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Latin America

My Lords, the House of Lords has changed a good deal recently, but there is one activity that has not changed: the dedication of my noble kinsman Lord Montgomery of Alamein in sponsoring debates on Latin America. These debates have been a landmark throughout a generation. It is true that during the unfortunate interregnum when my noble kinsman Lord Montgomery was not here with us for reasons that I have forgotten, the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, kept the flag flying admirably. I have been taking part in my noble kinsman’s debates for about a quarter of a century. What has happened in those 25 years? First, it is worth emphasising an obvious point—obvious points are often not noticed: that Latin America continues to be a continent where inter-state wars rarely occur. That is a remarkable difference from all other continents, Europe included. Perhaps that is why the media, which is interested in catastrophe more than benign developments, does not take much of an interest in Latin America. Secondly, most of the civil wars that stained activity in Latin America a generation or so ago have ended. It is now over 40 years since the late Lord Harlech commented to President Kennedy in relation to the civil wars in central America, ““Well, I don’t see why they shouldn’t have their own Wars of the Roses””. Most Latin American countries have established peaceable settlements of one kind or another. I was very interested in what the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, said about Peru and also in the impressive remarks made by my noble friend Lord Waverley about Colombia. Many of the wars in central America were stoked by Cuba, but since the end of the Cold War Castro has had more to deal with at home and so there have been no such activities. It is worthwhile mentioning those civil wars of Latin America because they were immensely destructive. They brought no contribution of any positive nature to the countries concerned and ruined a generation of progressive people. With the exception of Colombia it is probably true to say that civil wars are not presently under way, which is a great change, although Colombia is still a great tragedy, as the murder last week of the sister of ex-President Gaviria for unknown reasons, but surely political ones, reminds us. Latin America is after all a continent with fairly good interrelations between the peoples who make up the states and nations concerned; for example, Mexico. Mexico is a country where in addition to the mixed and Spanish sections of the population there are about 50 peoples speaking mutually unintelligible languages. That does not mean that they are going to go to war with each other: the Maya are not going to attack the Mixtecs. Perhaps it would be a good thing for the European Union to send out a study mission composed of Basques, Irishmen, Serbs and Flemings to discover the secret of tranquillity in Oaxaca. The main development of the last generation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, mentioned, has been the development of democracy almost everywhere. My noble kinsman did not touch upon this as deeply as he might have done, but all Latin American countries unfortunately have their democracies geared towards a strong executive president, as France and the United States do, and not to the parliamentary system that the mother country—Spain—and we have. Perhaps that is something that the Inter-Parliamentary Union could investigate, if there is any chance of constitutional change in any of those countries. Democracy occasionally throws up leaders with whom we are uneasy. Chavez is one and Morales is another. Humala may be another, and who knows what will happen in Mexico with López Obrador. But that is the way of democracies: some leaders emerge who do not play the game in the way that it used to be played. The democratic changes are especially impressive in Mexico. In the past, there has been a great number of major changes in that country—the conquest, independence from Spain and the revolution—that were characterised by colossal death rolls. But the present series of changes has not been marked by them. There are three strong candidates contesting the presidency on 6 July, and one of them will emerge as a fairly elected president of Mexico, whatever happens to him afterwards. What a change that is from the old days of the so-called ““alchemy”” when the election was always rigged to return a candidate from the ruling party, the PRI. In the past, if one ventured to suggest that there might be a fair election in Mexico, many intelligent Mexicans would say, ““But my dear boy, if we had a fair election here it would be won by a priest, a singer or a bullfighter””. I have a moment in which I can mention Cuba. Cuba still suffers under the autocratic communism set up by Castro nearly 50 years ago. Its government shows no capacity or interest in making a plan for that beautiful country and those enchanting people to have a clear, free future. When Castro dies, there will undoubtedly be difficult moments. I pray that the changes that will then come will be allowed to evolve from within Cuba, rather than be imposed from without by, for example, the United States, whose mistakes in the remote past—as it now seems—before 1959, were largely responsible for the emergence of Castro in the first place.