Changing the Hemispheric Conversation

The death of Panama’s Guillermo Endara on September 28 closes a chapter in Latin American history. It was Endara, of course, who was elected President of Panama in May 1989 in an election that dictator Manuel Noriega refused to recognize. The resulting wave of repression and erratic behavior by the Noriega regime climaxed in December with a declaration of war against the United States, and the subsequent invasion of Panama on December 20, 1989 by the U.S. military. Early on in the invasion, dubbed Operation Just Cause by military planners, Endara was sworn in as president in a short ceremony conducted at one of the U.S. military bases then existing. He went on to serve a symbolically important but nonetheless unremarkable term in office, running once more for president in the elections this year but being soundly defeated by a Panamanian population that has completely moved on. His death of an apparent heart attack at age 73 merited barely a mention on the obituary page of The Washington Post. It will also go unnoticed across most of Latin America as the region continues to see the U.S. invasion, almost 20 years later, as a stain on inter-American relations rather than what it was: the take-down of dictator-for-life Manuel Noriega and his thuggish, narcotics-trafficking government in order to build a new democracy that thrives today.

Other than the fact that Endara has now passed away, and that the upcoming 20th anniversary of the invasion is upon us, why dredge all this up now? Because when it comes to a view of U.S. relations in the hemisphere, the fact is that many in Latin America and the Caribbean, enabled by apologists in the think tank community in Washington and elsewhere, continue to hold the same worldview of the region as in 1989. That is to say, a U.S. role in the hemisphere that is not essentially altruistic and humanitarian is seen as meddling, inappropriate, and even offensive. The promotion of strategic U.S. interests is seen as illegitimate, U.S. military assistance in whatever form—including counter-narcotics—is rejected, and nations that get too close to the United States, such as Colombia, Mexico, or Peru, put themselves at risk of becoming targets of human rights activists and others distrustful of U.S. intentions.

Understanding this basic phenomenon is key to understanding recent hemispheric events. How else to explain the explosion of condemnation by the hemisphere and the hysteria of the Washington policy community regarding the so-called U.S.-Colombia base agreement announced this summer? How did the regional conversation change from growing concern over Venezuela’s pass-through of advanced Swedish weapons to the FARC, increased arms purchases from Russia, and deepening relations with Iran, to manufactured outrage over a bilateral agreement between friends that provides periodic access—without basing rights—to a limited number of Colombian bases for cooperative actions on counter-narcotics? Why does the hemisphere demand that presidents Obama and Uribe travel to Argentina to explain their efforts to UNASUR but similar actions are not demanded of the Venezuelan leader?

This was more than a failure to communicate, despite the protestations of the commentariat. It was, fundamentally, an ideology-driven rejection of a U.S. role in South America that defines the main regional threat as the United States, despite real-time evidence to the contrary. With the United States departing Manta, observers apparently assumed that would be the end of it, that the pursuit of essential U.S. interests would end once President Bush was out of office. Once it became clear the United States was interested in maintaining a presence, the reaction was swift, unrelenting, and out of all proportion to circumstance. To quote Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, “The horror, the horror!”

The hemispheric response to the crisis of democracy in Honduras was also entirely predictable. The United States, trying desperately to avoid being drawn into a crisis so as not to be branded interventionist, struck a measured course, facilitating the negotiation process led by Óscar Arias while putting pressure on both sides to settle. This left the door open for other countries to promote their own agendas—notably Venezuela, which seeks to keep things stirred up in Honduras and throughout the region, and also Brazil, which has long-sought a more robust role in hemispheric affairs that it views to be a zero sum game vis-à-vis the United States. Yet the country that continues to receive opprobrium in the crisis is the United States, ironically because it’s now, according to the same observers, not doing enough.

President Obama went to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago earlier this year and proclaimed a new dawn of hemispheric relations. Henceforth, the United States would talk to anyone, align our interests with others and not merely promote our own, and work cooperatively with the nations of the hemisphere.

But here’s the thing: as Chris Sabatini wrote recently in The Miami Herald, partnership requires partners. The United States has the right to expect others to hold up their end of the bargain, and not just to complain about U.S. actions or expect that partnership means the United States will give up on its own interests or grant veto power to others. Partnership requires that hemispheric relations are no longer viewed as zero-sum. Twenty years after operation Just Cause, we’re trying to change the way we do business these days in Washington. It’s time for others to do so, too.