening.[Casuso] In September <v Speaker>of 1959 I came to New York <v Speaker>to represent Cuba as delegate to the United Nations, when <v Speaker>keeping my rank of ambassador.

<v Speaker>From time to time during uh the [car horns in background] year I <v Speaker>went several times to Cuba and I <v Speaker>saw how things were changing from <v Speaker>worse to worst. <v Speaker>[Canham] Dr. Teresa Casuso, a former Castro diplomat, one of about 100,000 <v Speaker>Cubans living in the United States in self-imposed exile. <v Speaker>[Casuso] There was no press freedom. The prisons was were filled with <v Speaker>prisoners. <v Speaker>Everything I have defended I had spoken <v Speaker>in universities in a trip I took all over South America. <v Speaker>Everything was torn to pieces and had become a monstrous, <v Speaker>monstrous lie. <v Speaker>[Canham] Shortly after the abortive invasion of Cuba by a small army of exiles equipped <v Speaker>and aided by the United States, Castro described his regime in Cuba

<v Speaker>as socialist in the Soviet sense of the word. <v Speaker>Almost immediately after Castro came to power, tough, zealous, well-paid Castro <v Speaker>agents began operations in almost all of Latin America. <v Speaker>Their aim by fomenting riots, labor disputes, spreading communist propaganda, <v Speaker>to soften up other countries for takeover by Castro type governments. <v Speaker>[Whitaker] I regard Fidelismo as more dangerous than communism <v Speaker>to the interests of the United States in Latin America. <v Speaker>For Fidelismo is the most clear cut expression we have had <v Speaker>of the rising tide of continental nationalism, <v Speaker>cum populism, a bland made all the more pleasing <v Speaker>to many Latin American palates by strong flavor <v Speaker>of anti-imperialism and Yankee phobia, <v Speaker>which have flourished again in those countries since the

<v Speaker>passing of Franklin Roosevelt and his good neighbor policy. <v Speaker>[Canham] One of the foremost historians of Latin America, University of Pennsylvania <v Speaker>Professor Arthur P. Whitaker. [Whitaker] Fidelismo <v Speaker> has already aroused a highly favorable response in many Latin American <v Speaker>countries, despite the handicap of its communist <v Speaker>ties. But I am convinced that the response would be even <v Speaker>more favorable if Fidelismo could divest itself of <v Speaker>this communist association, which offends the ingrained, <v Speaker>almost instinctive Continentalism, or Latin Americanism, <v Speaker>felt by most of the people of the countries to the south of us. <v Speaker>[Canham] Professor Whitaker sees the democratic system of the United States on trial in <v Speaker>Latin America, particularly in countries where we have poured in large amounts of money <v Speaker>to bail the government out of financial and political troubles.

<v Speaker>Bolivia is such a country. <v Speaker>[Whitaker] Despite a substantial and steady flow of aid from the United States, <v Speaker>Bolivia is nevertheless today on the verge of bankruptcy. <v Speaker>The ill success of our experiment in Bolivia <v Speaker>has fed skepticism in Latin America <v Speaker>about the viability there of the whole system, <v Speaker>both economic and political, represented by the United States. <v Speaker>This skepticism, in turn, has rendered Latin Americans more responsive <v Speaker>to one of the two main features of Fidel Castro's <v Speaker>type of nationalism, namely its exaltation <v Speaker>of the authoritarian nation state which sacrifices <v Speaker>freedom to force draft economic development <v Speaker>and social reform.

<v Speaker>[Canham] Castro, as well as the communists, consider members of the Democratic left as <v Speaker>bitter enemies. One has only to look at Venezuela to see a prime example. <v Speaker>There the extreme left has joined with the extreme right in an attempt to topple <v Speaker>the left of center government of President Romulo Betancourt. <v Speaker>A student of the Liberal Party movement in Latin America, <v Speaker>Dr. Harry Cantor, believes the popular Democratic parties are stealing <v Speaker>the communists thunder. <v Speaker>[Cantor] One thing about the communist movement is agreed to by everybody was <v Speaker>studied and that is that the communist movement has spent a tremendous <v Speaker>amount of money in Latin America. <v Speaker>For this, they have gotten very little results. <v Speaker>The reason that the Communist Party has not had too much success is because <v Speaker>in most of the countries of Latin America, indigenous reformist movements <v Speaker>have sprung up, which have managed to win the support of

<v Speaker>the majority of the population. <v Speaker>Now the Communist Party who whose slogan is that it has <v Speaker>a monopoly on reform, never admits that any other reformist <v Speaker>movement can be on the right track. <v Speaker>And therefore, in those countries where the strong reformist movements have sprung up, <v Speaker>the communists have allied themselves with the most conservative and <v Speaker>reactionary forces in society in an attempt to gain a foothold amongst <v Speaker>the masses. ?inaudible? democratic of Venezuela. <v Speaker>The National Liberation Party of Costa Rica. <v Speaker>The Priest Movement of Peru. <v Speaker>These groups have tried to combine <v Speaker>the ideas of European democratic socialism <v Speaker>with ideas about what America or <v Speaker>Latin America needs to create something new in political <v Speaker>ideology. And with the years they have seemed to grow stronger and

<v Speaker>stronger in all of Latin America. <v Speaker>[Canham] One of the bright spots in the struggle for democracy in Latin America is <v Speaker>located some 15 kilometers outside of San Jose, Costa Rica. <v Speaker>There in a building formerly occupied by a nightclub and restaurant is what has come <v Speaker>to be known as a school for democracy. <v Speaker>[Figueras] The liberal parties of Latin America, with some uh eh U.S. <v Speaker>friends, have founded in Costa Rica a school for training young <v Speaker>political leaders and young labor leaders on the Democratic uh camp. <v Speaker>It is a belated effort, but very much eh needed. <v Speaker>One of the school's founders, Jose Figueres.[Figueras] We <v Speaker>expect to have uh 3 groups of 50 boys from all countries uh living <v Speaker>together for 90 days on their intensive course, on democracy, on history, <v Speaker>on economics, on uh political organization and on the democratic uh <v Speaker>labor movement. We hope to enlarge as a school as

<v Speaker>uh we get more funds. We will enlarge the groups. <v Speaker>These boys from many countries will become an international fraternity of <v Speaker>uh democracy. The fact that they living together, working together during 90 <v Speaker>days on the good sound uh uh teachers uh seems to <v Speaker>start a very interesting and vigorous movement for the future. <v Speaker>I'm sorry we began so late, but at least we have already started. <v Speaker>The first cause is already working. <v Speaker>[Canham] The struggle for democracy in Latin America is not over. <v Speaker>Only a few dictatorships remain. <v Speaker>However, the picture has been complicated by the introduction of the cult of Fidel <v Speaker>Castro, Fidelismo, and by communist inroads. <v Speaker>The success of the struggle depends on whether this hemisphere can muster the courage, <v Speaker>the spunk, as well as the spiritual strength to meet the new challenge. <v Speaker>In any event, the United States must lead the way. <v Speaker>Former foreign minister of Costa Rica Gonzalo Facio sums up the role of the United

<v Speaker>States in the struggle for democracy in Latin America. <v Speaker>[Facio] The countries that believe in freedom expect the United <v Speaker>States to lead. <v Speaker>In the past, the United States didn't exercise at all that <v Speaker>leadership. That created a great disappointment. <v Speaker>I think that if the trend that has begin to <v Speaker>take a form during the last year <v Speaker>and that will be increased if eh President Kennedy <v Speaker>is going to live up to what he promised in the campaign, <v Speaker>we will have a real strong democratic leadership, and that <v Speaker>will be one of the best things to do to <v Speaker>improve United States Latin American relation. <v Speaker>[Canham] For the past half hour <v Speaker>we've been reporting on the struggle for democracy, a part of the Contemporary

<v Speaker>Revolution in Latin America.[Latin music plays] <v Speaker>[Outro announcer] The Struggle for Democracy is the third in a series of weekly <v Speaker>documentary reports on the Contemporary Revolution in Latin America. <v Speaker>The program is narrated by the distinguished American journalist and editor of the <v Speaker>Christian Science Monitor, Erwin D. <v Speaker>Canham. The series is produced in cooperation with the University of Florida <v Speaker>School of Inter-American Study. <v Speaker>[Latin music continues] <v Speaker>[Outro announcer] You may receive without charge the text of today's program by writing <v Speaker>this station. This program was prepared and recorded by Will Lewis

<v Speaker>for Radio Center School of Journalism and Communications, University <v Speaker>of Florida, Gainesville. <v Speaker>Under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center and is being <v Speaker>distributed by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. <v Speaker>This is the NAEB radio network.