Eyeing the Pacific
Bono, Agostino
First, the issues. On inflation, the Democratic party should realize that the modified laissez-faire position that both parties have held for the past several decades has neither insured economic...
...The Brazilian military has been in power since 1964...
...Peru has refused to become a haven for Chileans forced to leave their country after last year's coup...
...The ideological menu of this network is a messianic defense of the capitalist system, heavily peppered with a staunch anti-Communism...
...The government should interfere more, not less, in the forces of the so-called free market...
...Brazil, next to the U.S...
...Although Brazil can only claim partial responsibility for the multinational, multifaceted Chilean coup, it has the main job of insuring that Chilean national life is restricted so that another Marxist president does not emerge...
...publications...
...Most of the four-nation satellite system has been forged since 1970, making Brazil the number-one continental powerhouse...
...The entire platter is served up as a devotion to Western Christianity...
...On inflation, the Democratic party should realize that the modified laissez-faire position that both parties have held for the past several decades has neither insured economic stability, nor provided for an equitable distribution of our wealth, nor gained a better standard of living for the growing number of unemployed...
...In the Brazilian lexicon this means police state repression with all the purges this implies...
...In adopting the sub-imperial role, Brazil is trying to replace the policeman image with one of the pater lamilias...
...economic and political influence...
...Peru is automatically drawn into the affair as it sided with Bolivia during the War of the Pacific and also lost territory to the victorious Chileans...
...With this in mind, the Democrats' next question should not be which bright and attractive governor or senator looks like a good Presidential candidate, but rather which would-be leaders have the character and imagination to respond to these ideals...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 BRAZILIAN IMPERIALISM EYEIN THE FHr162 After attending the Brazilian Presidential inauguration, Bolivia's Hugo Banzer flew to the seaside fun city of Rio de Janeiro to splash in the waves...
...This means de facto sitting down with the Brazilians...
...According to current geography, the best place for Chile to cede a corridor is along a narrow strip of desert just south of the Peruvian border on territory once belonging to Peru...
...Peru would have difficulties mounting an effective opposition without risking further isolation...
...With massive doses of U.S...
...To safeguard its interests, Peru may have to eventually join in the Chile-Bolivian talks...
...Brazil dominates the Atlantic coast as traditional rival Argentina is now surrounded by Brazilian client-states...
...Cordial relations between the two would strengthen the internal unity of the satellite system and give Brazil a firm foothold in the entire Andean region...
...Bolivia interprets this as regaining a corridor to the sea, and Chile has said nothing in contradiction...
...In reality this means that Brazil has been contracted by the U.S...
...Little by little, Brazil is becoming pater /amilias to half the hemisphere...
...All this is interpreted as part of a U.S.-Brazilian plan to rid Latin America of leftists...
...According to a 1929 treaty, Chile cannot give land to Bolivia without Peruvian approval...
...Brazil represents the interests of Chile in Bolivia and of Bolivia in Chile...
...Land-locked Bolivia lost its shoreline to Chile during the War of the Pacific (1879-83) and is now hoping to regain it through the efforts of Brazil...
...The pressure is already having an effect...
...The Andean country currently under the most pressure from Brazilian expansionism is Peru...
...Permission to stay is accompanied by a stern warning that Chileans remaining beyond the time limit will be thrown out...
...Yet George Wallace has achieved exaggerated party power because so many fellow Democrats appear all too ready to do business with him...
...Under Allende's government, Peru and Chile enjoyed extremely cordial relations as both shared an anti-imperialistic foreign policy...
...A Democratic party that would compromise the goals of equal opportunity, housing and education, for black and white alike---even when this involves restructuring zoning patterns and busing-- is not worthy of support...
...Commonwe~: 29...
...a full employment program that would supply two to four million jobs by enlisting the jobless in the national service-financed by cutting special-interest subsidies out of the budget and raising taxes...
...and international lending institutions, has become the largest creditor to Bolivia...
...Partly to develop this image, Brazil is mediating between Chile and Bolivia...
...Brazilian diplomats say the Andean nation's sma~ 4.5 million population holds little interest for Brazilian businessmen, but investments are being promoted as a bridge to the entire Andean market...
...Our foreign policy should change our image from that of an international bully to that of an international brothermbuilt on the true interdependence of nations...
...In Paraguay, military support was not needed as the rightwing dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, currently the longest-reigning in Latin America, has been in power since 1954...
...Both military Presidents needed the rest...
...Chile and Bolivia form part of a six-nation Andean common market which is in the early stages of economic integration...
...Any Chile-Bolivia agreement is bound to have Brazilian support...
...The final issue is racial justice...
...COMING: Daniel Berrigan writing on the implications of the Joseph O'Rourke case for the Iesuit Order and American Catholicism...
...Pragmatically, Brazil has designs on the potentially rich oil reserves sitting across the border in the Peruvian Amazon...
...help, it has brutally repressed I1 October 1974:28 domestic political opposition, allowing a greater concentration now on foreign policy...
...The Andean group's 60-million-plus population also provides a large market for Brazilian manufactured exports...
...Pinochet also attended the Brazilian inauguration and, like Banzer, decided to rest a day in Rio before returning to the domestic rigors of running a dictatorship...
...The first task should be the alleviation of world hunger, and Americans should be asked to sacrifice...
...International agencies working with these Chileans are getting little cooperation from the government...
...Peru has fallen into line with the rest of Latin America...
...a slashed defense budget...
...It would be tragic if our national leadership could readily send a generation of young men to die in an ignoble war but could not get us to cut the fertilizer supply on our golf courses or eat less steak to save countless Africans and Asians from starvation...
...The March 15 inauguration of Gen...
...Wallace should be told early: no deals...
...The Chilean military are proving to be good pupils...
...Except for some minor concessions to d6tente, the U.S...
...Although Peru is militarily controlled, its government is strongly reformist in intent, discussing ways of forming a non-capitalist, nationalistic socio-economic structure...
...Ideologically, the fact that it wishes to stray from capitalism makes Peru too leftist for Brazil...
...Peru wanted the regulation to prevent Chile from ceding land once belonging to Peru...
...Then the party should battle for long-held priorities that have yet to get a fair hearing or unified support: radical tax reform...
...Under this approach the maxim is: That nation which governs best is that in which the military governs most...
...Brazilian business and financial interests already are moving heavily into Bolivia...
...some form of guaranteed income...
...Except for Cuba, no country has accepted significant numbers of Chileans as residents...
...to keep South America safely within the sphere of U.S...
...In contrast, both are now engaged in saberrattling, recalling nineteenth century antagonisms...
...All four are oil-rich, and, except for Ecuador, all border Brazil, making them attractive for the satellite system...
...Brazilian dreams of extending influence to the Pacific are being realized through ties developed with post-AUende Chile...
...Although a territorial transfer is too complex a solution to be achieved in the near future, an expected prerequisite is the reestablishing of diplomatic relations...
...The chain also contains Paraguay and Uruguay...
...The friendly Chilean-Bolivian atmosphere thrusts home to Peru the shifted political alliances of the region...
...It has aided likeminded military men in Bolivia, Uruguay and Chile to assume power, following this up with economic and political offensives to draw them within its orbit...
...Under the watchful eye of pater Brazil, the two issued a communiqu6 pledging initiatives to solve common problems...
...federal control of energy development, and a toughening, not a slackening, of our environmental controls...
...Through Chilean machismo, Brazil is telling Peru to reorient its policies and look more favorably toward Brazilian overtures to work out comprehensive oil deals...
...While Banzer was enjoying the surf, his Chilean counterpart, Augusto Pinochet, was being photographed devoutly receiving Communion in a Catholic church just a short distance away...
...Image-building, however, is not the only Brazilian interest in the Chile-Bolivia affair...
...The Democrats might well consider a program like the one outlined by economist Melville J. Ulmer in the October Atlantic: a permanent government authority to exercise selective price and wage controlsmparticularly over monopolies and the health care industry...
...If Chile returned Bolivia's original corridor, this would divide current-day Chile into two geographically seperate parts...
...stir conducts its Latin-American foreign policy on a cold-war basis...
...Pressure is being exerted through the Chile-Bolivia situation...
...Peru staunchly affirms that its goals are non-Communistic...
...Both countries broke diplomatic relations in 1962 over disputes related to the territorial changes caused by the War of the Pacific...
...Ernesto Geisel as the new military-appointed president of Brazil provided the excuse for a Banzer-Pinochet summit...
...Although swimming in the Atlantic, his thoughts were of the Pacific...
...They were part of intense diplomatic sessions orchestrated by Brazil to solidify the growing chain of nations being strung together by the "green giant" of South America...
...national health insurance...
...Even within the Andean group, Peru's attempts at domestic reform are regarded as too experimental, making it odd man out if the group had to choose between it and Chile and Bolivia...
...Brazil is heavily dependent on oil imports, having to buy from abroad about 75 percent of its growing domestic needs...
...At best it is offering a transit stop but doing little to help Chileans find a permanent country of residence...
...The other members are Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela...
...America is gradually drifting into its own version of apartheid...
...AGOSTINO BONO (Agostino Bono writes frequently on Latin American affairs for U.S...
Vol. 101 • October 1974 • No. 2
