P4T Latin America Summit

          Tonight, I took the opportunity to go to the Latin America - U.S. aid summit put on by P4T (Preparing for Tomorrow). With Stephen Vetter the president of Partners of the Americas, a historian on Bolivian history, and Bethany Reynolds, a W&L senior holding the presentation, the summit gave me some insight into the U.S.-Western Hemisphere relations.
          Bethany, who spent the past summer in Guatemala, discussed how around the start of the Cold War, because of the purported communist leanings of Guatemala's democratically elected president Bermejo, the U.S. used the CIA to force Bermejo out of government. The anti-communist measures employed in Guatemala drastically harmed the country's development. Even today, over half of the population lives below the poverty line because of the lack of economic development and other social problems in Guatemala, some of which arose from the civil war fomented by the U.S..
          Next, a historian on Bolivia covered the relationship between the U.S. and Bolivia from its inception up until the present day. He noted that the U.S. style of pursuing economic development is not received well in Bolivia, especially because the Bolivians have their own way of doing things. They have a particular cultural and social identity and traditional economic practices that they would like to keep in place, but US-AID would harm these things. Instead of supplying aid and experts who will only attempt to change Bolivian culture and traditional economic practices, he said that US-AID or other NGOs need to aim for a grass-roots development strategy. By helping Bolivians to have more education, open commercial markets, and an equal society, the U.S. can make a great deal of progress in helping Bolivia develop.
          Finally, Mr. Stephen Vetter spoke about the relations between the U.S. and other Western Hemisphere nations by highlighting the efforts of the not-for-profit "people to people" organization Partners of the Americas  in Jamaica and Brazil. In Jamaica, Partners of the Americas tried to create cultural centers that would help women, people in poverty, and the development of human capital in Jamaica, but they ran into limits imposed by multiple actors: the U.S. itself, Jamaican political parties, and other private sector organizations that wanted to put their own influence on what was intended to be a grass-roots project. However, the project never managed to get off the ground, but in Brazil, the story is different. Because the Partners of the Americas group garnered so much attention, other NGOs have taken its place, effectively allowing the grass-roots efforts to escape the limits imposed by other controlling parties. Recent proposals for development include encouraging college exchange programs between South America and the United States. By doing this, the U.S. can improve Western-Hemisphere relations, increase economic development and redefine the image of U.S. Aid.

          What I learned through all the stories was that the United States has been very controlling and lacking in empathy in attempting push its agenda for how countries should develop and become part of the global markets. It is this mindset, in fact, that has caused a lot of problems for development and for our international relations. Perhaps, the lesson is that, the U.S. should be thinking of these relationships in terms of partnerships  rather than as investments.

**There will also be another summit tomorrow night which will cover U.S. Aid to Africa. It starts a 7:00 in the Commons room 216. This time it includes a panel with professor Dickovick. I recommend going.