LATIN AMERICA: FORGING ECONOMIC UNITY

...It provides technical assistance and advisory research to existing organizations and new projects trying to get off the ground...

...Academia should logically serve as a counterforce, an alternative and unbiased source of the knowledge that is power...

...The Catholics were able to use it at 8:00 A.M., before the regular, not so well-attended service of the Lutheran parish...

...agencies are providing technical and financial assistance to Latin integration projects...

...But few of us would wish to share the dilemma they face, when, for instance, the question of lugendweihe comes up for a member of the family...

...The general complaint is the same as before: most of the wealth generated by the region's natural resources ends up abroad...

...Our universities, however, are so far behind the current realities in our kaleidoscopically changing world as to provide little useful output...

...He must improve the government input of knowledge enormously, for example, by tapping nongovernment specialists to write unclassified reports and to work for short spells in the State Department...

...The general public is abysmally ignorant, thanks to the near-total dependence of the media on information provided by the public relations experts of the global corporations...

...We are called responsible for our failures because of this lack of ability to concretize in programs and projects the aspirations we proclaim," said Perez...

...It is widely held to be distinctly disadvantageous for one's prospects in work or training not to have undergone this dedication...

...Allende died during the military coup of September, 1973...

...The pragmatic policy consisted Of arm-twisting against countries developing positions unfavorable to U.S...

...The U.S...

...publications...

...The consistency with which the church resists this sort of demoralizing threat is perhaps greater than one would have expected, given the fact that Catholics have always been thinly spread over the present territory of the (East) German Democratic Republic...

...The most dramatic example was CIA efforts to help overthrow Salvator Allende, Chile's elected marxist President...

...Cuba was one of the original signers, an indication of rising Latin political independence from the U.S., which still does not have normal diplomatic and commercial ties with Fidel Castro's island country...

...The U.S., directly or indirectly, is the main source of Latin American private and public borrowing...

...Latins have been used to reacting to an overall U.S...

...Latins prefer to call these companies transnationals, saying they are above the laws of any country including the United States...

...pressures aided the introspection as a form of self-defense...

...Failure to reach common agreement caused the lack of a unified policy for three years, stifling foreign investment plans in all six countries...

...He and Mexico's ex-President Luis Echeverria (1970-76) were the key promoters of SELA...

...when it can get it from Argentina," said Miss Elena Martinez, United Nations Development Program official in Lima, Peru...

...This ceremony is a sort of Communist-atheist confirmation, by which the young citizen is expected to dedicate oneself to Marxist ideals expressed in terms unPAUL MISNER, a theologian living in the Boston area, i$ the author o] Papacy and Development: Newman and the Primacy of the Pope...

...In October, 1976, Chile formally withdrew from the Andean Common Market because it favored more liberal regulations for foreign investors...

...Greater integration could mean a Latin America practically self-sufficient in natural resources...

...When Latins talk of pressures from industrialized nations, they specifically mean the U.S...

...Latin America has one of the world's largest untapped forestry reserves...

...Individual countries lack the quantity 30 September 1977:618 and types of ships to service their intra-regional and extra-regional needs...

...Many nations need loans regularly to meet their ever-mounting foreign debt obligations...

...17, 1975 by 25 Latin American and Caribbean countries to foster economic integration...

...And that's where most of our academics are at, except for a few young Turks whose audience and impact are woefully limited...

...It means negating the existence of internal factors in each Latin American society which finally explain why dependence exists," said Francisco Javier Alejo and Hector Hurtado...

...trade with the rest of the world has been in the red...

...Business, and only business, knows what it wants...

...acceptable to Christian believers...

...The integration of Latin America will be done by ourselves for ourselves or it will be done by transnationals for industrialized countries which give them their strength and political support," said Perez...

...Estimated 1976 trade among the six countries is $900 million compared with $295 million in 1973...

...They last longer...

...For many the sound housing and basic services that all enjoy compensate for the drabhess of their cities and the dearth of stocked shelves in the shops...

...Alejo, a Mexican, and Hurtado, a Venezuelan, helped form SELA...

...and .the church we had just come out of was not built in the eighteenth century to accommc:late the whole village, but was a small medieval church which had been Protestant since the sixteenth century...

...Carter shows few signs of a determination to seize and wear that historic mantle...

...For them the purchase is a life-time investment," she said...

...foreign policy, especially regarding Latin America's growing nationalism...

...The stagnation of other Latin integration organizations is often attributed to the cumbersome, timeconsuming process by which all members must pass on policy decisions before an individual member can take action...

...Latin integrationists cite this as an example that something concrete is happening and economic integration is beginning to operate on its own stimulus, despite setbacks...

...AGOSTINO BONO, a /requeril contributor to these pages, writes on Latin American affairs /or several U...

...Other Latin countries are formulating plans to organize regional multinationals to develop locally produced nutritional supplements for the region's high percentage of starving children...

...Carter is consequently impotent until he develops advisers from areas other than business--labor leaders, scholars, cultural and humanitarian groups...

...The Pattern Latin America is a major producer of agricultural products and minerals which it exports to industrialized countries and then reimports in the form of much higherpriced packaged foods and finished products...

...They were deeply involved in the Catholic side of the youth movement (Neudeutschland and Guardini's Quickborn were two of the leading groups) and belonged to the activist, relatively progressive wing of German Catholicism in the early twentieth century called the "Cologne direction" (or "tendency:" die Kiffner Richtung ) . A real wave of Catholics broke over,,the land after 1945, as the Russians expelled the German Silesians and sent them West...

...It is often said that we Latin Americans talk much and do little...

...If Peru wants to build blenders for the domestic market, why does it have to buy technology from the U.S...

...and it will be a college textbook for a decade or more...

...Latin multinationals would be different, they say, because the companies would be subject to the laws of the countries in which their capital originates and would be part of larger national and regional development programs formulated by states...

...The unity is being forged around economic matters as Latin nations are turning inward to see how they can complement each other rather than constantly seek aid from abroad...

...LATIN AMERICA FORGING ECONOMIC UNITY AGOSTINO BONO Now that Jimmy Carter is settling down in the Oval Ot~ce to conduct practical dealings with Latin America, he will find a region much more united than in the past...

...The introspection is based on the growing current belief that Latin nations cannot individually stand up to pressures applied by foreign-based companies and industrialized nations...

...Whenever two or more member countries agree on a project they can immediately get SELA assistance without seeking the approval of the other SELA members...

...policies that have been the dominant factor in producing the present order without justice in Latin America, policies thatBif continued--promise to engulf all of us in chaos by the year 2000...

...I had to admire the spirit of those Christians of either tradition who pay their "church tax" and otherwise engage in more or less conspicuous activity on behalf of Christianity...

...The result has been a desire for practical formulas encouraging economic independence...

...The five percent or so who did live there fifty years ago were largely dependent upon the home mission fervor of the churches of Breslau to the East and Cologne and Munich to the West and South...

...One of the main internal factors preventing integration has been the Latin penchant for attempting to solve problems by organizing bureaucracies and passing regulations which often are too cumbersome in practice for successful execution...

...SELA hopes to overcome these criticisms by being ""flexible" and "pragmatic," according to Perez...

...policy such as FDR's "Good Neighbor" and JFK's "Alliance for Progress" rather than developing their own coordinated effort...

...Today's world, with the strength of the transnationals and the vigor of industrialized countries, will not allow authentic independence and authentic development to any of our countries," he added...

...Venezuelan petrodollars are helping finance regional integration projects...

...The idea is to pool resources, capital and technology making it easier to compete with foreign-based firms currently dominating the re, gional markets...

...is the region's major trading partner and continually manages to keep its Latin books in the black even when U.S...

...But Argentine appliances are cheaper and more durable...

...THEOLOGY BEHIND THE WALL PAUL MISNER The isolation of Christians in East Germany To see the parishioners out in front of church after Mass, talking animatedly with one another and with the priest, took me back to a village in staunchly Catholic Westphalia, one of the few areas in West Germany where church attendance is still strong...

...It is not as new nor are the appliances as stylish as General Eleetric's...

...The newness of the current approach is Latin efforts to develop their own programs and to solve internal problems rather than throw all the blame on foreign exploitation...

...Still, the Andean countries are integrating...

...But I was visiting East Germany this hot summer Sunday...

...The practical results of this" introspection include plans for Latin American multinational companies, greater trade movement within the region, greater sharing and development of indigenous technology and formation of producer associations similar to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries...

...Argentine technology is better for the needs of the Peruvians...

...Mineral riches inelude oil (Venezuela), copper (Chile and Peru), iron (Brazil and Mexico), tin (Bolivia) and uranium (Argentina and Brazil...

...It was a 1975 translation of a 1968 meeting in Lima of the Inter-American Planning Society...

...policy-makers, viewpoints the more acceptable because the recipients have come from business and plan to return to it...

...officials and officials of other countries...

...Business is thus the only interest that consistently presents its viewpoints on Latin American affairs to U.S...

...Agricultural products include grain and beef (Argentina), coffee (Brazil and Colombia), sugar cane (Cuba and Brazil), soybeans (Brazil), bananas (Ecuador, Colombia and Central America...

...Peruvian consumers can't afford to buy a blender every few years...

...it wasn't a village but an industrial city...

...The integration of our economies is the only way to escape our dependence," said Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, one of the prime movers of Latin economic unity...

...The companies can be formed by private and/or state capital from two or more countries...

...SELA is not a substitute for existing integration Commonweal: 619 efforts...

...They complain about the extra shifts and the scarcity of consumer goods, but sometimes they cheerfully maintain that their less prosperous lifestyle has its good sides...

...They document the charge by citing the post-Watergate scandals involving bribery and illegal payments made to U.S...

...He must build a new and radically different team if he is to reverse the U.S...

...Much of these efforts comes under the newlyformed Latin American Economic System (SELA, after its Spanish initials...

...Already, over 10 Central American and Caribbean countries have pooled their shipping fleets to form a multinational transport company capable of serving Caribbean needs...

...economic and political interests...

...To explain all regional problems as a consequence of external dependence is an unconscious form of fomenting its perpetuation...

...With the greater mobility of the working force, accelerated by the war, priests followed in increasing numbers from these established Catholic areas...

...SELA, headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela, stems from an agreement signed Oct...

...The basic movement of technology is from the more developed nations, such as Argentina and Mexico, already possessing well-developed industries, to the lesser developed countries...

...Current Latin introspection was fostered partly by the Nixon-Kissinger years of neglect when there was no coordinated U.S...

...In this period the number of Catholics in East Germany doubled to over ten percent of the population...

...The absence of a regional Kissinger policy coupled with the continued existence of U.S...

...The creation of Latin multinationals is considered the pillar of economic integration...

...Latin integrationists say the development of regional multinationals is the only way their companies can compete with foreign-based enterprises having access to international financing and government officials of industrialized countries...

...Many did not stay long, however, and since the stabilization of the East German population brought about by sealing the borders (Berlin 30 September 1977:620...

...Such multinational plans imply sharing and developing of regional technology...

...The late bishop of Meissen, for instance, Otto Spiilbeck, came out of the Catholic Rhineland and was a member of the Oratory in Leipzig, which was founded by a band of young Rhenish priests in the 1920s...

...A learned journal last year sent me for review Latin America in the Year 2000...

...The other five members opposed Chile's proposals...