Pilgrimage for Democracy

By George Russell

On a five-nation swing, Shultz sees more realism and hears less rhetoric

The mission was intended, in the words of a top U.S. official, to "promote democracy" in a region more often noted for its absence. For the Reagan Administration, it was also a chance to test diplomatic waters that have been roiled with resentment of assertive but erratic U.S. policies. Yet as the U.S. Air Force 707 carried Secretary of State George Shultz on a nine-day, five-country tour of Latin America and the Caribbean last week, the important thing was that, for once, something other than a geopolitical crisis was on the horizon. The theme behind most of the stopovers on Shultz's itinerary was democratic transition. Taken together, the visits -- to El Salvador, Venezuela, Brazil, Grenada and Barbados -- emphasized a hemispheric watershed. Authoritarian rule in the Americas has been gradually descending from its zenith in the '70s.

As Shultz put it: "The progress of democracy is a very important development." Long criticized for being too sympathetic to military regimes in the southern part of the hemisphere, the Administration sees the trend as a vindication of its strategy of behind-the-scenes pressure, rather than confrontation, in pursuing democratic aims.

Another American goal may still be out of reach. It is to prove to nervous neighbors that U.S. diplomatic and military actions in Central America and Grenada are part of a credible commitment to peaceful change in the region, even while they keep the forces of radicalism and violent upheaval at bay. A senior U.S. diplomat acknowledged the challenge as he noted that many of the hemisphere's countries "are upset by what they fear the U.S. intentions are.

They don't want a return to Yankee unilateralism or intervention." In each of his initial stops last week, Shultz tried to tailor his diplomatic role to the prevailing circumstances. During a seven-hour stay in El Salvador, the Secretary emphasized the Administration's firm support for the March 25 presidential election, which Washington views as a crucial step in ending the country's civil war. Helicoptering with his entourage into the capital of San Salvador (in unmarked troop carriers seconded from the U.S. forces on maneuvers in neighboring Honduras), Shultz was the guest of Provisional President Alvaro Magana at a lunch attended by the six candidates in the presidential race. Among them were the two front runners: former President Jose Napoleon Duarte, a Christian Democrat appreciated in Washington for his moderation, and Roberto d'Aubuisson, leader of the ultrarightist Nationalist Republican Alliance. D'Aubuisson has been accused of being linked to the right-wing death squads that have killed thousands of people in the country over the past four years; in a deliberate show of disapproval, the State Department last November denied him a visa to visit the U.S.

Privately, American diplomats concede that a D'Aubuisson victory would be a disaster for U.S. policy in El Salvador. They fear that it would lead to a revolt in Congress over the Administration's planned request for $179 million in additional military aid for the country this year and would threaten the $8 billion regional aid package recommended by the bipartisan Kissinger commission on Central America. In a significant shift of position, the Administration has announced that the proposed aid package would "condition" military assistance to El Salvador on the basis of periodic reports on human rights progress. With an eye to the audience on Capitol Hill, Shultz also warned his hosts about right-wing excesses in El Salvador. "Death squads and terror have no place in a democracy," he said. "The armed forces must act with discipline in defense of the constitution, and the judicial system must prove its capacity to cope with the terrorist acts of extremists of the right or left." But then the Secretary tempered his criticism with praise for Salvadoran efforts to clean up the death squads and added that the aim "is not to satisfy the U.S. Congress but the values we all want to live by. It's good for the people of El Salvador as well as what we'd like to see."

In Caracas, Shultz's chief task was to attend, along with twelve Latin American and Caribbean leaders, the swearing-in of the country's sixth consecutive civilian President, Jaime Lusinchi. Prior to the ceremonies, Shultz met with representatives of four Central American countries--El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica--who are seeking a negotiated regional settlement with Marxist-led Nicaragua to the sputtering Central American conflict. U.S. officials initially feared that under Lusinchi's leadership, Venezuela might pull away from the so-called Contadora process of sponsorship for the negotiations. Such a move would deal a severe blow to Washington's claim that it, too, supports a negotiated solution to the problems of Central America. The U.S. fears were ill founded. Even before Shultz and the new President held a 75-minute private meeting, Venezuelan officials indicated that they would continue to support the Contadora process. Nonetheless, Lusinchi served notice that his country intended to play a more modest role in regional politics in the future. Most of Venezuela's energies, he said, will go toward grappling with its $34 billion foreign debt, the result of chronic overborrowing during a time of declining revenues for the country's chief export, oil. For domestic political reasons, Lusinchi is resisting the traditional medicine for fiscal overindulgence: a stiff dose of austerity under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund.

Setting the tone for what promises to be a drawn-out series of negotiations with U.S. and European banks, Lusinchi warned creditors in his inaugural address that Venezuela will "pay back every penny it owes," but not under terms that "impede the progress of the country." A happy byproduct of the Shultz visit to Caracas was further confirmation of the fact that the Latin American hackles raised against Washington as a result of the 1982 Falklands war have now subsided. Even though Venezuela was the South American country that most vocally objected to U.S. support for Britain in its war against Argentina, Lusinchi did not raise the issue in talks with the Secretary of State. Shultz may have laid the Falklands ghost to rest during a private meeting with another in augural guest: Argentina's newly elected civilian President, Raul Alfonsin. A consistent opponent of the Falklands adventure engineered by his military predecessors, Alfonsin raised the possibility with Shultz of a U.S. force replacing the British on the islands. Shultz gave no answer.

Officials in London also disclosed last week that for the past two months Argentina and Britain have communicated secretly through Swiss and Brazilian intermediaries concerning the Falklands, even though Britain has not modified its refusal to negotiate the sovereignty of the windswept South Atlantic islands. What Shultz discovered on the Caracas leg of his journey was not old hostility toward the U.S. but a new assertion of diffidence. Summed up Simon Alberto Consalvi, a senior Venezuelan Cabinet minister: "We must focus relations with the U.S. under a new perspective. It is necessary to carry out relations very cautiously, without making declarations of love." Before he left Caracas, Shultz had a few tart words for another guest at the Lusinchi inaugural, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, the head of Nicaragua's ruling junta. Ortega had charged that the Kissinger commission had secretly recommended to the White House that the U.S. invade Nicaragua and El Salvador to protect American interests.

Shultz dismissed the accusation as a "figment of [Ortega's] imagination."

Back in Washington, Kissinger called the accusation "a lie." Shultz then flew on to Brazil, landing without fanfare in Rio de Janeiro. At week's end, he was enjoying a tropical round of golf with an aide at the lush Gavea Golf Club prior to a scheduled hourlong meeting on Monday in Brasilia with the country's military President, Joao Baptista Figueiredo. Once again, progress toward full democracy was liable to be discussed: Figueiredo will step down from the country's most important remaining nonelective political office in March 1985, probably in favor of a civilian. The two men are also expected to discuss the parlous state of Brazil's economy. With the largest foreign debt in the Third World (estimated at $93 billion), inflation galloping at an estimated annual rate of 215%, and a third consecutive year of negative economic growth in 1983, Brazil (pop. about 131 million) is in acute social pain. Foreign bankers granted the country a brief breathing space two weeks ago with a $6.5 billion "jumbo" loan. But the U.S. Commerce Department had earlier added to Brazil's burden by ruling that steel exports to the U.S., which totaled $1.3 billion last year, were unfairly subsidized and thus subject to penalty duties. Further economic blows of that kind could threaten the country's long and gradual "opening" to full civilian rule, and complicate what is essentially a long and stable friendship between Brasilia and Washington. Predicts a Brazilian banker: "Late 1984 could be a crucial period for U.S.-Brazilian relations." Before ending his trip with a brief courtesy visit to Barbados, Shultz will look in on yet another tricky democratic transition, in tiny Grenada (see following story). But with much of the diplomatic pilgrimage still ahead, a senior U.S. official traveling with the Secretary made the expansive claim that "on the whole, U.S.-Latin relations are doing rather well." In a hemisphere astir with the problems of debt, military menace, and the heady allure of democracy, the notion was comforting but still mercurial.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary, William McWhirter