Laura Chinchilla: “Latin America is at its lowest point in terms of dialogue, cooperation and coordination”

Laura Chinchilla She was president of Costa Rica between 2010 and 2014 and, before that, vice president of Oscar Arias. She is well known in Latin America and the United States, where she teaches at Georgetown University and is director of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.

Chinchilla was in Los Angeles these days, participating in various civil society forums around the IX Summit of the Americas, which ended on Friday with the participation of regional leaders, but with the absence of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua (which did not were invited by the United States to be considered undemocratic) and other countries that boycotted the meeting.

A great connoisseur of the region, Chinchilla ran for president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a position that was eventually left in the hands of the American Mauricio Claver Carone.

In dialogue with ClarioneChinchilla admitted after the Summit that “there is a feeling that there is no effectiveness in the instruments, neither regional nor bilateral, to stop the deterioration of democracy”.

He warns that Latin America is a region “that does not want to be helped” and that “we need to rethink the diplomacy of the Summits” which are “full of divisive rhetoric”, but with poor results for the citizens.

-What balance do you make of the Summit? Was it a failure that showed the continent’s divisions, as some reckon, or is there something worth pointing out?

Expectations were so low and in the previous days there was so much back and forth on the topics of the invitations that the Summit cannot be said to have disappointed, it simply confirmed what was feared: the region does not share a common north despite the problems that has affected their countries, and continues to put ideology before an agenda of concrete policies and actions that have an impact on improving the situation of its citizens. The most dramatic cases of this are the three countries of North-Central America, which are the furthest behind in Latin America and those in which they did not mind participating in the slightest.

– Is there any initiative that can be highlighted?

-At the last minute, the declaration on migration somehow saved the meeting, which until then had only concrete results with Kamala Harris’ offers on economic empowerment of women and cooperation with the Triangle of North of Central America. However, both Kamala and the declaration on migration and the commitments made on these issues were the result of an action by US diplomacy, none were built within the channels of the Summit. For the costs and the usury that this type of meetings entails, it seems that we must rethink the diplomacy of the Summits, rich in divisive rhetoric and fasting results in favor of Latin American citizens.

“It seems that we must rethink the diplomacy of the top, full of divisive rhetoric and fasting for results in favor of Latin American citizens”.

disagreements

Why do you think this situation has arisen?

-The Summit came at a time of great need for the region. And in a politically complex time when the region itself is at its lowest point from the point of view of interregional dialogue, cooperation and coordination. Since there are so many needs, citizens’ expectations emerged around the Summit as a space in which to agree on common policies that are able to give certain answers to outstanding health problems and to finance recovery. We are going through the worst economic and social crisis in the last 100 years, but at the same time the political situation is a disaster.

-What do you mean?

– Basically I am referring to what political dialogue is. I mean, it’s practically non-existent. There is no interregional dialogue. What there are are agendas that intersect in conjunctural issues and nothing else. This made the Summit seem very little for what the region was asking for. It’s not that I want to blame anyone in particular because there are responsibilities on all sides. From the point of view of the Biden administration, many expectations arose with the change of government compared to that of Trump, where there was clearly no politics. There seemed to be a vision of a group of people who knew the region, but it seems to me that they did not initially articulate a platform of cooperation that would allow bridges to be built above ideology and politics on much more concrete issues. Such as vaccine problems, capital flows or financial resources or energy problems. Since it didn’t exist, the Summit ended up being a debate on who is invited and who is not. Obviously this has made the region divided between those on one side and the other.

“We are going through the worst crisis in the last 100 years from an economic and social point of view, but at the same time the political situation is a disaster”.

Was it Biden’s deliberate policy or was it a situation he didn’t know how to handle?

-What we are seeing are the enormous difficulties that the administrations of the United States are encountering in concretizing their plans and projects and it concerns not only domestic politics but also international politics. There are 30 or 40% of the ambassadors who have not been appointed in the region. State Department Undersecretary of Hemispheric Affairs (Brian Nichols) was appointed just a few months ago. They didn’t even have any chips on the board. They had already postponed the summit for a year precisely because of the difficulties they were encountering. Add to that other additional difficulties, such as the fact that the OAS is hit hard by the region’s internal divisions with a group of nations just wanting Almagro not to stand out. And then there is the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Is the IDB another important dividing factor?

It seems to me that the situation of the IDB, due to the differences they have had with the presidency (in the hands of the American Mauricio Claver Carone, appointed in the Trump administration) has prevented Biden from having an exceptional platform that he could have presented on this occasion. . Nothing happened and now the IDB presidency is also being investigated. Thus, we arrived with the most emblematic hemispherical institutions collapsed and in a situation of great weakness.

-How do you see the region?

-I see a region that does not want help. It doesn’t seem to send the right signals to put pressure where it is needed and to have the collaboration we need. Latin America could not even participate with a unified voice in the G20 meetings. The three big economies that are in the G20 never, in the middle of the worst time of the pandemic – when we had 30% of the deaths in the world and we received only 7% of the vaccines -, even there they failed to listen to their voices to attract the focus on what was happening in Latin America. So if we didn’t do it there, when will we do it? The prevailing atmosphere in civil society, with which I have met a lot, is one of profound frustration.

-How to find a unified voice with governments such as López Obrador, Alberto Fernández, Jair Bolsonaro or Iván Duque? It’s possible?

-No. It is not possible. It didn’t happen at the worst time, when they should have put their differences aside and worked together on the issues of the pandemic. If it didn’t happen in that moment, it won’t happen again and some of them are going out. I believe that we must give time to the end of the electoral cycle to see what the new political scenario is like in the region and then try to find that this new composition can facilitate dialogue. I think, I can’t speculate because it would be very irresponsible, that Lula da Silva can win in Brazil. If she wins, I think the dialogue problems can be unlocked again. Because what you get is a bloc of the major left-leaning economies. There may be an agreement to talk and have a slightly more constructive agenda.

The migration crisis

– Is it a failure of Biden and Harris that presidents who are vital to resolving migration issues such as Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras or Guatemala have not come?

– It is appreciated that, unlike the previous administration, the approach is more comprehensive than the problem and with proposals aimed at targeting the root causes of migration. Here are the dilemmas that are also presented to the Biden administration. On the one hand, there are very short-term goals of national interest for the United States, such as migration, and then there are other goals, such as human rights and democracy. How to combine both claims in countries such as those of the Northern Triangle, which are experiencing an authoritarian drift, is not at all easy. It is a great dilemma for the United States. At the moment, what is underlining a lot are the alliances with civil society and with private companies.

-You have been to various civil society forums, you have seen young people, representatives of these governments and companies from countries that have been excluded. What are the most important requests in these forums?

-There is some desperation. In particular, those who came to this Summit with a strong commitment to democratic ideology. They know that the Biden government is committed to this, that they are even fighting in the United States itself for democracy. But there is a feeling that there is no effectiveness in the instruments, neither regional nor bilateral, to stop the democratic deterioration. And in those countries where there is already a consolidated scenario of autocracy, it is difficult for them to resign themselves to this. On the other hand, they see no sign that things will change, especially in the case of Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Los Angeles, special correspondent

CB