O Washington

...When the U.S...

...Those reactions, reduced to paper for a quickie radio talk, or boiled down to slogan size for a political speech, may be all the political "depth" there is...

...Reagan came back from his December con brio south of the border glowing like a four-page, full-color National Geographic supplement, and with about the same depth of political insight...

...Southeast of the river, in Anacostia, Washington's oasis of not-so-benign neglect, Assumption Church was doing the pre-Christmas clothing distribution...

...This is borne out in part by comments on Reagan's Latin American trip from Washington-based human rights organizations...

...Government...

...Somewhere down there, too, was an even larger country, Latin America...

...That is an inescapable consequence of the growing militarization of Honduras and its use as a base for covert operations against Nicaragua: "Reagan is involving Argentinian military advisers, building a real army for the overthrow of the Sandinista government, and promoting more repression in Honduras...

...I Reagan endorsed the Brazilian government without mentioning the continuing human rights problems that make a mockery of democracy...

...Even one Brazilian official, impressed by Reagan's ebullience, felt obliged to note diplomatically that Reagan's understanding of Latin America is outdated...

...It's the fact that Reagan was surprised that should send chills down the Hemisphere's spine...

...Mexico has acted nobly—and desperately...

...1 Reagan will continue to destabilize Honduras and its "very fragile democracy...

...To utter these remarks when his Administration is openly attempting to sabotage the Nicaraguan government is to use the word democracy as an obscenity...

...Reagan seems incapable of moving from personal experience to abstract political consideration—be it in foreign affairs or domestic policy...

...Once the customer has paid for the order, the groceries are handed over...

...1 Reagan talked of certifying military aid to Argentina without any apparent awareness that in Argentina the lack of human rights is the precise issue that divides the civilian population from the military rulers...

...Even by Pentagon standards, it was simultaneously silly and trouble-prone...

...Shultz said, apparently keeping a straight face, that Reagan had succeeded in "dramatizing the importance of democracy in our Hemisphere...

...And if Reagan can't buy the Costa Rican government, as he cannot buy Colombia's President Belisario Betancur, then he will support the military nonetheless, if he can...

...They provide a summary that hardly corresponds with Shultz's—one that reveals Reagan's simplistic rigidity...

...To credit Reagan with more than a passing interest in democracy north of the border is an act of charity...

...An intractable problem is being made more intractable by the reliance on military might...

...preference for national security states...

...And not far away, on Good Hope Road, J.J.'s Urban Foodcenter was able to report it still hadn't been robbed...

...But these offers fall on deaf ears and consequently go nowhere...

...Juan Mendes of Americas Watch said that during the trip: f Reagan distorted problems in countries considered hostile to the United States, while ignoring harsh policies (including human rights violations) of governments considered friendly...

...Government—it only supports juntas and dictatorships," says Mendes...

...politicians), he had thrown a temporary financial crutch to limping Brazil (which he toasted as Bolivia), and he had praised the improving human rights outlook in El Salvador, confirming throughout Latin America the strong U.S...

...Two issues emerge from Reagan's Latin American trip—his ignorance, compounded by his inability to learn from experience, and the frightful position Central America has been put into by his fixed-focus yet blurred vision of the world...

...Says Eldridge: "The path is littered with lost opportunities for the Reagan Administration to negotiate...

...In fact, it is not only outdated but untouched by education or experience...

...But it's not really like the old-fashioned neighborhood grocery store at all...

...Newspapers such as The New York Times had refused to send a correspondent to the briefing, but apparently only one reporter, UPI's Richard Gross, left the meeting rather than be party even to the oral agreement...

...Colombia has joined Mexico and Venezuela in telling Washington yet again that the only way to reduce Central American tensions is for the United States to deal seriously and sincerely with Nicaragua...

...they brief reporters with unclassified rhetoric and trial balloons...

...As Americas Watch's Mendes says, there are two Colombias, one a democratic government, the other a military regime that basically reserves for itself much of the scope of the government, especially in the countryside...

...Government endorses Argentina's 'improving' human rights for military aid purposes, it only confirms what most people believe about the U.S...

...He may simply have personal reactions to his personal experiences...

...The reality is otherwise, but cannot penetrate Reagan's ignorance...

...It is the regime," he says, "that Reagan supports and seems to want to support even more...

...Reagan returned from South and Central America impressed: "You'd be surprised," said the President of one of the two world superpowers, "they're all individual countries down there...

...Without rip-offs by the "customers...

...If Reagan is an unconscious parody of an urbane, educated, and civilized leader—he can play the role because others are in charge of preparing the script—then the usually more astute Secretary of State, George Shultz, managed to play buffoon to that parody when Reagan got back...

...As 1982 drew to a close, Ronald Reagan was doing remedial geography...

...This former Democrat may, indeed, not have any abstract political views...

...He had hugged dictators (always the next step up from kissing babies for successful U.S...

...The governments of Mexico and Venezuela, neither of them revolutionary, wrote to the presidents of the United States, Honduras, and Nicaragua offering their good offices to encourage dialogue and ease tensions...

...No credit...

...J.J.'s Urban Foodcenter is one man's dream for providing a grocery store that will make a profit by preventing shoplifting...

...The view from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) tallies with that: The Reagan Administration is trying to regionalize the conflict in order to wring money from the Congress...

...Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger had decided to front-end-load the Pentagon news department's musket...

...Reporters could be briefed on what the Department said was classified Soviet arms information, provided they signed a secrecy oath...

...But COHA is "not very confident that President [Luis Alberto] Monge is going to be strong enough to stand up to the very large amounts of aid the U.S...

...A human rights reprise of Reagan's trip supports that assertion, and counters the puffing and propagandizing from the White House regarding the trip's successes...

...He is slowly, slowly caving in to the point where he will accept 'security aid,' the euphemism for military aid...

...In El Salvador, he is maintaining and draining the country in a protracted civil war," says Mendes...

...To prevent shoplifting, which follows robbery and death as a hazard to inner-city business, J.J.'s bills itself as an adaptation of the "old-fashioned" grocery store...

...That any reporters stayed after the Pentagon had failed to make the oath stick may provide a clue as to why the Pentagon tried it in the first place...

...The clerk, as of old, takes it off the shelf behind the counter...

...That is because Reagan's strategy, says COHA, means labeling all opposition groups in these countries, be they communists, insurgents, guerrillas, trade unionists, or moderates, as people who can be dealt with only by military force...

...Over at the State Department, they wouldn't be quite as crass...

...Not surprisingly, the fifteen or so reporters at the Pentagon December 14 refused to sign up as part of the Reagan Administration's government-by-innuendo...

...The prime example was Reagan's "very ringing endorsement" of Guatemala's president, General Efrain Rios Montt...

...The Administration refuses," says Eldridge, "but until it does negotiate, Reagan is, as they say, just rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic...

...The oath was simply a stupid attempt to swing the news...

...There seems to be no recognition on the part of this Administration," says Eldridge, "that Central America is simply not amenable to the kinds of solutions being forwarded by the U.S...

...But it is Costa Rica, long the jewel of Central American democracy, that best exemplifies the results of Reagan's policies: To Mendes, Washington's plans to involve Costa Rica in the hostile encirclement of Nicaragua is a travesty of any concern for democracy...

...f His proposed military assistance to Guatemala and continued aid to El Salvador are "promoting problems in countries repressive even without U.S...

...To suggest he could translate his Nineteenth Century high school civics class notions of democracy into terms relevant to late Twentieth Century Latin America is tampering with credulity...

...So he went to see for himself...

...When most reporters balked, Pentagon officials said they would take the journalists' word that they wouldn't use briefing-session information in future stories...

...As he came, so will he leave, neither broader nor wiser...

...At COHA, the view is that Costa Rica has not entered the military picture yet...

...He had always known that Mexico was south of Hollywood and that Central America was south of Mexico...

...For example, Joseph Eldridge of the Washington office on Latin America (WOLA) points out that while Shultz may have modified the language somewhat, Reagan has not shifted from his original Alexander Haigian assertion that the line against communism was to be drawn in Latin America...

...The customer comes up to the counter and announces what she or he wants...

...John M. McCoy III has urbanized the unsuccessful J.J.'s Country Markets, hoping for a chain of inner-city markets to rival the convenience stores...

...Administration dangles in front of him...