*** Taking up the standard for the region's poor, the White House's chief envoy to Latin America said leaders must take steps to allow more people to participate in democracy and economic progress.
''This is a continent where the peasants and laborers work from dawn to dusk and end their lives in misery, and not for the lack of natural resources,'' said Otto J. Reich as he addressed The Herald's 2003 Americas Conference on Tuesday in Coral Gables.
``There is too much false nationalism and a lack of firm commitment to real development. The creative forces of all the population must be allowed to flourish.''
Reich said the formula for progress in the region was democratic governments, ''sound, pro-growth economic policies,'' and investments in health and education.
He also boosted the Bush administration's trade initiative, the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. ''The FTAA is the best route toward the goal of lifting people out of poverty,'' he said.
MAIN PROBLEMS
Reich singled out corruption, inefficiency and marginalization -- particularly for indigenous peoples -- as problems impeding progress in the hemisphere.
''Seldom have we faced as many challenges and opportunities in the hemisphere as we do today,'' he said. ``There is far too much corruption.''
In a region marked by periodic social unrest that has forced presidents in Argentina, Ecuador and most recently Bolivia out of office, Reich questioned the leaders of the opposition in Bolivia.
Earlier this month, Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada resigned after days of violent protests over the plan to allow a foreign-owned consortium to export natural gas to Mexico and the United States. Bolivians were also unhappy with building a gas pipeline through Chile, which gained territory in a 19th century war that left Bolivia landlocked.
Speaking of the problems in the poorest South American country, Reich railed against political leaders who recommended leaving natural resources in the ground rather than using them to pay for development. ***
What's remarkable, what history will record as the truth, is the love of Cuba's political prisoners for their people and for freedom. It's the kind of unlimited courage that confuses their jailers. It's the fortitude of their spirit while at total disadvantage, their inner peace in the face of those who have only power, tyrannical power, and compensate for the strength of the powerless ones by inflicting pain upon them.
The prisoners of the Cuba spring and all other political prisoners in Cuba are sustained by their faith and the prayers and solidarity of all sensitive people inside and outside our island. But this should not be a spectacle for Cubans. Every drop in the torrent of pain that flows from these prisoners and their relatives is shed by every Cuban -- every elderly person and poor child, every disheartened youth who plunges into the sea, every family that suffers anguish and oppression and even by those who talk and only talk, complain or dwell on the subject but give no support.
Each drop of that suffering is shed by you. Don't pity the prisoners, because if they suffer hunger and thirst, they are blessed because they hunger and thirst for justice. There are no blessings, however, for those who show no solidarity because they don't want to get in trouble.***