BETWEEN TWO WORLDS Spain's Latin America Policy
Aguirre, Mariano
MADRID-In the fall of 1983, Spain's social democratic government refused to co-sponsor a demonstration in support of the Sandinistas. The government charged that the event was less...
...Spain's entry into NATO has brought a jump in military expenditures and investments in military industries, along with greater dependence on war materiel from the United States...
...Precautionary measures must consider "the political context," Spain told its neighbors, encouraging them to "take advantage of EEC enlargement to strengthen relations with Latin America...
...Spain's Policy continued from page 15 hurt their chances...
...All of these conditions are officially government policy...
...In the last few years the United States has been pressuring European allies to expand NATO's area of operations...
...troops on Spanish soil...
...Official statements indicate that by 1990, the government intends to raise this to 90...
...Department of Defense said the bases could serve as key transfer points for U.S...
...by endorsing it, the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) would appear to be criticizing an important ally...
...Currently it buys more Spanish products than any other Latin American nation, and ranks third among Spain's noncapitalist trading partners, behind the USSR and China...
...In a study entitled Spain in the Nuclear Arms Race, William M. Arkin and Richard W. Fieldhouse of the Institute for Policy Studies point out that "because Spain provides the largest U.S...
...Sinchez Pdrez says he "wants to start a new life" in Spain because of "disagreements with the Cuban political system...
...Spain has countered by calling the Cuban statements "intolerable...
...It was during these years that Spain joined the IMF and the World Bank...
...The most recent Foreign Aid Bill, approved by the U.S...
...This may reflect U.S...
...Rather, sales of small weaponry to the Third World are its bread and butter...
...But judging from the initial reaction...
...Several studies have indicated that Spain's historic ties with Latin America may be jeopardized by EEC membership...
...A pullout from NATO would certainly APRIL/MAY 1986 Dissident or Vulgar Delinquent...
...One, published by Hamburg's Institute for Ibero-American Studies, offered a lengthy list of products and countries that will be affected by Spain's new, EEC-mandated protective tariffs...
...Spaniards are particularly sensitive to the five bases and numerous other military installations that the United States has had in Spain since 1953...
...The seeming contradiction demands political dexterity...
...On January 1, Spain and Portugal formalized their alignment with Western Europe by entering the European Economic Community (EEC...
...Foreign Troops, Spanish Weapons In the last few months, public debate about the U.S...
...Hispanidad is a concept frequently invoked by the right wing, which promotes conservative, Catholic values considered inherently Spanish...
...During the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975), Spanish Latin America policy was informed by the tradition of Hispanidad: Spain was the "mother country" which-at least on a rhetorical level-maintained good relations with all its nation-children, good or bad...
...Thus, the Franco regime could give asylum to dictators such as Argentina's Juan Per6n, while maintaining diplomatic and commercial relations with revolutionary Cuba...
...Acquisitions, which have become increasingly sophisticated and technologically advanced, include the McDonnell Douglas F-18A combat aircraft...
...Purchases of U.S...
...They include fish and shellfish (Peru, Panama, Cuba and Argentina...
...Customers include Argentina, Colombia, Honduras (which has acquired the C-101 Aviojet trainer/strike aircraft), Mexico, Paraguay, Chile, Jordan and Iraq...
...weapons account for $400 million of this sum...
...peace researcher at Barcelona's Information and Documentation Center, says that according to the 1986 budget, 65%, of Spain's weapons needs will be met domestically...
...The Spanish Communists and the PSOE were the only parties to survive the Franco dictatorship intact...
...a 41-year-old Cuban economist, had recently sought political asylum in Spain...
...As Spanish foreign minister, Fernando Moran was consistently critical of U.S...
...That leaves the developing world--even Latin America-the dual role of investment field and battlefield...
...Spain should avoid the risk of mediating in Central America," Ambassador Thomas Enders told the Spanish press...
...The centrist governments which succeeded Franco from 1975 to 1982 Gonzdlez meets Reagan: The pull of the West steered an ambiguous course...
...But Mordn was replaced in July 1985 by Francisco Femrnndez Ord6fiez, a lawyer who filled various government posts during the Franco years and held the justice and finance portfolios after Franco's death...
...The official Cuban version is that SAnchez Perez is a vulgarr delinquent" who tried to embezzle $499,000...
...But the GonzAlez government has now reversed itself on NATO, and has only reluctantly scheduled polling for March 12 after repeated delay...
...lating to Latin America...
...In the first half of 1985, exports to Cuba rose 80% over the same period in 1984...
...At the same time, the Spanish are acquiring arms from other European countries and signing joint manufacturing agreements...
...This episode illustrates what critics see as a trend in the foreign policy of the PSOE since it took office in October 1982...
...During President Reagan's visit last May, the government asked for a reduction in the number of U.S...
...Like other countries, Spain has launched an aggressive campaign to sell arms on the international market in order to make its own weapons production, which is 90% state-controlled, more profitable...
...The Spanish government has denied that the Rapid Deployment Force would be allowed to pass through Spain...
...The Cuban Vice Consul and his three companions in the assault were detained and eventually deported...
...In moving ever closer to its ally and NATO partner, the United States, the PSOE has reversed not only self-professed beliefs but also longstanding Spanish traditions in reMariano Aguirre, coordinator of the Centro de Investigaci6n para la Paz in Madrid, is a specialist in defense issues...
...Cuba has been actively building its tourist industry, and Spaniards appear to have yielded to the lure of Cuban beaches...
...Hoping to improve its balance of payments deficit, Spain is also interested in selling weapons to the United States...
...Though the Gonzalez Administration may be aware of the ramifications of following a different path, it only hints at what its opponents on the Left and in the peace movement say openly: the decision to leave NATO, or a Spanish attempt to steer an independent course on a sensitive issue such as Nicaragua, could trigger destabilizing economic and political repercussions...
...This model implies two fundamental conditions: limiting access to power by communists...
...Uncomfortable Campaign Promises The PSOE campaigned on an antiNATO platform and promised to call a referendum on Spanish membership...
...policy in Central America, and warned that an invasion of Nicaragua would threaten Spain's membership in NATO...
...A study conducted by Georgetown University for the U.S...
...Senate on June 12, 1985, granted the Gonzilez government $415 million in military aid, placing Spain fifth among recipients of U.S...
...Between 1980 and 1985, Spain granted the Nicaraguans $33.6 million in trade credits, and received $20.4 million in payments...
...Spanish policy has become increasingly characterized by economic pragmatism and a "Eurocentrism" firmly grounded in the Atlantic alliance...
...South Africa has bought handguns from Spain...
...troops en route to the Persian Gulf, or being redeployed to Central America...
...After four years of PSOE rule, it is clear that the government's main priority is consolidating a developed economy strongly dependent on the United States...
...presence, on the other hand, is an insult to Spanish sovereignty...
...But this plea fell on deaf ears...
...In foreign policy, this means a close alliance with Washington...
...pressure...
...and, in a symbolic act, to transfer the body of Robert Stethem, the American killed in Beirut last June by the hijackers of TWA Flight 847...
...After all, they say, dependency theorists who blamed Third World poverty on domination by the North have been proved wrong...
...Sinchez Prez...
...bases in Spain were used during the Six Day War in the Middle East...
...fresh and preserved fruit (Brazil, Argentina, Jamaica and Trinidad...
...Cuban exiles in Madrid say that Sinchez PCrez was Chief of the Directorate of World Planning of Cuba's State Planning Commission, and that he had information on Cuban arms sales and involvement in Angola...
...Given that he occupied a position of considerable responsibility, speculation is also rife that his flight is connected to the recent high-level shakeup in the Cuban government...
...If adequate steps are not taken, the team told market officials, "Spain's adoption of EEC regulations is likely to produce undesirable effects in its relations with the countries of Latin America in the short term . . . which could damage these countries as well as Spain and the EEC...
...market...
...iron and steel (Peru, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile...
...The Socialist government has pursued similar policies...
...both as a staging base and as the main force available to the obscure NATO Iberian Atlantic Area (IBERLANT) Commander...
...Predictions like this prompted the country's EEC negotiating team to ask that special provisions be written into the terms of Spanish membership...
...So far this has not been forthcoming, but a sign that the door may still be open for improved relations came in January 1986, when Spain announced a new grant to Nicaragua for forestry, fishing and cultural projects...
...The government charged that the event was less pro-Nicaraguan than antiAmerican...
...Both Secretary of State George Shultz and 1 Ambassador Thomas Enders have expressed their unwillingness to re-open the troop question...
...But a few precedents-perhaps insignificant in their own right-are enough to spread disquiet...
...Vinceng Fisas Armengol...
...The approved troop level is 12,000, though the number actually stationed in the country may be fewer...
...During a January swing through Central America, he offered support to the efforts of the Spanish ambassador to Managua to pull together a dialogue between the contras and the Sandinistas...
...The coolness toward Nicaragua is especially striking because Felipe Gonzalez is nominally the president of the Socialist International's (SI) Committee in Solidarity with Nicaragua...
...Party head Felipe Gonzilez, now prime minister, could easily be found at a Polisario Front congress in some clandestine Sahara desert location, or in Latin America, vehemently criticizing dictatorship, repression and U.S...
...and transportation equipment (Mexico and Panama...
...More Spaniards will find themselves out of work in the medium term, especially in the agricultural and fishing sectors, and many small- and medium-sized enterprises are expected to buckle under stiff foreign competition...
...Last November, the Managua government sent Alejandro Martinez Cuenca, minister of foreign trade, to negotiate a $35 million line of credit...
...On the other hand, Spain acted as bridge and facilitator for multinational corporations wishing to do business in the Arab world and Latin America...
...military aid, behind Israel, Egypt, Turkey and Greece...
...The GonzAlez government has consistently supported the Contadora peace effort in Central America, but without going to the heart of the question-Washington's systematic boycott, Gonzilez had little to say in the autumn of 1983, when an invasion of Nicaragua seemed imminent, or in 1984, when the CIA mined Nicaraguan harbors...
...During its long years in opposition, the PSOE developed an active Third World policy...
...bases has reignited with new intensity...
...Trade relations with Nicaragua have already suffered...
...The Central American reality is too complex and Europeans are not sufficiently informed to be able to play a protagonist's role, either directly or indirectly...
...The Spanish weapons industry has concentrated on light arms and hardware of the sort in demand among Third World countries engaged in local wars and domestic repression: rifles, munitions, pistols, mortars, transport vehicles, medium-sized boats (such as corvettes and patrol boats), armored cars and aircraft...
...in 1985, 22,278 holidaymakers visited their country's former colony...
...The committee's activities have been very limited...
...Opposition to the alliance among Spaniards is widespread and vehement...
...troops in Spain...
...According to several observers, it has been hamstrung by disagreements between SI leaders who support the Sandinistas-such as Willy Brandt and the late Olof Palme-and those, like Portugal's new president Mario Soares, who firmly oppose the revolution...
...posture is also bound to create some dislocation in trading patterns over the long haul...
...He has written several books on Latin America and the arms race, most recently De Hiroshima a los Euromisiles (1984...
...military support base in the western Mediterranean, it can Last December 13, four employees of the Cuban Embassy in Spain tried to kidnap Manuel Antonio Sinchez Pdrez in front of the Bank of Madrid...
...During the decades of dictatorship the countries of the Iberian peninsula were held at arm's length by their democratic neighbors...
...meddling...
...In March 1985, the government yielded to right-wing pressure by cutting off Nicaragua's lines of credit...
...The Franco era's rhetoric of Hispanidad has given way to a technocratic discourse that seeks its points of reference in New York, Bonn and Tokyo...
...and a gradual reduction in the number of U.S...
...Politicians and the press never tire of emphasizing that Spain is no longer a "Third Worldist" country and has entered "modern times...
...naturally be involved in military operations in the Middle East and Africa...
...Only a few individuals in the left wing of the PSOE have taken part in public demonstrations of solidarity with Nicaragua...
...But if Spain accepts its role as a secondary link in the world system, this carries ideological consequences of its own...
...Gone also is PSOE criticism of bloc politics and the arms race...
...The request for a troop reduction is particularly striking because of the government's all-out push to sell The incident produced a minor storm in the generally tranquil relations between Havana and Madrid, The Cuban government has asked for extradition, and said that by giving Sinchez Phrez protection, the Spanish government is "associating" with an immoral thief...
...Yet the Gonzilez government has refused to sell arms to Nicaragua because "the country is at war...
...and excluding the armed forces from the process...
...Felipe Gonzrilez cannot expect any sympathy for his domestic political constraints from Washington...
...in the summer of 1984 as a refuelling station for planes going to deactivate mines in the Red Sea...
...Some high officials of the current Socialist Administration, moreover, regularly invoke their years in Allende's Chile when trying to prove their left-wing credentials in order...
...Spain was a latecomer to NATO, joining in 1982...
...nonelectrical machinery (Brazil and Argentina...
...According to Madrid sources at press time, extradition appears unlikely...
...Yet at least in the case of Spain's military role in NATO, their meaning is somewhat blurred...
...Cuba may well be a casualty...
...Opinion polls show that the government would lose a simple YesNo formulation of the question by as REPORT ON THE AMERICAS -14much as two to one...
...On the one hand they attempted to carry on traditional relationships, serving as parental figure, advocate and representative for Latin America in its dealings with Europe and the United States...
...NATO...
...A large U.S...
...Though the remaining $13.2 million debt had not yet reached maturity, the Spaniards blamed the cutoff on Nicaragua's failure to make payments...
...Its leading weapons producers have hired the firm of Robert Basil International to represent them and push their products on the U.S...
...Threat to Trading Partners The Spanish government has recently come under attack for allowing its commercial relations with Latin America to be governed exclusively by cost-benefit criteria, and its increasingly pro-U.S...
...He is also a regular contributor to the Madrid daily El Pafs...
...Ord6fiez is an avid proponent of Spanish membership in NATO and as justice minister has pushed Spain's integration into Europe...
...During the Franco years, Spain developed an incipient arms industry, which by the early 1970s began to claim an important portion of the government market and benefited from state promotion internationally...
...While Spain's military-industrial complex has grown spectacularly in the 1980s, its weapons industry is still not at the "Star Wars" stage...
...Some PSOE theoreticians have even argued that the European Left should abandon its "guilt complex" toward the Third World...
...In an effort to avoid defeat, it will preface the question by setting three conditions to membership: no nuclear arms on Spanish soil...
...M.A...
...An Uneven Record In power, the PSOE has supported the democratization processes in the Southern Cone, Brazil and Peru, offering Spain's own "transition withAPRIL/MAY 1986 13out rupture" from the Franco era to democracy as a model...
...no participation in NATO's military structure...
...Gone are the effusive demonstrations of solidarity with national liberation and democratic opposition movements of the Third World...
...But free access to neighboring markets has its price...
...Critics of the Gonzalez government view the request for Washington to negotiate as a maneuver to appease the PSOE's leftist electorate...
...In From the Cold Integration into Europe has become the prevailing theme in Spanish politics...
...Unlike France-which has the same status within the alliance-Spain is represented on several military bodies, and its participation has actually increased in the last three years...
...In 1980, 5,896 Spaniards vacationed in Cuba...
...His cries for help frustrated their attempt to force him-at gunpoint-to accompany them to their Embassy...
...NATO membership means integration into Europe, says the PSOE...
Vol. 20 • April 1986 • No. 2
