Monday, 17 January 2000
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/0117N3.html
© 2000 Chicago Tribune
MEXICO CITY - Ezequiel Gachuz Cabanas, a security guard in
a Mexico City subdivision, is occasionally reduced to borrowing
a few pesos from friendly residents.
Gachuz is a 28-year-old newlywed and, like millions of other workers
throughout Latin America, can't seem to catch a break.
A few days before the new year, for example, a government group
charged with setting Mexico's daily minimum wage determined that
workers should get a 10 percent raise. Not bad, if you are earning
U.S. wages.
But when you consider that salaries are low to begin with, about
$3.70 a day, and that consumer prices soared by as much as 22
percent on Jan. 1, it's not hard to see that millions of workers
began 2000 in the hole.
While Americans grow wealthier, Mexicans and other workers throughout
Latin America can't seem to get ahead.
Venture up the road from tony Acapulco and you find families with
hardly anything to eat, living in mud shacks with dirt floors.
Travel through the southern state of Chiapas and you see men,
women and children, often barefoot, trudging up winding mountain
roads with bundles of wood on their backs for cooking and heating.
At busy, exhaust-choked intersections, whether in Mexico City
or Managua, Nicaragua, children no older than 5 or 6 bang on car
windows in search of a handout.
The government insists that the quality of life in Mexico, in
terms of education and health, has improved over the years.
It is true that - other than in Colombia - the region is at peace.
But for the average family, the future holds little promise.
In Mexico, the same political party has governed the nation since
1929, and, as a result, only its cronies seem to have prospered.
True, the nation is beginning to flirt with democracy, and the
North American Free Trade Agreement has helped fuel the economy.
But the gap between rich and poor was wide to begin with, and
Latin America is no land of opportunity.
Here, you pretty much play the hand you were dealt.
Decades of autocratic governments, closed economies, environmental
abuse, corruption, war, natural disasters, racism and a dwindling
interest in Latin America by the United States since the end of
the Cold War have taken their toll.
In a testament to challenges Latin America faces, consider that
in many government buildings, even in Mexico City, clerks still
peck away on bulky typewriters, not nimble computers.
Some days, the air in Mexico City is so polluted that you can
hardly see the traffic light up the block. Preliminary results
of a recent study suggest that the bad air is stunting lung growth
in children.
It's easy to imagine an eventually uninhabitable city.
The government says its biggest environmental challenge during
the next several years is providing enough water for a nation
of almost 100 million people.
Analysts warn that Central America is a powder keg because the
problems that fostered leftist insurgencies in the first place,
including poverty and social inequality, remain. And in late 1998,
the century's most powerful storm, Hurricane Mitch, devastated
the region, setting it back 50 years, by some estimates.
Who's to blame for the political and economic mess? Depending
on whom you ask, it is the fault of ill-advised economic policies
of the ruling party, politics, nepotism, natural disasters, religion,
racism, war or, of course, corruption.
In Mexico, it is assumed that government officials first will
pilfer a program intended for the poor before disbursing any funds.
U.S. drug enforcement agents routinely complain that Mexico's
drug barons are able to run multibillion-dollar operations with
impunity because they have corrupt high-level government officials
on the payroll.
While critics blame the drug trade on America's demand for narcotics,
the fact is that drug use and drug-related street crime are on
the rise in Mexico.
In Colombia, Latin America's oldest democracy, U.S. officials
say leftist insurgents finance a guerrilla war against the government
by charging drug barons a tax to protect drug operations - as
much as $600 million a year.
It also is widely believed that as in Mexico, the drug lords in
Colombia have legislators in their pockets.
One positive sign is that democracy is getting a chance in the
region, although many people gladly will tell you they would rather
have food on the table.
The wild card seems to be Colombia, strategically important to
the United States because of neighboring Venezuela's rich oil
reserves and because of its proximity to the Panama Canal.
Peace negotiations are under way, but nobody really believes the
rebels want peace. After all, they are a wealthy fighting force
and control half the territory.
President Clinton last week announced a $1.2 billion emergency
aid package to help Colombia in the drug war.
Because the guerrillas are involved in the drug trade, the White
House acknowledges it's tough to tell the rebels and the traffickers
apart.
You have to wonder where's the hope.
Gachuz, the security guard, wants out. He yearns to go to the
United States.
Why not?
When you discover that a busboy in the United States earns double
the salary of a police officer in Mexico City, you begin to understand.
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