The New South America: Life on the Edge

It sounds like the perfect set-up for a big budget Hollywood film script: The chief intelligence officer, who is also a longtime ally of the President of an emerging South American democracy, flees his home and government with important classified documents, at least USD17m of funds withdrawn without consent from Swiss bank accounts, and other items of vital national interest. Soon thereafter the President, whose election to a quasi-unconstitutional third term is questioned by international observers, demands the resignation of his vice-president. The President is himself forced to resign within days. The new President, who takes office while the former President seeks refuge and asylum in Japan, is the former Speaker of the National Assembly.

But this is not the stuff of Hollywood scripts. This is the stuff of contemporary Peruvian politics, and it isn't the only tantalizing batch of recent scandals from the region. Consider this situation in Venezuela. Wanna-be script writers, prepare yourselves for this future feature flick:

Someone whose identity remains unknown is plotting a potential coup against the leftist government in Venezuela. This is no quiet palace coup. The plotters have adopted a rather curious strategy to test the machismo of the military generals they hope will "save the country". Their tactic? Several high ranking army generals have been receiving mail packages containing women's underwear and threatening notes that offer the message: "If you do not aid your country now, you will wear these (underwear) in a manner befitting the cowards you are". The reason? New laws are proposed that would limit the role of the military in politics. The generals exposed the panty raid to the national press in a move that was intended to forestall future actions by the plotters but which ultimately had the effect of making the generals look rather absurd that they would respond to such methods.

A Complicated Legacy

Add to these circumstances the anti-corruption campaigns in Brazil, the IMF bail out in Argentina, the recourse to the US dollar as legal tender in Ecuador, the continuing instability in Guatemala, the on-again-off-again trial of Augusto Penochet in Chile, the quasi-rule by drug lords in Colombia, and the chaos after the earthquake in San Salvador, and the conclusion is obvious: South America has a long way to go before it can be regarded as the flourishing region many pundits would rush to label it now.

The weather analogy is perhaps the most appropriate for the region. As soon as recovery from one natural disaster is satisfactorily in process, another natural disaster strikes. Villages that were ravaged by Hurricane Mitch two and a half years ago were rocked early this week by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake. And so it is with politics. When Peru seemed as if it stood at the brink of turning the corner to being a stable democracy, Mr. Fujimori suspended the Parliament and declared he could seek election to a third term. Soon after economists began to praise Argentina, its entire economy crashed. Soon after many Venezuelans became accustomed to the idea of free elections and stable transfers of power, this latest round of coup rumors began to circulate. Progress begets crisis, and crisis begets progress.

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