Latin-American Meeting

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31343, 13 April 1967, Page 12

Latin-American Meeting

One of the tasks confronting the Western hemispheric meeting of Heads of State in Uruguay’s resort city, Punta del Este, will be to confine discussion to the examination of practical policies. The creation by 1980 of a common market for all Latin America is expected to be a prime objective of the conference. A good deal of useful background work was done at a meeting of Foreign Ministers held in Buenos Aires early in February. Five of the points debated there were closely connected with the common market idea, which envisages a constructive enlargement of the existing Central American Market and possibly the abandonment of the Latin-American Free Trade Association, hamstrung as it is by the rivalries among 21 nations, mostly undeveloped in both the social and economic fields, and competing with each other in the marketing of common products. There has always been a tendency in American regional conferences for spokesmen to demand United States aid almost as of right. President Johnson has shown a generous understanding of Central and South American needs, as did President Kennedy before him. Both have regarded the formation of an all-embracing common market as urgent, but have recognised also that it must result from co-operative effort by the countries concerned, since the United States would not be a member. Mr Johnson has had to approach Congress warily for the authorisation of more generous Latin-American aid, for many Congressmen grudge any foreign aid while the Vietnam war continues. He also appreciates the need for tact in offering assistance to American States with pressing economic problems. The LatinAmerican nations, as has so often been demonstrated, want leadership but resent interference. They do not care for aid with “ strings ” attached, no matter how reasonable may be the donor’s care to see that it is not used wastefully. At the current meeting of Presidents major aims of the United States will be to steer proposals for closer economic integration into practical channels; to link industrial development with agrarian reform—a field in which some progress is being made in spite of the traditional resistance of the old land-owning class; and to underline education and birth control in plans for the modernisation of the social order. In spite of new techniques in agriculture, over-all food production tends to decline rather than to overtake needs. The state of education is grimly illustrated in the estimate that in a region where so far there is no effective counter to unrestrained population growth, there are some 50 million illiterate adults, quite apart from uncounted millions of children who get no school training.