The tiresome debate about who is worse, Castro or Pinochet is filleted quickly and appropriately by Costa Rica President, Oscar Arias Sánchez:
"Fidel Castro began with the (execution) wall, killing people those who opposed him," Arias said in radio interview. "There is no difference. The ideology is different but both were savage, brutal and bloody."
I have to object to the description of Arias as a "Washington-friendly conservative." He's his own man. Witness this quote from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech:
To receive this Nobel prize on the 10th of December is for me a marvellous coincidence. My son Oscar Felipe, here present, is eight years old today. I say to him, and through him to all the children of my country, that we shall never resort to violence, we shall never support military solutions to the problems of Central America. It is for the new generation that we must understand more than ever that peace can only be achieved through its own instruments: dialogue and understanding; tolerance and forgiveness; freedom and democracy.
I know well you share what we say to all members of the international community, and particularly to those in the East and the West, with far greater power and resources than my small nation could never hope to possess, I say to them, with the utmost urgency: let Central Americans decide the future of Central America. Leave the interpretation and implementation of our peace plan to us. Support the efforts for peace instead of the forces of war in our region. Send our people ploughshares instead of swords, pruning hooks instead of spears. If they, for their own purposes, cannot refrain from amassing the weapons of war, then, in the name of God, at least they should leave us in peace.
There was probably no stronger rejection of the Reagan administration's Central America policy than that statement. Unfortunately, relations between the US and Latin America have gotten so awful that the bar must be lowered to the point where someone is judged to be Washington-friendly if they don't actively denounce Bush.
Comments