President of Costa Rica: US not to blame for past, present or future ills confronting Latin America

(Full translation of speech by Oscar Arias, President of Costa Rica, at the Summit of the Americas meeting in Trinidad & Tobago on April 18, 2009)

“I have the impression that every time Caribbean and Latin American countries get together with the president of the United States of America it is to ask for things or to demand something. Almost always it’s to blame the United States for our past, present and future ills. I don’t believe that is at all just. We cannot forget that Latin America had universities before the United States created Harvard and William & Mary, which are the first universities of that country. We cannot forget that in this continent, as in the whole world, at least until 1750 all Americans were more or less the same: all were poor.

When the industrial revolution came about in England, other countries hopped on that wagon: Germany, France, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand…… and thus the Industrial Revolution passed over Latin America like a comet, and we didn’t realize it. Certainly, we lost the opportunity.

There’s also a very big difference. Reading the history of Latin America, compared with the history of the United States, one realizes that Latin America did not have a Spaniard John Winthrop, nor a Portuguese who might have come with a bible in hand, ready to build “a City on a Hill”, a city that would shine, as was the wish of the pilgrims who arrived in the United States.

Fifty years ago, Mexico was richer than Portugal. In 1950, a country such as Brazil had a higher per capita income than that of South Korea. Sixty years ago, Honduras had more riches per capita than Singapore, and today Singapore – in something like 35 or 40 years – is a country with $40,000 annual income per person. Well, we Latin Americans did something wrong.

What did we do wrong? I cannot list all the things we did wrong. To start, we have a seven-year schooling. That is the average length of schooling in Latin America and it’s not the case with the majority of Asian countries. It’s certainly not the case in countries such as the United States and Canada, with the best education in the world, similar to the Europeans’. For every 10 students who enter high school in Latin America, in some countries only one finishes. There are countries with an infant mortality of 50 children per thousand, when in the more advanced countries it is 8, 9 or 10. We have countries where the tax load is 12 percent of the gross national product, and it’s no one’s responsibility, except our own, that we don’t tax the richest people of our countries. No one is to blame for that, except we ourselves.

In 1950 each American citizen was four times richer than a Latin American citizen. Today, an American citizen is 10, 15 or 20 times richer than a Latin American. That is not the fault of the United States, it’s our fault.

The value system of the 20th century, which seems to be the one we are putting into practice in the 21st century, is a wrong value system. Because it cannot be that the rich world devotes 100 billion dollars to alleviate the poverty of 80 percent of the world’s population – in a planet that has 2.5 billion human beings with a $2 a day income – and that it spends 13 times more ($1,300,000,000,000) in weapons and soldiers.

It’s incredible that Latin America spends $50 billion in weapons and soldiers. I ask myself: who is our enemy? Our enemy, of that inequality which President Correa (of Ecuador) points out very correctly, is the lack of education; it is illiteracy; it’s that we don’t spend on the health of our people; that we don’t create the necessary infrastructure, the roads, the highways, the ports, the airports; it’s that we are not dedicating the necessary resources to stop the deterioration of the environment; it’s the lack of equality which we have, which really makes us ashamed; it is a product, among many things, of course, of the fact that we are not educating our sons and our daughters.

One goes to a Latin American university and it still seems we are in the sixties, seventies or eighties. It seems we forgot that something very important happened on November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, and that the world changed. We have to accept that this is a different world, and about this I honestly believe that all thinking persons, all the economists, all the historians, almost agree that the 21st century is the century of the Asians, not of the Latin Americans. And I, unfortunately, agree with them. Because while we keep arguing about the “isms” (which is better? capitalism, socialism, communism, liberalism, neo-liberalism, social-christianism…) the Asians found a very realistic “ism” for the 21st and for the end of the 20th century, which is pragmatism. Just to mention an example, let us remember that when Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore and South Korea, after having realized that his own neighbors were quickly becoming richer, he returned to Peking and told the old comrades who had accompanied him on the Long March: “Well, the truth is, dear comrades, that I don’t care whether the cat is black or white, the only thing that matters to me is that it catch mice”. And if Mao would have been alive he would have died again when he said that “the truth is that becoming rich is glorious”. And while the Chinese do this, and from 79 until today they grow at some 11, 12 or 13 percent, and they have taken some 300 million out of poverty, we keep on arguing about ideologies which we should have buried a long time ago.

The good news is that Deng Xiaoping achieved this when he was 74 years old. Looking around, I don’t see (among the presidents who participated in the Summit) anyone who is close to 74 years of age. That’s why I ask you not to reach that age in order to make the changes which we have to make.”

In short, the King of Spain appointed the Governor of Mexico based on the size of his bribe; there was every expectation that the Governor would become rich by doing the same thing to the next layer of officials, and the process repeated

And as you said, nothing changed when the Mestizos and their native born Spaniard overlords took over. It was just a new set of oppressors who wanted to keep the loot for themselves.

I don't think you can compare it to the U.S. yet. It's true that possibly you could say we just have a more sophisticated version of their corruption, but I can sincerely say that the cops I know and grew up with in Arizona are a million times better than the thugs with guns just across the border in Nogales.

The politicians in the U.S. are a different story. But then, they do have to worry about U.S. police, who are chomping at the bit to bury their butts....at least in most places, we'll forget about New York, Chicago and L.A.

But all of that can and will change as Mexicans flood into the U.S. and agitate for the vote and other entitlements. Eventually, Mexican politicians emerge from them - already have in California, and Los Angeles especially - and will institute the same sick "system" of intimidation and extortion. Any police who try to stop it will be accused of "racism", which has to have the Mexicans laughing their butts off - all they need to stop the Gringos dead in their tracks is a silly little word.

This year, 4 million children of illegal aliens will be born in the United States. Mexico has no such problem....the Americans have not flooded into their country against their will. So their culture and nation will endure, but not ours, which is being colonized by them.

Makes you wonder which culture really is the strongest.

Just a small word of caution. I worked in Costa Rica for 5 yrs. Had a business there in a Free Zone.

You are right that the people are warm and lovely. But the government is quasi socialist and the infrastructure is dreadful. The cost of living is higher than Panama, the unions are more powerful than in the US and can and do shut the place down to protest, and the petty corruption to get anything done ( like phone lines, cable TV set ups ) is tiresome.

I know plenty of Americans who retired there and have now decided to leave because the crime is getting worse. It is a major land route for drugs coming up from Columbia. Car jackings are commonplace, not for ransom as in Mexico but for your car!

All in all I suggest you rent a place before you buy and actually live there and immerse yourself in the daily life. You will find that below the surface it is a very poor country. The people Americans meet on tourist or investment trips are the well to do professionals that have been selling their poorer countryman's labor and property to stay ahead of the pack.

On the plus side is the climate and the natural beauty. But that wears thin every time the water goes out or the electricity fails. In our case, in Alajuela, that was a monthly occurrence. All that glitters is not gold.

Just a tip to a fellow FReeper to be cautious before you invest your money and relocate your life.

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