Panel discusses years of socialism in Latin America

A mix of students, faculty members and locals filled the Glass Pavilion on Wednesday night for a panel discussion of the rise of socialism in Latin America.

In keeping with the Foreign Affairs Symposium's theme, "A Decade of Discussion," the panel examined trends in economic, social, and political development in Latin America over the past 10 years.

First to speak among the panelists was James M. Roberts, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation with 25 years of foreign service experience.

Roberts's opening statement drew chuckles from the crowd. "I feel like a parish priest serving communion in front of the pope," he said, referring to his fellow panelists Riorden Roett, director of Latin American Studies at SAIS, and Dan Restrepo, director of the Americas Project for the Center of American Progress.

Roberts's presentation consisted of a detailed PowerPoint of the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom, an annual study conducted by the Heritage Foundation used to measure the growth, decline and trends in economic openness of countries around the world. The greatest barriers that prevent Latin American countries from "catching up" economically, according to Roberts, are work rules that create jobs but keep prices high, zoning restrictions banning large-scale retailers from building factories and stores, government corruption and inefficiency and the absence of free trade.

"We take for granted that we have a system in place and have easy access to an advanced property rights system," Roberts said. "In Latin America the property rights system is woefully an impediment. Corruption overall is probably the biggest problem. People don't have faith in the government or the police. That is a major barrier to economic freedom."

The next panelist, Restrepo, warned against the tendency to overemphasize particular countries when evaluating Latin American politics.

"To understand Latin America through a prism that focuses on Hugo Chavez and socialism is not accurate," he said in his introduction. Restrepo cited several surveys conducted in Latin America that asked subjects to rate their ideology level from zero (extreme left) to 10 (extreme right). The study, Restrepo revealed, placed countries between 4.9 (Chile) and 5.8 (Colombia).

"This shows there's something more fundamental going on than just an ideological complication," Restrepo, a self-described "4.5," said. "People need to understand and internalize the real challenges in Latin America today: inequality, instability and lack of institutions."

Next, the panel turned to "Pope Benedict" himself, Roett, who echoed the other panelists' concerns over the economic inequality, then expanded the discussion to focus on the growth of populist movements among impoverished indigenous groups in Mexico and Venezuela.

"The organization of the marginalized," he said, has not been successful, though "it does prepare indigenous peoples to have a say in how the government works. Hugo Chavez doesn't seem to know that [poverty] exists. It's like asking President Bush if he knows that oil is up to almost $4 a gallon."

Roett's discussion, more than the other panelists', focused on the U.S. role in Latin American politics.

"My colleagues and I are very careful to blame the U.S. for everything that has gone wrong in Latin America," he joked, remarking that after World War II, the United States "chose the Marshall Plan for Europe, a geopolitical strategy for Asia and U.S. policy-makers said to Latin America, 'Look out for yourselves!'"

Roett's reference to the Marshall Plan, under which the States provided massive amounts of aid to Europe after World War II, clearly upset an unidentified dissenter in the crowd. Prompting nervous glances from FAS members seated across the aisle, the middle-aged man took two minutes out of the concluding question and answer session to state his personal views.

"Inevitably, someone always mentions the Marshall Plan," he said. "While they redeveloped Europe, they neglected Africa, and the same thing happened in South America ... Of course Latin America does not have an infrastructure, U.S. businesses controlled Latin America." After the panel members declined to respond to his statements, the man left.

"He had a different view than our panelists, but he never asked a question," sophomore FAS staff member Max Cohen explained after the discussion ended. "He stated his views, but he never gave the panelists a chance to respond or state their opinions."

"We let everyone come," cochair and junior Anne Smedinghoff agreed. "It's good to hear all sides. But his manner of presenting his side was not appropriate."