Inter-American Relations : Past, Present, and Future Trends [1 ed.] 9781443873901, 9781443889957

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Inter-American Relations

Inter-American Relations: Past, Present, and Future Trends Edited by

Joshua Hyles

Inter-American Relations: Past, Present, and Future Trends Edited by Joshua Hyles This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Joshua Hyles and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8995-4 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8995-7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

An Introduction to the Volume .................................................................. vii Section One: The Organization of American States Democracy and the OAS 1990-2001 ........................................................... 2 Dr. Joan Supplee Election Observation in the Caribbean, with Special Reference to the Work of the Organization of American States................................. 18 Dr. Lisa Vasciannie Illiberal Democracies and Constitutional Coups? The Shifting Nature of Democratic Erosion in Latin America and the Need for New OAS Response Mechanisms............................................................................... 29 Adam Ratzlaff Section Two: Domestic Movements, Global Issues Sacco and Vanzetti: A Global Rorschach Test .......................................... 56 Dr. Janet Adamski and Dr. Claire Phelan Fear and Crime Effects on Protest in Mexico ............................................ 64 Dr. James A. Norris Ecclesial Base Communities as the Fruit of Religious Diplomacy: Medellín and Martyrs ................................................................................ 79 Lauren Lee Section Three: Cuban Connections Early 19th Century Print Culture: An Irish-Hispanic Connection .............. 98 Dr. Elizabeth Coscio

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Analyzing Cuba’s Economic Insulation from International Markets: Using Nighttime Lights as a Proxy for Economic Development............. 109 Courtney Muro Yo, Sí Puedo: Exporting Education in the Global South ......................... 136 Moriah Olson and Claire Phelan Section Four: Colonies and Conflict in the Americas Washington’s Secret Colonies: The Bizarre Story of the Guano Islands Act ............................................................................................... 148 Joshua Hyles, M.A. Beach, Please: Bolivia’s Case against Chile for Coastal Access ............. 163 Tyler Talbert, Esq.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME

When the United Nations officially entered its charter on June 26th, 1945, a new age of international diplomacy dawned. But this was not, by any measure, the first time a group of states had joined together for the purpose of improving international relations and democracy. By the time of the United Nations Charter’s signing, the republics of the Western Hemisphere had been in voluntary association through the Pan-American Union for over fifty years. Founded in 1889 through the work of then-U.S. Secretary State James Blaine and his counterparts throughout Latin America, the Pan-American Union acted as the world’s first regional international organization. Whether through the Pan-American Union, a shared history of European conquest and revolution (from Toussaint L’Ouverture to George Washington, Simón Bolivar, and José de San Martín), or the unique relationship between the United States and the rest of the hemisphere beginning with the Monroe Doctrine, the relationships between the republics of the Western Hemisphere have served as both a model and a warning. As pioneers of international diplomacy, the Inter-American system of states has matured and adapted from its Pan-American Union origins through the development of the Organization of American States and its auxiliary programs and conferences. This volume, a collection of the papers presented at the 20th Annual Eugene Scassa Mock Organization of American States Conference on Inter-American Relations, brings together academic research from a vast array of topics centered on the diplomatic relations of the Inter-American system. Consideration of the Organization of American States and its effect on the democratic stability of the region opens the volume. After presentations on the organization, the volume switches to works on domestic movements around the hemisphere through history, and their effects on international policy. A special section on Cuba, in many ways the outlier of the region in ideology and political structure, considers some of the unique ways the country has related to its neighbors. Finally, two papers present a modern case being handled within the Inter-American system between Chile and Bolivia, and the story of early American imperialism and its legacy in the Caribbean and beyond.

SECTION ONE: THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES

From its roots as the Pan-American Union, founded at the close of the 19th Century, the Organization of American States has grown from a U.S.dominated enforcer of policy to become the premier agency responsible for managing the diplomatic negotiations and international infrastructure of the Western Hemisphere. Today, though still based in Washington, D.C., the organization has become increasingly contentious. The republics of Latin America, particularly Venezuela and Brazil, have flexed their diplomatic muscle with greater frequency in the organization’s proceedings, and have turned the halls of the Pan American Union Building into the forum-of-choice for challenging U.S. foreign policy in the region. Despite the tension, the OAS still works on a consensus-basis, moving slowly but surely on topics from international crisis management to the cooperative building of infrastructure and sharing of best practices among national and multi-national entities. Each of the papers in this section considers an aspect of the organization and its influence on the region. First, Dr. Joan Supplee of Baylor University writes on the challenge of improving democracy (often cited by the OAS as the “First Pillar”) over the years from 1990 to 2001. Following this, Dr. Lisa Vasciannie of the University of the West Indies reflects on the OAS practice of election monitoring, particularly in the Caribbean region. To close the section, Adam Ratzlaff of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies considers the eroding of democracy in the region through constitutional coups, and suggests new directions for the Organization and the region to deal with these new issues.

DEMOCRACY AND THE OAS 1990-2001 DR. JOAN SUPPLEE BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

The end of the cold war did more than create new democratic states in Europe, it shifted the focus of priorities for the Western Hemisphere’s oldest regional organization, the Organization of American States (OAS). Established in the Declaration of Bogotá in 1948, the OAS was built on the foundation of the old Pan American Union (PAU). The PAU’s primary goal was to establish a framework for peace in the Americas with an eye to improving commercial relations. The road to reaching that goal was fraught with disagreements about how smaller, but more numerous Latin American states would deal with the influence of U.S. hegemony in the region. Although each member state had an equal vote within the organization, in practice the United States frequently dictated the organization’s agenda. Created to strengthen inter-American cooperation in the post war period, the primary focus of OAS action reflected U.S. concerns about communist penetration in the hemisphere. The premier statement of that concern came in the 1954 Declaration of Caracas. It led directly to action taken against Jacobo Arbenz’s administration in Guatemala in 1954, suspension of Cuba from the organization in 1962, and intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965; all taken despite disagreement from several Latin American states in stark reminder that U.S. priorities took first place on the agenda. The fall of the Soviet Union and the much touted end of the Cold War, finally provided an opening for the organization to take up other issues such as: promotion of democracy, free trade, human rights and judicial reform, coordinated action against drug trafficking and money laundering, agreements on environmental protection, and statements supporting social equality.1 As the Declaration of Asunción affirmed in 1990: 1

Carolyn M. Shaw, Cooperation, Conflict, and Consensus in the Organization of American States. (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 5 and Howard Wirarda and Esther M. Skelly, Dilemmas of Democracy in Latin America: Crises and Opportunity (New York: Roman and Littlefield: 2005).

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In the face of the great changes now taking place on the international scene, we applaud and support with enthusiasm the easing of international tensions and the advance of democratic ideals in every region of the world. . . We reaffirm our faith in representative democracy as the expression of the legitimate and free manifestation of the will of the people and as the political system that best guarantees the goals and purposes of the interamerican [sic] system. We understand that democracy, which we have chosen as a way of life and as the basis for the ordering of our societies, must also inspire new relations in international society and in working out and understanding the interdependence of nations.2

These new issues, particularly the promotion of democracy and free trade, required an alteration in the structure of the organization and a new forum for setting the priorities of the hemisphere. This paper will discuss the changes to the organization that reinforced its new agenda from 19902001. As the Cold War ended, the OAS General Assembly (the policy setting organ of the organization) signaled a switch in its approach to regional politics by revising its structure so that the organization could serve as a resource for member states as they reconstituted or sought help to preserve their democratic systems.3 At the annual meeting in Asunción, Paraguay in June 1990, the General Assembly acknowledged “That unprecedented political changes are taking place in the world, changes that will necessarily have important consequences for the hemisphere; that the foregoing circumstances provide a good opportunity for a penetrating reexamination of hemispheric relations and the orientation and use of the inter-American system.”4 Representatives recalled the request of the 2

Organization of American States [hereafter OAS] “Declaration of Asunción,” AG/RES 1064 (XX-O/90). 3 The General Assembly is the supreme organ of the OAS and it meets once a year in June in member states on a rotating basis. The delegations from each member state are generally headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and include the state’s ambassador to the OAS and members of its mission and other experts. The General Assembly approves resolutions that will determine and fund the work of the organization. With the advent of the Summit process in 1994, in which Heads of State and Government of each member state meet every four years and head their delegations, the General Assembly follows the mandates set by the Summit at its annual meetings. “Amendment of The Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly.” Organization of American States [hereafter cited as OAS] AG/RES.1053 (XX-O/90) “Summit Meeting of Heads of State and of Government of The OAS Member States.” OAS AG/RES. 1059 (XX-O/90). 4 “Consultation Group on the Inter-American System,” AS AG/RES 1047 (XXO/90).

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Nicaraguan government’s invitation to send election observation monitors for the February 1990 general elections and on the agreement of cooperation between the OAS and the Haitian government concerning upcoming general elections.5 As part of those initiatives and concerns about restructuring the organization to make it more effective in protecting democracy in the hemisphere, the General Assembly approved the creation of a new unit in Resolution 1063. Making the case that “to maintain unwavering support for democratic processes in the hemisphere and to step up and increase its efforts towards achieving the integrated development of the countries of the region, in view of the close relationship between socioeconomic development and democracy, of which the Organization is an indispensable mainstay” and noting the success of action taken in Nicaragua and Haiti, it authorized the creation of a permanent Unit for Democratic Development (UDD)under in the General Secretariat in Washington, D. C. The mission of the UDD was to enable the OAS to support and assist “member states in their efforts to renew, preserve or strengthen democratic institutions. . . .” Highlighting the need for this expanded role of the OAS in promoting democracy, the General Assembly tasked Secretary General João Clemente Baena Soares to work with the Permanent Council in crafting a plan of action to define how the Unit would respond to requests for assistance with democratic development from any member states.6 Haiti became the first testing ground for the new structure. At the request of the Haitian government, the OAS sent election observers to the national elections in December 1990. In those elections, Jean-Bertrand Aristide won a convincing majority of votes. But all was not smooth sailing for Haitian democracy. Less than a month after elections, armed gunmen, allies of ousted President Jean-Claude Duvalier, took the outgoing president, Ertha Pascal-Trouillot prisoner and forced her to resign on national television. Secretary General Baena Soares condemned the action while the Permanent Council met in emergency session. When the Chief of the Haitian Army sided with the ousted president, the gunmen relented and restored her to power. She then assured Baena Soares that an orderly transition of power would proceed on schedule. The Permanent Council issued its own statement of opprobrium. On February 7, 1991 Aristide assumed the presidential mandate in Haiti.7 5

“Demobilization of the Nicaraguan Resistance,” OAS AG/RES 1056 (XX-O/90); “Report on the Procedure for Establishing Firm and Lasting Peace in Central America,” OAS AG/RES. 1057 (XX-O/90); “Support for the Democratic Process in the Republic of Haiti,” OAS AG/RES 1048 (XX-O/90). 6 “Unit for Democratic Development.” OAS, AG/RES. 1063 (XX-O/90). 7 OAS, IACHR Annual Report 1991, Chapter IV, Haiti.

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Following the work of the Asunción meeting, the General Assembly expanded the organization’s power to respond to democratic threats. In the Twenty-First Regular meeting in Santiago in 1991, Resolution 1080 (or the Commitment of Santiago) passed. It highlighted the fragile state of democracy in the hemisphere despite the end of the cold war: “[t]he region still faces serious political, social, and economic problems that may threaten the stability of democratic governments.”8 The Resolution also reiterated that the type of democracy for the hemisphere was “representative;” Whereas: The Preamble of the Charter of the OAS establishes that representative democracy is an indispensable condition for the stability, peace and development of the region; [and] under the provisions of the Charter, one of the basic purposes of the OAS is to promote and consolidate representative democracy. . .9[emphasis mine]

In addition to highlighting this type of democracy, Resolution 1080 indicated what would trigger action by the OAS: “any occurrences giving rise to the sudden or irregular interruption of the democratic political institutional process or of the legitimate exercise of power by the democratically elected governments in any of the Organization’s member states.”10 In the case of such activity, the Secretary General would call an emergency meeting of the Permanent Council. That meeting would decide on three options: 1) if an immediate response was needed to act in lieu of a full meeting of the Foreign Ministers, 2) to convene a meeting of the Foreign Ministers, or 3) to call a special session of the General Assembly. The resolution also required that the Permanent Council create incentives for strengthening democratic systems in the hemisphere.11 In many way this resolution followed the patterns already established by the PAU and OAS in peacekeeping efforts, but it was the first time these patterns were to be applied in the case of democratic breaks. This application of the peaceful settlement of disputes process to democratic disruptions would not have been possible before the end of the cold war. The United States had made it clear that it would not condemn any government that stood against communism. This included the myriad http://www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/91eng/chap.4c.htm; accessed March 3, 2012; OAS, Permanent Council CP/RES. 555 (842/91). http://www.cp.oas.org/council/eng/842/91.htm; accessed March 3. 2012. 8 OAS, AG/RES. 1080(XXI-O/91), accessed February 1, 2012, http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/agres1080.htm. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid.

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of staunchly anti-communist military dictatorships that flourished in the region from the 1950s until 1990. Despite the rhetoric of the Reagan Doctrine, which supported the restoration of democratic regimes in Central America (read: Nicaragua), the Reagan administration continued to support military governments in Chile, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The importance of Resolution 1080 for democracy in the hemisphere is that, in addition to defining what a democratic disruption was, it created a blueprint for action by the organization. The General Assembly granted the Secretary General power to decide if the situation warranted closer inspection within ten days of the event. If he decided in the affirmative, the Permanent Council had the responsibility to investigate and, if it voted that action need to be taken, to call on the Organ of Consultation (a meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs or a special session of the General Assembly). Under the Rio Treaty, the Organ of Consultation has sanctions it can impose ranging from “recall of chiefs of diplomatic missions; breaking of diplomatic relations; breaking of consular relations; partial or complete interruption of economic relations or of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and radiotelephonic or radiotelegraphic communications; and use of armed force.”12 In Resolution 1080, the OAS assumed responsibility for guaranteeing democratic continuance in the hemisphere. Again, the first country to test Resolution 1080 was Haiti. In September 1991, the Haitian military moved against President Aristide. Secretary General Baena Soares immediately convened a meeting of the Permanent Council and invoked Resolution 1080. The Permanent Council approved Resolution 567 which condemned the coup, demanded that Haiti’s constitution and its electoral system be respected, and reaffirmed its solidarity with the Haitian people and their democracy. In view of the seriousness of the situation, the Permanent Council, citing Resolution 1080 convoked an ad-hoc Meeting of the Consultation of Foreign Ministers (MRE) to discuss measures to restore Haitian democracy.13 The second step in Resolution 1080 came into effect with ad-hoc meeting on 2 October 1991 in OAS headquarters in Washington, D.C. President Aristide who was offered refuge by the Venezuelan government, travelled to testify at the meeting. In view of the seriousness of the democratic break made clear in Aristide’s testimony, the Foreign Ministers deplored the action of the Haitian military and issued Resolution 1 12

Rio Treaty, Article 8, accessed February 20, 2012, http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/treaties/B-29.html. 13 http://www.cidhi.oas.org/annualrep/91eng/chap.4c.htm and MRE/RES.1/91).

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“Support for the Democratic Government of Haiti” early the morning of October 3. In addition to supporting actions taken by the Permanent Council, the Ministers recommended that a delegation of Foreign Ministers and the Secretary General travel to Haiti to deliver their message of support for Haitian democracy. They urged that all states “suspend their economic, financial, and commercial ties with Haiti and any aid and technical cooperation except that provided for strictly humanitarian purposes.” Resolution 1 also called on regional organizations “such as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Inter-American Development Bank, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and the Latin American Economic System (SELA), to adopt the same measure.” Finally, the Foreign Ministers resolved to boycott all arms shipment to Haiti, to keep the ad-hoc meeting of the Foreign Ministers open to consider additional action, and to inform the United Nations of the action it had taken.14 It was the strongest action the OAS could take in the name of democracy. The Diplomatic Mission that travelled to Haiti was also unprecedented in OAS history. It too had emerged from Resolution 1080 and was constituted in MRE Resolution 1. The Mission’s goal, to restore Haiti’s democracy, was composed of the Secretary General, the President of the Ad Hoc Meeting (Foreign Minister Carlos Iturralde of Bolivia), and the Foreign Ministers of Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, and the Assistant Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs of the United States (Bernard W. Aronson). It departed for Haiti on October 4 in a plane sent by the Canadian government. The Mission arrived requesting only permission to land at the Port-au-Prince airport since it did not recognize the coup leaders as legitimate heads of state. An eye witness to the proceedings recalled the tension: “No one said any form of greeting; no one smiled, much less shook hands. The briefest of nods were exchanged. The faces of all the participants on both sides of the table were grim.”15 The Mission held its meetings with General Raoul Cédras, head of the military junta, and the junta in the airport building. To start the conversation, Foreign Minister Iturralde read Resolution 1 to the Haitians. General Cédras defended the position of the military and rejected OAS interference. OAS diplomats also met at the airport with members of the Haitian community. Business leaders opposed the return of Aristide 14

http://www. cidh.oas.org/annualrep/91eng/chap.4c.htm pp. 7-8 reprint of MRE/RES.1/91(3 October 1991) (accessed February 8, 2012). 15 Testimony from Guillermo Belt, advisor to Secretary General Baena Soares, accessed February 11, 2012, http://www.eduoas.org/portal/docs/belt_paper._rev.pdf.

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while members of Aristide’s party from the Parliament emphasized his legitimacy as leader. The Mission decided to continue hearings the following day, but flew to Jamaica to spend the night. As had been the case with the meetings on 4 October, the Mission confirmed that there were divided opinions regarding Aristide’s leadership.16 It returned to Washington on October 5 to continue its work. Its existence and its trip to Haiti already marking a step forward by the organization to defend a democratically elected leader based on the authority of Resolution 1080. The Diplomatic Mission continued to break new ground in trying to resolve the crisis. Back from Haiti, it consulted again with President Aristide. He had just returned from addressing the United Nations Security Council which recommended his restoration to power. OAS diplomats decided to return to Haiti on October 7 to meet with General Cédras before the Ad Hoc Meeting reconvened. They found the country in chaos. Armed men had surrounded the National Assembly and pressured it into appointing a member of the Supreme Court as acting president. Another group of soldiers and police arrived at the airport and approached the room where the Mission was meeting with General Cédras. As the Secretary General remembered: “about 25 heavily armed policemen came up to the first floor where we were, shouting threats.”17 General Cédras had to send his personal guard outside to make the men withdraw. Sobered, the Mission returned to Washington to report to the Ad Hoc Meeting without resolving the situation on the ground. Using the power granted in Resolution 1080 and the Rio Treaty and armed with the report of the Diplomatic Mission, the Ad Hoc Meeting of Foreign Ministers took decisive action to turn up the heat on the Haitian military. After receiving a request from President Aristide to send in a Civilian Mission to restore democracy, it issued Resolution 2. By this act, the Foreign Ministers urged all member states to freeze Haitian accounts and to embargo Haiti. They also acceded to President Aristide’s request and authorized the Secretary General to set up a Civilian Mission to reestablish and strengthen democracy in Haiti.18 Never before had such direct action been taken by the organization to restore democracy. While Resolutions 1080, MRE 1/91 and MRE 2/91 provided the legal basis for these actions, it was also clear that Haiti was becoming a test case for regional action to preserve democracy in a way that could not have been done during the cold war. First, the OAS acted against the democratic 16

Ibid. João Baena Soares, Profile of a Mandate: Ten Years at the OAS (Washington, DC: Organization of American States, 1994), 82. 18 MRE/RES.2/91 (7 October 2012). 17

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breach in Haiti with unanimity. The Consultation of Foreign Ministers did not hesitate in crafting a strong response to the crisis and they granted the Secretary General extraordinary power to act. Second, it was easy for the organization to take such a stance against Haiti since it one of the smallest, and most certainly the weakest in the organization. Third, Haiti, as an immature democracy (having only recently been liberated from the Duvalier family who controlled the country from 1957 until 1986) served as a seemingly fertile testing ground for Resolution 1080. Both the Secretary General and the Civilian Mission, known as OEADEMOC worked diligently to find a constitutional solution to the crisis. The Mission, appointed by the Secretary General included Colombian Augusto Ramírez Ocampo as head and members from Canada, Trinidad y Tobago, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and the United States. It arrived in Haiti on November 10th and was greeted at the airport by a hostile mob. After meeting and negotiating with members of Haiti’s National Assembly and in consultation with the Secretary General and President Aristide, OEADEMOC signed a Joint Declaration with National Assembly representatives on 10 November. They agreed to meet outside Haiti to derive a constitutional settlement. Although the military was not invited to sign the declaration because it was not recognized as a legitimate political power, the declaration did include the OEA-DEMOCs discussion with the military which recognized civilian powers as the final arbiters of the crisis.19 This set new precedents for action. Despite the seeming progress toward the restoration of Haitian democracy, the initiatives taken under Resolution 1080 did not result in restoring democracy or President Aristide to his position. Nonetheless, the OAS worked to increase pressure against the regime, calling for strong measures against the Cédras regime through a commercial embargo and suspension of flights to the island. The Meeting of Foreign Ministers also urged member states to extend humanitarian assistance to Haitian refugees. Ultimately, the military proved intractable to diplomatic isolation and political pressure, the border too porous and the country too poor for trade sanctions to dig in. Restoration came about only with a show of force. So while not successful in restoring democracy peacefully, Resolution 1080 and the work of the Consultation of Foreign Ministers did set up a procedure that the organization would follow when it recognized a democratic break. It did not take long for that system to be tested again. The second use of 1080 came about in February 1992 with the eruption of a military coup led by Colonel Hugo Chávez Frias against the government 19

Belt, op. cit.

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of Carlos Andres Pérez in Venezuela.20 The governments of the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba immediately condemned the action. The Permanent Council acting as the Organ of Consultation met two days after the coup to express support for the Pérez government even as it was clear that the Chávez coup had failed. It also reasserted its right to take action under Resolution 1080 even though none was called for in this case. The third test of Resolution 1080 and its procedures came in Peru in 1992. In April, President Alberto Fujimori announced an autogolpe against his own government suspending the Constitution of 1970, the Congress and the Supreme Court. The Permanent Council serving as the Organ of Consultation met and called for “immediate reinstatement of democratic institutions and respect for human rights under the rule of law.”21 As the crisis unfolded and Fujimori continued undeterred, an ad hoc meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers decided on 13 April 1992 to re-establish democratic order in Peru. It resolved to “voice profound concern over the present status of rights and liberties in Peru and to demand [italics mine] that the Peruvian authorities guarantee full observance and exercise of the rights of assembly and association and of freedom of expression, thought and the press.”22 It authorized Secretary General Baena Soares to head another mission of Foreign Ministers to mediate the crisis in Peru under the authority of Resolution 1080. He was to establish: immediate measures to bring about a dialogue among the Peruvian authorities and the political forces represented in the legislature, with the participation of other democratic sectors, for the purpose of establishing the necessary conditions and securing the commitment of the parties concerned to reinstate the democratic institutional order, with full respect for the separation of powers, human rights and the rule of law.23

This represents the strongest action the OAS could take under Resolution 1080. The mission was tasked with intervening in the domestic affairs of a member state. Under pressure from OAS member states and other international organizations, Fujimori received the mission. He proposed to regularize the situation in Peru with a referendum on the autogolpe; the mission rejected this idea. In May the ad hoc meeting of the Foreign Ministers convened again in the Bahamas before the next regular meeting 20 http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/05/world/venezuela-crushes-army-coupattempt.html, accessed 15 September 2016. 21 CP/RES. 579 (897/92), April 6, 1992. 22 MRE RES.1/92, April 13, 1992 23 Ibid.

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of the General Assembly. There, Fujimori offered up another solution to the impasse by agreeing to call elections for a constituent congress to write a new constitution and exercise legislative powers in the interim. To this the Foreign Ministers agreed and authorized the Secretary General to prove whatever assistance Fujimori need to carry out the election.24 To monitor those elections, the OAS sent over 200 observers in November 1992. The observers certified the outcome of the elections as fair and the Foreign Ministers closed their investigation on Peru with the understanding that OAS assistance would continue to modernize Peruvian election procedures.25 In just over a year after its passage, 1080 had been invoked to defend democratic governance in the hemisphere, and twice missions led by the Secretary General had landed in two different American states. The end result of the Peruvian mission was the restoration of democracy. Resolution 1080 will see action one more time in 1992 as a second coup attempt in Venezuela attempted to unseat President Pérez. The Permanent Council met immediately to reiterate its support for the Pérez government and several ambassadors spoke about the progress being made to amend the Charter in the defense of democracy. The Permanent Council did not recommend any action in Venezuela nor did it call a meeting of the Consultation of Foreign Ministers because this coup attempt like the earlier Chávez coup collapsed under its own weight. In reaction to the stalemate in Haiti and the democratic breaks in Venezuela and Peru in 1992, the General Assembly, in its sixteenth special session held at OAS headquarters in December 1992, voted to alter the OAS Charter to strengthen sanctions that could be used against democratic breaks in member states.26 Previously, in the Protocol of Cartagena de Indias (1985), member states had added a clause to Chapter One, “Nature and Purposes,” Article 2, section b which clarified that the type of democracy the OAS supported was “representative.”27 At Washington member states took unprecedented action by adding Article 9 to Chapter III “Members.” Article 9 allowed for the suspension of a member state “whose democratically constituted government has been overthrown by 24

MRE RES.2/92 (May 18, 2016). IACHR Country Report, Peru, 1993, accessed September 20, 2016, http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/Peru93eng/iii.htm. 26 In addition to the Protocol of Washington, the Charter of the OAS was amended in the Protocol of Buenos Aires (1967), the Protocol of Cartagena de Indias (1985), and the Protocol of Managua (1993). 27 Protocol of Cartagena de las Indias, accessed February 15, 2012, http://www. oas.org/dil/treaties_A-50_Protocol_of_Cartegena_de_Indias.htm. 25

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force. . . .”28 The suspension could only take place when “such diplomatic initiatives undertaken by the Organization of the purpose of promoting the restoration of representative democracy. . . has been unsuccessful.”29 The General Assembly had to approve suspension by a two-thirds vote, but the Organization would not give up diplomatic action to restore democracy. The Assembly also added other condition to the Charter to mollify CARICOM states who insisted that other conditions such as poverty might limit development of democracy in the hemisphere.30 With this protocol, the Organization of American States became the first international organization to set standards for excluding members for democratic lapses. Because the protocol marked a huge shift in the Organization’s approach to democratic disruptions within member states, it was not approved by consensus and it took some years before it reached the twothirds majority to come into force (1997). Despite the inclusion of a poverty as a deterrent to democracy, several members of CARICOM, including Dominica, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Suriname did not ratify and have not ratified the protocol. Not surprisingly, Haiti also refused to ratify. The most telling member state who refused to sign the document was Mexico. It outlined its objections in a statement appended to the protocol which reiterated its commitment to both democracy and its respect for the sovereign will of the people. It also clarified its objections to giving “regional organizations supra-national powers and instruments for intervening in the internal affairs of our states.” It further asserted that “the preservation and strengthening of democracy in our region cannot be enhanced through isolation, suspension or exclusion . . .” It concluded by stating that the protocol changed the original purpose of the organization and therefore Mexico could not support the change.31 To this day, Mexico has not 28 http://www.oas.org/dil/treaties_A-56_Protocol_of_Washington.htm (accessed January 15, 2012). 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 The complete objection was: The Delegation of Mexico requests for the record that the following statement by the Government of Mexico be appended to the corresponding Protocol of Amendment: “The Government of Mexico reiterates its bent for and commitment to democracy based on the strictest respect for and adherence to the principles of nonintervention and self-determination. Mexico has reacted swiftly and firmly to disruptions of the constitutional order on numerous occasions in the past but remains convinced, nonetheless, that democracy is a process which comes from the sovereign will of the people, and cannot be imposed from outside. Mexico is

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ratified this modification of the Charter. Ironically, the protocol entered into effect with the ratification of Peru. The OAS would invoke Resolution 1080 two more times before the protocol could come into effect. In 1993, the Permanent Council invoked 1080 in response to a break in the democratic order in Guatemala. President Jorge Serrano Elías, taking a page from President Fujimori, announced an autogolpe against his government in May. He dismissed Congress, the Attorney-General, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court; as well as suspended Constitutional and political rights. The Guatemala public did not approve of the president’s actions. Secretary General Baena Soares called an emergency meeting of the Permanent Council which condemned Serrano’s actions and called an Ad Hoc Meeting of the Foreign Ministers. Again, the Foreign Ministers authorized a fact-finding mission under the Secretary General to Guatemala32. While negotiating with President Serrano and members of the Guatemala government, the mission was surprised by the abrupt resignation of Serrano after his proposal to hold new elections was rejected. He fled to neighboring El Salvador, leaving his vice-president in charge who assumed the presidency. The Ad Hoc Meeting of the Foreign Ministers reiterated its condemnation of the coup and authorized a second mission to Guatemala.33 Guatemala’s Constitutional Court was reconvened and it immediately found that the former vice-president, despite support from Guatemala’s military, could not be president because of his categorically opposed to any attempt to disrupt the constitutional order in any country and further expresses a deep commitment to democracy and the amelioration of our political systems. It insists, however, that it is unacceptable to give to regional organizations supra-national powers and instruments for intervening in the internal affairs of our states. The Government of Mexico maintains that the preservation and strengthening of democracy in our region cannot be enhanced through isolation, suspension or exclusion, and hence believes that the wording on suspension of member states as approved here today, has changed the original purpose of our Organization. Mexico is opposed to the punitive character ascribed to the OAS and reaffirms its conviction that cooperation and dialogue are the most effective means of resolving internal conflicts within states or conflicts between states. Consequently, the Government of Mexico is placing on record its opposition to these amendments to the charter as approved at the XVI Special Session of the General Assembly." 32 MRE RES.1/93. 33 MRE RES.2/93.

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involvement in the auto coup. It authorized Congress to appoint a new president. It selected Guatemala’s human rights ombudsman, Ramiro de León Caprio. The Ad Hoc Meeting concluded that with this selection, the democratic crisis had come to an end in Guatemala pursuant to Resolution 1080 and withdrew the mission. Although this autogolpe attempt did not have the same level of popular support as did Fujimori, the intervention of the OAS was able to insure a peaceful transfer of power despite strong military support for the vice president. But the Guatemala crisis revealed a weakness in the enactment of the provisions of Resolution 1080—the issue of funding. The General Assembly in its regular meetings in 1993 and 1994 instructed the Permanent Council to study the implementation requirements and special funding needs of Resolution 1080 stemming from OAS and the Ad Hoc Meetings of the Foreign Ministers. It further instructed the Permanent Council to clarify the definition of the measures the OAS could adopt and how they should be financed.34 All of this was part of the fine tuning of the application of Resolution 1080 and the effort to make it function effectively. Following up on this adjustment, the OAS extended its activities in Guatemala. The autogolpe and the mission sent to resolve the crisis and the clarification on mission and funding led directly to the establishment of a Special Program of Support for Guatemala underneath the Unit of the Promotion for Democracy (UPD formerly the UDD) and funded by the Unit and external sources. The Special program had as its goals the “the strengthening of democratic institutions, conflict resolution, education for democracy, peace, and development. . .” and was to be carried out by the General Secretariat in Guatemala.35 Subsequent resolutions passed by the General Assembly congratulated the Guatemalan people and government on the establishment of stable government and the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996.36 This represented another iteration of the support for democracy within the framework of Resolution 1080 and the OAS’s historic mission of peaceful resolution of disputes.

34 OAS AG/RES. 1248 (XXIII-O/93) “Promotion of Democracy”; AG/RES 1281 (XXXIV-O/94)” Financing of Special Activities Arising from the Application of Resolution AG/RES. 1080 (XXI-O/91).” 35 OAS, AG/RES. 1378 (XXVI-O/96) “Support for Building the Process of Democratization and Establishment of Peace in Guatemala.” 36 OAS, AG/RES. 1466 (XXVII-O/97) “Support for Building the Process of Democratization and Establishment of Peace in Guatemala.”; AG/RES. 1703 (XXX-O/00)͒“Special Program of Support for Guatemala.”

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Despite these successes in supporting democratic regimes in the hemisphere, Paraguayan politics will demonstrate the limitations of Resolution 1080. In both 1996 and again in 1999, the violations of the constitutional order in Paraguay were not as clear cut as the previous examples. In both cases, a dispute over party control and power led to a disagreement in the ruling Colorado party. In 1996 a split developed between elected President Juan Carlos Wasmosy Monti and Army Commander General Lino César Oviedo Silva. President Wasmosy objected to the constant intervention of the general in both party politics and the government. He finally asked for the general’s resignation on 22 April 1996. Oviedo not only refused, but also threatened a coup. The next few days in Asunción were characterized by threats and counter threats by the two men. When the public and the army deserted Oviedo, he backed down. The Permanent Council met on 23 April to deal with the crisis and voted to condemn General Oviedo. It called an Ad Hoc Meeting of the Organ of Consultation under Resolution 1080, but it never met, the crisis having de-escalated on its own. The new Secretary-General César Augusto Gaviria Trujillo did go to Asunción to offer good offices to meditate the crisis and support Wasmosy. More telling was the internal debate in the Permanent Council where several states expressed doubt that Resolution 1080 applied to the situation because there was no disruption of the political order. Others objected to the lack of clear information on the ground in Paraguay made it difficult to judge what was going on.37 All of the discussion pointed to a need for clarification of the policy. The second chapter in the Wasmosy-Oviedo rivalry was more serious. Oviedo had been selected as the Colorado party’s nomination for the 1998 elections, but was imprisoned for his earlier attempted coup and disqualified from running. His vice presidential candidate, Raul Cubas became the candidate and Luis Maria Argaña moved into the vicepresident position. When the Colorado party won the election in 1998, President Cuba moved to free Oviedo from prison. Vice President Argaña along with Wasmosy allied with the opposition parties in Congress. In December 1998, the Supreme Court ordered Cubas to return Oviedo to jail. Cubas refused and the Congress initiated an impeachment process against him. In the meantime, Oviedo orchestrated a campaign of violence that many believe resulted in the assassination of Vice President Argaña in March. Riots ensued. The Permanent Council convened the day after the assassination. The U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, Harriet C. Babbit decried 37

Barry S. Levitt, “A Desultory Defense of Democracy: OAS Resolution 1080 and the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Latin American Politics and Society 48:3 (2006): 93-123.

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Democracy and the OAS 1990-2001

the assassination as a break in constitutional order and therefore Resolution 1080 should be invoked. She was supported by the delegation of Argentina, but Mexico balked and the Paraguayan delegation claimed that the government had everything under control. Before the Permanent Council could meet to take up the issue again, both Cubas and Oviedo had fled the country. A new government assumed power.38 These two incidents raised serious doubts about the effectiveness of Resolution 1080 to protect democracy in the Americas. The upshot of the Paraguayan situation led in to an active debate in the Permanent Council over the efficacy of the Resolution and the limits to which the OAS might adhere to concerning actions to support democratic regimes. The United States led off the discussion over the limits of the mechanisms. Other delegations also expressed concern about the reactive nature of 1080 and the Washington Protocol. The Mexican delegation stuck close to its argument that the OAS had no business in the internal affairs of member states. Other delegations agreed that additional discussion about what should be done and how to do should take place at the next General Assembly meeting. Before those discussions could take place there were two more democratic breaks in Ecuador and Peru in 2000. In Ecuador, a coup ousted the elected president, but the vice president was able to assume governing power resolving the crisis. In Peru, election irregularities led to a more contentious discussion in the Permanent Council over defense of democracy based on the report by the Electoral Observation Mission that Fujimori’s government had violated the principles of free and fair elections. The issue was then taken up in the General Assembly in Windsor, Canada in 2001 and the end result was the creation of a stronger and clearer statement on what the OAS role in supporting democracy would be: The Inter-American Democratic Charter (IADC). Since 2001, the IADC has guided OAS activities during periods of democratic breaks and directed the work of the UPD. While the IADC is now the standard for the OAS, the importance of Resolution 1080 and the Washington Protocol in establishing the principles on which the IADC is based is clear. The end of the cold war gave the OAS the opening to fulfill the promise of the Charter—to promote and defend representative democracy in the hemisphere as well as maintain the peace. Those initiatives also helped the member states work through the issues of balancing the support for democracy while respecting the sovereignty of individual states. The cases examined in this paper provide ample support for the struggle over these two issues throughout 38

Ibid.

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the decade of the 1990s. Whether that balance struck in the IADC will be a lasting legacy in the hemisphere, only time will tell.

ELECTION OBSERVATION IN THE CARIBBEAN, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE WORK OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES DR. LISA VASCIANNIE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES, MONA

General The Organization of American States (OAS) has provided a regional forum for its member states for almost 70 years. Since its inception in 1948 it has facilitated and steered policies and proposals for “strengthening democracy, promoting human rights, and confronting regional issues such as crime, poverty, corruption terrorism, and illegal narcotics.” This is in keeping with the mandate set out the OAS Charter to “achieve an order of peace and justice, to promote member states’ solidarity, to strengthen collaboration and to defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its member states.” In the area of democratic governance the Charter has been clear on its commitment to representative democracy as an indispensable condition for the stability, peace and development of the region. The OAS Charter (Articles 2, 3 and 9) also declares representative democracy as a prerequisite for membership. The OAS has had a fairly long and steady history of involvement in the electoral activities of member states. This is reflected in the 1985 Cartagena Protocol and the 1989 General Assembly Resolution that establishes guidelines for electoral missions. Between 1962 and 1989 for example, the OAS sent some 29 missions to 11 countries. Several of these earlier missions were an outgrowth of United States policy of containment during a period of Cold War tensions. The organization has been frequently criticized for various strategies of political manipulation and lending legitimacy to fraudulent elections during this early phase of fairly ad hoc observation. However, these missions cannot reasonably be held under the same scrutiny as those that have begun to operate within the contemporary framework of internationally established guidelines and codes of conduct given the political realities of the era.

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Since 1989 the OAS has consistently given signals indicating the importance of democracy. These include the establishment of the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy (UPD) in 1990, the 1991 Santiago Resolution and the 1992 Protocol of Washington which all reinforced the organization’s mechanisms for reacting to regional threats to democracy. Another phase of further commitment and consolidation was marked in 2001 with the Inter-American Democratic Charter. This instrument offers a strong acknowledgement of the place of free and fair elections and introduced the notion of democratic government as a right. Article 24 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter facilitates the role of election observers within the framework and norms of the OAS. Election Observation Missions (EOMs) have a threefold mandate: 1. To fulfil the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter which envisages the deployment of preparatory observation missions when so requested by countries 2. To observe at the request of member states, not only general and national elections, but also plebiscites, regional polls and events involving specific ethnic groups, and 3. To include other issues in observation activities, such as gender and minority group participation. The OAS has further institutionalized and formalized election observation through the establishment of the Declaration of Principles of International Election Observation of 2005. This instrument reflects the central role that election observation plays in the democracy agenda of the OAS. OAS Election observation activities and supporting democracy agenda are administered by the Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation.

Practice The first election observation undertaken by the OAS was in Costa Rica in 1962. In relatively recent history, the OAS has sent just under 180 observer missions to 26 countries since 1989. There has been a steady increase in the number of states requesting or hosting observer missions. Of the 35 member-states, eight have never had OAS observers: Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay, and until November 2016, the USA. OAS observation may be placed in three phases:

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Election Observation in the Caribbean

First Generation Missions 1962 to 1989: The OAS carried out some ad hoc missions from as early as the 1960s. These were of no systematic agenda or policy. They were often symbolic politically motivated, related to Cold War geopolitical issues and therefore quite selectively executed. Often these missions had very little to do with substantive issues of electoral administration. In this period there was a total of twenty-five missions including Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Grenada, Dominican Republic and Panama. Second Generation Missions: These observation missions started with the observation of the Nicaraguan elections in 1990. This heralded a period of transition for many authoritarian regimes during a period of socio-political transformation. Election observation was a legitimizing tool for countries transitioning to democracy. Teams were bigger, higher profile and more organized than previous ad hoc missions. This period was also the start of efforts to professionalize and standardize election observation. Third Generation Missions These started in 2001 with the Inter-American Democratic Charter focuses on democracy as a process and as an expression of the sovereignty of the people.

Latin American Experience The OAS has had a longer history of observation within Latin America than in the Caribbean. Here there have been 133 elections observed in 14 countries. The OAS has not sent missions to Argentina, Brazil, Chile or Uruguay. It has observed the fewest elections in Mexico (3) and Costa Rica (6) and the most in ALBA countries Bolivia (14), Ecuador (12), Nicaragua (11), and Venezuela. The OAS has also been involved in the Dominican Republic (11 Colombia and Peru (13). Of particular note is Nicaragua whose posturing was that they would not be allowing the OAS to send observers for elections in November 2016. Describing OAS and other observer groups as “shameless,” this was unfortunate as it is widely regarded that OAS observation and assessment of two consecutive elections helped legitimize Ortega’s return to power in 2006 and further validated his re-election in 2011. Ortega eventually retracted on his statement and the OAS sent a mission to observe the 2016 elections in Nicaragua. Venezuela has also shown some degree of hostility towards OAS observers. Despite calls from the opposition for OAS observers, Venezuela has not had them since 2006. It has opted instead to have the regional observers form Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). UNASUR’s own mandate precludes it from offering impartial, non-biased

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observation as it verifies the work of the states’ electoral commission. In the case of Venezuela it is difficult to ignore the effects of the dynamics of US/Venezuela bilateral relations.

Observation in the Caribbean Most Caribbean countries have had international observers. The OAS has observed 40 elections in the Caribbean since 1990. Currently, only one country: Barbados, has not had international observers. The OAS has never observed elections in Trinidad and Tobago which has only had teams from the Commonwealth. It has only has one mission in the Bahamas and the most (five missions) in Suriname, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Guyana and Haiti. Although observation did not become a clear trend until the 1990s, the earliest instance of international election observation in the region was almost 50 years ago. In 1964 a Commonwealth team concluded that Guyanese elections were “fair and proper”, although a dissenting member of the group chronicled independent concerns about the process that in his estimation did not make the elections free or fair. There was a twenty year hiatus from observers until the 1980s when the OAS observed elections in Grenada (1984). The OAS has subsequently observed four other elections in Grenada; the last in 2013. Generally, observation became a more regular feature between 1990 and 1999 with twelve observed elections in seven countries.1 Of these the OAS observed half (6) in five countries—Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti and Suriname The momentum of the trend has developed as there have already been approximately 34 OAS/EOMs in twelve countries2 between 2000 and 2016. Overall the OAS has observed 40 Caribbean elections since 1990. The final frontiers in the Caribbean for the OAS have been Dominica (2009) and the Bahamas in 2012. Although there was some controversy regarding the Dominican elections the OAS described them as positive and as “a true reflection of the will of the people.”3 On the Bahamas General Election in 2012 the OAS noted the administration of the election as “free and fair”. The main recommendations included:

1

Haiti, Suriname, Guyana, St. Kitts & Nevis, Belize, Antigua & Barbuda and Grenada. 2 Suriname, Trinidad &Tobago, Haiti, Guyana, Jamaica, Grenada, Antigua & Barbuda, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Belize. 3 “Thumbs Up from Independent Observers but Recommendations Made to Improve Democratic Process,” www.Caribeannetnews.com, December 21, 2009, accessed February 19, 2010.

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Election Observation in the Caribbean

1. Adopting a legal framework for transparency in financing of political parties and campaigns 2. Redrawing constituency boundaries 3. Providing access to the media to ALL parties in a free, fair and independent manner 4. Incorporating more women in leadership positions and as candidates. These recommendations reflect the current focus of the Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation and the OAS on aspects of democracy where improvements may be made. Recommendations on campaign financing, gender and access to media were similar to recommendations made to Jamaica in 2011. On the most recent elections in Jamaica in February 2016, the OAS commended the country for its “Good Practices.” The mission report highlights “the positive practices of the Jamaican electoral tradition” and commends the country for implementing the recommendations formulated by previous OAS missions on campaign finance, electoral technology, gender representation and the establishment of a media monitoring unit. The OAS mentioned other aspects of the Jamaican electoral process that despite the glaring decline in voter turnout, made the country a “good example for the region.” The Jamaican case may be highlighted as an example of a country that has benefitted from having election observers. In 1997, amidst fears of growing voter intimidation, garrison politics, partisanship, apathy and distrust, the Government of Jamaica strongly resisted any notion of foreign involvement in local elections. Then Prime Minister Patterson said it “would be a travesty to the legacy of our democratic reputation were we now to suggest that we are incapable as a country to administer our electoral or other affairs.” Now, almost 20 years later election observation is considered an organic element of the election process. This is so as the invitation of observers, whether they accept or not, is regarded as a strong signaling statement of a country’s commitment to democracy.

Collaboration with other Observer Groups The OAS has observed more elections in the Caribbean region than any other group. It has observed 40 elections since 1990. Other main actors in the field include the Commonwealth, the Carter Centre, CARICOM and to a lesser extent, the European Union. Although the OAS has been more active in Latin America where it has observed over 130

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elections in 14 countries, its role in election observation has significantly enhanced democracy and development in keeping with the ethos of the IADC.4 In several cases, the OAS has been the only organization observing a given election. The majority of Caribbean countries have had observers from one main group. So, for instance, Grenada (1984, 1999, and 2003), St. Vincent and the Grenadines (2001, 2005), St Lucia (2006) and Dominica (2009) have had exclusive observation by the OAS. On the other hand, the OAS had never observed elections in, Antigua and Barbuda before 2014, and Trinidad and Tobago (2000) which have only had Commonwealth observers. None of these countries has ever presented a case of serious breaches of electoral procedures or practices, and respective observer teams have reported positively on these elections. Other countries such as St. Kitts and Nevis in 1995 and 2004, Belize, and Jamaica, have had one group or another (one of two groups) observe their elections. So, for instance, the registration procedure in Belize (1997) was overseen by the OAS but the subsequent election (2008) was observed by the Commonwealth. The OAS has also alternated observing elections in Jamaica with other groups. The Carter Centre played a pivotal role in mediating tensions between political stakeholders in the pre-election period of 1997 and ultimately observed these elections. Their involvement in 2002 was ostensibly an attempt to solidify the positive elements from 1997. By 2007, although the country had invited five observer teams, the OAS was the only group to observe the elections.5 In this case, the Carter Center expressed the view that due to the “tremendous progress” that Jamaica had made in improving the various elements of the electoral system it “did not deem” their participation necessary.6 The OAS continued to observe all subsequent elections in Jamaica, namely in 2011 and 2016. The OAS has worked alongside other observer groups in other cases. Belize, Haiti and Guyana have had observers from multiple groups including the Commonwealth, The European Union and the OAS. Guyana has had observers from most notable groups since the very first observation in 1964. These groups represent the different international stakeholders, donors and providers of technical assistance in the country. It 4

The OAS has observed elections in Grenada, Belize, Dominica, Guyana (twice), St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Jamaica. 5 The Electoral Office of Jamaica invited the OAS, the Commonwealth, IFES, Caricom and the Carter Centre. See “Carter Centre Gives Jamaica Thumbs Up,” Jamaica Observer, August 16, 2007. 6 Ibid.

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is therefore not surprising for the Commonwealth and the OAS to be jointly, albeit independently involved in the observation of elections in Guyana since 1997. The OAS has forged an invaluable partnership with CARICOM in observing elections in the region. By the first anniversary of the IADC Ambassador Ishmael noted the overlap in their activities and policies that reflect “the intrinsic value placed on solid systems of democracy” in the region.7 This is evident in the active participation of CARICOM members in the OAS and in practice, as several members of OAS observer missions are also CARICOM citizens. This collaboration is synergistic in more than one dimension. For one, as Legler et al note, unlike the CARICOM Charter, the IADC has provisions and mechanisms to expel states that might violate principles of democratic governance.8 For another, despite lacking an expulsion clause or infusion of realpolitik through US membership, a CARICOM presence alongside the OAS strengthens the credibility of the latter group.

Logistical Notes The OAS respects state sovereignty by adhering to the basic requirement for an invitation from the government or electoral body in the country requesting observers. This approach balances the commitment to promoting and consolidating representative democracy while respecting the principle of non-interference as outlined in the Inter American Democratic Charter. The OAS supports believes that widespread support for its presence will enhance its credibility. Normally, too, the OAS will hold consultations with major stakeholders during pre-election missions. While some observer groups release final reports within weeks of an election, the OAS does not. Instead, it issues an interim statement on the election shortly after and publishes a final report within a few months. While the wait for a comprehensive assessment of an election does not provide the quick response expected by the international community and makes the OAS vulnerable to criticism, its approach is useful. This approach insulates the observer missions from accusations of making hasty or superficial verdicts.

7

Ambassador Odeen Ishmael, Significance, Applicability and Potential, CARICOM representative to the OAS on the first anniversary of the InterAmerican Democratic Charter, September, 2002. 8 Ibid.

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Issues The OAS abides by the “non-intervention” principle. The Charter states that none of its provisions authorizes the OAS to intervene in matters that are within the internal jurisdiction of member states. This makes observation only possible when states issue an invitation. Observers are subject to be ejected from a country at any time if they are perceived as meddling or abusing their access to the host country’s electoral institutions and system. This is reflected in the cases of Nicaragua (now rectified) and Venezuela which continues to exclude OAS observers and in which the OAS cannot be involved without an invitation from the government. The OAS in particular has been criticized for its liberal use of the assessment “free and fair”. Under great scrutiny, observer groups are expected to issue precise direct verdicts on elections. Hasty positive preliminary verdicts sometimes backfire if problems arise in the postelection environment. Sometimes though, some leeway for subjectivity is reasonable. No election is perfect. Once there is a clear commitment and significant improvements in an election it is beneficial for observer verdicts to be positive. The OAS has therefore also relied on complementary strategies of diplomacy and proving technical support to governments and institutions. The case of Peru in May 2016 highlights a different problem with subjectivity in reporting. In response to allegations of vote buying laws, the OAS electoral mission concluded that no local laws were broken. OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro, in contrast, commented strongly that the election would not be fully democratic. This highlights another challenge of observation: do election observation missions gauge their statements using local laws as their benchmark? While this a good starting point and framework for assessing the freeness and fairness of an election, observer missions must also reference widely agreed to international standards and codes of conduct. If we could single out the most debilitating challenge the OAS faces with respect to election observation; it would have to be lack of funding. Although election observation is a major activity for the OAS it is not funded by the regular budget. Most observer missions are funded by ad hoc contributions primarily from non-member states which have observer status at the OAS. The main contributors have included, France, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, South Korea, Serbia and the United Kingdom. The problem of funding is major as sometimes the OAS is unable to accept invitations received on short notice as there is insufficient time to source funding for mounting a mission.

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One final weakness in this area is the lack of enforcement mechanisms. The Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation (DECO) laments the lack of institutional mechanisms to follow up on recommendations. I would argue that, as evidenced in the case of Jamaica, many governments, electoral management bodies and local actors find the political imperative to implement these recommendations for the local gains and international validation received on follow-up missions.

Do OAS Observers Improve the Quality of an Election? Considering all the activities, resources, technical assistance and funding being pumped into election observation and its related activities, it is easy to lose focus of the main imperative of observation. Does election observation improve the quality of elections? All the theoretical literature provides several rationales to justify observation. These include deterring fraud, instilling voter confidence, deterring acts of violence and providing validation of election results. Hyde (2012) also suggests that observed elections are better than those that are not. This is not a blindly naive assertion. The weaknesses of observation are all acknowledged. There have been many cases where observation has merely served as a window dressing, has been unable to detect sophisticated attempts at fraud, or has been unable to prevent manipulation of IGOs by incumbents. Other challenges such as the unsustainability of efforts, untimely or overgeneralized reporting and duplicity of efforts all weaken the core mandate of election observation. With the professionalization of the practice, and standardization of codes of conduct, streamlining of methodologies observation, it is much more likely that observation can improve elections by “altering incentives to cheat and by engaging with domestic actors.”9 Typically, this is particularly important for states that are highly dependent on multilateral aid and international trade. This is the case for all Caribbean countries within the OAS system and was evidenced, in particular in the cases of Guyana and Jamaica. One might note, however, that this is no longer just a developing country issue as observers featured prominently during the recent elections in the US amidst rumblings election rigging and voter suppression. OAS Observers provide an important verification role. This is important in the contemporary milieu in which holding clean elections is acceptance of the norm of free and fair elections. The mere presence of 9

Hyde, 2012.

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observers improves the administration of the election. Interaction with stakeholders, the accountability provided by holding interviews and consultations with representatives from governments, oppositions, youth groups, women’s groups, the private sector and other domestic actors helps strengthen internal processes. The start of dialogue with these groups increases expectations and demands for accountability and improvements from within. The interaction of international observers with local actors also facilitates opportunities for training and technical assistance which often are part of a package deal.10

OAS Advances in Observation The OAS has been proactive in its recent approaches to election observation. The DECO has streamlined much of the activity in this regard. The main advances made include: 1. Publication of a Manual for OAS EOMs 2. Publication of Methods of Election Observation 3. Establishment of a Methodology for Observing the Use of Electoral Technologies. This is important in various phases of the election cycle i.e. Pre-Election, Post-Election Stages and Election Day 4. Creation of OAS Methodology for Media Monitoring during EOMs 5. Methodology for Integrating a Gender Perspective in EOMs. Examines the trends in participation of women and men as voters and candidates as set out in Article 28 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter which establishes the promotion of the political participation of women 6. Methodology for the Observation of Political Financing Models in Elections 7. OAS EOMs have also standardized methods in their focus on the Participation of indigenous and Afro-descendant populations. 8. Growing trend of extending voting to diasporas in the form of overseas voting; the OAS has tried to include these as part of EOMs e.g. Peru (2011), Bahamas (2012)

Conclusion Election observation by the OAS and other groups has not been the cure for all the political problems in the region. The countries that have 10

Ibid.

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Election Observation in the Caribbean

made substantial improvements are those that have instigated reforms from within, sometimes with suggestions from observation groups. Overall, member-states are likely to accept and endure the participation of international election observers as a useful indicator of their acquiescence to international norms, even when this is not their preferred inclination. This seems true, for example, with respect to Jamaica, Nicaragua, and Guyana. The OAS will certainly continue its programs in this area as observation is instrumental in fostering legitimacy and credibility, deterring fraud, and strengthening democratic institutions.

ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACIES AND CONSTITUTIONAL COUPS? THE SHIFTING NATURE OF DEMOCRATIC EROSION IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE NEED FOR NEW OAS RESPONSE MECHANISMS ADAM RATZLAFF JOSEF KORBEL SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF DENVER1

Introduction Luis Almagro, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), has come under fire for his approach to defending democracy in Latin America.2 Almagro encouraged Venezuela’s opposition to invoke the Inter-American Democratic Charter so that the OAS could act to protect Venezuelan democracy. In addition to the legal question of whether the opposition can invoke the Charter3, critics point to Almagro’s inaction on the “soft coup” in Brazil4 as a sign that the OAS does not treat 1

The author is extremely grateful to Professor Thomas J. Farer, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, for his comments and guidance on an earlier draft of this paper. All errors are the author’s alone. 2 Peter Bolton, “As Both Venezuelan Government and Opposition Representatives Converge on Washington, the Ongoing Democratic Charter Saga Exposes Deep Hypocrisy,” Washington, DC: Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 2016. 3 Jennifer L. McCoy, “Challenges for the Collective Defense of Democracy on the Tenth Anniversary of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Latin American Policy 3 (1): 33-57; and Timothy D. Rudy, “A Quick Look at the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the OAS: What Is It and Is It ‘Legal’?” Syracuse J. Int’l L. & Com. 33 (237), 2012: 237-248. 4 Alexandre B., Juan Sebastian Chavarro, Raiesa Frazer, Rachael Hilderbrand, and Emma Tyrou, “Soft Coup in Brazil: A Blow to Brazilian Democracy,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs 2016; and Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Fishman and David Miranda, “New Political Earthquake in Brazil: Is It Now Time for Media Outlets to

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Illiberal Democracies and Constitutional Coups?

threats to democracy equally or fairly.5 But what, if any, should the role of the Organization of American States be in addressing threats to democracy in the Western Hemisphere? The so-called “Third Wave” of democratization had a profound impact on the conduct of Inter-American affairs. As democracy became the norm across the region, the Organization of American States’ traditional apathy towards domestic political structures in favor of national sovereignty and non-intervention, began to shift.6 Although references to the importance of democracy had long been seen in the documents of the OAS, it wasn’t until 1991 that membership in the organization became contingent on being a representative democracy.7 In order to ensure that democracy persisted in the Americas, the OAS passed a series of measures culminating in the passage of the Inter-American Democratic Charter on September 11, 2001 (OAS 2001) that aimed to develop mechanisms through which the OAS could enforce a new “Inter-American collective-defense-of-democracy regime”.8 Although these changes to the Inter-American system can shield democracy, the implementation and success of the region’s collective defense of democracy has been plagued by many challenges and utilized sparingly. While the hemispheric community has acted decisively in cases Call This a ‘Coup’?” The Intercept, https://theintercept.com/2016/05/23/newpolitical-earthquake-in-brazil-is-it-now-time-for-media-outlets-to-call-this-a-coup/ accessed February 21, 2017. 5 Bolton, 2016. 6 Domingo E. Acevedo and Claudio Grossman, “The Organization of American States and the Protection of Democracy,” in Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas by Tom Farer, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996: 132-149; Andrew F. Cooper and Thomas Legler, Intervention without Intervening? The OAS Defense and Promotion of Democracy in the Americas, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; Tom Farer, Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996; Thomas Legler, “The Shifting Sands of Regional Governance: The Case of Inter-American Democracy Promotion,” Politics and Policy 40 (5), 2012: 848-870; Barry Levitt, “A Desultory Defense of Democracy: OAS Resolution 1080 and the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Latin American Politics and Society 48 (3), 2006: 93-123; Jennifer L. McCoy, “International Response to Democratic Crisis in the Americas 1990-2005,” Democratization 13 (5), 2006: 756-775; and McCoy 2012. 7 Acevedo and Grossman 1996; Darren Hawkins and Carolyn M. Shaw, “The OAS and Legalizing Norms of Democracy,” in Promoting Democracy in the Americas, by Thomas Legler, Sharon F. Lean, and Dexter S. Boniface, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007: 21-39. 8 Legler 2012.

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of military coups, the implementation of the Democratic Charter and the collective defense of democracy has done little to address the erosion of citizen rights in many countries or to address constitutionally questionable alterations of power throughout the region.9 This paper seeks to address some of the problems associated with the implementation and execution of OAS attempts to defend democracy within the Western Hemisphere and provide policy recommendations to improve this process. In order to understand the challenges faced in the implementation of the Democratic Charter, I will first present information on the current state of democracy in the Americas and of recent trends that have occurred in the region. This will be followed by an overview of the history and theory of the hemispheric collective defense of democracy regime and the mechanisms contained within the Inter-American Democratic Charter to address threats to democracy. I will then examine the challenges that hinder the successful implementation and invocation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Once the challenges have been identified, I will provide policy recommendations to address the gap between the intentions and actions of the OAS in promoting democratic governance in the Americas.

The State of Democracy in Latin America and New Democratic Challenges Latin America has had a long and troubled history with democracy and authoritarianism. Although many of the region’s countries were, at least nominally, democracies following independence, nearly every country in the Western Hemisphere has experienced a breakdown of the democratic order at some point in their national history. The “Third Wave” of democratization ushered in a new era of democratization to the Americas, and by the turn of the millennium, nearly every country in the Hemisphere was considered a democracy.10 Despite the impressive democratization 9

Craig Arceneaux and David Pion-Berlin, “Issues, Threats, and Institutions: Explaining OAS Responses to Democratic Dilemmas in Latin America,” Latin American Politics and Society 49 (2), 2007: 1-31; Dexter S. Boniface, “The OAS’s Mixed Record,” in Promoting Democracy in the Americas, by Thomas Legler, Sharon F. Lean, and Dexter S. Boniface, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007: 40-62; and McCoy 2012. 10 Jennifer S. Holmes, “Democratic Consolidation in Latin America?” in Latin American Democracy: Emerging Reality or Endangered Species? By Richard L. Millett, Jennifer S. Holmes, and Orlando J. Pérez, New York: Routledge, 2015: 722; Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, “Cross-Currents in Latin America,”

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process throughout the region, liberal democracy is far from being the “only game in town”.11 Despite the consensus that democracy is more than simply elections, to this day, the region suffers from frequent erosions of the civil liberties and political rights as well as coup attempts.12 Additionally, questions over the quality and longevity of democracy in the region remains a hotly debated issue.13 Today, all of the nations in the Americas, with the notable exception of Cuba, have the electoral procedures and rights that secure their status as electoral democracies.14 However, the precise makeup of government systems vary among the nations of the Western Hemisphere.15 Despite these achievements, the rights provided by the governments of several countries in the region fall short of full democratic legitimacy. Some of the shortfalls include censorship of the press, a degree of political repression and challenges in the provision of security.16 These challenged have led to the “partially free” Freedom House classification of many countries in the Americas (See Figure 1). These democratic challenges and deficits would Journal of Democracy 26 (1), 2015: 114-127; and Orlando J. Pérez, “Measuring Democratic Political Culture in Latin America,” in Latin American Democracy: Emerging Reality or Endangered Species? by Richard L. Millett, Jennifer S. Holmes, and Orlando J. Pérez, New York: Routledge, 2015: 23-43. 11 Boniface 2007; Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and PostCommunist Europe, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996; and Laurence Whitehead, “Alternative Models of Democracy in Latin America,” Brown Journal of World Affairs 17 (1), 2010: 75-87. 12 Freedom House, Freedom in the World Country Ratings: 1972-2015, Washington, D.C., Freedom House, 2016. 13 Larry Diamond, “Democracy in Decline: How Washington Can Reverse the Tide,” Foreign Affairs 95 (4), 2016: 151-159; , Hawkins and Shaw 2007; Holmes 2015; Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 2015; Francisco Panizza and Romina Mioreli, “Populism and Democracy in Latin America,” Ethics and International Affairs: 39-46; Pérez 2015; William Ratliff, “Latin America’s Fledgling, Fumbling Democracies,” Review of Policy Research 23 (2), 2006: 295-309; Aaron Schneider and Rafael R. Ioris, “Return to the Impossible Game in Latin America?” LAC Perspectivas, https://lacperspectivas.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/return-to-theimpossible-game-in-latin-america/ accessed February 28, 2017; and Paulo Sotero, “Democracy in Latin America: Alive but Not Well,” Foreign Policy 2005: 22-28. 14 Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 2015; Pérez 2015; Sotero 2005; and Whitehead 2010. 15 Whitehead 2010. 16 Jonathan Bissell, “The Rise of Leftist Populism- A Challenge to Democracy?” Military Review 2016: 77-87; Freedom House 2016; Holmes 2015; and Pérez 2015.

Adam Raatzlaff Figure 1. Levvel of Freedom in the Americas, 1983-201517

17

Freedom H House 2016.

33

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Note: For the purpose of this figure, the Americas refer to the 35 sovereign states of the Americas. These include all 34 member states of the OAS as well as Cuba, who with the passage of the OAS Resolution on Cuba: AG/RES Freedom House. 2016. Freedom in the World Country Ratings: 1972-2015. 2438 (XXXIX-O/09) (2009), ended Cuba’s suspension from the OAS pending discussion. Additionally, all states are included for the entire time frame regardless of if they became an OAS member state after the given year.

lead others to classify some of these nations as what Fareed Zakaria (2007) referred to as illiberal democracies or to what O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) referred to as Democraduras. Furthermore, the democratization process in the Western Hemisphere continues to be plagued with setbacks and has taken a far from unidirectional path towards democratic consolidation. Even among Latin American nations that have traditionally appeared to have consolidated liberal democracies, several have seen their governments take away citizen rights or undermine the integrity of the electoral process through constitutionally questionable methods.18 Although the number of countries that Freedom House considers to be “free” has increased since the 1990s and the average level of “freedom” has increased on average in the region, there have only been two years since the 1990 in which no country in the region saw a worsening of their Freedom House score (See Table 1). This is also reflected in the Jennifer McCoy’s (2012) estimation that there were 63 democratic crises between 1990 and 2011.19

18

B., et al. 2016; Bissell 2016; Boniface 2007; and Holmes 2015. Note that the difference in the reported number of democratic crises reported by Freedom House (2016) and McCoy (2012) may be due to the length of these crises, to their impact on Freedom House scores, or to the existence of multiple crises in a single year. 19

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Table 1. Evolution of Freedom and Democracy in the Americas, 1990201520

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Americas’ Average Freedom House Score 5.06 5.17 5.17 5.34 5.34 5.31 5.00 5.00 4.94 4.97 4.69 4.83 4.80 4.74 4.66 4.60 4.43 4.43 4.46 4.63 4.66 4.66 4.63 4.63 4.66 4.77

Number of Countries who became less free/democratic 7 5 6 9 6 2 1 2 3 4 3 5 3 2 1 3 1 0 2 5 2 1 0 2 1 4

Notes: (a) Freedom House Scores Range from 2 (Most Free/Democratic) to 14 (Least Free/Democratic); (b) For the purpose of this table, the Americas refer to the 35 sovereign states of the Americas. These include all 34 member states of the OAS as well as Cuba, who with the passage of the OAS Resolution on Cuba: AG/RES. 2438 (XXXIX-O/09) (2009), ended Cuba’s suspension from the OAS 20

Freedom House 2016.

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Illiberal Democracies and Constitutional Coups?

pending discussion. Additionally, all states are included for the entire time frame regardless of if they became an OAS member state after the given year.

Although threats to democratic governance in the Americas continue to exist, there is a silver lining. During much of the 19th and 20th centuries, military led coups were relatively common place.21 However, since the turn of the millennium, these types of coups have become far less common, with three attempted traditional military coups since the turn of the millennium; Venezuela (2002), Paraguay (2009), and in Honduras (2009).22 Of these, only the case of Honduras resulted in a change of government and, although this coup was undertaken by the military, is nevertheless representative of the new threats to democracy faced in the hemisphere.23,24 The threats to democracy in contemporary Latin America have a new face that can make the determination of culpability and whether a “coup” has occurred far more difficult. One increasingly common form of democratic breakdown comes in the form of removing a nation’s executive through mass protest or constitutionally questionable means.25 While in some ways the former of these two mechanisms represents the will of the people, the resulting political instability, and often economic instability, may lead to undemocratic outcomes. The rise of constitutionally questionable “coups” often linked to the impeachment of an elected official also represents a challenge to democratic governance in the region.26 The rise of 21

McCoy 2012. Ibid. 23 Thomas Legler, “Learning the Hard Way: Defending Democracy in Honduras,” International Journal 65 (3), 2010: 601-618; and Michael Shifter, “Obama’s Honduras Problem,” Foreign Affairs, 2009. 24 In early 2009, leftist President José Manuel Zelaya of Honduras sought to amend the national constitution of Honduras through a public referendum that would allow him to run for reelection. The Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for President Zelaya to amend the constitution in this way. Despite the court’s ruling Zelaya proceeded with the national referendum. On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military, under instructions from other branches of the government, removed Zelaya from power. The interim government held the already scheduled elections in November 2009 and handed over power to the winner. However, given the actions taken by Zelaya, the court and other actors, debate over who had actually committed a coup, Zelaya attempting a self-coup (autogolpe) or the military implementing a traditional coup, led to support for both sides of the conflict. 25 Boniface 2007; McCoy 2012. 26 Due to the mechanisms used for removing elected officials from office, Dexter Boniface (2007) refers to this phenomenon as “impeachment coups.” While early 22

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“impeachment coups”27 or constitutionally questionable alterations of power are a relatively new and increasingly common phenomenon with instances of presidents being removed from office through constitutionally questionable means by other branches of the government have occurred in Paraguay (2012) and, most recently, in Brazil (2016).28,29 The turn towards these constitutional coups has led some to question whether the political right has deemed it impossible to win at the ballot box and thus has resorted to alternative tools to regain power.30 While there are recent examples from the region that reveal that the right has the ability to win elections,31 the rise of populism in the many countries in the Western Hemisphere and the rewriting of constitutions and electoral rules may lead to fears over single party dominance in some countries. There have been multiple cases of constitutional rewrites throughout the region since the turn of the millennium. Although there is nothing inherently undemocratic about this process, in many cases the rewrites have concentrated power in the office of the nation’s executive, thus curtailing the balance of power in these countries.32 The challenge to democracy posed by the expansion of executive powers is exacerbated by the rise of populism in the region and attempts by many Latin American leaders to extend term limits. Several populist leaders in Latin America have taken their election as a mandate to undertake radical change in their countries. Although this in itself may not be a problem, this has been instances of these occurrences were often linked to social demonstrations followed by congressional or military action (Boniface 2007), these more recent examples are largely led by elites within each nation. Some examples of earlier society driven “impeachment coups” include Ecuador (2000 and 2005), Argentina (2001), Bolivia (2003 and 2005). Given that these phenomena are often viewed as constitutionally permissible by some outside actors and coup perpetrators (particularly in the most recent cases), I refer to these occurrences using the term “constitutional coups,” as this may encompass future similar occurrences, as well as Boniface’s (2007) term of “impeachment coups.” 27 Boniface 2007. 28 B., et al. 2016; McCoy 2012. 29 The case of Honduras (2009) could also be added to this list if you consider the coup to be orchestrated by congress and the court rather than as a traditional military coup. 30 Schneider and Ioris 2016. 31 Some recent examples include elections in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. 32 Javier Corrales, “Constitutional Rewrites in Latin America, 1987-2009,” in Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America by Jorge I. Domínguez and Michael Shifter, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013: 13-47.

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coupled, in many cases, with the belief that it is ok to disregard the rights of the opposition and of those that do not share their views.33 This problem is further aggravated when populist leaders attempt to extend their mandates by changing election laws such that they are able to seek reelection. While incumbent candidates are more likely to win reelection, a problem that can lead the opposition to seek alternative methods for regaining power, studies have also shown that the probability of electoral fraud among incumbent candidates is notably higher.34 Another common threat to democracy in Latin America in the 21st century has been the curtailing of citizen rights.35 In many cases, this includes leveraging the power of the state to suppress opposition politicians or the increasing the role of the state in controlling the press. More troubling is that in the contemporary setting there have been many cases where these actions have been undertaken with the view that populist leaders have a popular mandate for implementing policies that restrict citizen rights.36 Given the differences on opinion in the role of the state and in definitions of democracy37, it is particularly important to highlight that some nations within the Americas do not view these changes as threats to democratic governance in the region.38 Although democracy has become the standard throughout Latin America, many challenges remain for the full practice of liberal democracy in the region and new threats to democratic governance have emerged. Efforts to strengthen democratic governance in Latin America have been championed by various non-governmental organizations, civil society and through bilateral aid. In addition to these efforts, ideals of democratic governance have been enshrined in the principles of the Organization of American States which has developed mechanisms that seek to promote and defend democracy in the region.

33

Bissell 2016; Holmes 2015; and Panizza and Miorelli 2009. Jonathan Hartlyn, Jennifer S. McCoy, and Thomas M. Mustillo, “Electoral Governance Matters: Explaining the Quality of Elections in Contemporary Latin America,” Comparative Political Studies 41 (1), 2008: 73-98. 35 Freedom House 2016; Holmes 2015; Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 2015; Panizza and Miorelli 2009; Ratliff 2006, and Sotero 2005. 36 Bissell 2016; Panizza and Miorelli 2009. 37 Whitehead 2010. 38 Cooper and Legler 2006; Levitt 2006; and Christopher Sabatini, “Meaningless Multilateralism: In International Diplomacy, South America Chooses Quantity over Quality,” Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/southamerica/2014-08-08/meaningless-multilateralism accessed March 5, 2017. 34

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The Inter-American Defense of Democracy Regime Research on democratization has frequently relegated the role of international actors and the international system to creating an international “zeitgeist” capable of exerting influence on domestic political actors.39 Although research on democratization and democratic governance has traditionally focused on the domestic factors associated with these processes, a growing number of studies has focused on the implications of global governance and the international system on promoting and defending democracy.40 Despite the dearth of literature confirming the importance of international actors on the defense and promotion of democracy, the Organization of American States has a long history of, at least nominally, supporting democracy in the Americas. In fact, the commitment to democracy that has been enshrined within the InterAmerican system predates the formation of the OAS in 1948. Following independence, nearly all countries in the Western Hemisphere were, at least nominally, democratic. Multilateral discussion on democracy in the Americas dates back to turn of the twentieth century41 and conferences and summits to promote a Pan-American community or system often found ways to stipulate the need for further cooperation and strengthening of democracy. In 1907, hemispheric leaders agreed not to recognize states in Central America that had not come to power through the electoral process.42 In the lead-up to World War II, the nations of the Americas reaffirmed their commitments to democracy at the 1937 InterAmerican Conference for the Maintenance of Peace.43 When the OAS was founded in 1948, the realizing the ideal of a community of democracies become a central goal of the organization and the founding charter stated that representative democracy was to be promoted in the Americas (OAS 1948). Despite the OAS’s stated commitment to promoting democracy in the Americas, the geopolitical context of the Cold War led to this commitment being little more than lip service and was frequently hypocritical.44 Despite the breakdown of democratic governance in many of the countries of the region, the only 39

Linz and Stepan 1996. Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin 2007; Cooper and Legler 2006; Legler 2012; McCoy 2012; and Levitt 2006. 41 Heraldo Muñoz, “The Right to Democracy in the Americas,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 40 (1), 1998: 1-18. 42 Hawkins and Shaw 2007. 43 Ibid. 44 Hawkins and Shaw 2007; Legler 2012; and Levitt 2006. 40

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country to face OAS actions as a result of a breakdown of the democratic system was Cuba, whose membership the OAS suspended following the takeover by Fidel Castro regime. The hypocrisy of suspending Cuba’s membership despite the number of undemocratic regimes was not lost on many of the leaders in the region and has led to some viewing the OAS as an extension of US neocolonial ambitions.45 Additionally, efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to develop collective responsibilities for democracy in the Western Hemisphere failed to gain traction as many countries experienced coups and fears that this could open the door to US intervention.46 However, as Latin America rode the third wave of democratization through the end of the Cold War, the institution’s stance on promoting democracy in the region began to shift. In 1985, after many countries in the Americas had transitioned to democracy, the OAS passed the Protocol of Cartagena de Indias which strengthened the text of the OAS founding charter to place representative democracy as an “…indispensable condition for the stability peace and development of the region”.47 In 1990, the OAS established the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy, which was tasked with strengthening democratic governance and monitoring elections in member states.48 The importance of representative democracy for the regional governance was further strengthened in 1991 with the passage of Resolution 1080 which gave the Secretary General of the OAS the power to call a special meeting of the Permanent Council of the OAS should any country in the region experience a coup. In 1992, Resolution 1080 was given teeth with the passage of the Washington Protocol which allowed the OAS to suspend membership of countries that saw elected leaders toppled by force. Several scholars have suggested that renewed interest in promoting and defending democracy enshrined in these OAS actions resulted from an understanding among Latin American leaders of the need to establish 45

Francisco Rojas Aravena, “Latin American Democracy: The View from the South,” in Latin American Democracy: Emerging Reality or Endangered Species? by Richard L. Millett, Jennifer S. Holmes, and Orlando J. Pérez, New York: Routledge, 2015: 50-69; and Daniela Segovia, “Latin America an dthe Caribbean: Between the OAS and ECLAC,” European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 95, 2013: 97-107. 46 Hawkins and Shaw 2007. 47 Organization of American States, Charter of the OAS, Bogotá: Organization of American States, 1948. 48 It is important to note that in 2006 the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy has been replaced by the Secretariat for Political Affairs which includes departments for; State Modernization and Governance, Electoral Cooperation and Observation, Democratic Stability and Special Missions (Martin 2009).

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mechanisms that would ensure that they were not removed from power through undemocratic means.49 Regardless of the rationale behind the acceptance of democratic norms in the region, it had become accepted that democracy was a fundamental and necessary characteristic of the region and for membership within the Inter-American system. Although a framework had been established to address democratic crises and coups in the region, initial implementation of a collective defense-of-democracy framework faced a number of challenges, including the geopolitical considerations of member states and fear of setting new precedents of intervention in the hemisphere. These occurred in the case of Aristide’s overthrow in Haiti, Fujimori’s self-coup in Peru and in addressing public protest against elected leaders in the hemisphere.50 The OAS and member states, particularly Peru which had faced their own democratic crises, raced to resolve the challenges that had become evident in the implementation of the first wave of Inter-American democratic defense. In 2001, the OAS passed the Inter-American Democratic Charter to solve some of the challenges faced by the earlier iterations of democratic defense and promotion policies and consolidate these approaches into a single executable charter.51 The Democratic Charter enshrines representative democracy as fundamental component of membership in the OAS and establishes mechanisms for addressing “…an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order in a member state…”.52 The Democratic Charter requires the Secretary General of the Organization of American States to hold a special meeting of the Permanent Council of the OAS in the case of a breakdown of the democratic regime in any member state. The Charter also establishes mechanisms for strengthening democratic institutions and monitoring elections at the behest of the host nation. Finally, as not all OAS member states had signed onto the 1992 Washington Protocol, the Democratic Charter permitted the Organization to suspend OAS member states in 49

Acevedo and Grossman 1996; Cooper and Legler 2006; Legler 2012; Levitt 2006; and Paul Martin, “Chávez, The Organization of American States, and Democracy in International Law,” Alberta Law Review 46 (4), 2009: 933-955. 50 Cooper and Legler 2006; Levitt 2006. 51 While there are those that view this consolidation process as doing minimally strengthening the regional collective defense of democracy paradigm (Hawkins and Shaw 2007), it is important to note that all OAS member states have signed the Inter-American Democratic Charter while not all countries had approved the Washington Protocols. 52 Organization of American States, Inter-American Democratic Charter, Lima: Organization of American States, 2001.

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cases where democratic institutions had been subverted. As the all member states have signed the Democratic Charter,53 all nations of the InterAmerican system recognized the need for the promotion and defense of democracy and the authority of the Organization of American States to address these challenges. Although the Democratic Charter had broad support and has been used to address democratic crises, subsequent efforts to strengthen OAS mechanisms have not been successful. In 2005, efforts to develop a committee to receive civil society input on democratic governance in the region and to have the OAS conduct analyses of the quality of democracy in the nations of the hemisphere failed to gain momentum.54 Although progress on strengthening the Inter-American collective defense of democracy regime have stalled, the OAS has been able to implement the Democratic Charter and the Americas remain one of the few regions that has established multilateral norms for the defense of democracy.

Challenges to the OAS’s Collective Defense of Democracy Despite the existence of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and previous efforts to collectively defend and promote democracy in the Western Hemisphere, many challenges remain in the execution of the objectives laid out in the Inter-American Democratic Charter. If the OAS is to ensure democratic governance in the Americas, it is necessary to understand the problems that the organization faces in attaining these goals in the current (and future) political and economic climate. This section highlights the challenges that the Organization of American States faces in promoting democracy and ensuring the persistence of democratic governance in the region. The following section will focus on policy recommendations that can address these challenges and whether or not the OAS is in fact the best institution to collectively address democratic challenges in the Western Hemisphere.

1. The OAS is Often Seen as a Tool of US Neocolonialism Although the Organization of American States was originally designed to promote dialogue and protect the sovereignty of member states, it has 53 The only nation in the Americas that is not a signatory to the Democratic Charter is Cuba. Under OAS Resolution AG/RES. 2438 (XXXIX-O/09), which permitted Cuba to reenter the OAS following discussion, it is likely that re-admittance to the OAS would be contingent on signing the Inter-American Democratic Charter. 54 Hawkins and Shaw 2007.

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frequently been viewed by leaders throughout the Americas as a tool for exercising US hegemony in the region.55 It is interesting to note however that the Inter-American Democratic Charter has primarily been invoked in cases where left-leaning governments have been removed from power and the OAS has promoted objectives that run counter to US interests, even overturning or changing US positions in some cases,56 the image of the Organization of American States as an extension of US neocolonial intentions remains prevalent in much of the region. Given this view of the OAS, it becomes difficult for the institution to apply the Democratic Charter where governments have been outspoken opponents of the United States as they can point to OAS actions as “proof” of US imperial encroachment, as Venezuela’s President Maduro did following Panama’s discussion of invoking the Democratic Charter and other criticism of Venezuela’s crackdown against protestors in 2014.57 Similar charges are currently being leveled against Secretary General Almagro’s attempts to invoke the Democratic Charter against the breakdown of order in Venezuela.58

2. Balance of Sovereignty and Democratic Promotion An additional challenge that the Organization of American States faces in addressing democratic promotion and protection is that these objectives are often contrary to one of the other guiding principles of the institution: a respect for national sovereignty. In fact, Article I of the OAS Charter states that the OAS was founded, among other things, “…to defend [American States’] sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and their independence”.59 Although Article II establishes the desire to “…promote and consolidate representative democracy…” it does so “with due respect for the principle of nonintervention”.60 This premise of non-intervention leads to a number of problems when the OAS attempts to invoke the democratic charter, particularly in cases where the executive has not been 55

Aravena 2015; Segovia 2013. John F. Maisto, “The View from the North: The United States and the OAS: What Frustrates the Americans?” in Latin American Democracy: Emerging Reality or Endangered Species? by Richard L. Millet, Jennifer S. Holmes, and Orlando J. Pérez, New York: Routledge, 2015: 44-49; Martin 2009. 57 Adam Ratzlaff, “If Not the OAS, Then Who Can Talk about Venezuela?” Southern Pulse Correspondents, 2014. 58 Bolton 2016. 59 OAS 1948. 60 Ibid. 56

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removed from office. In these cases, there is a strong preference for noninterference rather than democratic promotion among many Latin American countries for fear of setting a precedent of interference in the region.61 This has hindered the utilization of Democratic Charter on a number of occasions.

3. Who Can Invoke the Democratic Charter The Organization of American States’ traditional respect for “executive sovereignty,” or the concept that the executive branch is the sole voice of the nation for the purpose of foreign policy and international affairs,62 poses an additional threat to the objective of democracy promotion and protection. With the exception of cases where the executive has been removed from power, as is the case of traditional military coups, the president is often involved in the erosion of democracy. However, the Inter-American Democratic Charter can only be invoked by a select group of people. Although, the “Self-Help” clause of the Charter (Article 17) can be invoked by the sitting president of the nation which seeks help and the Secretary General can seek, with prior consent of the country, to send a team to analyze the situation in a country where “…situations arise…that many affect the development of…democratic political institutional process or the legitimate exercise of power…”,63 in the case “…of an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime…”,64 only the Secretary General of the OAS or any nation’s permanent representative to the OAS can call for a special meeting of the OAS. Domestic actors other than the executive, are unable to invoke the Democratic Charter. This has proven particularly problematic in cases where no nation invokes the Charter, but the government has violated the political rights of its population. This challenge is particularly notable in the current case of Venezuela, where Secretary General Almagro has encouraged the Venezuelan opposition to invoke the Democratic Charter even though it is unclear that under the Democratic Charter they are able to do so.65 The inability for other branches of the government or for civil society groups to

61

Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin 2007; Cooper and Legler 2006; and McCoy 2012. Cooper and Legler 2006. 63 OAS 2001, Article 18. 64 Ibid., Article 20. 65 Bolton 2016. 62

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invoke the Charter makes its implementation particularly difficult in instances of non-coup democratic crises.66

4. Defining Democratic Alteration and Interruption The Inter-American Charter can be invoked and authorize the Secretary General to call a special meeting of the Permanent council only in the case “…of an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order in a member state…”.67 If the “…unconstitutional interruption of the democratic order of a member state…” is unresolved, the OAS can vote to suspend that nations membership.68 However, these clauses are vague as to what precisely constitutes an unconstitutional alteration or interruption. Although the OAS has acted decisively in most cases of traditional military coups and self-coups, the OAS has frequently viewed electoral problems, democratic erosion and constitutional crises as “second-order threats” to democracy in the Americas.69 As such, there have been arguments over the use of the Democratic Charter based on the clarity of whether an interruption has occurred and if the interruption or alteration has been unconstitutional.70 Defining whether an interruption has occurred is particularly challenging given the new threats to democracy that are faced within the Americas, particularly in cases where there is no change to the regime in power (i.e., in cases of an erosion of civil rights or in the case of unfair electoral procedures) or in cases where the removal from power is permitted by the constitution, even if questionably, as in the cases of Brazil (2016) Honduras (2009) and Paraguay (2012). The unclear definition of what constitutes a democratic alteration or interruption coupled with changes to the nature of democratic erosion and crises in the Americas generates 66

Although the invocation of the Democratic Charter is reserved for national executives or their representatives and the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, it is important to note that Article 7 of the Democratic Charter establishes democracy as “indispensable for the effective exercise of fundamental freedoms and human rights” (OAS 2001). Furthermore, Article 8 provides individuals or groups to petition the Inter-American system in cases where they consider their human rights have been violated (OAS 2001). Taken together, it becomes less clear that civil society or opposition parties are unable to seek the invocation of the Democratic Charter. 67 OAS 2001, Article 20. 68 Ibid., Article 21. 69 Boniface 2007. 70 Cooper and Legler 2006; Legler 2010.

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challenges for the effective utilization of the Inter-American Democratic Charter to promote and defend democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

5. Different Definitions of Democracy Following the end of the Cold War, it seemed as though the definition of democracy had been settled as being representative liberal democracy.71 However, since the turn of the millennium, there has been much debate over the meaning of democracy in Latin America, with different democratic variants emerging across the region.72 Perhaps the most evident sign of this debate within the Inter-American system came during the drafting of the Democratic Charter when Venezuela pushed to strike the term “representative democracy” from the document, or at least to include reference to Hugo Chavez’s preference for “participatory democracy,”.73,74 Given the different approaches and definitions of democracy, it has become increasingly difficult for one to determine if a practice or government is democratic. Although an action may be viewed as undemocratic from the perspective of liberal representative democracy, leaders that believe that they have a mandate from the people may take actions regardless of the strict constitutionality of the action.

6. Firefighting Instead of Preventing Democratic Crises The challenges of defining what is considered an alteration or interruption to the democratic order or even democracy itself, generate an additional critique of the Inter-American collective defense of democracy regime; how to address threats to democratic governance before they become critical. Actions taken by the Organization of American States to address threats to democracy have often been categorized as

71

Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs 76 (6), 2007: 22-43. 72 Whitehead 2010. 73 Cooper and Legler 2006; Levitt 2006; and Martin 2009. 74 Hugo Chávez was unable to strike representative democracy as the standard for democracy from the Inter-American Democratic Charter or to add in reference to participatory democracy. However, Venezuelan representatives were able to insert Article 6 into the Democratic Charter which states that “It is the right and responsibility of all citizens to participate in decisions relating to their own development… Promoting and fostering diverse forms of participation strengthens democracy” (OAS 2001).

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“firefighting”,75 as the OAS has taken little action to prevent democratic crises from occurring, but rather dealt with democratic challenges after they had escalated. This weakens the protection for democracy paradigm by creating incentives for leaders to weaken democracy in an effort to ensure their continued rule and increase their power relative to the opposition. This challenge is further exacerbated by the respect for executive sovereignty as other branches of the government are unable to invoke the democratic charter in order to protect the interests and rights of minority segments of the polity in cases of initial erosions of democratic governance. If the OAS was able to intervene though the Democratic Charter before challenges had escalated to the level of a coup or similar crisis, it may be possible for the Organization to stimulate dialogue that could prevent these crises from occurring.

7. The Democratic Charter is Inherently Political Votes on the invocation of the Democratic Charter take place in the OAS General Assembly or through a special meeting of the Foreign Ministers of OAS member states. While this is entirely logical given the structure and design of the Organization of American States, this has generated a number of problems for the implementation of the Democratic Charter. Deciding cases of democratic interruption or alteration has not just been defined by the characteristics of the crisis, but the political will and interests of member states.76 This poses a challenge for the implementation of the Democratic Charter as some countries may view the removal of a particular elected leader as desirable to their national interests and, as such, vote not to invoke the Democratic Charter. This was the case of the attempted 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, where the United States and Colombia recognized the interim government that had enacted the coup.77 While the Charter was eventually invoked (following Chavez’s return to power), this case emphasizes how national interests could affect the implementation and effectiveness of the Democratic Charter. While most countries viewed the case of Venezuela as a coup, it is a definite possibility that other leaders may not receive support from their InterAmerican neighbors.

75

Cooper and Legler 2006; McCoy 2012. Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin 2007; Cooper and Legler 2006; Levitt 2006; and McCoy 2012. 77 Cooper and Legler 2006. 76

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Policy Recommendations Given the challenges discussed in the previous section, perhaps the first question that should be posed is whether or not it should even be the role of the Organization of American States to promote and defend democracy in the Americas. Additionally, is the OAS the right institution to be tasked with defending democracy in the Americas, particularly given the rise of other regional institutions? These questions are particularly pressing given the view, discussed above, that the OAS is an extension of US foreign policy and a tool of neocolonialism (Aravena 2015). Despite this, it remains in the interest of all members of the OAS to promote democracy in the region and the OAS remains the best regional institution for carrying out this task. All of the nations of the Americas have a vested interest in promoting and defending democracy in the region. The initial interest for defense of their own governments held be many Latin American leaders when designs for a collective defense of democracy regime began remains an important element for many democratically elected leaders of the Americas.78 Although defending democracy may limit the power of their governments, a fair and equitable system for protecting democracy ensures the safety of the current government and guarantees the potential for a return to power in the future. Furthermore, there have been few inter-state conflicts within the region since the return to democracy, giving credence to democratic peace theory. The continued peace of the region serves the economic and political interests of all countries in the region.79 These factors both explain why it is in the interest of the various nations of the Western Hemisphere to promote and defend democracy and why the OAS should be the institution tasked with this objective. Given the view that the OAS is a US tool of neocolonialism and the accompanying rise of regional institutions,80 it may seem at first glance that one of the new regional organizations would make a better vehicle for the regional defense of democracy paradigm. However, other regional institutions are plagued with their own challenges of democratic legitimacy and institutional capacity. The two other large regional organizations that have enshrined ideals of democracy into their guiding documents are the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States

78

Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin 2007; Cooper and Legler 2006; Farer 1996; and Legler 2012. 79 Farer 1996. 80 Aravena 2015, Segovia 2013.

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(CELAC) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).81 In the case of CELAC, there is a legitimate concern over the role of the organization in the promotion of democracy amongst member states given the make-up of the organization. The inclusion of Cuba, the only fully authoritarian government in contemporary in Latin America, poses a problem for the legitimacy of the institution as a broker of democratic support.82 Additionally, CELAC does not have the institutional capacity to carry out ground operations to support democracy in any meaningful way as the organization is essentially a rotating summit for presidents of Latin America.83 Given these issues, it should come as no surprise that CELAC has remained largely uninvolved in democracy promotion activities.84 On the other hand, UNASUR has taken some actions towards defending and supporting democracy in the region. However, UNASUR is also subject to a great deal of legitimate criticism. Although the Union of South American Nations has stronger penalties in the case of a total breakdown in democratic order than the OAS, like the OAS, UNASUR lacks concrete mechanisms for addressing democratic erosion and backsliding.85 Additionally, UNASUR’s support for democracy has been considered by many experts to be highly problematic and used to legitimize undemocratic practices. The clearest example of this comes from UNASUR electoral monitoring missions. Rather than monitoring elections and reporting problems or irregularities, UNASUR “accompanies” elections, which is frequently viewed as rubberstamping the election results regardless of any problems evident within the process and thus legitimizing the results of potentially fraudulent elections.86,87 81

Legler 2012 . Legler 2012; Sabatini 2014. 83 Legler 2012. 84 The one notable exception to this was in the case of the 2002 attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, which occurred during a meeting of the Rio Group, CELAC’s predecessor, at which many Latin American foreign ministers were present. This meant that action was called for by the group, but all operations, follow up, and the final resolution of the crisis fell under the auspices of the OAS (Cooper and Legler 2006). 85 Legler 2012. 86 It is important to note here that UNASUR is not a signatory to the 2005 Declaration of Principles of International Election Observation, which lays out standards for election monitoring. Many other international organizations, including the OAS, have signed and ratified this declaration (Casas-Zamora 2015). 87 Kevin Casas-Zamora, “Venezuela’s Questionable Election Observers,” Project Syndicate, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/venezuela-electionobservers-by-kevin-casas-zamora-2015-10 accessed February 4, 2017; Daniel 82

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This is especially problematic in cases where governments ban other electoral observers, as was the case in Venezuela’s 2015 elections.88 So despite the problems in the implementation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the Organization of American States remains the best suited institution for promoting and defending democracy in the Americas. However, concerns over the image of the OAS among some groups in the hemisphere leads to the first policy recommendation towards improving regional efforts to collectively promote and defend democracy.

1. Strengthen Legitimacy of OAS If the Organization of American States seeks to successfully implement a Pan-American collective defense of democracy regime, it is of the utmost importance that the OAS be viewed as an impartial arbitrator. This is particularly difficult given the institution’s troubled history and hypocrisy in supporting democracy and the perception of the OAS as an extension of US neocolonial ambitions. While the OAS has taken steps to remedy these perceptions and has even opposed and changed US positions,89 more must be done to legitimize the position of the Organization of American States as the champion and protector of democratic governance in the region. This can be done in a number or ways, including pushing for the implementation of Democratic Charter in the face of US opposition should the case arise, thus strengthening the independence of the organization from US interests. Additionally the OAS should seek to monitor elections in all member states, including the United States,90 and report any irregularities.91 Lansberg-Rodríguez, “For Venezuela, Election Monitoring with a Wink and a Nod,” Foreign Policy, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/10/for-venezuela-electionmonitoring-with-a-wink-and-a-nod/ accessed March 2, 2017; and Sabatini 2014. 88 Casas-Zamora 2015, Lansberg-Rodríguez 2015. 89 Martin 2009. 90 The United States invited the Organization of American States to send election monitors for the first time for the 2016 Presidential election (see Ben Raderstorf, “The Historic OAS Electoral Observation Mission to the US,” Voces (InterAmerican Dialogue), http://www.thedialogue.org/blogs/2016/09/the-historic-oaselectoral-observation-mission-in-the-us/ accessed March 12, 2017). 91 While Section V of the Inter-American Democratic Charter charges the OAS with the power to send electoral observation missions (OAS 2001; Article 24) and permits the OAS to “…provide advisory services or assistance for strengthening and developing…electoral systems…” (OAS 2001; Article 23), both of these actions can only be undertaken “…at the request of the member state concerned” (OAS 2001; Article 24). As such, countries that have electoral irregularities or who

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2. Remove Political Considerations with Expert Panel Although increasing the legitimacy of the OAS is critical to promoting democracy, the nature of the General Assembly is inherently political. As such, any time that the invocation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter is considered, political considerations will play an important role in deciding whether the OAS will take action. These political considerations drastically weaken efforts to promote democracy in the region. In order to remove some of the political considerations, the OAS should develop an external panel of experts tasked with determining if there is a threat to democratic governance in any member state or if there has been an interruption or alteration of the democratic order. This panel should be made up of internationally respected and renowned scholars and practitioners. Additionally, in order to prevent unintended biases within the panel, the panel should be made up of experts from various member and non-member states. While individuals will still have their own biases and political persuasions, an international panel of experts is less likely to view democratic governance in the region through the lens of their respective countries’ national interests than the permanent representatives to the OAS or, for that matter, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States. A similar approach has been implemented by the United Nations for monitoring human rights abuses with a panel of international experts that make up the Human Rights Committee.

3. Create Common, but Evolving Definition of Democracy To guide the actions of the expert panel, and to remove confusion among member states, the panel should develop a multifaceted definition of democracy that takes into account the plurality of meanings that democracy has in the region while still respecting the rights of the hemisphere’s citizens. Additionally, the panel may opt to include new innovations in governance as they are developed so long as, in the panel’s judgement, the practice is democratically sound. Although the panel’s definition may not encompass what all leaders in the hemisphere wish to define as democracy, by having regional and global experts on democracy develop a working definition, the panel will be able to establish when an erosion of democratic principles is taking place. This process can be have their own electoral missions may opt to not have the OAS participate. In order to strengthen the legitimacy of the OAS electoral missions, the OAS should seek to monitor and report on all national (and sub-national if deemed necessary) elections in the Americas.

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further strengthened by having the panel develop indicators that can be used to highlight trends in democratic practice in the Americas. These indicators should be clear and measurable so that they can be considered by the General Assembly and OAS missions for improving democratic governance and addressing democratic crises. By having the expert panel develop and amend the definition of democracy, and requiring approval of this definition from the general assembly helps to insulate the process from the political preferences of member states.

4. Create Channels for Dialogue As discussed above, the OAS’s traditional respect for executive sovereignty poses a number of problems for promoting and protecting democracy. One of these challenges is in determining who is able to invoke the democratic charter. While the establishment of an expert panel removes this ambiguity by having the panel invoke the charter, it is important that elements of society beyond the executive are able to interact with the panel. To this end, the panel should have open lines of communication with civil society, the legislature, constitutional courts and with opposition party politicians. While this may seem to counter the OAS’s principle of nonintervention, having open channels for discussion and debate does not mean that the panel will invoke the charter. Rather, this allows the various elements of society to serve as watchdogs and assist the panel in ascertaining facts on the ground. Additionally, this assists the panel in being aware of the main political actors in each nation so that if there is a case where either a dialogue to protect democracy or the need to invoke the charter, the expert panel is already acquainted with the stakeholders that should be approached.

5. Establish Guidelines for Action Arguably, one of the challenges that has most drastically weakened the effectiveness of the Inter-American Democratic Charter is that it has not been invoked in a consistent manner. This reduces the legitimacy of the OAS and opens the door for critiques of the OAS as being biased by national interests. In order to avoid this perception, the expert panel should develop a list of actions and recommendations for different threats to democratic governance that are proportional to the challenge. For example, cases where there is the possibility of an elected official being removed from power through constitutionally questionable methods, as occurred in Brazil (2016), Honduras (2009) and Paraguay (2012), should

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create a Mesa de Dialogo, similar to those seen in Peru and Venezuela,92 so that incumbent and opposition parties have an impartial mediator before political conflict turns into a breakdown of the democratic system in the country. Similar processes could be established for any erosion of rights in the country. Well targeted sanctions, ending non-humanitarian aid and suspension from the OAS (as currently proposed by the Inter-American Democratic Charter) could be considered in cases where a coup occurs or there is another clear example of an interruption of the democratic system. Additionally, the panel can develop an action plan to strengthen democracy in each nation so as to further prevent democratic crises from occurring in the future. These recommendations seek to strengthen the role of the OAS in promoting and defending democracy in the Western Hemisphere and to develop more legitimacy for the institution. Creating impartial and nonpolitical participants in the process of supporting democracy in the region removes many of the challenges currently associated with the implementation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. While there are many more actions and policies that the OAS could implement to strengthen the implementation and execution of the Charter and promote democracy in the region, strengthening the legitimacy and removing political consideration from process are an important first step.

Conclusion Promoting democratic governance in the Western Hemisphere is in the interest of all of the nations of the region. Despite concerns over the legitimacy and relevance of the Organization of American States in the 21st Century, the OAS remains the only multilateral actor in the region that has both the capacity and the institutional legitimacy to defend and promote democracy in the Americas.93 The passage of the Inter-American Democratic Charter in 2001 was an important step in establishing effective mechanisms to attain these goals, but the implementation of the Charter has been plagued by challenges. Given current economic forecasts of Latin America (IMF 2015) and the linkage between economic downturns and disruptions of democratic governance,94 it is critical that the OAS take the 92

Cooper and Legler 2006. Legler 2012, Sabatini 2014. 94 Abby Córdova and Mitchell Seligson, “Economic Crisis and Democracy in Latin America, “ PS: Politcal Science and Politics 42 (4), 2009: 673-678; Abby Córdova and Mitchell Seligson, “Economic Shocks and Democratic Vulnerabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Latin American Politics and Society 52 (2), 2010: 193

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necessary steps to strengthen the Inter-American Democratic Charter if it is to protect democratic governance in the region. Since economies in the region have started to stagnate, or in many cases see recessions emerge, incidences of democratic erosion or pseudo-coups have occurred. Efforts to strengthen the OAS’s effort to promote and strengthen democratic governance throughout the Americas should and must be taken. Additionally, mechanisms to ensure the equitable and effective utilization of the Democratic Charter in cases of democratic interruptions and alterations should be established. By developing an expert panel on the Charter and pursuing a more active approach to supporting and protecting democracy in the region, it may be possible for the OAS not only to address democratic crises when they occur, but to develop plans for strengthening democratic governance in the countries of the Western Hemisphere. Beyond the value of establishing stronger democratic governments throughout the region, developing less politically driven mechanisms for the Democratic Charter and encouraging the use of OAS election monitors in all countries of the Americas may have the added benefit of strengthening the legitimacy of the Organization of American States. If the nations of the Western Hemisphere are serious about the commitments made under the Democratic Charter and promoting democracy in the Americas, it is necessary that the mechanisms for attaining these goals are strengthened. By implementing the proposed policy recommendations, the OAS can take a greater role in promoting and defending democracy in the region.

35; Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, et al., “What Makes Democracies Endure?” Journal of Democracy 7 (1), 1996: 39-55; and Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, et al., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

SECTION TWO: DOMESTIC MOVEMENTS, GLOBAL ISSUES

This volume’s second section takes into account the impetus for larger, multi-national movements—issues highlighted first on the domestic front. The Americas have long been a region closely associated with populism and revolution from the grassroots level. In this spirit of “take it to the streets” activism, the history of the Americas produces an array of examples, from the American and Bolivarian Revolutions to the Civil Rights Movement, the Peronists, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and the Castro coup in Cuba. The issues of the region as a whole are almost always highlighted first by those on the street—a domestic problem that grows to a hemispheric issue. First, Dr. Janet Adamski and Dr. Claire Phelan of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor will look at the roots of leftist protest on the heels of the Sacco-Vanzetti execution in 1927, suggesting that today’s struggles involving immigration policies and class struggles owe much to the competing interpretations of the future in the United States of the Roaring Twenties. Second, Dr. James A. Norris of Texas A&M International University considers crime and fear of violence and its effect on protests in modern Mexico. Victimization, often through the activity of criminal gangs in the border regions of Mexico, is shown to have a measurable consequence on the frequency and the risk level of citizen protests in the country. Finally, Lauren Lee of the University of Notre Dame discusses the Church, in the broader sense, and its constituents’ influence on and association with the politics of Latin American republics. Ms. Lee focuses her study on the ecclesial base communities (EBC’s) formed in the late 1960s after the Conference of Latin American Bishops in 1968, in Medellín, Colombia. Her work spends a great deal of time specifically considering El Salvador and its localized EBC’s in reference to the larger political picture.

SACCO AND VANZETTI: A GLOBAL RORSCHACH TEST DR. JANET ADAMSKI AND DR. CLAIRE PHELAN UNIVERSITY OF MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR

There was nothing particularly unusual about the crime committed in South Braintree, Massachusetts on April 15, 1920. Two men had been loitering seemingly awaiting the arrival of a paymaster and his guard who were scheduled to deliver two black boxes containing weekly pay packets amounting to $15,776 to the Slater & Morrill Shoe Factory. Callously, the two men walked up to and shot the 28-year-old guard, Alessandro Berardelli, who dropped to his knees and begged for his life. The assailants then focused their attention on the paymaster, Frederick Parmenter, shooting him in the chest. After he collapsed in the gutter, they stepped over his body to finish off Berardelli, shooting him and stealing his pistol. During the assault, one of the gunmen fired into the air, drawing further attention from the factory workers who later emerged as eye witnesses.1 Brutal as the homicides were, few could have foreseen the legacy, the impact, and the world-wide attention the trial of the supposed attackers and its outcome would generate. Three weeks after the murders, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for an unrelated automobile theft, although eye witnesses subsequently identified them as the murderers in the Braintree robbery. When searched, authorities discovered a loaded .32 caliber Colt pistol on Sacco. This matched the caliber of the bullet pulled from the guard’s body in Braintree. Vanzetti, too, was carrying a weapon, in his case a .38-caliber Harrington & Richardson revolver. While these discoveries proved

1 Francis Russell, Sacco & Vanzetti: The Case Resolved, New York: Harper & Row, 1986: 43-54.

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suspicious in themselves, Sacco and Vanzetti’s alien status and their radical political views ensured the continued attention of the police.2 Starting in 1919, the United States was gripped by a wave of antiimmigrant hysteria. A series of mail bombs had been delivered to some of the country’s most prominent figures, including John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, and Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, the last well known for his aggressive stance against radicals. Coming two years after the Bolshevik Revolution and in the midst of a wave of strikes following demobilization after World War I, the climate of fear in the United States meant suspicion not just of Communists, but of anyone espousing political views outside the mainstream.3 Into this political firestorm walked Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who had both immigrated to the United States from an impoverished Italy in 1908, but did not meet until 1917. In the nine-year interim, Sacco had proven himself to be a model immigrant, marrying, fathering a child, and working at a shoe factory. Vanzetti first arrived in New York before repeated failure to find satisfactory work pushed him to Boston. Unlike Sacco, Vanzetti spent a miserable time in his new country, sleeping rough and existing on charity. After a stint of quarry work in Connecticut, he returned to New York, but again failed to find any employment. Bitter at his circumstances, he largely remained on the periphery of society, rarely practicing his trade as a pastry cook. Abused as a foreigner during a period of heightened nativism, he at last found acceptance by joining an anarchist’s group in Worcester in 1912. It was here that he became convinced that anarchy alone offered the solutions to life’s difficulties, especially for the marginalized and the oppressed. Luigi Galleani, the leading Italian anarchist in the country, counted among his adherents both Sacco and Vanzetti. Referred to by the pair as “our master,” Galleani’s eloquence inspired a number of embittered immigrants within the Italian community.4 Fearful of conscription after the United States entered World War I, the two followed Galleani’s advice and boarded a train to Mexico with many other anarchists after reading an article in the May 27, 1917 edition of Cromaca Sovversiva entitled “Matricolati!”, which argued that a true working class partisan was one who was ’not to be soldier who prostitutes himself, the voter who sells out, 2

Robert H. Montgomery, Sacco-Vanzetti: The Murder and the Myth, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1960: 3-8. 3 Bruce Watson, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind, New York: Penguin Group, 2007: 13. 4 Paul Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist’s Background, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991: 48-49.

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the servant who adores his chains and kisses the hands that whips him’.”5,6 In Mexico, in the company of some of Galleani’s most fervent followers, Sacco and Vanzetti’s political views hardened as they waited for what they thought was the impending revolution and the pair, who had met only a week before, became close comrades.7 In 1919, Sacco and Vanzetti returned to their previous life in the United States. Sacco again found work in a shoe factory, while Vanzetti peddled fish from a cart. That year also saw their intellectual leader, Galleani, arrested and deported with many of his followers. While there was no deportation order for Sacco and Vanzetti, the investigation of the Galleanisti organization brought attention to the two. In response to these deportations a wave of violence rocked the Northeast. This bolstered the Red Scare and prompted the passage of new laws. Meanwhile, a number of newspaper editors portrayed immigrants as a potentially destructive force from their editorial pages.8 After the June 3, 1919 bombing at the Palmer home, the FBI focused its attention on this perceived existential threat to US democracy. Echoing the nativist sentiment expressed by Woodrow Wilson, who warned of “hyphenated Americans,” Palmer warned “’[o]ut of the sly and crafty eyes of many of them leap cupidity, cruelty, insanity and crime; from their lopsided faces, sloping brows, and misshapen features may be recognized the unmistakable criminal type.”9 In this environment the Palmer Raids began with a national round-up of aliens without regard for basic rights. Thousands were arrested and eight hundred deported, a perfectly acceptable outcome for many native-born Americans who equated these immigrant radicals with a potentially fatal threat to the United States.10 Among those arrested was Bartolomeo Vanzetti, suspected of carrying out a hold up of a mail truck in Bridgewater in 1919. Although more than a dozen witnesses vouched for his whereabouts at the time of the robbery, providing him an alibi that would have precluded him from committing this crime, he was convicted nonetheless and was sentenced to twelve to fifteen years. When the Braintree trial started, the prosecution always insisted on trying the two together. This meant that Sacco also was 5

Ibid., 77. Watson, 28. 7 Avrich, 65. 8 William Young and David E. Kaiser, Post Mortem: New Evidence in the Case of Sacco and Vanzetti, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1985: 1518. 9 Avrich, 173. 10 Ibid., 174-175. 6

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blackened by Vanzetti’s conviction for a similar crime as the state made sure that the jury linked the two inexorably.11 For the 1920 Braintree robbery, Sacco and Vanzetti were sent to trial on largely circumstantial evidence. Police accused the pair of acting suspiciously prior to their arrest. Taken in conjunction with the false statements the Italians made to the police and the weapons found upon the pair, there was little doubt that the odds were stacked against the men.12 In furthering the likelihood of a guilty verdict was the fact that Judge Webster Thayer presided over the initial trial of Sacco, which resulted in a guilty verdict after less than thirty minutes of jury deliberation. Upon hearing the jury’s decision, Thayer dismissed it and noted “You may go to your homes with the feeling that you responded as the soldier responded to his service when he went across the seas to the call of the Commonwealth.”13 While this may appear as an odd comment to make, Thayer knew that Sacco and Vanzetti had sat out the war in Mexico to avoid conscription, fearful that the Service Act of 1917 would come to apply to aliens, as well as US citizens, as the war progressed. During the men’s trial for murder for the Braintree robbery, the evidence brought forward remained largely circumstantial. The proceeds of the crime were never found, nor were the other perpetrators of the crime identified. No credible witness out of the sixteen that the prosecution originally planned to call could make an unequivocal identification, despite insistent prodding by Thayer.14 In fact, the majority of the eye-witness testimony discredited claims by the prosecution that Sacco and Vanzetti had anything to do whatsoever with the crime. In addition, the prosecution failed to provide any physical evidence. The ballistics evidence was contradictory. Not one expert definitely identified any physical evidence linking them to the crime. A cap found at the scene supposedly belonging to Sacco, for example, was the wrong size.15 At this point, the state put an undercover police officer in the cell next to Sacco and Vanzetti to garner new evidence from their conversations to no avail.16 Sacco and Vanzetti’s lawyers now asked for a retrial based on the lack of evidence against the two defendants. Unlike today, they had to appeal to the trial judge for a decision on this matter. 11

Moshik Temkin, The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009: 9-10. 12 Ibid., 10. 13 Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht, Justice Crucified: The Story of Sacco and Vanzetti, New York: McGraw Hill Company, 1977, 179. 14 Ibid., 204. 15 Ibid., 211-222. 16 Young and Kaiser, 45.

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Thayer found that “The evidence that convicted these defendants…was evidence that is known in law as ‘consciousness of guilt.’”17 It appears that Thayer was already set in his opinions against the two men. James P. Richardson, a law professor at Dartmouth, recalled an earlier conversation with Thayer in which the judge supposedly discussed the case. He asked if I had seen “what I did with those anarchist bastards, the other day? I guess that will hold them for a while. Let them go to the Supreme Court and see what they can get out of them.” He also believed that Thayer used the term “sons of bitches” to describe the pair, while stating that “They wouldn’t get far in my court.”18 There emerged widespread criticism of all those involved in the process. Historian David Felix argues that all those concerned in the higher appeals process were prejudiced against the two.19 After Sacco and Vanzetti had exhausted all judicial state-level appeals, they asked the Governor Alvin T. Fuller for clemency. Fuller appointed a three-member panel headed by Harvard University President A. Lawrence Lowell. The Lawrence Commission report concluded that the men had received a fair trial and there was sufficient evidence of their guilt. (Massachusetts Court System – The Lowell Committee) As they exhausted all of their appeals Thayer exacted the punishment for the crime by sentencing both men to death by electrocution, a sentence carried out six months later on 23 August 1927. By the time of the execution, the case had attracted national and international attention and protests were both local and global. Thousands of protestors gathered in Boston, but could not get near the prison as it was surrounded by a sturdy police cordon. Confronted with bayonets and machine-guns, few present dared to challenge such a show of force. Right up until their execution, both insisted upon their innocence. As news of their deaths was released, reactions ranged from stunned silence to sobbing supporters who rendered their clothes.20 Outside the United States workers employed general strikes, threats of violence, and even acts of violence to express their anger with the treatment of Sacco and Vanzetti specifically and with the United States more generally. In Paris, for example, forty-three police officers sustained injuries when rioters protested the treatment of the pair. After the execution, a mob of 15,000 people ran amok through the streets of the 17

Avrich, 203. Montgomery 313-314. 19 David Felix, Protest: Sacco-Vanzetti and the Intellectuals, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Pres, 1965: 147. 20 Watson 347. 18

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French capital, throwing chairs through plate glass windows, sacking shops, damaged the façade of the Moulin Rouge.21 The American embassy in Paris, particularly at risk of attack, required protection by the French military. In Switzerland, Genevan mobs targeted properties associated with the United States, including the League of Nations Palace, to condemn the “murder” of Sacco and Vanzetti.22 While animosity towards the United States ran high in Europe, Latin Americans also expressed their feelings towards this injustice. Workers staged general strikes in Guadalajara and Montevideo.23 Reaction in Argentina and Uruguay was particularly notable due to the large numbers of Italian immigrants in those regions, many of whom also had an affinity for the same Leftist ideas to which Italians in the United States subscribed.24 For instance, bombs in Buenos Aires destroyed the Boston Bank and the New York City Bank, later in July of the same year, the city’s George Washington Monument and the Ford Motor Agency were also bombed.25 With Sacco and Vanzetti’s execution, they came to serve as symbols of the need for workers’ rights and unity, of standing up to the United States. The outpouring of grief and violence gave way to efforts to organize and to create lasting labor movements. Why did this miscarriage of justice in a Massachusetts court lead to protests in Paris, Berlin, London, Geneva, Tokyo, Sydney, Johannesburg, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and multiple other cities? Feelings of resentment against the United States came from a variety of reasons. The country’s growing economic and political power after World War I resulted in an increased economic presence abroad. US corporations sought investment opportunities overseas, oftentimes building tensions with local populations. Sympathy for the pair was greatest amongst the working class. Class interests, which could find expression in the growing popular press, linked workers in an informal international brotherhood. A miscarriage of justice against one, was perceived as a grievance affecting all. In the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, support transcended the boundaries of the working class and some of the most prominent social commentators of the day including H.G. Wells, Upton Sinclair, Edna St Vincent Millay,

21

Felix 229. Ibid., 230. 23 Lisa McGirr, “Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: a Global History,” The Journal of American History, March 2007: 1109. 24 James C. Knarr, Uruguay and the United States: Diplomacy in the Progressive Era, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2012: 128-130. 25 Temkin, 40. 22

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Sacco and Vanzetti: A Global Rorschach Test

Katherine Anne Porter, John Dos Passos, and even Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini made public appeals on the men’s behalf. While the United States had long welcomed immigrants the vast majority had come from Western Europe. However, the number of people arriving from Italy increased exponentially after the turn of the twentieth century. Nativists had long viewed those from Northern and Western Europe to be superior in all aspects, while Southern and Eastern Europeans were categorized as less appealing given the ethnic and religious prejudices of the day. In fact, “white niggers” emerged as one of the more derogatory terms to describe Southern Italians.26 Following the Bolshevik Revolution in the Soviet Union, leftist movements of all types were viewed with increasing suspicion by government officials in the United States. Few did, or bothered to distinguish between Communists, Socialists, radicals, anarchists, anarchic syndicalists and any other number of splintered-off Leftist groups. Attitudes against immigrants with leftist views had hardened as a result of President William McKinley’s 1901 assassination by a Polish-American anarchist. Sacco and Vanzetti individually came to the radical anarchist Luigi Galleani in early part in the second decade of the twentieth century. The abhorrence that most Americans felt towards an ideology that promoted reform through violence made them suspicious from areas associated with these political groups. Condemned by political affiliation, ethnicity, religion, national origin, low levels of education and poor language skills, many like Sacco and Vanzetti remained non-citizens, furthering their marginalization. Sacco and Vanzetti, a shoemaker and a fish peddler, have become larger than they were in life because they personified the expectations and aspirations that so many embedded in the concept of the United States. Different commentators attribute various meanings to the episode. The trial offers an avenue into the various issues of concern whether they relate to justice, due process, treatment of labor, equality for immigrants, or class issues.27

26

Michael M. Topp, The Sacco and Vanzetti Case, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005: 5-7. 27 Other commentaries consulted for this article were: Felix Frankfurter, The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: a Critical Analysis for Lawyers and Laymen, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1927; Massachusetts Court System, “The Lowell Committee,” http://www.mass.gov/courts/court-info/sjc/edu-res-center/sacovanz/the-lowell-committee-18-gen-html accessed March 5, 2017; John F. Neville, Twentieth-Century Cause Célèbre: Sacco, Vanzetti, and the Press, 1920-1927,

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The case also highlighted divisions within the United States as it evolved from a rural agrarian society to an urban industrial country. The case takes place at a time of social, economic, and political dislocation following the upheaval of World War I. Those intent on maintaining traditional order and privileges were at odds with those intent on overturning that order. This case offered a domestic and international platform from which to publicize competing visions for the future.

Westport, CT: Prager, 2004; and Francis Russell, Tragedy in Denham: The Story of the Sacco-Vanzetti Case, New York: McGraw Hill, 1971.

FEAR AND CRIME EFFECTS ON PROTEST IN MEXICO DR. JAMES A. NORRIS TEXAS A&M INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Political protest in Mexico has a long tradition going back to at least the period of the Mexican Revolution. In more contemporary times political protest in Mexico helped deliver democracy.1 More recently, in the last two years, Mexico has seen widespread political protest2 associated with the political fallout caused by the kidnapping and murders of some 43 college students apparently by government officials, and widespread perceptions of corruption and impunity, in general.3 These recent events have taken place in the context of ten years of extraordinary violence, kidnappings, and murder associated with drug trafficking. Since 2006, the death toll is over 120,000 and likely even more than this.4 For 1

Takesha Wada, “Event Analysis of Claim Making in Mexico: How are Social Protests Transformed into Political Protests?” Mobilization, An International Quarterly 9 (3), 2004: 241-257. 2 Anthony Harrup, “Mexican Dissident Teachers Strike as New School Year Starts,” Wall Street Journal (online), 22 August 2016, accessed September 29, 2016; Elisabeth Malkin, “Protesters in Mexico Seek Ouster of President,” New York Times Late Edition (East Coast): New York, September 16, 2016: A.6. 3 Lauren Eades, “From Mexico’s Moment to Mexico’s Massacre: How (Not) to Get Away with Murder,” Yale Journal of International Affairs 10, 2015: online, http://yalejournal.org/article_post/from-mexicos-moment-to-mexicos-massacrehow-not-to-get-away-with-murder/, accessed September 29, 2016; Encarni Pindado, “Photos: Mexicans Set Fire to the National Palace,” Fusion, 2014, http://fusion.net/story/26365/photos-mexican-protestors-set-fire-to-nationalpalace-demand-presidentsresignation/?hootPostID=bb9dffb4a7e5c9b9b2cd880877a140bd, accessed September 29, 2016. 4 Reuters, “Mexico Suffering from ‘Serious Crisis of Violence and Impunity,’ Report Says,” The Guardian, March 2, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/02/mexico-disappearances-interamerican-human-rights-commission-report, accessed September 29, 2016.

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fear of crime more than half of Mexicans have modified daily activities and consider their quality of life negatively affected.5 Problematically for justice and democracy, once crime becomes so big a problem that it undermines government’s ability to govern, then the issue is a question of national security. Democracy fails when it fails to deliver security. As a result many Mexicans have turned to protest. This article uses World Values Survey (henceforth WVS) of 2012 to examine perceptions of fear of crime and effects on protest. Following the lead of DiGrazia (2014) and other scholars (McAdam 1986) this article also examines the differences between high-cost protest and low-cost protest participation. In summary, the major findings include that fear of crime does have an effect on Mexican protest, and on both low-risk protest and high-risk protest. There are differences between low-risk protest and high-risk protest, and these point to active protest as the form of political participation for those lacking resources, more likely a left political orientation, post-materialist, but who are not inhibited by confounding biographic attributes such as children Protest participation has been explained in a number of different ways. The oldest literature looked to protesters as being alienated from the conventional political system turning to protest in frustration.6 Important independent variables uncovered by this line of research include political trust, alienation, extreme ideology, left ideology, and frustration.7 Given events in the last decade in Mexico there are a lot of factors that likely contribute to attitudes of alienation: high levels of organized crime, widespread perceptions that government is corrupt, and high incidence of impunity. It is not an exaggeration to claim that crime in general and murder associated with drug trafficking organizations has exploded in Mexico. Crime has been and continues to be a high ranking of concern for most Mexicans. In Mexico City even before the recent peak in drug trafficking 5

Catalina Pérez Correa, “Distrust and Disobedience: Discourse and Practice of Law in México,” Paper presented at the 2007 Seminar in Latin America on Constitutional and Political Theory (SELA) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 12-15, 2007: 13. 6 Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960; Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970; Edward N. Muller, Aggressive Political Participation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979. 7 Joseph DiGazia, “Individual Protest Participation in the United States: Conventional and Unconventional Activism,” Social Science Quarterly 95 (1), 2014: 112.

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Fear and Crime Effects on Protest in M Mexico

micide Rates, 20 000 and 20108 Figure 1: Mexxico State Hom

8

México Evaalúa, 19.

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Figure 2: By State: Percent of Homicides Attributed A to D Drug Trafficking g Criminal Organizationss 2006 - 20109

violence, foor example, estimates e of street s crime aare between 2000 2 and 3000 incideents every sinngle day.10 Fu urthermore, inn this 2012 WVS W 20.3 percent of M Mexicans saidd they had beeen a crime vicctim in the lasst year. A recent (Januuary 2007) stuudy of Citizen’s Institute forr Studies on Insecurity I (Instituto Ciiudadano de Estudios E Sobree la Inseguridaad or ICESI) seven out of ten responndents felt inssecure at the place p where thhey live, and in n Mexico City nine ouut of ten persoons said they felt insecure.111 Mexico’s leegislature reports thatt its murderr rate is no ow the highhest in the Western

9

Ibid., 29 Steven B Barracca, “Is Mexican Dem mocracy Consoolidated?” Thiird World Quarterly 25 (8), 2004: 14822. 11 S. de la Baarreda and Luiss and Cecilia Sayeg S Seade, “A Análisis de la Percepción P de Inseguridaad,” Instituto Ciudadano C de Estudios E Sobree la Inseguridad, Mexico City, 2007, onnline, http://ww ww.icesi.org.mx x/, accessed Sepptember 30, 201 16. 10

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Fear and Crime Effects on Protest in Mexico

Hemisphere,12 and since 2006 the government concedes that there have been over 70,000 murders in Mexico,13 but the true figure may be two to almost three times this.14 Figures 1 and 2 depict the increase in murder rates associated with narco-trafficking in the northern and Pacific coast states. An additional 26,000 Mexicans have been officially reported as missing.15 By 2013, Mexico topped the world in the number of kidnappings for ransom.16,17 Perceptions that crime is out of control and that the police are impotent, incompetent, corrupt, or absent weaken the public’s evaluation

12 Anthony P. LaRose and Sean A. Maddan, “Reforming La Policia: Looking the Future of Policing in Mexico,” Police Practice and Research 10 (4), 2009: 333. 13 June S. Beittel, “Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations: Source and Scope of the Violence,” Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2013: 1. 14 Kimberly Heinle, Cory Molzahn, and David A. Shirk, “Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis through 2014,” Justice in Mexico Project, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of San Diego, 2015: 23, Table 3; México Evalúa, “Indicadores de Victimas Visibles e Invisibles de Homicidio,” Mexico City: Centro de Análisis Politicas Públicas, 2012, http://www.mexicoevalua.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MEDEVA_INDX_IVVI-HLOW.pdf, accessed September 29, 2016; Cory Molzahn, Octavio Rodriguez Ferreira, and David A. Shirk, “Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis through 2012,” San Diego, CA: Trans-Border Institute, Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego, http://www.sandiego.edu/peacestudies/institutes/tbi/, accessed September 20, 2016: 16. 15 Beittel, 3 16 Sinembargo.mx, “México es el País con el Mayor Número de Secuestros en 2013: Morelos, la Entidad con más Casos per Cápita,” December 14, http://www.sinembargo.mx/14-12-2013/844846, accessed September 29, 2016. 17 This author lives in a border city and in the last month fifteen people were kidnapped from an intercity bus on the way to Monterrey (Jason Buch, “Gunmen Drag 15 Passengers off Bus Leaving Nuevo Laredo,” Laredo Morning Times, September 16, 2016, http://www.lmtonline.com/front-news/article_07f27b72-7c4f11e6-ab12379ab5475dcc.html, accessed September 20, 2016). Only a few days ago five soldiers were gunned down by drug traffickers in Nuevo Laredo (César Rodriguez, “Five Die in Fight Between Cartel Gunman and Mexican Troops in Nuevo Laredo,” Laredo Morning Times, August 2, 2016, http://www.lmtonline.com/front-news/article_b49c67e2-58d3-11e6-a4601feb3d598857.hml, accessed September 20, 2016). Today, 7 October, the local newspaper reports three more were killed (César Rodriguez, “Four Dead in Nuevo Laredo Ambush,” Laredo Morning Times, October 7, 2016, http://www.lmtonline.com/news/local/article_c259af2e-8c73-11e6-a72d3f4274c13bde.html, accessed October 7, 2016).

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of the police18 and of the whole government, as the police are the government’s presence on the streets.19 Hence, we can extend the broader public attitudes to the police literature to apply to the legitimacy of the government. In the original “Broken Windows” article Kelling and Wilson20 suggested that fear can lead to even greater disorder over time as frightened individuals withdraw from the community and informal community controls breakdown. Furthermore, Kelling and Wilson link fear of crime to unconventional protest behavior, specifically–riots. Sampson and Bartusch21 also argue that high crime rates lead to a breakdown of standards and values. Skogan22 suggests that fear of crime weakens the informal processes of social control that inhibit disorder. Protest behavior may be one manifestation of inhibited disorder. Luo et al. find that fear of crime leads to lower evaluations of the police.23 Yet, Jackson et al.24 found that in a London study residents of crime-ridden neighborhoods supported the police. Luo et al. suggest that higher levels of crime may mean more police presence which would reduce fear of crime.25 Following the Vietnam War era of widespread anti-war protests scholars began to recognize that protests were possibly not so much a result of estrangement from conventional political action, but in some countries had become part of a newly legitimate form of political expression for a new post-materialist generation.26 Since Mexico’s 18

Fei Luo, Ling Ren, and Jihong Soloman Zhao, “The Effect of Micro-Level Disorder Incidents on Public Attitudes toward the Police,” Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management (forthcoming); Fei Luo, Ling Ren, and Jihong Soloman Zhao, “Location-Based Fear of Crime: A Case Study in Houston, Texas,” Criminal Justice Review 41 (1), 2016: 75-97; Camie Morris, “An International Study on Public Confidence in Police,” Police Practice and Research 16 (5), 2015: 416-430. 19 Maurice Punch, “Police Corruption and Its Prevention,” European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research 8 (3), 2000: 301-324. 20 George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson, “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety,” Atlantic Monthly 211, 1982: 29-38. 21 Sampson and Bartusch, 1998 22 Wesley Skogan, “Fear of Crime and Neighborhood Change,” Crime and Justice 8, 1986: 203-229. 23 Luo et al., “The Effect of Micro-Level Disorder Incidents…” 24 Jackson et al, 2013 25 Luo et al., “The Effect of Micro-Level Disorder Incidents…” 26 Aie-Rie Lee, “Culture Shift and Popular Protest in South Korea,” Comparative Political Studies 26 (1), 1993: 63-80; Ronald Ingelhart, Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.

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economic development is not yet in the “advanced industrial” category of Inglehart’s,27 but moving in that direction, post-materialism is not expected to be strong. However, on the simple post-materialist index frequency table from the 2012 WVS data about 20 percent of Mexicans are post-materialist. Structural theories of social processes turned to examine resource mobilization approaches that stress material, solidary, and social network/ social capital resources to support protest mobilization.28 Those who a better equipped, better prepared, and who are socialized into perceiving participation in protest as positive are more likely to join a protest activity. Alternatively, protest is one route to participation by those lacking political resources. Other independent variables suggested by this literature include biographical characteristics such as education, gender, age, employment status, marital status, and income. These factors alter the perceived costs and benefits of taking part in protests. A great deal of research into protest participation from many different approaches exists, but there is no agreement on which approach is more generalizable. DiGrazia asserts that the likely reason for this is that most studies do not distinguish between different forms of protest.29 Some protest activities are higher risk than others with different costs and different perceptions of political legitimacy. He explains that while some forms of protest have become increasingly legitimate, others are still considered more dangerous. He labels them conventional protest and unconventional protest. Conventional protest would be those that are lawful and low risk, while unconventional would be those that are unlawful and high risk. Cohen and Valencia demonstrate empirical support

27

Inglehart, 1990 Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy 6 (1), 1995: 65-78; Kay Lehman Schlozman, Nancy Burns, and Sidney Verba, “Gender and the Pathways to Participation: the Role of Resources,” Journal of Politics 56 (4), 1994: 963-990; Harry E. Brady, Sidney Verba, and Kay Lehman Schlozman, “Beyond Ses: A Resource Model of Political Participation,” The American Political Science Review 89 (2), 1995: 271-294; Sidney Verba,, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995; David Halpern, Social Capital, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2005; Aie-Rie Lee and Yong U. Glasure, “Social Capital and Political Participation in South Korea,” Asian Affairs 34 (2), 2007: 101-118; John A. Booth and Patricia Bayer Richard, “Untangling Social Capital and Political Capital in Latin American Democracies,” Democratization 14 (1), 2007: 44-72. 29 DiGrazia 2014 28

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for a distinction between high-risk/cost protest and low-risk/cost protest.30 McAdam asserts that participants in high-risk/cost protest are more likely to have a history of activism, more ideologically extreme, more connected to social networks, and free of personal constraints such as family that would make participation unacceptably risky.31

Data and Method This paper uses the 6th round of the World Values Survey (WVS) of Mexico collected in February 2012 with a sample size of 2000. The timing is ideal for examining fear of crime as an independent variable, because Mexico’s narco-trafficker violence peaked in 2011.32 The dependent variables will be two constructed by survey questions that ask if respondents have done, might do or never would do different acts of protest: sign a petition, join a boycott, take part in a peaceful protest, join a strike, or any other act of protest. One dependent variable, Action Protest, is an index of the last two; in factor analysis these two load together. This is the high-cost dependent variable because unlike signing a petition or joining a boycott positive, and possibly risky action is required. About 44.2 percent of respondents said they might or have participated in an “active protest.” The second dependent variable, Sedentary Protest, which is low-cost protest combines signing a petition and joining a boycott. Sixty percent of respondents said they might or have participated in these types of easy, low-risk protest activities. One of the more important causal factors for this research project is fear of crime. There are two independent variables to capture this concept. One is an index of the survey questions that ask, “Have you been the victim of a crime in last year?” and “has a family member been a crime victim in the last year?” On this index, Victim, the value 1 means one of these are true and the value 2 both are true, of course zero means neither are true. Sixty-one percent were not crime victims. The second is the survey question that asks if because of crime the respondent changed their normal behavior and preferred going out of the house after dark. Sixty seven percent of respondents said yes they preferred not to go out at night because of fear of crime. Next of interest is social capital/ social network 30

Erik Cohen and José Valencia, “Political Protest and Power Distance: Towards a Typology of Political Participation,” Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique 99, 2008: 54-72. 31 Doug McAdam, “Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom Summer,” American Journal of Sociology 92 (1), 1986: 71. 32 Heinle, et al., 3

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as an influence towards political protest participation. This theoretical family suggests that membership and participation in social, political, and community organizations helps stimulate political participation.33 The more vibrant associational life the more political participation and this should include participation in protest.34 It may be that the organization that sponsors, incentivizes, or publicizes a protest event, or it may be that organizational membership provides general political awareness and skills that facilitate participation. Some of the literature shows that some organizations are better at inspiring protest behaviors: labor unions, political party, environmental organizations, and humanitarian/ charitable organizations.35 Therefore, Social Capital is an index of membership of these four politically oriented organizations. Sixty four percent of the sample do not belong to any politically oriented organization. The variable captures both the dimension of membership, but also of participation with participation scoring an additional point above membership. The political resources literature proposes that political participation is stronger with individuals who have the resources which include time, skills, and money are the most important predictors of political participation.36 However, there are reason to believe that for protest this may not actually hold, if protest behavior is an alternative form of political behavior outside of institutions as a replacement for resources.37 Here we might find differences between active protest and sedentary protest, or relationships may be negative or weak. The independent variables that measure resources include income in ten categories, education measured as age at completion of formal education, and sex. A fourth family of independent variables has to do with values, attitudes, and beliefs. Political interest is an important contribution towards political participation. Those with an interest participate and those without do not.38 Included in the attitudes category is a measure of political efficacy constructed from questions about the fairness of elections. One survey item asks if votes are counted fairly in Mexican elections and the other if rich people basically buy election results. These 33

McAdam 1986; Putnam 1995; Halpern 2005; Lee and Glasure 2007; Booth and Richard 2012. 34 Seligson 1999 35 Lee and Glasure 2007 36 Schlozman, et al. 1994; Brady, et al. 1995; Verba, et al. 1995; Booth and Richard 2012. 37 DiGrazia 2014 38 M. Margaret Conway, Political Participation in the United States, 3rd Ed., Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000.

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are combined into a single efficacy independent variable. In so far, as protest participation political efficacy may have a negative effect, since protest may be interpreted as the tactic of those who believe the system is broken. In addition, this work uses Inglehart’s post-materialist index.39 Post-materialists values can be adversarial toward society supporting protest behaviors. Indeed, Inglehart labels the generation that came to age in the 1960s, strongly post-materialist, the protest generation.40 About 42 percent of the sample may be characterized as having mixed or postmaterialist attitudes. This section also includes an independent variable measuring trust with the expectation that lack of trust may stimulate protest.41 Lastly, a self-measure of left ideology is included. The literature also argues that biographical attributes are associated with social constraints that will inhibit or encourage participation in protests by altering perceived costs and benefits.42 Attributes such as age, marital status, and children will affect participation. For example, McAdam found that youth are more likely to participate in protest.43 Lee and Norris found youth associated with environment activism.44 However, because of the costs involved a married person, and especially one with children would elect not to participate in the more risky protest behaviors to avoid arrest.45 Wiltfang and McAdam point out that common sense suggests having young children living at home that will have a negative effect on activism.46 In addition, DiGrazia points out that other obligations means less time and resources to spend on protest.47

Findings The results of the regressions are found in Table 1. The regression on the dependent variable Active Protest finds that fear of crime, social 39

Inglehart 1990 Ibid., 142 41 Edward N. Muller, “Behavioral Correlates of Political Support,” The American Political Science Review 71 (2), 1977: 454-467. 42 DiGrazia 2014 43 McAdam 1986 44 Aie-Rie Lee and James A. Norris, “Attitudes toward Environmental Issues in East Europe,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 12 (4), 2000: 372395. 45 McAdam 1986; DiGrazia 2014 46 Gregory L. Wiltfang and Doug McAdam, “The Costs and Risks of Social Activism: A Study of the Sanctuary Movement,” Social Forces 69 (4), 1991: 997. 47 DiGrazia 2014 40

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capital, most of the values/ ideology independent variables except trust and negative efficacy, and most of the Biographical attributes are significant and act in the correct directions. As expected Crime Victim does contribute to Active Protest for every unit increase in Crime Victim Active Protest is boosted by almost 0.14 active protest units. As consistent with the literature Social Capital [Social Networks] is an important contributor to the dependent variable with almost 0.10 increase in Active Protest for each additional membership attribute.48 Except for Sex none of the resources model variables are significant, and Sex indicates that men are about 0.12 percent more likely to get involved in Active Protest, and it is the second strongest standardized coefficient. Under the Values/Ideology independent variables we have Interest in Politics as strongest of all the independent variables with a standardized coefficient of 0.198. Left Ideology means a greater propensity to more risky active protest as does post-materialist values. Under Biographic attributes that might constrain participation it is clear that having children (ȕ = -.083) strongly, compared to many of the other independent variables, constrains more risky active protest participation, and Age indicates that as one ages ever so slowly participation in active protest declines. Next compare Sedentary Protest to Active Protest. Sedentary protest contained only signing a petition and taking part in a boycott. These are very conventional and non-risky forms of passive protest.49 Hence, within Table 1 we can see that Efficacy, Trust, Left Ideology, Married, Children and Age are all insignificant. In this model as in Active Protest, Interest in Politics has the strongest standardized coefficient, (.198), the next strongest is Crime Victim (.119) and the third strongest is Social Capital (.067).

48

McAdam 1986; Putnam 1995; Halpern 2005; Lee and Glasure 2007; Booth and Richard 2012. 49 McAdam 1986

Independent Variables Crime Crime Victim Not go out at Night Social capital Resources Income Education Sex Values/ Ideology Efficacy Interest in Politics Trust Left Ideology Post-materialist Biographic

Dependent Variable Std. Error

.033 .006 .032 .005 .001 .025

.015 .013 .037 .004 .011

Sedentary Protest Unstandardized Coefficient b

.156*** .009*

.086***

.009* .004** -.049*

-.005 .105***

-.022 -.002 .025*

ns ns .057

ns .198

.046 .064 -.050

.067

.119 .033

Standardized Coefficient ȕ

-.016 .011** .032***

.026 .113***

.006 .002 -.114***

.099**

.140*** .005

Active Protest Unstandardized Coefficient b

.039 .005 .011

.016 .014

.005 .002 .026

.034

.035 .007

Std. Error

Table 1: OLS Regression on Sedentary and Active Protest with All Organizational Memberships

Dr. James A. Morris

ns .055 .068

ns .198

ns ns -.109

.071

.098 ns

Standardized Coefficient ȕ

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* p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001

-.001 -.099** -.002* 1.156*** R = .341 Adj R2 = .108 n = 1571

.030 .036 .001 .110

Married -.036 Children -.051 Age -.001 Constant 1.322*** R = .323 Adj R2 = .096 n = 1524

ns ns ns

Fear and Crime Effects on Protest in Mexico

76

.032 .038 .001 .114

ns -.083 -.046

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Discussion The active protest findings support the idea that fear of crime through victimhood does contribute to active protest behaviors. Several of the major models of participation in protest behavior are validated. The social capital/ social network model is strongly supported. An ever greater body of literature strongly advocates this approach and is vindicated here.1 Political values and attitudes that are frequently cited as supportive of protest activity do so. Interest in politics, left ideology, and postmaterialist values do contribute just as supported by the literature,2 and interest in politics is especially strong. It is not at all surprising that these specific value orientations support active protest. Like McAdam (1992) the table shows that men are more likely than women to participate in both types of protest. McAdam suggested that this was due to constraining gender roles, and there is no reason to think gender roles are less constrained in Mexico.3 Biographic attributes such as having children at home do discourage participation in active protest. This conforms with the findings of McAdam and DiGrazia and to the “common sense” argument of Wiltfang and McAdam.4 Active protesters will also tend to be more youthful in agreement with McAdam (1986) and Lee and Norris (2000).5 The resource model of political participation is not confirmed, suggesting that active protest may well be the venue of those lacking in political resources.6 Similarly, victimization also stimulated participation in low-risk protest behaviors, as did a preference to not go out at night in reaction to greater crime. Again the social capital/ social network model is reinforced with sedentary protest. In the case of sedentary protest the resources model is also shown to be supported. Of the values and attitudes models only post-materialism and interest in politics contribute to low-cost protest behaviors. For such non-active protest it appears that none of the biographic attributes that might inhibit mild protest behaviors have any effect. Merely being married, or having children at home does not inhibit 1

Schlozman, et al. 1994; Brady, et al. 1995; Verba, et al. 1995; Booth and Richard 2012. 2 Conway 2000; Inglehart 1990; Lee 1993. 3 Doug McAdam, “Gender as a Mediator of the Activist Experience: The Case of Freedom Summer,” American Journal of Sociology 97 (5), 1992: 1211-1240. 4 McAdam 1986; DiGrazia 2014; Wiltfang and McAdam 1991. 5 McAdam 1986; Lee and Norris 2000. 6 Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie, Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972.

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signing a petition or participating in a boycott. Naturally, these possible mitigates should not have a meaningful effect since sedentary protest is nonthreatening and requires almost no activity. This work has examined the factors that contribute towards two types of protest behaviors to discern if fear of crime has an effect on protest in Mexico.7 There is, indeed, empirical evidence to allow a conclusion that fear of crime does have an effect on Mexican protest, and on both low-risk protest and high-risk protest. There are some differences between low-risk protest and high-risk protest, and these point to active protest as the form of political participation for those lacking resources, more likely a leftist political orientation, but who are not inhibited by confounding biographic attributes such as children. Neither set of specifications is complete because they only explain about 10 percent of the variation. Future attempts to flesh out and analyze these concepts likely need an economic evaluation and a better indicator of antagonism against the government and the authorities.

7

Other sources consulted: Steven E. Finkel and Edward N. Muller, “Rational Choice and the Dynamics of Collective Political Action: Evaluating Alternative Models with Panel Data,” The American Political Science Review 92 (1), 1998: 3749; Aina Gallego, “Unequal Political Participation in Europe,” International Journal of Sociology 37 (4), 2007: 10-25; Martha Liebler Gibson, “Public Goods, Alienation, and Political Protest: The Sanctuary Movement as a Test of the Public Goods Model of Collective Rebellious Behavior,” Political Psychology 12 (4), 1991: 623-651; Sharon Erickson Nepstad and Christian Smith, “Rethinking Recruitment to High-Risk/Cost Activism: The Case of the Nicaragua Exchange,” Mobilization: An International Journal 4 (1), 1999: 25-40; Wesley Skogan, “Fear of Crime and Neighborhood Change,” Crime and Justice 8, 1986: 203-229; T.Y. Wang, “Inequality and Political Violence Revisited: Comment,” American Political Science Review 87 (4), 1993: 979-983; and Edward T. Walker, “Contingent Pathways from Joiner to Activist: The Indirect Effect of Participation in Voluntary Associations on Civic Engagement,” Sociological Forum 23 (1), 2008: 116-143.

ECCLESIAL BASE COMMUNITIES AS THE FRUIT OF RELIGIOUS DIPLOMACY: MEDELLÍN AND MARTYRS LAUREN LEE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

For 50 years, ecclesial base communities (EBCs) have been scattered throughout Latin America. These forms of Christian fellowship began in earnest after the Conference of Latin American Bishops in Medellín in 1968. This paper will explore the EBCs' discussion and promulgation at the Conference, and their subsequent development, particularly in El Salvador under Father Rutilio Grande. EBCs often became the targets of political oppression, and thus this paper will serve as an introduction not only to the influence of the occasion of Medellín as religious diplomacy in Latin America, but also to the resultant polices. The Medellín conference, while presenting a call to a new structure in the Catholic Church, was a moment of religious diplomacy with tremendous political implications in the eliterun economies of much of Cold War Latin America, as evidenced by the work of Rutilio Grande, S.J. with the ecclesial base communities (EBCs) in El Salvador. 16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read.17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he

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Ecclesial Base Communities as the Fruit of Religious Diplomacy began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”1

This text from the Gospel of Luke speaks to the heart of liberation theology. Jesus declares that he has come “to proclaim good news to the poor,” to liberate, to give sight, to free the oppressed. In 1968, the Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano, the Latin American Bishops Council, (CELAM) met in Medellín, Colombia to map out the direction of the Catholic Church in Latin American for the coming decade. A decade of political turmoil, it was also a decade of tremendous growth in grassroots Catholicism through ecclesial base communities (EBCs), where the Gospel was recognized among the poor and the liberating mission of Christ would be made active, made incarnate, for the common people. This paper will serve as an introduction to the political impact of the Medellín conference, a moment of religious diplomacy, actualized in the ecclesial base communities of Latin America. The first half of the paper will serve as an introduction to the religious motivations behind the Ecclesial base communities, including the ideas of liberation theology, conscientization, the Second Vatican Council, and the conclusions of the Medellín conference itself. From this it becomes clear that the cooperation of the bishops at Medellín would have profound political implications as well. The second half of the paper, will focus on the life and ministry of the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande, as an exemplar of the incarnation of the ideas promoted at the Medellín Conference. He would become an important organizer of EBCs in El Salvador, before inciting the reaction of the conservative government, based on the political implications of his religious mission. His martyrdom in 1977 demonstrated the profound political danger of his religious stance, as his fellow Salvadoran, Archbishop Oscar Romero, would demonstrate only three years later. It becomes clear that the Medellín Conference, as a moment of religious diplomacy between the bishops of Latin America, had profound political implications, as witnessed to by the life and death of Rutilio Grande, just one of many faithful servants of the Church in Latin America.

Ecclesial Base Communities and the Medellín Bishops Conference: Liberating Church and World Ecclesial base communities were a new way of organizing Christians under the supervision of the Catholic Church. Through EBCs, education 1

Lk. 4:16-22 (English Standard Version) Emphasis added.

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and conscientization began in communities traditionally neglected by the state. Under leaders like Bishop Dom Hélder Câmara in Brazil, the Brazilian EBCs became a model in the region, showcasing some of the earliest and most vibrant communities in the Latin America.2 Base communities were representative of a revolution in Church structure. Even as they remained connected to the institutional Catholic Church, they were a decentralization of power and of teaching. These communities would encourage literacy and critical conscience, partially through the reading of the biblical text. In some cases, the institutional Church was, perhaps reasonably, concerned that this would lead to doctrinal confusion and revolutionary readings of the text. The bishops saw the new methodologies of Medellín spark political activism that many of the religious, like Father Rutilio Grande of El Salvador, would consider inseparable from the evangelizing mission of the Church. The Medellín conference was not a doctrinal dispute, but rather an agreement among Bishops about the goals of the ministry of the Catholic Church in a region facing inequality and political upheaval. Throughout the region, violence came from the radical left, which usually found itself outside the centers of power run by conservative leaders, and heavyhanded repression came from right-wing elites who had long held institutional and political power. This is a dramatic simplification of the political situation of Latin America during the mid-twentieth century, but it paints with a broad brush the landscape on which the Medellín conference attempted to serve as a corrective influence. The conference was sometimes classified as radical, and met dramatic opposition from conservative bishops throughout the region, but it also became the impetus for priests throughout the Latin American Catholic Church to begin work with ecclesial base communities, where the gospel came to life, and with intermediate institutions. Enrique Dussel identifies the formation of the base communities as an outpouring of the need for an alternative, nonstate-centered model of church engagement with the world. As the populism of 1930 through the mid-1950s began to falter, the iglesia popular model gained support, in part via the use of EBCs.3

2

See Leonardo Boff, Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church, trans. Robert R. Barr (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1986). 3 Enrique Dussel, “Current Events in Latin America (1972-1980),” in The Challenge of Basic Christian Communities: Papers from the International Ecumenical Congress of Theology, February 29-March 2, 1980, S~Ao Paulo, B, ed. Sergio Torres and John Eagleson, 1St Edition edition (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1981), 78–79.

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The passage from Luke’s gospel above announces that Christ came “to proclaim good news to the poor,… to proclaim liberty to the captives… to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”4 These words are profoundly theological: Christian doctrine holds that through His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus acts as the way of salvation from sin and eternal death for all those who believe. This is the gospel to which this paper will refer, as the spread of this message is the evangelization that Father Grande and other clergy were enacting through the EBCs. These words also have a deeply social interpretation: the oppressed of the world are the privileged place for this redemption. Their eyes and ears will not be blinded by pride, thus they can receive the humble man who is also the Lord of the universe, the God-man, Jesus. These poor and oppressed are the site of spiritual regeneration in the next life, says the Church, particularly via liberation theology, but they must also be so in the present life. The Medellín conference of the CELAM set forth measures for the conscientization of the poor of Latin America; it propelled the method for bringing them to the consciousness of their humanity and the rights thereby owed them. The underlying idea, from the Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire was a political and sociological idea based upon the class analysis of oppressor and the oppressed. While there is a clear dialectic of oppressor-oppressed, the conscientization of the oppressed seeks not to free this group to oppress the oppressors, but rather to become “restorers of the humanity of both” groups.5 The Pedagogy is the philosophical explanation for Freire’s earlier work, Education, the Practice of Freedom, where he expounds a method for “creation of democratic dispositions through which longstanding and culturalogical habits of passivity would be substituted for new habits of participation and digestion/meddling (ingerência) in accord with the new atmosphere of a transitional phase.”6 Freire describes the struggle of Brazilian society to overcome structures of oppression and inequality and to foster democratic attitudes. This model of education and creation of a critical conscience would inform the methods and goals of many working with the base communities and popular organizations in Latin America. In 1968, the CELAM met in Medellín, Colombia for its second conference, during which the Catholic Church took a turn towards ideas 4

Lk. 4:18 (ESV) Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos, 30th Anniversary edition (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2000), 44. 6 Paulo Freire, Educação Como Prática Da Liberdade, Paz E Terra (Rio de Janeiro: Editôra Paz e Terra Ltda., 1967), 94. (Translation by Author). 5

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that would be taken up by many liberation theologians, with a view towards the poor of the region. The CELAM, the institutional body organizing what would become one of the most influential moments in the modern Latin American Church, was established in 1955 under Pope Pius XII. After the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Latin American bishops who were gathered in Rome agreed to a meeting of CELAM at Medellín to “evaluate the application of Vatican II in [their] Church and design pastoral strategies with the Council.”7 Medellín would not be without its own developments on the ideas of Vatican II, but would take the council as its starting point. Tom Kelley would point to Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et spes as the primary documents from Vatican II underpinning the conclusions of the bishops at Medellín. He calls attention to the changes in Lumen Gentium that focused the Church on the “kingdom of God,” which extended beyond the visible institutional Church and “must enter more deeply into the world it formerly viewed itself as being above.”8 This led to a broader role for the laity, who have a “special vocation… to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will.”9 Gaudium et spes advances a new pastoral direction for the Church, backed by “a new focus on the category of the ‘person’ as the meaning and fulfillment of created reality,” as well as “a complete shift from a static view of history to a more dynamic one,” and the belief that “All social, economic, and human development ought to be directed to the complete fulfillment of all citizens, with those wealthier individuals and nations opting to help those less developed individuals and nations.” 10 These themes would be taken up by the Medellín bishops and brought to life such that they could be applied in Latin America in the hierarchy and laity. It will be helpful to review some of the conclusions of the Medellín conference to see how this group of Latin American bishops framed the mission of the Catholic Church in Latin America. The conclusions both indicate the unique situation of the Church in Latin America and recommend methods for the integration of the ideas of the Second Vatican Council. Though the conclusions have much to offer to almost every aspect of community life and the life of the Church in Latin America, I 7

Thomas M. Kelly, When the Gospel Grows Feet: Rutilio Grande, SJ, and the Church of El Salvador; An Ecclesiology in Context (Michael Glazier, 2013), 199. Cecilio de Lora, “Del Concilio a Medellín, hoy (From the Vatican II to Medellín),” Horizonte 9, no. 24 (January 13, 2012): 1235. (Translation by author). 8 Lumen Gentium,31 in Kelley, When the Gospel Grows Feet, 60. 9 Kelly, When the Gospel Grows Feet, 63.. 10 Ibid., 68, 69, 71.

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will highlight several of the sections most pertinent to the birth of the EBCs. In the document on justice within the section “Promoción Humana,” the bishops express their desire that “small sociological base communities” be established in the face of powerful minority groups in the region. Further, they say that the Church will work to ensure that all the defenseless will understand and use their rights.11 Understanding the Church in a modern world that, in Latin America, was primarily made up of the poor and oppressed, meant that the Church needed to refocus on this demographic. The majority of Latin Americans were poor and living in rural communities or in the urban slums outside of major cities. These were those that the base communities were ready to meet, these who had been neglected by the formal structures of the state and Church. The EBCs were not only meant to nourish the participants in themselves, but were meant to counterbalance the elites who dominated political, economic, and social structures in the region. To create justice required the end of the oppressor-oppressed relationship, and the EBCs were to take a role in refuting and reforming that structure. In the second section, “Evangelization and Growth of the Faith,” the document on the Pastoral Popular, the bishops recommend the continuation of the formation of church communities, based in the Word of God and realizing Eucharistic communion, when possible. These communities were to also transmit a community consciousness.12 This section is immediately prior to the section “Pastoral de elites,” indicating the class divisions of Latin American society led to a division in the consideration of pastoral labor among the bishops. In the first paragraph of this section, the bishops are careful to note that they mean no “classist” connotation with their discussion, but that they want to address those drivers of the social change in Latin America, usually the elites.13 The section is particularly critical of the conservative movement, which, given the places of power in which the conservatives found themselves, and the use of force being waged disproportionately against (supposed) communist forces in the region, is not surprising.14 Medellín’s real-world mission of 11 Conferencia General del Episcopado Latinoamericano (2ndௗ: Bogotá), Medellín conclusiones, 16 ed., Colección V centenario (Bogotá, Colombia: Secretariado General del CELAM, 1991), 1.20. (References will be the document number, followed by the paragraph number, as found in the 16th edition of the Medellín Conclusions. Translations by author.) 12 Ibid., 6.13. 13 Ibid., 7.1 footnote. 14 See Ibid., 7.6.

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integral liberation would require recognition of the reality that some actors held power over their fellow members of the people of God. Liberation would require a realization on the part of those in power as well as those under their power. In the fifteenth document, Pastoral de conjunto, the base communities receive their greatest treatment in the Medellín conclusions.15 The base communities are defined as “a local…community that corresponds to the reality of a homogenous group and that has a dimension such that it permits the personal brotherly treatment between its members. Therefore the pastoral force of the Church should be oriented to the transformation of those communities into ‘the family of God,’ beginning by making themselves present in them as a ferment at the nucleus, though it be small, that constitutes a community of faith, of hope, and of love.”16 What seems most revolutionary in the declaration of the fifteenth chapter is that the bishops call the base community the “first and fundamental ecclesial nucleus that should, on its own level, make itself responsible for the richness and expansion of the faith, as additionally the worship that is its expression. It is therefore the initial cell of ecclesial structuring, the focus of evangelization, and presently the primordial factor of human promotion and development.”17 This document makes the laity in the form of EBCs the root of the Church as well as its hands and feet. Where the institutional model of the Church would not deny the importance of the baptized as the people of God, the new emphasis on grassroots communities as the place in which evangelization primarily occurred was contrary to the traditional perspective of the Catholic Church. Individual bishops would promote this idea prior to Medellín, but the conference would authorize this prioritization as the course for all of Latin America. To claim that this was the natural application of the ideas of Vatican II on the region was to ask for a paradigm-shift in the polity of the Church. Even as the base communities remained under the supervision of the bishops in their regions, the study of the Word and the conscientization of the masses based upon their own lived experiences would lead to dramatic changes in the life of the Church and the state. Like Martin Luther’s Freedom of a Christian, which would spark the flame of liberation in the peasants of sixteenth century Germany, opening the eyes of the poor and oppressed majority in Latin America could lead to violent revolution and social upheaval. The bishops leading the conference knew that the claim that the people should be studying the Word, and 15

Ibid., 15.10. Ibid. 17 Ibid. (Emphasis added.) 16

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applying it to their own lives to establish a critical conscience, refusing to accept structures of oppression and violence would call for the remodeling of the power structures of the region. I mention the peasant rebellion in Reformation Germany for good reason. The main thesis of Luther’s Freedom of a Christian, a short tract written in 1520, was dialectical: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”18 An emphasis on the first statement, on utter freedom, provided fuel for peasant rebellions, as so many peasants, oppressed by the landowning elite, tried to seize that freedom. A blindness to the second statement and to the primarily spiritual character of the freedom Luther was proposing meant that the rebellions would be violent and thus met by the violence of the rulers, resulting in the killing of over 100,000 peasants. This was almost five hundred years earlier, but the parallel is striking. To awaken the consciences of the oppressed was to awaken them to the need for change in the status quo of the entire region. Liberation theology did not call for a purely spiritual liberation, but the liberation of the whole person. Leaders of the EBC movement, such as Dom Hélder Câmara, would be clear that “To transform today's oppressed into tomorrow's oppressors is not part of our purpose. We fight for a world without oppressors, without oppressed.”19 Nonetheless, the Medellín document on peace recognizes that “Latin America finds itself, in many parts, in a situation of injustice that can be called institutionalized violence when, because of the defects of the structures of the industry and agriculture, of the national and international economy, of the cultural and political life, ‘entire populations lack necessities, live in such dependency that it prevents all initiative and responsibility, as well as all possibility of cultural promotion and of participation in social and political life,’ violating their fundamental rights.”20 The final call of the same paragraph is to the pastors and the people of Christ to “assume their grave responsibility of the promotion of peace in Latin America,” in the face of a “situation that tries so gravely against the dignity of man and thus against peace.”21

18

Martin Luther, “Freedom of a Christian,” in Martin Luther: Selections From His Writing, ed. John Dillenberger (Anchor, 2011), 53. 19 Hélder Pessoa Câmara, “CELAM: History Is Implacable,” Cross Currents 28, no. 1 (1978): 58. 20 Conferencia General del Episcopado Latinoamericano (2ndௗ: Bogotá), Medellín conclusiones, 2.16. 21 Ibid., 2.II.16.

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It is almost inconceivable to think that revolutionaries would not have used the new movement in the Church as the spark of violence. Even while, he bishops were not promoting violence with their declaration, were not recommending that the oppressed use violent force to promote equality, the political implications of integral liberation could become revolutionary. Vital to understanding this situation, particularly as readers removed from the context of their concern, is recognition that the bishops saw Latin America as already steeped in violence. “Institutionalized violence” may not have looked like guerrilla warfare, but it still killed Latin Americans daily. Outside of the scope of the civil wars that already racked parts of the region, industry and agriculture allowed the elites to starve the masses were also a form of violence. These actions brought their own waves of death and destruction. The bishops attempted nuance, or perhaps only compromise, in recognizing that while revolution was at times justifiable, it must be remembered that it could cause further injustices, and a greater evil must be avoided.22 While Luther would unintentionally fan the flames of uprising with his publications, it appears the bishops saw the somewhat apparent potential for violence in their statements. Conscientization and integral liberation were politically and socially charged ideas. The bishops wanted to bring the masses into the full enjoyment of their humanity, but with the structures built over them, their fight, physical or cultural, would be long and difficult. The base communities had a great responsibility not only for the conscientization of their members, but also to discover the proper response to violent oppression that would not lead to further injustice. It becomes easy to recognize why the institutional and conservative element of the Catholic Church was afraid of the plan put forth at Medellín. Much can be understood about the influence of the Medellín conference from the reflections on Medellín in preparation for the Puebla conference (1979) and in the later reflections on the transition between conferences. The Medellín conference was only the second meeting of the CELAM, and the conference was dominated by a fairly progressive clergy, while the Puebla conference saw the conservative clergy attempt to reverse some of the more radical declarations of Medellín. However, this did not ultimately occur, as Enrique Dussel pointed out; Puebla did not necessarily say anything dramatically new, as its conclusions were generally a compromise. Despite the desires of several CELAM officials, Puebla did not negate the work of the Medellín bishops.23 The Medellín Conference would have a strong legacy in Latin America. 22 23

Ibid., 2.II.19. Dussel, “Current Events in Latin America (1972-1980),” 97.

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In preparation for the Puebla conference of the CELAM, which would take place in October of 1979, the spring 1978 issue of Cross Currents was called “Puebla: Moment of Decision for the Latin American Church.” The editorial introduction “Church of the Poor?” acts as a guide to the struggle of the Catholic Church in Latin American to define itself in the face of two possible ecclesiologies, two possible formations of the Church, to which we have alluded above. Gary MacEoin placed the options before the Church as follows: “The ecclesiologies are basically those that agitated Vatican Council II. Should the church continue on its traditional course and in its traditional forms: structurally, a pyramid of power, stressing religious practices, seeing itself as an international institution, the universal instrument of salvation? Or should it continue on the new lines already significantly developed in places (particularly Brazil): with horizontal structures created by grass-roots groups, stressing lay ministries, concerned about ethical practices, seeing itself as a community rather than a society, as a network of communications, and as a sign of universal salvation?”24

MacEoin and Hélder Câmara come down decisively on the side of the base communities, of a ground-up approach to the Church. MacEoin’s introduction to the issue makes clear that there was significant pressure on the CELAM to reduce the effectiveness of the Medellín conference’s conclusions and methodologies, both from inside the Church and from external actors (such as the powerful elites of the region, repressive governments, and even the United States). In the face of this pressure, Don Hélder Câmara extols the base communities as follows: “The ‘base communities’ are the humble instruments of God's design: in this epoch of history, they serve to renew and to reform the one and eternal church of Christ. They also serve for the human and Christian promotion of the masses who live in the subhuman situations of our continent.”25

Hélder Câmara saw an imminent threat to the continuation of the EBCs that came with the Puebla conference. Pressure came from both within and without the Church, because the Medellín conference provided a declaration which was both political and religious. The people of God would be empowered by the Word of God to participate in the transformation of the world, participating in intermediate organizations

24

Gary MacEoin, “The Church of the Poor? An Editorial Introduction to the Issue,” Cross Currents 28, no. 1 (1978): 1. 25 Câmara, “CELAM,” 57.

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and EBCs to transform spiritual as well as political life in their nations and their communities. Having reviewed the goals of the Medellín bishops in the light of Vatican II, it becomes clear that the 1968 conference at Medellín was not merely a religious event, but had vast political implications. The meeting of the region’s bishops formally reoriented the Catholic Church in Latin America towards the people of God, particularly among the oppressed, setting the stage for radical social and political transformation. The lives, and deaths, of clergy members and laypeople across Latin America would bear witness to these reforms in the coming decades, particularly through the EBCs.

Medellín Incarnate: Rutilio Grande and the Base Communities in El Salvador The bishops’ conclusions at Medellín would not remain lifeless, but would become incarnate in the lives of both clergy and laypeople throughout Latin America. The new formulation of the Church and the political implication of the change brought on by Medellín is wellillustrated in the life of the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande of El Salvador. Beginning with the political-ecclesial context of El Salvador in the decades after the Medellín conference, the following narrative of Father Grande’s life and work will demonstrate the cultural reach and sociopolitical implications of the conference. Grande’s work with the EBCs during the time leading up to the Salvadoran Civil war (1980-1992) put him at the center of the conflict between the state and the common people. The gospel of liberation, the gospel of humanization, put his ministry at odds with the interests of the elites as it mobilized the EBC members’ critical conscience in not only religious, but also social and political matters. The clash of the state and its elite allies with the common people would lead to Father Grande’s assassination in 1977, an important landmark for the Church in El Salvador, as it would brace itself for further political strife. At the 1980 International Ecumenical Congress of Theology in São Paulo, Brazil, Enrique Dussel, the renowned Latin American philosopher, presented the paper Current Events in Latin America (1972—1980). In this essay he recounts a brief overview of the history of the Church in Latin America, after which he classifies the political-ecclesial relations of the churches of Latin America. He classifies the political-ecclesial climate of El Salvador under “The Church in Pre-Revolutionary Situations,”

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alongside the churches of Guatemala and Honduras.26 Dussel recognizes the commencement of the mobilization of a peasant population that has experienced “centuries of oppression,” and its growing resistance against conservative elites, who drew support from capitalistic elements in the United States.27 By 1980, El Salvador was on the verge of a civil war that would plague its people for twelve years. Father Grande was killed in response to a religious stance with undeniable political implications. While few readers who are not wellversed in Salvadoran history will likely have heard of Grande, many will be familiar with his friend Archbishop Oscar Romero. Just weeks after Dussel would present his paper in March of 1980, Romero would be assassinated, martyred, while celebrating the Mass. This became the impetus for increased strife and civil unrest. Archbishop Romero’s own assassination was in response to his impactful political and religious stance. He seemed an appropriate choice to fill the role of Archbishop in 1977, as a moderate voice who would maintain peace for the Church. However, three years before Archbishop Romero would himself be assassinated, Grande’s assassination, in March of 1977, caused a change of course for Romero. Grande had lived a life committed to the Church of the poor, organizing ecclesial base communities in Aguilares, El Salvador. Grande’s death was not only the first of the deaths of many priests that would come with the unrest in El Salvador, but was also particularly significant, because it served as an impetus for Romero’s “conversion” to the cause of the poor in El Salvador. The Archbishop began to support the cause of the poor and oppressed, thereby gaining the negative attention of the conservative element of the state, and eventually leading to his own assassination. In recent years, several works on the life of Rutilio Grande, as well as publications of select homilies and articles, have been published.28 Grande’s life not only offers a paradigm for the work of diligent priests in EBCs, but shows the political impact of the Medellín conference on the polity of both Church and State. While Grande did not attend the Medellín conference, his work is profoundly affected by the ideals set forth in its 26

Dussel, “Current Events in Latin America (1972-1980),” 89. Ibid. 28 See, among others, Rutilio Grande, Rutilio Grande, S.J.: Homilies and Writings, trans. Thomas M. Kelley (Collegeville, Minnesota: Michael Glazier, 2015); Kelly, When the Gospel Grows Feet; Rodolfo Cardenal, Rutilio Grande: mártir de la evangelización rural en El Salvador (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2015). Cardenal’s work was published anonymously in 1978 and has since been republished. 27

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concluding documents. Furthermore, his study at the Pastoral Institute of Latin America (IPLA) in 1972 would be the catalyst for the strategies of conscientization that he modeled in Aguilares. The IPLA began in 1968 in order to promulgate the pastoral ideals of Medellín through a traveling institute, which was later made permanent in Quito, Ecuador, to meet the need for “a center in which bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople could dedicate themselves to an enriching communion of experiences over the real situation of the Church on [the] continent, not only before the religious problem but also before the socialcultural-economic-political problem, could dedicate themselves to the theological study of these realities and to useful research about the updating of pastoral plans set by the conference.”29 A sampling of classes offered by the Institute included “Sociology of Religion, Pastoral Anthropology, Social Communication, Theology of Earthly (Terrenas) Realities, Liberation Theology, Revolutionary Theology, Ecclesial Base Community, and Pastoral Ministry.”30 Thomas Kelly, in his recent biography of Father Grande, credits a great deal of Grande’s ministerial formation in preparation for his work with the EBCs to his time at the IPLA. In August of 1970, Rutilio Grande preached before some of the leadership of the country, including both the president and several military leaders, in the Cathedral of San Salvador. The sermon came as a response to the First National Pastoral Week, during which Grande was displeased by opposition to the suggested conclusions of the week, during which “priests, bishops, and laypeople debated the implementation of Medellín in the life of the Salvadoran Church.”31 Grande recognized that all the baptized are bound to Christ through that baptism and thereby Salvadorans of all social classes were bound to the same goal of transfiguration. The need for social change is an evangelical need, because the body and soul, both necessary to an integrated being, require an integral salvation: “in solidarity we should work for the total, integrated, and true transfiguration of each and every one of the inhabitants of this sacred land.”32 Grande never sought political transformation for its own sake; the transfiguration 29

Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano, “El IPLA de Quito Comienza Tercer Curso,” CELAM Newsletter # 31, March 1970. (Translation by author.) 30 Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano, “Nuevos Cursos En el ‘IPLA,’” CELAM Newsletter # 37, September 1970. 31 Dean Brackley, interview in Jesuit Journeys: The Jesuits of El Salvador, produced by Don Doll, Magis Productions, 2004, In Grande, Homilies and Writings, 19–20. 32 Ibid., 27, 30.

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he pleads for in this sermon is in accordance with doctrine of the Church and the new focus on the humanization of the people of God. In 1972, Grande began working with the people of Aguilares, a small town north of San Salvador. Kelley points out Grande’s intentionality in using the method of “see-judge-act,” a method promoted by Catholic Social Teaching, when he began his work in Aguilares, as he had been trained through the IPLA. Beginning in 1972, Grande began working in the city to establish base communities. The most important initial stage was a 15-day mission, during which there were nightly meetings, study of the Scripture, and several celebrations of the Mass. During the mission, Grande and the other priests sought out organizers and leaders to serve the community, the “Delegates of the Word of God.”33 He left in place communities responsible for the training up of the baptized into the life of the Church and the conscientization of their members, with which he would stay involved. To this point, there is very little in the work of Father Grande that would appear threatening. However, the new critical consciousness of the peasants brought to life several political movements in the region. Grande was involved in the creation of thirty-seven EBCs, bringing hundreds of Salvadorans into a deeper encounter with Scripture and with the true life of the people of God.34 The conscientization of the EBCs led many of their new leaders, their Delegates of the Word, to become involved with popular organizations, intermediate organizations with social and political goals. The connection between these popular organizations and the EBCs would be lead to government violence and conservative criticism. The Jesuits in particular found themselves hard-pressed to remain attentive to the needs of integral liberation without attracting the attention of the conservative Salvadoran government. The year after Grande’s death, a fellow Jesuit, a liberation theologian, and influential leader at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., would write an article for the university’s journal, Estudios Centroamericanos, called “La iglesia y las organizaciones populares en El Salvador,” which would attempt to delineate the appropriate level of cooperation between the Church and the popular organizations.35 He discussed the need for these organizations, as well as their potential for participation in the mission of 33

Ibid., 48–51. Tommie Sue Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador: Origins and Evolution (Boulder, CO; Westview Press, 1982), 105 in Ibid., 193. 35 Ignacio Ellacuría, “La Iglesia y las organizaciones populares en El Salvador,” in Veinte años de historia en El Salvador (1969-1989): Escritos Políticos, vol. 2 (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1991), 659–77. 34

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the Church of integral liberation of mankind. These intermediate organizations were necessary and deserved the support of the Church, he proposed, and yet they could not replace (nor be separated from) its evangelizing mission. Grande attempted to live the nuanced life about which Ellacuría would write, but apparently not to the satisfaction of some conservative Salvadorans. The leadership and membership of the Federación Cristiana de Campesinos Salvadoreños, the Federation of Salvadoran Christian Peasants, (FECCAS) and of the EBCs in Aguilares often overlapped. The leaders of the FECCAS in the early 1970s were trained by Jesuits from the UCA and the Church in Aguilares had served as a locale for meeting of the FECCAS.36 Grande was confident that the work of the FECCAS was a reasonable outpouring of the conscientization of the masses. However, the FECCAS was facing rising levels of repression from conservative paramilitary groups, for example, the Organizacíon Democrática Nacionalista (ORDEN) and Frente Agricultural de la Region Oeste (FARO), which represented the landowners of the region. As the FECCAS became more effective, with a growing membership, it organized several strikes, leading to moderate pay-raises for some of the peasants in the area. ORDEN was as a paramilitary watch group for the conservative government, and became an arm of oppression, often against the FECCAS, in the form of torture, kidnapping, or other violence.37 Beginning in 1975, conservative propaganda “accused Rutilio and other members of his missionary team… of being agitators and haters who encouraged class warfare.”38 Despite Grande’s protestations that his goal was evangelization, he was forced to actively distance himself from the work of the FECCAS. He did not allow the FECCAS to hold their national meeting at the Church in Aguilares in 1975, avoiding the co-mingling of the Church and the FECCAS, which was already ingrained in the mind of the Salvadoran Government. “The parish of Aguilares and FECCAS were considered one and the same” in its imagination.39 Even as Grande focused upon the evangelization and conscientization of the region, his actions were highly political. In one of his manuscripts he writes, “I am not under the pressure of any faction. Although I recognize paladinamente (publically) 36

Kelly, When the Gospel Grows Feet, 192–93. Ibid., 195. 38 Ibid., 199. 39 Rodolfo Cardenal, Historia de una Esperanza: Vida de Rutilio Grande, Collección Teología Latinoamericana 4 (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2002), in Ibid., 198, 200. Kelly, When the Gospel Grows Feet, 200. 37

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that one cannot be neutral, there are paths more conformed to the Gospel, more in accord with the historic process of the world and the Church itself.”40 Rutilio stood by this statement in the conflict over land reform in 1976, during which both the conservative and liberal factions would be dissatisfied with a policy which either went too far or did not achieve all it needed to. Archbishop Chavez asked for restraint from the priests in the region, while Grande and the Archbishop agreed that the Church ought to support the intermediary organizations, encouraged by Medellín, in their support of the reforms the conference proposed.41 A month before his assassination, on March 13, 1977, Rutilio celebrated the mass with other members of the vicariate in Apopa, El Salvador, in commemoration of the expulsion of the priest Mario Bemal by the conservative government. His message at the Mass was explicitly directed against the forces in power, who he identified with the biblical Cain, cursed for killing his brother, Abel. Though “the mouth fills itself with ‘democracy,’”he said, “the truth of things is that the power of the socalled pueblo is the power of a minority.” He goes on to state, “Ay, you hypocrites, that with teeth and lips call yourselves catholic and inside are inmundicia and evil! You are Cains that crucify the Lord when he walks with the name Manuel, with the name Luis, with the name Chabela, with the name of the humble worker from the fields.”42 “I greatly fear my dear brothers and friends, that, very soon, the Bible and the Gospel will not be able to cross our borders. Goods will not arrive anymore, because all their pages are subversive, against the sin, naturally,… if Jesus of Nazareth should return, as in that time, coming down from Galilee to Judea, that is to say, from Chalatenango to San Salvador, I dare to say that he would not arrive with his sermons and actions, in this moment, at Apopa…, they would detain him there, at the height of Guazapa.”43 Grande would follow the path of martyrdom that he saw in the life of Christ, the one who rebelled, in an evangelical sense, supporting the poor and oppressed. 44 Grande’s social impact, his political impact, his very death, were the results of taking seriously the charge of Medellín, of Vatican II, and the struggle of the poor of Latin America. The Catholic Church has been a major political actor in Latin America since the arrival of the conquistadores five centuries ago. The evangelizing action of the Church, promulgated through Vatican II, the meetings of 40

Cardenal, Rutilio Grande, 121. Kelly, When the Gospel Grows Feet, 204–5. 42 Cardenal, Rutilio Grande, 116. 43 Ibid., 115. 44 Grande, Homilies and Writings, 25. 41

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CELAM, and the educational organs of the Church led to many changes in the region. The meeting of bishops at Medellín created a regional plan of action with profound implications for the domestic political situations of the Latin American states. In El Salvador, not only Grande, but a contingent of priests, including the Archbishop and other members of the bishopric, would mobilize the laity toward political action that would become an undeniable outpouring of evangelization. Father Grande’s life and work is perhaps one of the clearest cases of the ideas of Medellín powering a revolution; however, Grande is just one of a multitude of priests who would be formed by the IPLA, who would be raised into the ideas of conscientization and the base community model of evangelization. The base communities would often come under fire for becoming too political, or for minimizing their connection to the institutional Church. Grande’s concern to make the base communities in Aguilares focused upon the evangelizing mission of the Church (even with subsequent political implications) and his maintenance of close ties to the local parish present an exemplar for the EBC model. Grande was not alone, as Dom Hélder Câmara in Brazil would create impactful base communities, as would other leaders throughout Latin America. Liberation of the whole being would be a contagious idea. Building up the critical conscience of an oppressed majority would change the face of a region, would inspire civil uprising, and would revitalize the Church in a region where the institutional Church had sometimes become an arm of structural oppression. The Church would not side with the poor in every case, or would not side with them by taking a (relatively) revolutionary stance in every conflict, but priests could now find themselves easily within the direction of Church doctrine when they took the side of the poor and began to raise up those who were traditionally neglected. .

SECTION THREE: CUBAN CONNECTIONS

In many respects, the study of the countries of the Western Hemisphere is applied evenly to 34 countries, but all-to-often comes back to the 35th— Cuba--with the exasperated concession that Cuba is just…”different”. Culturally, the parallels between Cuba and the rest of the Hemisphere are strong; yet politically and economically, Cuba remains the outlier—an island in more than just the geographical sense. The three pieces presented in this section approach Cuba from three different points of view. First, Dr. Elizabeth Coscio of the University of St. Thomas presents a connection between Irish-Americans in the Northeast and the Cuban clergy in 19th Century print culture, adding to Lauren Lee’s presentation in the previous section and further illustrating the importance of the church in the political landscape of the hemisphere. Second, Dr. Claire Phelan and Moriah Olson of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor study Cuba’s outreach to the rest of the hemisphere through their study of the Yo, Sí Puedo program. This government-funded Castro pet program has successfully exported Cuban teachers to other countries in the Americas to help promote literacy and education. Phelan and Olson’s presentation gives us a view of Cuba not as the reclusive hermit country, but as an active participant in the international network of the Americas. Taking an opposite approach, Courtney Muro of the University of San Diego considers the economic development and isolationism of Cuba through the lens of satellite imagery, using the appearance of nighttime lighting as an indicator of economic development (or lack thereof) in Cuba. The juxtaposition of these three studies highlights the complexity of Cuban relations with the rest of the hemisphere—common roots that run deep between Cubans and the other residents of the Americas through cultural connections, colored by a markedly different economic and social system that allows it to engage the other states of the region in a completely unique way. In short, no study of the international relations within the Americas is really complete without at least considering the idiosyncrasies associated with the Western Hemisphere’s “35th member”.

EARLY 19TH CENTURY PRINT CULTURE: AN IRISH-HISPANIC CONNECTION DR. ELIZABETH COSCIO UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS

The “print culture” in two U.S. cities of the early nineteenth century provides an Irish-Hispanic connection. I will describe this link by telling the story of two Irishmen who wrote and published in Spanish in Philadelphia, and two Cuban exiles in New York City whose lives are closely aligned to the Irish. The other is a Spaniard. Of the Irishmen, Matthew Carey gained more fame than Mathias O’Conway for there is still a street named after him in Philadelphia. Of the Cuban exiles, a U.S. postal stamp, schools and churches commemorate Father Félix Varela and the lyrical harp of the Irish poet Thomas Moore lives on in the poetry of José Martí. Unfortunately for the Spaniard, Felix Mexía that I followed on a harrowing narrow escape to America from death by the Inquisition in Spain, his name only lives on in his political allegories and the use of his own life by the famous nineteenth century Spanish author, Benito Pérez Galdós Galdós used Mexía as a fictional fanatical caricature of a whole generation of liberals in El Terror de 1824 of the Episodes Nationals. Mexía himself anticipated that usage of his persona by entering his own performances as a fictional friend to his historical protagonist heroes in two political allegories, the nineteenth century revolutionary Rafael de Riego y Nuñez in one drama and the Marquis de La Fayette in the other drama. Both dramas feature a romantic allegorized female as the famous first European political constitution of 1812 since he was writing under censorship in Spain. His political allegories mediated the return, not only to a chaotic nineteenth-century political period in Spain, but also to an idealized Spanish Medieval felicity and to the heroic Greek and Roman Age by way of the American Revolution. Readers here traditionally ignored the allegory by remaining on the historical surface. Mexía dedicated the first dramatic work as a historical tragedy to Guadalupe Victoria, the first president of Mexico, to elevate the martyr’s death of his

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Spanish hero, by detailing the final moments of Riego’s imprisonment. Writing La Fayette en Monte Vernon (La Fayette at Mount Vernon) in the republican tradition of a Greco-Roman epic, Mexía refigured the Spanish guerrilla fighter Francisco Javier Espoz y Mina as the patriot farmer George Washington. These dedications resulted from his denunciation of specific Spanish laws that shut down patriotic societies, disbanded the revolutionary national militia, and imprisoned popular heroes like Riego. Mexía’s works represent a transnational revolutionary utopist genre, but not Romantic theatre, as I had hoped to prove this particular drama was the beginning of Spanish Romanticism in the Americas. This does not diminish the importance of Mexía’s work that began with the editing of a revolutionary newspaper during a critical period in Spanish history. Mexia’s newspaper, El Zurriago (The Whip) contained unsigned articles by a number of famous Spanish authors. Along with Mexía, utopian revolutionaries from all over the world converged in the United States in the nineteenth century and edited newspapers to reflect issues back home. It may be difficult for us to imagine today when we are assaulted with more graphic information than we can actually process in the mass media, but prior to the mid-nineteenth century, information gathering and dissemination of social protest reached a limited, committed audience by way of the spoken and written word. Philadelphia and New York were both centers for this political, commercial and business press. The evolution of alternative newspapers in those early years before the invention of Morse’s telegraph in 1844 and the first cooperative news gathering was varied by interest groups. By 1828, there were newspapers for free Blacks and newspapers in Spanish, Celtic, Cherokee, and a host of other languages. By 1848, six mainstream newspapers in New York City made the decision to share the cost of foreign news gathering from Boston. The Associated Press owes its existence to this early partnership. In Philadelphia and New York prior to the mid-nineteenth century, immigrants and exiles, including Hispanic and Irish journalists translated that news, wrote and edited their own reports from the homeland, current world events and United States politics through their own ethnic prism. Many were patriots who employed the new print technology to disseminate their ideas. Along with standard news, these dailies, weeklies or magazines provided advertising for local merchants, a form of political and economic local leadership, often times with local churches or other organizations, to foment cultural maintenance.1 Hispanic and Irish writers 1

Nicolás Kanellos and Helvetia Martell, Hispanic Periodicals in the United States, Origins to 1960: A Brief History and Comprehensive Bibliography, Houston, Tex.:

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of the nineteenth century faced the same dilemma of national identity and how that related to the recently established United States. “Such matters are often negotiated around issues of religion, education, land rights, modes of subsistence, wage labor, health care delivery, taxes and the right to vote”.2 In the decades preceding the Civil War, a period of economic insecurity and turmoil included the Mexican War, which caused internal dissent and concern for the future of the Southwest, there were riots and general lawlessness in cities that lacked both legal and political control. Although there were many emotional issues that tended to divide the nation geographically, the most important issue of the day was the question of slavery. The City of Brotherhood was a most appropriate place for the gathering of liberals in the early nineteenth century. Philadelphia, named after the Greek city of the same name, reflected much of the United States history as a whole at that time. Its part in the United States revolution was well known, and the moniker “City of the Firsts” well deserved. The first American Constitutional Congress and the Declaration of Independence were only a few of the firsts. That city was first in commerce until the War of 1812. By 1800, its population was some forty thousand people, including many Hispanic and Irish, primarily merchants, cigar makers, tradespeople, laborers and students in an important industrial center. The Hispanic-Irish correlation extends back to the eighteenth century in Philadelphia, when this flourishing port began regular trade with Puerto Rico and Cuba. Although Britain and Spain discouraged trade between their colonies, smuggling was common and there were innumerable Irish adventurers, professionals, business men or simply travelers with their sights on economic gains or reconnecting with family who traveled to the islands and this port city. William Penn introduced the printing press and the public library in colonial days. Of the two thousand books in this first library established by James Logan, there were many concerning the Spanish encounter with South American culture. Besides Benjamin Franklin’s early printing activities, including some thirty-seven newspapers, there were by 1824, fifty-five editorial houses and one hundred twelve printing presses cited in

Arte Público Press, 2000, online, Recovering the U.S Hispanic Literary Heritage Series; Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project publication: 107. 2 Renato Rosaldo, Culture & Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis, Boston: Beaconess, 1993: 243.

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a thesis by María Luisa Colón.3 Colón’s bibliography contains Spanish language books, newspapers, and pamphlets published in Philadelphia from 1800 to 1835. Although Colón cited availability of that work at the Library of Congress, Univ. of PA and the Hispanic Society of NY, since the nineties a copy from Harvard College Library is now available at the University of Houston Recovery Project in Houston, Texas. Interestingly in this same bibliography, there are also citations of publications in Spanish by Irishmen, Matthew Carey and Matthias James O’Conway just to mention two. The story of Matthew Carey is similar to many who chose the life of letters in the nineteenth century. As a printer in Dublin, he criticized conditions of the common man in a pamphlet on Penal Laws, which sent him into a self-forced exile. First, he went to France during the days of Napoleon where he met the French statesman, Marquis de Lafayette and the American Benjamin Franklin. After he arrived in Philadelphia, with letters from Franklin and a loan from the Marquis de Lafayette, Carey began publishing the Pennsylvania Herald, the Columbia Magazine, and the American Magazine. His journals were unprofitable so he turned to book publishing. Both men later helped him establish the printing and publishing firm that would later become the leading firm in that area in the United States. After a harrowing escape from Ireland disguised as a woman, this Irishman became one of the wealthiest and most respected Catholic businessmen in America before his death in 1839. His role in the establishment of American federalism could not have been minor since he figures prominently on “A Timeline of Events Related to American Federalism: Part 3, 1801-1936” There it cites the publication of The Olive Branch, or, Faults on Both Sides, Federal and Democratic: a Serious Appeal on the Necessity of Mutual Forgiveness and Harmony.4 Just as the Hispanic revolutionary patriot revered the myth of the Great Man, so did this Irishman. He recounts the exploits of his fellow Irishmen always in the light of a glorious past. Matthew Carey also spoke for the poor Irish diggers of the Erie Canal. In 1831, he published his “Address to the Wealthy of the Land that begged for social justice for these workers who lived the same, but segregated from the Blacks”.5 The historian Richard Bartlett termed the Irish “the 3

María Luisa Colón, “Impresos en Español Publicados en Filadelfia durante los Años 1800 a 1835,” Diss., Catholic University of America, 1951. 4 http://www.agh-attorneys.com/3_camo_appendix_c2_.htm 5, accessed March 30, 2017. 5 Dennis Clark, “Hibernia America : The Irish and Regional Cultures,” Contributions in Ethnic Studies 14 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986).

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canal and railroad builders of America”.6 When the country suffered from a shortage of labor for these building projects, they recruited workers in Ireland. Often times, speculators launched poorly planned or absolutely fraudulent canal schemes. Reports of riots, such as the one on the Chesapeake in 1832 were not about the boisterous Irish stereotype, but rather “pay cuts, bankruptcies, shutdowns, strikes, and the setting of one group on another in promoter-fomented labor competition” were all involved.7 So, even before the great potato famine or the “Irish servitude in the mineral industry”, the canal era reinforced the “Paddy the digger” stereotype. By 1845, half of the immigrants to this country were Irish. They initially congregated in the Eastern seaports and after 1836 were more likely to be Catholic “as the center of emigration from Ireland moved from Ulster to Cork in the heavily Catholic south”.8 About half of those arriving were women, which provided for Irish marriages allowing for an even more separate social and cultural life. The importance of family and rural community were ideals that did not fit into the U.S. land of rugged individualism.9 The similarity here to Hispanic immigration over the years is remarkable. The “Catholic” press of the early 1840’s provided Irish communities with a similar sense of identity with special commentary on Irish politics, material and spiritual issues. Irish prints such as the Boston Pilot and the New York Freeman’s Journal used names of familiar journals from the old country to publicize local Hibernian activities at mutual aid, fraternal and benevolent associations.10 The same type of periodical activity occurred in the Hispanic communities more in the Southwest, while the more important issue addressed in Philadelphia and New York Hispanic newspapers was the burgeoning movement for national independence in the Latin American countries. Nicolás Kanellos has documented various newspapers including the Mensajero Semanal, 1828-1831 (The Weekly Messenger), El Mercurio de Nueva York, 1828-1833 (The New York Mercury), La

6

Richard A. Bartlett, The New Country: A Social History of the American Frontier, 1776-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974). 7 Thomas McAvoy, “The Formation of the Catholic Minority in the United States 1820-1860,” Review of Politics, X (1948): 13-34. 8 Ibid. 9 Joseph L.J. Kirlin, Catholicity in Philadelphia: From the Arlises Missionaries down to the Present Time (Philadelphia: John Jos. McVey, 1909). 10 William Leonard Joyce, Editors and Ethnicity A history of the Irish American Press 1848-1883, 1976.

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Crónica (The Chronicle) and La voz de América (The Voice of America) in the 1860’s”.11 All of these American refugees had one common goal: to see their countries free. They saw in the young United States a model for the newly forming republics in the Americas, as well as the possibility for a monarchy under the first European constitution. There was much vitriol directed towards a decadent Spain in general by Spaniards from the peninsula as well as their liberal counterparts in the Americas. Writers criticized the immorality of the court and a cruel Ferdinand VII who was taking Spain to ruin along with its colonial governments in this hemisphere.12 Spanish politics influenced the political, social, and economic life of those Hispanics living on this side of the Atlantic, the same as British politics still affected all in the newly formed U.S., including the Irish. As the first democratic republic, the United States was a logical meeting place for those involved in the negotiations for national projects of independence. The utopia of a free press was a draw to both Hispanic and Irish exiles. María Luisa Colón described the main themes of works written in Spanish published in Philadelphia from 1800 to 1835. She cited general literature including many translations of European canonical literary works; language instruction; religious and scientific works; personal diatribes or apologies for specific actions; historical works including travel books with commentaries; and miscellaneous entries. Freemason treatises fell into a miscellaneous category, as well as law, philosophy, sermons, elegies, and letters.13 She pointed out the great majority of those works was New World rabblerousing propaganda.

Matthias James O’Conway Santiago Matthias James O’Conway is another entry in Colon’s work with an Irish-Hispanic connection. He opened a translation office and language school at 108 Union Street. As a well-known State appointed interpreter and romance language teacher in Philadelphia, O’Conway 11

Kanellos and Martell, 107. Nicolás Kanellos, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Latino Literature (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008). 13 Colón, 1951; Rodolfo Cortina and Alberto Moncada, eds., “Hispanos en los Estados Unidos,” Cultura Hispánica (Colección Hispana), (Madrid: 1988); Elizabeth Coscio, The Dramatic Political Allegories of the Spanish Exile Félix Mexía Published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1828 (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd, 2006). 12

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produced one of the early Hispano-Anglo grammars in 1810.14 The description of the grammar book says it contained “definitions, structure, inflections, reference, arrangement, concord, government and combination of the various classes of words in the Spanish language…with an appropriate vocabulary, familiar phrases, dialogues, and a completed index”.15 Another interesting entry was his work in Spanish: Rasgos históricos y morales sacados de autores celebres de diversas nacionalidades y destinados a la instrucción y entretenimiento de los estudiantes del idioma español. David Barnwell has an excellent online site on O’Conway, who wrote autobiographical essay in 1798, describing himself as a ‘Catholic and Republican’. He was “born in Galway, learned English by age eight, and also fencing, before connecting with the Irish Volunteers. After an ‘imprudent act’, he emigrated to America where he traveled in Indian lands as a trader with one John Ridgway, a Quaker from Mountmellick. He also traveled to Mexico and New Orleans, but settled in Philadelphia after his marriage. He translated a historical tragedy called The Knights Templares. The site describes the work as an interesting story of the origin, character, and persecution of that illustrious order; translated from the original by Monsieur Raynouard in 1808, with notes as it was represented in the French theatre.16 This entry was similar to many Freemason treatises cited. New York was home for a number of years to two Cuban exiles who were influenced by Irish Romantic thought. Father Felix Varela founded schools and churches in New York, but a visit to a Miami mural blending religion and patriotism dedicated to Cuban history includes both Félix Varela and José Martí. The bust of the humble priest is beside the nationalist Cuban patriot who followed his philosophical writings to actually bring about Cuban independence from Spain. Along with Irish poets and patriots, these men wrote to abolish slavery and uphold equal rights.

14 David Patrick Barnwell, “Matthias O’Conway, Padre del Hispanismo Estadounidense,”Donaire: Journal of the Embassy of Spain in London XX1, 51-4, 2002; and “Matthias O´Conway: Catholic Layman and Intellectual,” paper presented at the Society for the History of the Early American Republic Annual Conference, Philadelphia, July 2005. 15 Ibid. 16 Barnwell, 2005.

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Father Felix Varela On September 15, 1997, the United States Postal Service issued a new stamp in honor of a Catholic priest, only the third time church clergy has been honored since 1985. His name was Father Felix Varela, a nineteenthcentury Cuban immigrant to the United States who dedicated his adult life to defending Irish immigrants in the United States. An article in the New York Times the same year described the tacit symbolic significance of a ceremony held at the Church of the Transfiguration, one of the churches Father Varela founded. The interesting feature of the article was the description of a truly multicultural demonstration for a nineteenth-century immigrant Cuban priest who spent thirty years protecting Irish immigrant rights in the notorious Five Points section of Manhattan. Father Varela, priest, philosopher and educator, not only founded this fourth Catholic parish, but also another church, and two schools, while he took care of the sick and orphaned immigrants who were predominantly Irish. Jose Martí recognized Varela as a Cuban saint over 150 years ago and today Father Varela is a nominee for sainthood. In 1837, the Archdiocese named him Vicar General and, according to the Felix Varela Foundation, he was best known by the nickname of “Vicar General of the Irish”.17 The Cubans know him as the first Cuban exile. His relationship with the Irish extends back to his academic and spiritual training in St. Augustine, Florida under the tutelage of Father Michael O’Reilly. Later his work in New York brought him into contact with the Irishmen Father John Power who administered the Catholic See of New York and Dr. William James McNeven. Alongside these Irishmen Father Varela worked to fight against religious prejudices of anti-Catholic sentiment prevalent in the early nineteenth century. New York State was growing rapidly and as mentioned earlier the construction of the Erie Canal brought a large influx of Irish workers. In this environment of religious revivalism and ethnic prejudice, Father Varela spoke out on the radical new issues of the day: freedom of the press and religion. At the same time he criticized the excesses of radical liberalism: “the rejection of proper authority, the unwillingness to acknowledge the sovereignty of God over society, the spurning of and the restricted role assigned to supernatural revelation and the Church’s magisterium in regards to the intellectual life”.18 17 18

Ibid. Cortino and Moncada, 1988.

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As editor of a Catholic weekly, Varela’s critical writings were concise, logical and brief. He was concerned with reconciling his present day situation with the philosophical thought of the prior century. Finally it was an Irish priest, Father Jeremiah F. O’Neill, who laid the first stone on the chapel that houses the remains of Varela. Irish and Cuban exile journalists in the US were instrumental in securing the release of General Carlos Agüero, who was part of Cuban liberation movement, who was arrested by North American authorities after pressure by Spain. Jennifer Britain cites others including another Irish newspaperman, James O’Kelly, who wrote the book, In the Land of Mambí, one of the most complete and honest accounts of the independence wars of the nineteenth century. Irish journalists like O’Kelly helped the New World Spaniards escape their Peninsular Spanish jailers. In 1839, an Irish doctor and lawyer, Richard Madden published an interview that highlighted the misery of the slave movement at the end of the thirties. He took active part in the buying of the slave poet Francisco Manzano, then translated his verses and published them with an outstanding biography detailing the free man’s trials and tribulations in captivity.19 Among the Cubans, the most famous was Jose Martí, known as the “Father of Cuban Liberation who wrote feature articles for a number of periodicals. Although to the late nineteenth century Cuban community in the US, he was probably best known for his political oratory from his revolutionary base in New York. Latin Americans learned about James Fennimore Cooper, Mark Twain, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, at the same time he told of the history, immigration, religious conflicts, the Irish independence movement and its various personalities, art and literature of Ireland through his journalistic work. The stories of Irish heroes served in the formation of a Cuban social conscience and desire for independence from Spain He also reported on the inauguration of the Statue of Liberty, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, and other events. His most common poetical themes are the Motherland, liberty, woman and love, friendship, pain and death. Los Versos Sencillos (Simple Verses) retain the same sincere nostalgia that all exiles, émigrés feel for the homeland left behind. In his early youth, his teacher, Rafael María de Mendive, introduced Martí to the Irishman Thomas Moore and his songlike verses with themes

19

Jennifer Brittain, “A Foreign Correspondent in the Mambi-Land: James J O’Kelley’s ‘Fugitive Cuba,’ Fernando Ortiz’s ‘Irish Mambí,’,” Studies in Travel Writing 15, no. 4: 377-392.

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of patriotism and love.20 Later in 1888, he worked on the translation of “Lalla Rookh” by Moore, but never actually published it. Rather than an extensive criticism of José Martí’s work, I suggest a simple reading of Martí’s 1891 Versos Sencillos21 as a reflection of that early Irish influence Another Irishman, Thomas Moore, from a merchant family of nationalistic sympathies, is less known for his poetry or satire, than for his popularization of Irish music throughout the world. More than a million copies of The Last Rose of Summer was sold in the US alone. There were Irish patriots of his day who criticized him as a false patriot for producing “ersatz Irish music for the elite”.22 Yet, his rejection of the post of “Irish Poet Laureate” was said to be based on a fear his politics would be restrained. The History of Ireland, by Thomas Moore, vol. 1, in which the records of that country are brought down from the year B. C. 1000, to A. D. 684, was republished by Matthew Carey in the United States. In his poem “the Harp That Once through Tara’s Halls” Moore writes a political allegory of Ireland as Tara, the Irish high kings’ castle in the sixth century. As with many other Irish and Hispanic revolutionaries, he wrote this poem while Ireland was still under British rule. The harp in this castle is Ireland herself silenced without self-rule. The following verses are from a little-known Moore poem written after he was appointed to the Admiralty Registrar in Bermuda. He left the post and traveled in the United States and Canada. He came back disillusioned with what he saw on the islands. The work first appeared anonymously (as so many political works did) in the Times in 1833. The style is that of his early works replete with puns in a satire of the “slave-lords and employers of young children”23 Alas! My dear friend, what a state of affairs! How unjustly we both are despoil’d of our rights! Not a pound of black flesh shall I leave to my heirs, Nor must you any more work to death little whites… But this fun is all over;-farewell to the zest Which Slavery now lends to each cup we sip; Which makes still the cruelest coffee the best And that sugar the sweetest which smacks of the whip.

20

Kanellos, 2008. José Martí, Manuel A. Tellechea, translator and forward, Versos Sencillos, Simple Verses (Houston: Arte Público Press, 1997). 22 “Thomas Moore,” Britannica Online, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Moore, September 25, 2007. 23 Colón, 1951. 21

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Returning to Martí’s “Simple Verses” takes Martí away from his role as committed journalist to address slavery in rhymes as well that he says man “needs…as he does light and air”.24 First in number XXX he describes the procession of the naked slaves for inspection on the plantation and perhaps his own impression as a child in 1862 when he traveled through the province of Matanzas with his father and saw the misery of slavery himself.25 Red as in the desert zone The sun rose on the horizon And upon the dead slave shone Hanged from a tree on the mountain A boy saw him there and shook With passion for the oppressed And at his feet an oath took That this crime would be redressed. Again in poem XXXIV, Martí proclaims Of all the sorrows I could name The most profound is unspoken To hold and keep in slavery men Is the world’s terrible shame.

The role of both Irish and Hispanic journalists, such as those cited here, as intellectuals, philosophers, and lovers of knowledge pursued by a disciplined use of reason served to document the hardships of those exile communities and pushed social justice reform.

24 25

Martí and Tellechea, 1997. Ibid., 141.

ANALYZING CUBA’S ECONOMIC INSULATION FROM INTERNATIONAL MARKETS: USING NIGHTTIME LIGHTS AS A PROXY FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COURTNEY MURO UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO

Currently in its 57th year under the strict censorship of the Castro regime, Cuba has long been deprived of social contact with the outside world, as well as access to the international monetary regime. While wrapped in the Cuban flag, 90-year-old Fidel Castro still contends that Cubans have suffered because of sanctions imposed by the American embargo. But the level of isolation that this legislation mandates may not be as great as ‘el Comandante’ will have you believe. Contrary to popular belief, commerce exchange between the United States and Cuba is not completely blocked by the famous trade restriction. In fact, the United States is currently one of Cuba’s biggest trading partners,1 providing $349 million in goods in 2013,2 and is its top supplier of food.3 The Castro regime became legendary for both Fidel’s outlandish antics in speaking out against the evils of capitalism and neo-colonialism, and for its longevity. At the time of writing, the dictatorship has outlasted ten American presidents;4 but this longevity may be in the early stages of

1

The Observatory of Economic Complexity, “Cuba,” available online at http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/cub/, accessed March 1, 2017. 2 The Observatory of Economic Complexity, “Cuba,” available online at http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/cub/usa/show/2013/, accessed March 1, 2017. 3 The Observatory of Economic Complexity, “Cuba,” available online at http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/cub/#Imports, accessed March 1, 2017. 4 Tom Gjelten, “10 Presidents, One Dictator: U.S.-Cuba Policy,” National Public Radio, August 4, 2006, transcript available online at

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decline. Younger Cubans want desperately to join this age of globalism and are becoming restless with their situation. Only about 5% of Cubans have access to the Internet5 and, although international travel bans have recently been relaxed,6 Cuba’s stale bureaucracy and underperforming economy makes international tourism too costly for the average citizen. Fortunately for this wayward generation, or perhaps because of them, the Cuban government has been making notable advancements toward the international economic regime, indicating openness to change. The 180 square mile Mariel Free Trade and Development Zone,7 along with a wish list of investment opportunities, published in 2015 and aimed to bring $2 billion of foreign investment into Cuba,8 indicate the Castro regime’s desire to compromise some of its socialist values for a stake in the international money pot. Response to these advancements have been disappointing, however, as Cuba’s opaque business environment is out of touch with contemporary economies. Cuba’s clandestine financial practices, further complicated by its dual currency and multiple exchange rates, prevent external calculations about the state of the communist economy,9 deterring advancements form potential investors.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5615898, accessed March 1, 2017. 5 National Public Radio, “Internet Access Expands In Cuba — For Those Who Can Afford It,” October 6, 2015, available online at http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/10/06/445998527/internet-accessexpands-in-cuba-for-those-who-can-afford-it, accessed March 2, 2017. 6 PBS Newshour, “Cuba Opens Travel Abroad for Most Citizens, Eliminating Exit Visa Requirement,” January 14, 2013, available online at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world-jan-june13-cuba1_01-14/, accessed March 2, 2017. 7 Mark Frank, “Cuba: Port Upgrades and Free-Trade Zones,” March 2014, available online at http://www.americasquarterly.org/content/cuba-port-upgradesand-free-trade-zones, accessed March 2, 2017. 8 Reuters, “Cuba Seeks $8.2 Billion in Foreign Investment for 326 projects,” November 3, 2013, available online at http://www.reuters.com/article/cuba-tradeidUSL1N12Y3HK20151104, accessed March 2, 2017. 9 Drew Desilver, “What We Know about Cuba’s Economy,” May 28, 2015, available online at http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/28/what-weknow-about-cubas-economy/, accessed March 2, 2017.

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Conceptual Framework Over the last 20 years, more than 3,000 studies have been done using nighttime light (NTL) data as a proxy for economic development, urbanization, and population.10 Launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) in 1992, this technology uses four Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites carrying the Operational Linescan System in low-altitude polar orbits to detect low levels of visible-near infrared (VNIR) emission sources at night.11 Since NTL have been increasingly used as a proxy for economic development, studies have been done analyzing its relationship with economic growth. Findings have been positive. Martin Prosperity Institute’s correlation analysis, for example, which used geographically weighted regressions to examine the statistical validity of this proxy, found significant correlations between the two indicators.12 Results published in the Journal of Economic Geography suggest that NTLs are even more useful in studying developing countries, as a method to circumvent institutional censorship and analyze isolated economies, on which economic analysis would not otherwise be feasible.13 Since the debut of NOAA’s NTL dataset, the world has undergone significant events that have effected even the most isolationist countries. In an increasingly connected international economy, fluctuations of a single market on one side of the world influences markets on the other. Using NTL as a proxy for economic development of both Cuba and the Dominican Republic (DR), along with data from the World Bank Database, this study will attempt to evaluate Cuba’s economic insulation from the database, and to evaluate Cuba’s economic insulation from the international economy by calculating its rate of economic development during spikes and dips in the international economy.

10

Richard Florida, “The Economic Data Hidden in Nighttime Views of City Lights,” from The Atlantic: City Lab, May 29, 2014, available online at http://www.citylab.com/tech/2014/05/the-economic-data-hidden-in-satelliteviews-of-city-lights/371660/ (accessed March 2, 2017). 11 NOAA: National Centers for Environmental Information, “Nighttime Lights Posters,” available online at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/eog/night_light_posters.html (accessed March 2, 2017). 12 Florida, 2014. 13 Ibid.

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Figure 1 sugggests a dim Cuban economy, giving g off little light in compa arison with neighbors in F Florida, Texas,, Puerto Rico, and a Mexico.

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Methodology and Visual Analysis Before calculating Cuba’s economic performance against that of the international economy, domestic patterns were visualized and calculated in Google Earth Engine. Nighttime light rosters were created for 1992 and 2012 by filtering NOAA’s Nighttime Light (NTL) data to targeted years, and Cuba was extracted using a countries feature collection. A mean reducer was applied in order to extract the mean pixel value of each annually calculated image of the image collection, and images were created, displaying domestic patterns in Cuba’s development from 1992 to 2012 in Google Earth Engine.

Figure 2 (following pages)shows Cuba’s visible-near infrared (VNIR) distribution in 1992 and 2012, as well as the distribution of NTLs that were present in 2012, but not in 1992, representing Cuba’s economic development during this time period.

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In order to get a more precise calculation of Cuban development, a regional analysis was done using both the Google Earth and Google Earth Engine platforms. Five regions were strategically chosen to be equally representative of the country. Four of Cuba’s main cities, Viñales, Havana, Trinidad, Camaguay, as well as the center point of four cities that make up the southern region, Oriente, were marked in Google Earth using the placemark feature. This placemarked raster was then exported as a KMZ file, uploaded to Google Drive as a KML file, converted to a fusion table, and uploaded to Google Earth Engine Coder (GEE) as an image collection. Five evenly distributed Cuban regions were then created by using a GEE function to add 75,000 meter buffers over the existing points (Figure 3). To obtain economic calculations by region, the mean NVIR value for 2012 was subtracted by the mean value of 1992, and this difference in value was extracted for each region.

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Figure 3 show ws three 75,0000 meter buffers were added ovver existing poin nts using a GEE functionn

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A third studdy of Cuba’ss domestic ecconomy was done using a MODIS training sitee database foor global lan ndcover, creaated by Univ versity of Maryland’s Global Landd Cover Faciliity, in partnerrship with NA ASA and GOFC-Goldd. The databasse, containing g sixteen categgories of 500 0m spatial resolution laandcover spannning the entirre earth14 was uploaded to GEE. G The NTL rasterr was uploaaded and merged, m yieldded mean difference d calculations by landcoverr type.

Figure 4 Cubba’s mean difference between economic grow wth in 1992 and d 2012, by region, showss that Havana and a Oriente greew much faster than the other regions. r

14

Boston Unniversity, “Useer Guide for th he MODIS Laand Cover Typ pe product (MCD12Q1),,” August 8, 2012, available on nline at http://www.buu.edu/lcsc/filess/2012/08/MCD D12Q1_user_guuide.pdf (accesssed March 2, 2017).

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Figure 5 shows a visual representation of Cuba’s landcover distribution

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In order to get a more precise calculation of Cuban development, a regional analysis was done using both the Google Earth and Google Earth Engine platforms. Five regions were strategically chosen to be equally representative of the country. Four of Cuba’s main cities, Viñales, Havana, Trinidad, Camaguay, as well as the center point of four cities that make up the southern region, Oriente, were marked in Google Earth using the placemark feature. This placemarked raster was then exported as a KMZ file, uploaded to Google Drive as a KML file, converted to a fusion table, and uploaded to Google Earth Engine Coder (GEE) as an image collection. Five evenly distributed Cuban regions were then created by using a GEE function to add 75,000 meter buffers over the existing points (Figure 3). To obtain economic calculations by region, mean NVIR value for 2012 was subtracted by the mean value of 1992, and this difference in value was extracted for each region.

Results Results of this study indicate that Cuba experienced an overall growth in NTLs, and therefore economic development, of 0.42 during the studied period. Next, Cuba’s NTL statistics were examined in the international level. The Dominican Republic (DR) was chosen, based on GDP per capita, primary industries, geographic size, and geographic location, as a ‘comparable’ Caribbean economy to analyze against Cuba’s, through the NTLs mechanism, to analyze through the NTL proxy to help determine if diverging patterns observed between Cuba’s and international economies are a regional phenomenon. Figure 7 shows that both countries experienced disproportionate growth in urban and buildup areas, reflecting international urbanization rates of 200%.15

15

Abdullah Baqui, “Global Urbanization: Trends, Patterns, Determinants, and Impacts,” Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, available online at http://ocw.jhsph.edu/courses/urban- health/PDFs/Urban-sec2_Baqui.pdf (accessed March 8, 2017).

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Figure 6 show ws Cuba’s annuual change in NTL N

ws mean differeence in DR’s NT TL between 19992 and 2012 Figure 7 show

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Figure 8 NTL calculations comparing Cuba and DR show that the DR grew at almost 400% the rate of Cuba over the given study period

Figure 9 shows MODIS landcover distribution of the DR

Next, notable spikes and dips in international economy were identified through a literature review, and examined using NTL data for Cuba and DR, and World Bank data for all other economies. Results are detailed below.

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Overall GDP Growth To begin with a general parameter of economic health, data on annual GPD growth of the international economy as well as five economies with which Cuba has some financial connection was downloaded from the World Bank Database. These data, along with Cuban NTL data, was uploaded to STATA and a two-way line graph was created for visual analysis. Results of the two-way suggest that the Cuban economy has only a loose correlation with the economies in question, save for Venezuela, to which Cuba may be more closely tied (Figure 11).

Figure 10 shows both countries appear to have experienced disproportionate growth in urban and buildup areas

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Figure 11 Two-way graph shows Cuba’s correlation with various economies

A closer look at the two countries highlights the correlation between them, of which causes are clear. Venezuela has essentially been propping up the Castro regime since Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, with heavily subsidized oil and bilateral trade constituting as much as 20.8% of Cuba’s GDP.16 In return, Cuba provides doctors, teachers, sports trainers and military advisors,17 as well as a moral compass for Hugo Chavez’s rebellious Bolivarian movement, of which Chavez considers Fidel Castro the true leader. Graphically, Chavez’s 1999 election into office should mark where this economic relationship begins, and it should not untangle until Venezuela’s economic crash in 2014.18 Figure 12, however, shows

16 Ted Piccone and Harold Trinkuas, “The Cuba-Venezuela Alliance: The Beginning of the End?” Brookings Institution, June 2014, available online at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/06/16-cubavenezuela-alliance-piccone-trinkunas/cubavenezuela-alliance-picconetrinkunas.pdf (accessed March 5, 2017). 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid.

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Cuba notably surpassing Venezuela in 2010, when Cuba’s mean difference NTL value increases by 31% from the year before.

Figure 12: A closer look highlights the correlation between the Cuban and Venezuelan economies

The International Financial Crisis NTL analysis shows that Cuba’s economy suffered less during the US housing market collapse than the global average. Decline in economic performance during the crisis, relative to average overall growth, was calculated using the difference between the growth rate during the crisis (2008 to 2009) and the over- all growth rate of the study (1992 to 2012), as a ratio of the overall growth rate. Results, shown in Figure 13, indicate that Cuba may be mildly insulated from the international economy, or specific economic shocks. It may also indicate a lag time between negative financial growth and corresponding negative growth in NTLs.

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Figure 13 Calculations using NTL and World Bank data shows that Cuba’s economy suffered less than the global average

Cuba’s Trade Partners To see if Cuba’s correlation with the international economy may be more apparent in the commodities market, this study will analyze Cuban trade patterns. In 2013, Cuba exported $2.43 billion and imported $6.72 billion, resulting in a negative trade balance of $4.29 billion.19 This presents an opportunity to find high correlation between Cuban NTLs and international commodity prices of commodities traded by Cuba.

Imports Cuba’s top imports, in descending or- der, are refined petroleum, wheat, cord, poultry, and concentrated milk, and these goods are received from China, Venezuela, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Data on trade partners’ GDP growth and inflation rates were downloaded from the World Bank Database, to be compared against Cuba’s NTL patterns. The correlation becomes positive. Iron and rubber prices may be explained by the commodities bubble, but Cuba’s economic growth that coincides with it must due to an exogenous factor.

19

The Observatory of Economic Complexity, “Cuba”.

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To see iff this relationshhip could be explained e by C Chinese-Cuban n bilateral trade, graphs were createdd using World d Bank data oon commoditiies traded be- tween thhem. After craanes, telephon nes, and legum mes, Cuba’s tw wo largest imports from m China are rubber and iron.20 Figuree 15 shows a strong, inverse corrrelation betweeen Cuban ecconomic deve lopment and prices of rubber and iiron. In 2010,, however thiss correlation bbecomes posiitive. Iron and rubber prices may be b explained by the comm modities bubb ble,21 but Cuba’s econnomic growthh that coincidees with it musst due to an ex xogenous factor.

Figure 14: Cuuba’s NTL grow wth against GD DP and inflationn of countries from fr which Cuba importss goods suggestt that Cuba mayy have higher coorrelation with China

20

The Obserrvatory of Ecoonomic Complexity, “What D Does Cuba Im mport from China?” availlable online at http://atlas.meedia.mit.edu/enn/visualize/tree_ _map/hs92/imp ort/cub/chn/sho ow/2013/ (accessed Maarch 10, 2017). 21 Jesse Coom mbo, “The Com mmodities Bubblle,” available onnline at http://www.thhebubblebubblee.com/commodiities-bubble/ (accessed March M 20, 2017).

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Figure 15 sshows a stronng, inverse correlation bettween Cuban economic development aand prices of ruubber and iron

Foo od Food is the largest sector s of the Caribbean ecconomy as a whole.22 However, itt constitutes less l of the Caaribbean GDP P each year.233 Cuba is behind the ttimes in this regard, r importting 70% of th the food it con nsumes.24 Because of this, an incrrease in food prices shoulld effect its economic e developmennt.

22

Wikipediia, “Caribbeaan Food Cro ops Society,”” available online o at https://en.wikkipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Fo ood_Crops_Socciety (accessed March 20, 2017). 23 Ibid., “Econnomy of the Caaribbean,” availlable online at https://en.wikkipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_ _the_Caribbeann (accessed March M 20, 2017). 24 Ibid., “Agriiculture in Cuba,” available on nline at https://en.wikkipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in n_Cuba (accesssed March 20, 2017). 2

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Figure 16 shoows Cuban NTL Ls and International Food Pricces

Oill Foreign investment inn Cuban oil in ncreased in thee early 1990s,, and new resource exppansion on thhe island has concentrated c oon petroleum deposits, including offfshore fields.25 Plummetin ng oil prices inn 2014, howeever, have had the mosst devastating effect Cuba’ss financial suppporter, Venezzuela - so much that itt may have beeen a significant factor in tthe Cuban rellent of its 50-year harrdline policy against capitalism econoomies of thee West.26 Indeed, skepptics of the unncompromisin ng dictatorshipp point to the shattered fiscal situattion of Cubaa’s benefacto or to explainn the regime’s recent concessions with the Unnited States. A two-way graph (Figurre 17) of Cuban NTL Ls and world oil o prices show ws this relationnship.

25

Ibid., “Econnomy of the Caaribbean”. Oscar A. Echevarría, “C Cuba and the International S Sugar Market,”” available online at http://www.asscecuba.org/c/w wp-content/uplo oads/2014/09/v005-FILE30.pdff (accessed March 20, 20017). 26

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Figure 17: Cuuban NTL folloow world oil priices with a shorrt lag

Expo orts Cuba’s top exports, in descendin ng order, aree raw sugar, refined petroleum, rrolled tobaccoo, and nickel. Trading partnners for thesee exports are China, V Venezuela, Sppain, the Neth herlands, and tthe UK. Oncee upon a time, Cuba w was once the world’s largesst sugar exporrter. Pre-embaargo, the US receivedd over a thirdd of its sugarr supply from m Cuba, at subsidized prices of upp to 400% of the market.27 After the revvolution and resulting r expropriatioons of US holldings in Cubaa, this sponsoorship was terrminated in exchangee for more hoostile relation ns. Cuba wass not left to fend f for itself, howevver, and sugaar subsidies of comparable discount beccame the mechanism through whiich the Sovieet Union proopped up the regime during touggh times of thhe Cold War. When both the USSR an nd sugar prices collappsed simultanneously in thee early ‘90s, C Cuba’s econo omy was hit with the loss of over two-thirds off its sugar miills and 100,0 000 jobs. Prices tempporarily resurgged in 2008, but have neever fully reb bounded. While sugarr production in i some coun ntries has grow wn as much as a 300% over the lastt decade, Cuba’s production n has faltered,, hovering aro ound just 23%. Consuumption over this t period haas fallen to 14% %; a compilin ng effect of drasticallly reduced Ruussian consum mption, a 2-3% % decrease off Cuba’s 27

Ibid.

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non-commuunist markets Japan J and Can nada,28 and reccent capacity increase of former ccommunist markets m such as East Germ many, Hungaary, and Poland, whoo now produce domestically y.29 Of Cuba’’s current sugar yield, between a thhird and a hallf gets exporteed to China, aand a bit less than t that gets consum med domestically.30 Figuree 19 presents a strong asssociation between thee Cuban econnomy and su ugar prices. T The relationsh hip with world pricees appears strrongest, whilee the relationnship with US S prices appears weaak.

Cuba’s NTL groowth against GDP G and inflattion rates of co ountries to Figure 18: C which Cuba eexports goods

28

Ibid. Ibid. 30 Wikipedia, “Agriculture inn Cuba”. 29

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Figure 19 prresents a clearr correlation beetween the Cuuban economy and sugar prices

Nick kel Cuba iis the world’ss 4th largest nickel exporrter31 and, priior to the revolution,, almost all off Cuba’s nickeel was owned by the United d States.32 33 Nickel rem mains Cuba’s leading exporrt after sugar and it is in such high demand thhat the US em mbargo has beeen defied in fa favor of purch hasing this metal from m the commuunist state. The T 2010 incrrease in nick kel prices, shown in Figure 20, may m provide an a explanatioon for Cuba’ss minimal NTL setbaack during the financial crissis. To visuallyy analyze thiss potential relationshipp, Cuba’s 20008 economicc growth wass calculated reegionally, and inspecction focuses on the Orieente region, w which contain ns Cuba’s 31

Christopheer Ecclestone, “Putting “ the Cu uban Nickel andd Cobalt Resou urces Back into Its Orbit,,” September 255, 2014, availab ble online at http://investorrintel.com/goldd-precious-metaals-intel/crackinng-open-cuba-n nextvietnam/ (acccessed March 200, 2017). 32 Country Quuest, “Cuba: Ecconomy, Mining g,” available onnline at (accessed http://www.coountriesquest.com/caribbean/ccuba/economy/m mining.htm March 20, 20017). 33 Nations Enncyclopedia, “C Cuba: Mining,” available a onlinee at http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Amerricas/Cuba-MIN NING.html (accessed March 20, 20017).

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largest nicckel mine, Moa M Nickel. Figure F 21 shoows the rate at which Cuba’s diffferent regionss grew in 2008 8, compared tto their 20-yeaar growth. The chart displays that,, whereas Hav vana grew quuicker than th he Oriente during the 20-year studdy period, Oriente grew muuch faster than Havana during 20008, when nicckel prices ro ose. This dem monstrates thaat Cuba’s economic performance may be morre dependent on nickel prrices than intentionall economic criises.

Figure 20 (ttop) shows a correlation c bettween Cuban N NTLs and nickkel prices. Figure 21 (boottom) shows thhe rate at which h Cuba’s differeent regions grew w in 2008, compared to ttheir 20-year growth g

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Discussion and Conclusion Findings derived from NTL satellite imagery suggest that Cuba is at least relatively insulated from shocks of the international economy, and more prone to fluctuations of its trade partners’ economies and prices of commodities traded between them. Specifically, rubber, iron, ‘other food,’ sugar and nickel prices, as well as Venezuela’s national economic performance, have a detectable correlation with Cuban economic development, indicated through NTLs. NTLs is a useful proxy variable for determining economic development growth in countries that have little or unreliable economic data. Cuba is a prime example of this, as its 50-year-old dictatorship operates the country’s financial books in complete seclusion from the rest of the world. However, this proxy is not without imitations. For one, economic changes based on NTLs may have a significant lag behind actual changes in the financial market. NTLs is a measure of physical structure, which takes time to both construct and deconstruct. On the other hand, modern financial indicators such as stock market positions and real prices are based on floating credit, and can change drastically in real time. Furthermore, increases in NTLs may be more closely tied to actual economic development than their decrease, as the time it takes for financial hardship to manifest in the demolition of structures, electricity shutoffs, and land abandonment may be slower than the time it takes for growing economies to engage in construction. Take for example, Cuba’s deteriorated housing stock, still standing after 50 years of economic stagnation, in contrast to the architecture phenomenon of United Arab Emirates, which was a desert until the fairly recent oil boom. While there are current shortcomings of NTL technology as a proxy for economic development, future studies have the potential to scale up, with increased accuracy. If NTLs’ lags can be calculated in a consistent formula, to be adjusted situationally, then it could substitute for more expensive means of data collection.

YO, SÍ PUEDO: EXPORTING EDUCATION IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH MORIAH OLSON AND CLAIRE PHELAN UNIVERSITY OF MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR

France sided with America in the Revolutionary War to defeat a common enemy. Cuba has likened itself to eighteenth-century France by partnering with other nations to combat a quite different common enemy: illiteracy. The Caribbean island made huge inroads into eliminating illiteracy in one arduous year and now shares this victory with other struggling post-colonial countries. Cuba’s Yo, Sí Puedo has sent, and continues to send, hundreds of teachers overseas to educate disadvantaged communities, despite the rigorous travel restrictions traditionally imposed upon Cubans. The South-South cooperation, as defined by Linda Chisolm, refers to “undertak[ing] activities that will improve countries’ unequal positions on a global scale.”1 Cuba engages in South-South cooperation by exporting its literacy program. The international campaign seeks to provide for other nations what Cuba provided for its own people decades ago: equal opportunity through national literacy. Yo, Sí Puedo is currently being employed in over fifteen countries across the global South. The success of the program speaks for itself, though it begs the question: why is Cuba, a socialist nation that refuses to allow its citizenry to travel internationally, letting hundreds of teachers leave the country to spread literacy to other nations? This paper will examine the origin and purpose of the program, beginning with Cuba’s 1961 literacy campaign, and evaluate its effectiveness and impact in both Cuba and the countries that utilize the program. Fidel Castro, who in 1959 became prime minister of a post-revolutionary Cuba, believed that extending the same opportunities to all classes would 1

Linda Chisolm, “Introduction: Rhetoric, Realities, and Reasons,” in South-South Cooperation in Education & Development, ed. Linda Chisholm and Gita SteinerKhamsi (New York: Teachers College Press, 2009): 1.

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bring the nation closer to achieving its role as the ideal socialist nation. He advocated for a classless society and sought to achieve this by eradicating illiteracy, as the deprivation of a formal education inevitably places limits on a person that are difficult to overcome. He ordered the implementation of a literacy campaign that would realize rapid results. In an address made in 1960 to the General Assembly of the United Nations, Castro announced that, “in the next year, our people plan to wage a great battle against illiteracy with the ambitious goal of teaching every last person to read and write.”2 Castro understood that the high level of illiteracy in Cuba not only limited the potential of individuals, but of the nation itself. Thomas Muhr, a professor at Habib University, explains that “while a ‘literacy campaign’ can be defined as ‘a mass approach that seeks to make all adult men and women in a nation literate within a particular time frame’, the notion of ‘campaign’ suggests urgency, combativeness and a ‘spirit of expeditions or crusades.”3 Not only did Castro expect Cuba to rid itself of illiteracy, he expected it to do so rapidly, knowing that the quicker the time, the more impressive the achievement would be. Cuba put great effort into achieving the goal that its president set. The Cuban government conducted a survey so that it could identify every person that fell under the category of “illiterate.” Prior to the program, 23 percent of the population was considered illiterate; 41 percent of this number came from the countryside and only 11 percent from the urban areas.4 The population of Cuba in 1961 was approximately 7.3 million.5 These numbers mean that close to 1.7 million people could not properly read or write in 1961. This large number made the task of achieving national literacy greater than any single person or group could handle. Thus, Castro charged each Cuban to take responsibility and do his/her part for the campaign, reasoning that there existed at least as many literate people with the ability to teach as there were illiterate people ready and willing to learn. Castro also argued that those possessing an education had a special responsibility to share their knowledge with those who wished to 2

Ruth A. Supko, “Perspectives on the Cuban National Literacy Campaign,” Maestro, September 1998, http://www.maestrathefilm.org/activos/educators/Supko.pdf, 2. 3 Thomas Muhr, "South–South Cooperation in Education and Development: The ¡Yo, Sí Puedo! Literacy Method," International Journal of Educational Development 43 (2015), http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059315000462: 129. 4 Supko, “Perspectives,” 2. 5 “Cuba – Population,” Index Mundi, http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/cuba/population.

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improve themselves.6 He stressed that every individual had the potential to play a key role in freeing the country from illiteracy. Castro sought total participation in the 1961 literacy campaign and everyone was expected to sacrifice for the cause. In order for the program to be implemented, the president closed secondary schools for almost eight months in 1961 to allow every teacher the time to work within the program. Many literate students over the age of eight also participated as teachers. As the summer of 1961 concluded, 178,000 adult teachers set to work in urban areas; 30,000 people taught literacy in their own areas as they continued their jobs; and 100,000 students began assumed new roles as teachers.7 While Castro mobilized the population, he also poured material resources into the campaign. The president knew that success of the literacy campaign meant more than solely giving people the ability to read and write; he understood that this initiative would attract international attention. Castro used the opportunity to highlight socialism, advocating for the 1961 campaign in the name of the revolution: “Because the revolution is developing its work as fast as possible and it is pushing forward very fast… One year will be enough… revolutions are capable of doing things like that.”8 The president knew that setting such a small window of time for such a large task would demonstrate the power and capabilities of socialism. He found pride in Cuba’s fight against illiteracy because he knew that after the campaign, “Cuba will be the first country in America which, at the end of a few months, will be able to say that it does not have a single illiterate person.” 9 Castro worked to highlight the superiority of Cuba’s education programs via the rapid eradication of illiteracy. In 1961, the prime minister’s vision came to fruition as the campaign ended in success. Throughout the year, houses began displaying the customary red flag that deemed all its members literate. Shortly thereafter, towns raised larger red flags, signifying the literacy of the entire town. Within 12 months (?) the illiteracy rate in Cuba dropped to 3.9 percent, the lowest of any Latin American nation.10 Due to this spectacular success, other nations began to look to Cuba as a role model in this area. The eagerness to adopt Cuba’s teaching model and Cuba’s willingness to share these strategies, gave birth to the educational program Yo, Sí Puedo.

6

Supko, “Perspectives,” 4. Ibid, 5. 8 Ibid, 4. 9 Ibid, 2. 10 Ibid, 1. 7

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Yo, Sí Puedo began, according to Michele Morais de Sá e Silva, as a desire to share best-practice, which she defines as “principles of efficiency, calculability, predictability, [and] control,” with other nations.11 Cuba first experimented with Yo, Sí Puedo in 2000 after the Instituto Pedagógico Latinoamericano y Caribeño in Havana developed the program. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Cuba first tested Yo, Sí Puedo in the neighboring nation of Haiti. The instructors conducted the lessons over the radio. The program met with initial success and continues to develop and mature. It currently consists of: 17 videos pre-recorded in Cuba that contain 65 lessons. Included in the package are workbooks for each participant and a facilitator manual. The lessons are presented in three blocks: preparation, learning to read and write, and consolidation. It is expected that a person will learn to read and write in seven weeks, with daily classes of approximately two hours’ duration, from Monday through Friday. In order to be considered literate, a person must be able to write a legible letter in a defined format at the end of the course.12

Shortly after the program’s inception, Cuban instructors began travelling to different countries to partner with the local teachers to deliver a more effective program. The Cuban model partners local instructors with experienced Cuban teachers. Cuban teachers then focus on training these local teachers in order to reach the greatest number of students. In fact, Mijail Benavides Lezcaide, the head of the Collaboration Department of the Yo, Sí Puedo program said in an interview that, “There are very few countries in which our [Cuban] professionals actually teach classes.”13 Cuban instructors who travel to other countries exert the majority of their energy showing and teaching the national instructors how to effectively teach students to read.

11

Michele Morais de Sá e Silva, “South-South Cooperation: Past and Present Conceputalization and Practice,” in South-South Cooperation in Education & Development, ed. Linda Chisholm and Gita Steiner-Khamsi (New York: Teachers College Press, 2009): 48. 12 Executive Board, “Study on the Effectiveness and Feasibility of the Literacy Training Method Yo Sí Puedo,” United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, August 25, 2006, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001468/146881e.pdf: 2 13 Yenia Silva Correa, “A Great Effort by Cuban Teachers,” Granma International, November 26, 2015, http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2015-11-26/a-great-effort-by-cubanteachers.

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Coming from a country that so highly prizes literacy makes these Cuban teachers ideal advocates for the education of others. Gabrielle Kearns states that former literacy campaign instructor, Mercedes Benitêz Cabrera, credits Yo, Sí Puedo’s success to “the flexibility of teachers and their motivation to respect their students’ personal learning style.”14 Kearns focuses on teachers’ abilities to step into new situations and quickly assess how to react in every situation. She also emphasizes the instructors’ focus on the needs of individual students. 15 The literacy levels and social condition of the students vary from country to country. Some have struggled with poor or insufficient instruction, while others have never before had the opportunity to learn in a formal setting. The Cuban teaching program stresses the individuality of each student and encourages its teachers implement a number of teaching styles in order to spark the interest and abilities of those in their charge. Despite the help that the program offers, concerns regarding its dissemination abroad do exist. One might assume that since the Yo, Sí Puedo program originates from a Socialist country, it may accompany a specific political agenda, that of exporting the ideals of Socialism. Upon studying the campaign, however, one can see that the main reasons behind the continued use of Yo, Sí Puedo are not political. In fact, each lesson in the program appear to promote social awareness by focusing on one sentence, such as “Open the gate,” “People love peace,” “Take care of the sea”, etc.16 Aside from the curriculum, some people think that individual professors may be accomplishing a political agenda through teaching, yet this does not seem likely, namely because of the hiring process. Those who chose to participate in the international program must be interviewed and selected by “teams consisting of Cuban educators and visiting education officials from the collaborating country,” thus somewhat limiting Cuba’s role in the process.17 Essentially, “Cuban consultants travel to other countries to help advise leaders on how to adapt and implement the program,” and not to 14

Ibid. Elvira Martín Sabina, Jorge Corona González, and Anne Hickling-Hudson, “Cuba’s Education System: A Foundation for ‘The Capacity to Share,’” in The Capacity to Share: A Study of Cuba’s International Cooperation in Educational Development, ed. Anne Hickling-Hudson, Jorge Corona González, and Rosemary Preston (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 54. 16 Bob Boughton and Deborah Durnan, “Cuba’s Yo, Sí Puedo. A Global Literacy Movement?” Postcolonial Directions in Education 3, no. 2. (2014): 344. 17 Hickling-Hudson, “You Help Me,” 177. 15

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indoctrinate the host population.18 Indeed, Yo, Sí Puedo emphasizes the diversity of the program: each student learns differently and at a different pace, so there is no absolutely correct way to teach the model. The only Socialist claims that the Cuban instructors ask the locals to revere is the idea that all people should have the same opportunity to learn. The reasons behind Yo, Sí Puedo’s international inception may originally have evolved around a political agenda. Fidel Castro may have desired to offer a taste of socialism to all the countries in which Cuban teachers would travel, for as Castro stated in December 1960, revolutions were capable of accomplish amazing feats.19 Primarily, the 1961 literacy campaign was designed to provide educational opportunities to all. While Castro’s primary aim in implementing the program focused on providing all citizens with increased opportunities, its success certainly highlighted a positive aspect of a Socialist agenda. While socialism may not be the explicit reason why Cubans take Yo, Sí Puedo to other countries, it certainly influences the personal actions of the teachers. Cubans have a history of struggling with achieving national literacy. The socialism to which Cubans align their lives calls for equal playing fields: every person should have equal opportunities. A lack of education limits a person’s ability to achieve success and move up in power or position. Providing education and the ability to read and write to every individual helps to raise the possibility that each person has access to the same opportunities. Cuba holds these ideals as sacred in its own country, so its teachers do the same in the countries in which they work. Cheryl La Bash demonstrates this desire for universal literacy: “Cuba ‘implements the literacy programmes in different social and cultural contexts covering all levels of society including indigenous people, those in rural and urban areas, those serving prison sentences, people with special education needs, migrants, ethnic minorities, at the same time paying special attention to women’s education.”20 In socialist countries, everyone shares and has equal claims. This equality does not incorporate solely material items; it includes intellect and opportunity as well. This socialist belief can be seen in the way that the Cubans do not withhold

18 Gabrielle Kearns, “Investing a Nation in the Education of Youth: The Role of Teacher Preparation in the Success of Cuba’s Education System,” Essay Docs, accessed September 26, 2016, http://www.essaydocs.org/investing-a-nation-in-theeducation-of-youth.html. 19 Supko, “Perspectives,” 3. 20 Cheryl LaBash, “Cuba Teaches the World to Read,” Workers World, January 7, 2007, http://www.worker.org/2007/world/cuba-0111.

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literacy and education from any groups of people. In fact, they go to developing countries, the “South,” where communities are struggling. A program as successful as Yo, Sí Puedo must be shared with other nations, though the question of why would a small, isolated nation wish to help others does arise. As previously discussed, the Cuban desire of providing opportunities to the underprivileged so that every person can have an equal chance to succeed is met through the program, yet in order for Yo, Sí Puedo to be worth the vast amount of time and money that it requires, it would need to benefit Cuba as a whole –financially, politically, culturally, and/or socially. The fact that Yo, Sí Puedo still thrives and that Cuba continues to work with foreign countries demonstrates that it must be beneficial to the Caribbean island. Cuba benefits financially from the work that it does overseas. Cuba still pays its abroad teachers’ salaries at home, so that their families may have the means to buy food and other necessities. Moreover, the countries in which the Cuban instructors work pay them “local salaries, which are higher in convertible terms than what they earn in Cuba, and the teachers return a portion of this to the Cuban government.”21 While Cuba still pays its teachers’ salaries, it spends the standard amount and receives the excess from the abroad teachers. The money coming from other nations offsets the amount that the Cuban government would pay for its teachers, meaning that the nation ends up paying a smaller salary to its instructors employed through Yo, Sí Puedo. Cuba ends up paying less for its teachers, which makes sending teachers out worthwhile for the economy. Cuba also benefits from Yo, Sí Puedo as it creates extra jobs in the workforce. Many Cubans receive education at post-secondary institutions, but the country does not have adequate positions for them upon graduation. “The economy, as is the case in many developing countries, does not absorb as many graduates as the university system produces. Therefore, there tends to be an excess of professionals in most fields, and this is the basis of Cuba’s ability to send hundreds of professionals including teachers, doctors and engineers to work for several years overseas.”22 The demand for teachers in other countries provides not only an opportunity for graduates to work and gain experience, but also an outlet that pardons Cuba from having to provide for individuals and the families of those individuals who would be unemployed if they did not work abroad.

21

Hickling-Hudson, “You Help Me,” 177. Anne Hickling-Hudson, “South-South Collaboration: Cuban Teachers in Jamaica and Namibia,” Comparative Education 40, no. 2 (May 2005): 3-4. 22

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Cubans also get to personally reinforce the teaching philosophy of lifelong learning as they experience new cultures. Working with a group of people who speak a different first language and who maintain different lifestyles, provides Cubans with a new experience in cultural diversity. They also gain insight into working with different groups of people as well as a multitude of other skills; “Cuban teachers would improve their foreign language skills, broaden their knowledge of global conditions, in some cases earn foreign currency, and improve their pedagogical skills and professional knowledge by having to teach in difficult and challenging conditions in systems of education different than their own.”23 As previously discussed, an important aspect of the Cuban educational philosophy centers around the individual needs of the student; being exposed to a variety of cultures and differing educational philosophies provides experience to teachers in knowing how to deal with people of differing backgrounds. Cuba also experiences international recognition as it receives esteem, prestige, and honor through its exportation of Yo, Sí Puedo. Castro charged his people with understanding the importance of the 1961 campaign, saying, “We are constructing tomorrow's future and tomorrow you will be able to say that you, too, participated in this work. People will come from all over the world to find out about our campaign and how it was possible to eradicate illiteracy in only one year. The world has its eyes on us. What we do will be an example to the world.”24 The country’s eradication of illiteracy in 1961 drew global attention and respect. Fifty years after the implementation of the national program, other countries still look towards Cuba as an educational beacon. Countries of the “South,” knowing of Cuba’s success, turn to the Cuban teachers for help in providing literacy skills and education for others. The small Caribbean island now has some ownership in the eradication and/or reduction of illiteracy in dozens of nations. Moreover, multiple honors have been bestowed on Cuba for its work. In 2002, only two years after the international program’s inception, it received an honorable mention in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s International Literacy Prize. Three years later, UNESCO endorsed the program.25

23

Ibid, 20. Fidel Castro, “Literacy Brigades at Veradero” (May 14, 1961), quoted in Latin American Network Information Center, “Castro Speech Database,” http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1961/19610514.html. 25 Bob Boughton and Deborah Durnan, “Cuba’s Yo, Sí Puedo. A Global Literacy Movement?” Postcolonial Directions in Education 3, no. 2 (2014): 334. 24

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Cuba’s accomplishments and achievement of its desire to create equal playing fields in developing countries proves to be a sufficient reward for the labor, along with the financial assistance that comes with partnering with other countries. The Yo, Sí Puedo literacy campaign greatly benefits those countries now utilizing this program, as evidenced by the continual requests for Cuban teachers. Cuban instructors work alongside the national teachers to ensure that they know the literacy program and the best practices to help students learn most effectively. Not only do these struggling countries receive the Yo, Sí Puedo program, they also learn how to best implement its lessons. It gives instructors the opportunity to shadow a person who has sufficient training and intimate knowledge of the strategies needed for success. The expertise of the Cuban teachers has resulted in a marked improvement of the skill sets of many foreign students. In March 2004, Cuban instructors took Yo, Sí Puedo to Cotacachi, Ecuador. After thirteen months, the illiteracy rate fell from 11.9 percent to 3.9 percent. In Bolivia, Cuban instructors taught “more than 800,000 non-literate Bolivians who learned to read and write in indigenous languages between March 2006 and December 2008.”26 Numerous other examples exist to show the impact that Yo, Sí Puedo had and continues to have in many countries. Overall, in just a span of eight years, More than 7 million people in thirty countries – mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa, including Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Equatorial, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Mozambique, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Paraguay, Peru, TimorLeste, Uruguay and Venezuela – are reported by IPLAC to have learned to read and to write using the Cuban literacy method Yo Sí Puedo.27

The lowered levels of illiteracy in these countries act as proof that Yo, Sí Puedo continues to have a significant impact beyond Cuba’s border. Despite the positive results of Yo, Sí Puedo initiative, opposition to it does exist. While the program does benefit both Cuba and the countries in 26

Anne Hickling-Hudson et al., “The Cuban Revolution and Internationalism: Structuring Education and Health,” in The Capacity to Share: A Study of Cuba’s International Cooperation in Educational Development, ed. Anne HicklingHudson, Jorge Corona González, and Rosemary Preston (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 21-22. 27 Ulrike Hanemann, The Evolution and Impact of Literacy Campaigns and Programmes 2000-2014, (Hamburg: UNESO Institute for Lifelong Learning 2015): 19.

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which the Cuban instructors teach, it still attracts a certain amount of criticism. The help that it provides cannot be questioned, but the way in which Cuba provides this assistance raises some legitimate questions, such as the methods of its implementation. One concern revolves around the idea of teachers teaching in colleges as opposed to elementary and secondary schools. Cuban instructors travel from their homes to foreign countries to bring equal opportunity to every person, regardless of race, gender, social standing, etc. However, the question arises of whether it would be more beneficial to teach students and have the schools’ teachers shadow the Cuban instructor, or to simply teach courses and instructive methods at a teacher’s college. Either position has its supporters and detractors. When the program is instigated in the actual classroom, the students receive immediate benefits. As soon as the instructor arrives in the other country, s/he is able to begin teaching the students. The local teacher shadows the Cuban instructor, so both teacher and students learn at the same time. Overall, this method (which makes up a large portion of most of the teachers who travel to other countries) benefits the students and teachers immediately. If, however, Cuban instructors went to teaching colleges instead of elementary and secondary schools, the students would not receive their lessons from the more experienced and effective instructors. This option, though, does offer the opportunity to reach more teachers at one time. If a Cuban instructor teaches in a single classroom, the teacher of that class (and perhaps a few others from the same campus) can shadow her/him and glean insight regarding effective techniques, yet if the Cuban instructor went straight to teacher’s colleges, they would be able to teach classrooms full of dozens of teachers who would eventually work in different areas of the country, or perhaps even the globe. Currently, the majority of Cuban instructors go to elementary and secondary schools, though some work in the post-secondary institutions. Another area of debate derives from the fact that teachers from Cuba go to other countries for only two years. They may apply for a third year, but few people actually receive permission to remain. Would it be better to allow Cuban teachers to stay in the foreign countries longer if need be? It seems as if the program could be more successful if Cuban instructors could solidify their efforts via a longer tenure. If the curriculum needs to be changed and relearned, this process may take longer than two years. Cutting off the time at two years may be detrimental to the national instructor’s education, which impacts the local students’ education. However, this does allow more teachers the opportunity to go to other

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countries to teach. Anne Hickling-Hudson conducted research in Jamaica and said that both islands believed “that contracts should not be extended beyond two years except in very special cases.”28 This gives the teachers an opportunity to go home to their families and work in their home country. Furthermore, more Cuban teachers can go to a second foreign country. If instructors can only stay for two years, this will provide the opportunity to another to experience working abroad. Regardless of whether one agrees with what Cuba is doing or why it is doing it, the success of the program is self-evident and the benefits far outweigh any negatives. Through this program, Cuba has helped to bring literacy to millions of people in dozens of countries. Through the administration’s determination to teach a valuable skill-set to disadvantaged members of an international community, the lives of many have improved exponentially.

28

Hickling-Hudson, “Jamaica,” 13.

SECTION FOUR: COLONIES AND CONFLICT IN THE AMERICAS

The proceedings conclude with two papers on the legacies of colonialism and the managing of conflict within the hemisphere. The thrust of the Conference on Inter-American Relations is to highlight two primary actors in the story of the Americas—the manifestations and legacies of colonialism, and the ways the modern states of the region have learned to navigate and manage conflict dispute among its member states. The first study, by Joshua Hyles of Baylor University, tells the story of the Guano Islands Act, an early attempt by the United States to exercise colonial influence and control over islands across the region and beyond. The act, from its inception in the early 19th Century, has provided not only a wealth of fascinating history, but remains an important facet of U.S.Caribbean and U.S.-Latin American relations today. The modern era and its handling of international conflict is represented by Tyler Talbert, J.D., from Case Western University. Mr. Talbert presents a study on a pending case in international courts between Bolivia and Chile, stemming from a border dispute that began around the same time as the aforementioned Guano Islands Act. Both papers present, together, a study of the development of international relations from brazen attempts at global acquisition through colonization to the contemporary world of courts, adjudication, and mediation using international organizations to settle old issues.

WASHINGTON’S SECRET COLONIES: THE BIZARRE STORY OF THE GUANO ISLANDS ACT JOSHUA HYLES, M.A. BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

In an increasingly globalized age, the trappings and mechanisms of old imperialist systems are fading. The empires of France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Spain, built by conquest and held by cultural exportation and military might, have mostly dissipated, save a few far-flung locales. But today there still exists a peculiar remnant of colonialism in the form of an informal American Empire. This empire has not devolved like others, nor have its constituent parts been vocal in petitioning for self-determination. This may be because the empire itself, a collection of islands and archipelagos across the Pacific and the Caribbean, was formed in quite an unusual way—a political expansion based entirely on free-wheeling capitalist profiteers and the diplomatic brazenness of a young United States. This process began in 1856, when on obscure piece of legislation known as the Guano Islands Act passed through Congress with neither fanfare nor much international notice. Yet, this act redefined the American method of territorial expansion, affected future events on a global scale, and permanently altered the nature of interAmerican relations like few documents before or since. This paper will study the origins of the Guano Islands Act and briefly consider the unique stories of the individual islands associated with it. Focusing primarily on the guano islands of the Caribbean, it will discuss the exceptional ways the act has affected U.S. relations with its neighbors.

The Guano Boom Spurred by Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States faced an unprecedented challenge in the first half of the 19th Century—managing a country that had more than doubled in size in fifty

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years. Though the opening of the West brought myriad opportunities for the American economy, it also presented new demands for raw materials. Throughout the first half of the century, demand for cheap fertilizer soared as more land came under the plow; unfortunately, the U.S. had not developed the resources necessary to keep up with demand. Exacerbating the problem, farmers in the already-settled and developed South had begun intensively cultivating tobacco and cotton as cash crops. These two crops drained the soil of nutrients at fast rates, and increasing population in the southern U.S. was making it logistically impossible to leave fields fallow to recharge them, as had been done in the past.1 Thus, the need for fertilizer was being felt in both emerging and established American agricultural sectors. A potential answer to these woes would come from an unexpected source. In 1802, Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt became the first European to encounter guano and experiment with its fertilizing properties.2 Guano, defined as any type of dung used for agricultural purposes, but most usually the feces of bats or sea birds, was in abundant supply in Peru, where von Humboldt was on a Latin American Expedition to explore and catalog the South American world from a modern scientific perspective. The Chincha Islands and other coastal areas of Peru were a popular nesting ground for sea birds, meaning that guano was not only in great supply, but proved relatively easy to harvest. Over the next three decades, word spread among merchants, particularly in Britain, of the potential of guano as an investment; they began to flock to Peru to capitalize. The first contract between freelance merchants and the Peruvian government, who owned the Chincha Islands and, by extension, the guano, was completed in November of 1840. Its major stipulations were: that it would run for six years, it would set no limits on the amount of guano that could be extracted, it gave merchants exclusive rights to sell to whomever they chose, and it set a flat fee for compensation to the Peruvians.3 Though the market was limited primarily to Britain at first, a French company also secured a contract for export to the US by the end of 1841. The scenario appeared to be a “win-win,” since Peru was being paid for a resource they considered trash, individual merchants were gleaning enormous profits, 1

Pete Lesher, “Baltimore and the Fertilizer Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” The Northern Mariner XVIII, nos. 3-4 (July-October, 2008): 121. 2 Von Humboldt, Alexander, Atlás géographique et physique du Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne (Paris: F. Schoell, 1811), lxxxiii-lxxiv. 3 W.M. Mathew, “Foreign Contractors and the Peruvian Government at the Outset of the Guano Trade,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 52, no. 4 (November, 1972): 602.

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and farmers in the fertilizer-starved United States now had a cheap source for it. Merchants assumed the sole financial responsibility for the costs of extraction, reimbursing themselves from the profits and rarely having to be present at the mines themselves.4 Prosperous times appeared to be ahead, thanks to an almost inexhaustible supply of bird droppings. According to an article in the New York Tribune (August, 1855), the U.S. was importing over $10 million of guano annually—nearly $29 million in today’s dollars—by 1853. In the period from 1850 to 1861, imports increased tenfold.5 Even still, the same New York Tribune article called the supply of guano as “quite inadequate” to meet demands by 1855. From its exports, Peru had received an estimated $8.6 million (about $250 million today). Peru’s windfall, and the fact that British merchants possessed a virtual monopoly on exports, did not escape the notice of American merchants or politicians. From the beginning of guano “discovery” and exploitation in the 1830s, the group of individuals interested in cashing in on Peruvian guano had grown from a group of scattered adventurers and speculators to include prominent businessmen and politicians. As early as 1841, New York business moguls like Alfred Benson were teaming up with friends in politics (in this case, the powerfully influential senator and eventual Secretary of State, Daniel Webster) to get government support of independent guano exportation ventures.6 Over his career, Webster had proven to be a champion of the public support of private enterprise, and his encouragement of American governmental and military support of guano mining (even in the face of Peruvian sovereignty) represented the pinnacle of his political agenda of American economic and territorial expansion. Alongside Webster throughout the 1850s, lawmakers and lobbyists began working to break the British guano monopoly and bring the profitable trade commodity to the United States directly. The effort came to be spearheaded by Secretary of State Lewis Cass, who campaigned for the passage of legislation to assist American merchants in finding alternative guano sources.7 From this suggestion, the Guano Islands Act would be born.

4

W.M. Mathew, “A Primitive Export Sector: Guano Production in MidNineteenth-Century Peru,” Journal of Latin American Studies 9, no. 1 (May, 1977): 36. 5 Lesher, “Baltimore and the Fertilizer Trade,” 122. 6 Jimmy Skaggs, The Great Guano Rush: Entrepreneurs and American Overseas Expansion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994), 17. 7 Christina Duffy Burnett, “The Edges of Empire and the Limits of Sovereignty: American Guano Islands,” American Quarterly 57, no. 3 (September, 2005): 781.

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A Quiet Conquest The guano acquisition movement gained its crucial proponent in none other than master statesman William Henry Seward. In March 1856, while Seward was serving as the senior senator for New York, George Benson’s American Guano Company dispatched a ship to Baker and Jarvis Islands in the North Pacific to conduct a guano survey. After receiving a favorable report about guano reserves on the islands, Benson submitted a petition to Senator Seward requesting government confirmation of his company’s rights to the islands. Seeing the potential for creating a legal precedent for entrepreneurial American territorial expansion, Seward crafted and submitted Senate Bill 15 on April 16, 1856. It was expressly written to protect citizens who “might discover and occupy derelict guano and other islands, keys, or rocks…and for maintaining such rights”.8 Essentially, the proposed law allowed for U.S. Navy protection of claimed guano islands, applied U.S. tax and revenue laws to the islands, and applied federal laws of the seas legal jurisdiction to any individuals present on them. A number of objections were raised by the Foreign Relations Committee to the original bill, and it died in committee. Not deterred, though, Seward rewrote the bill in much vaguer language. The resulting Senate Bill 339 replaced the specifics with a general provision stating that whenever the government “should have received satisfactory information that any citizen or citizens of the United States have discovered a deposit of guano on any island, or other territory not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government,” the President of the United States possessed the discretion to make the island “considered as appertaining to the United States, for the use and behoof of the discoverer…and shall be taken possession of in the name of the United States.”9 This wording alleviated some of the concerns expressed by the Foreign Relations Committee, and the bill was referred to the Committee of the Whole to expedite its debate and construction. While in the Committee of the Whole, the bill acquired several key allies. Foreign Relations Committee member James M. Mason of Virginia presented the bill to the committee and also wrote a key amendment to broaden the bill’s scope to any future discovery of unknown islands. Seward’s junior senator, Hamilton Fish, spoke in favor of the bill, seeing it as a potential boon to his business-owning constituents in Brooklyn.10 Delaware senator John Clayton, who had been involved with negotiating a 8

U.S. Congress, Guano Islands Act of 1856, 48 U.S.C. ch. 8, 1411-1419. Ibid. 10 Skaggs, The Great Guano Rush, 58. 9

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guano trade treaty with Peru during the Zachary Taylor administration, came out in support of the bill and further reassured fellow senators of the quality of Jarvis and Baker Island guano in comparison to the Peruvian product.11 Clayton produced a report by farmer Edmund Rodman and disseminated by Daniel Howland, Jr., part-time farmer, part-time entrepreneur (for whom nearby Howland Island was named) in support of his claims. The report compared regular manure to Peruvian guano and to guano obtained from Jarvis Island, and concluded (in at least a semiscientific way) that the American guano from Jarvis Island excelled in every respect in comparison to the others.12 Appealing to the senators’ desire for cheaper alternatives and feeding their excitement with the reports of high-quality guano free for the taking, interest in Seward’s proposal grew. The bill was not without its opponents, though. Chief among them was New Hampshire senator John P. Hale, who questioned the need for passage of protectionist bills in such narrow, niche markets when better legislation covering larger segments of the economy could instead be drafted.13 Georgia senator Robert Toombs suggested that the bill was entirely unnecessary, and that the government should instead compensate discoverers of islands and then take full control of the land, rather than giving private citizens free reign over its supervision. He wished to avoid a situation which, in his words, “the discovery should inure to the benefit of the individual discoverer”.14 Opponents generally fell into two categories: the allies of Hale who believed the bill unnecessary, and those of Toombs, who feared giving individual entrepreneurs too much legal power. The debate of the Guano Islands bill occurred at a critical juncture in the development of American economic and foreign policy. Essentially, the amount of public vs. private sector involvement in enterprise had been at the forefront of American political debate since the presidential administration of Andrew Jackson. What shape the final bill would take would set a legal precedent and, moreover, a political framework for how much, or how little, the United States government was willing to empower individual businessmen and captains of industry. With guano mining, too, the question expanded—if the United States government did, in fact, choose to step in and provide trade policy, legal, and even military support to private business, would enterprise or agrarian interests be the primary beneficiary? Would the government act, even abroad, in the interests of its 11

Ibid. Edmund Rodman, “American Guano,” Maine Farmer (June 2, 1859): 1. 13 Ibid. 14 Skaggs, The Great Guano Rush, 58. 12

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local entrepreneurs or its agricultural producers? The handling of the act and its execution colored the way the United States would deal with other countries as pertaining to national financial interests for years to come, from the acquisition of territory for agricultural use to the foreign policies dealing with corporations like Dole in Hawaii and United Fruit Company in Central America. After a great deal of debate, led by Senator Steward, a general consensus that the acquisition of territory abroad would benefit both agriculture (due to a cheaper supply of fertilizer) and enterprise (through rewarding private exploration and infrastructural development with government support and protection) developed. The bill spent several weeks in the Committee of the Whole being fine-tuned, as more pressing bills on Kansas statehood and provisions for the Pacific railroad expansion headed the agenda. Because of its multiple amendments and iterations, the guano bill had been distilled to extraordinarily open-ended and vague language. The opening paragraph of the final bill read: Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States.

The bill was, in fact, so vague and over-edited that Senator Asa Biggs of North Carolina asked that it be reread aloud in its entirety before the final vote, because he had lost track of what it was actually saying. It passed the committee, and then passed the House and Senate. Seward’s bill likely owed its quick passage after leaving the Committee of the Whole to its vagueness and its burial among the bills on statehood and railroad expansion. President Franklin Pierce signed a group of 26 bills, including the Guano Islands Bill, into law on August 18, 1856. The Guano Islands Act, in its entirety, read as follows: Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States. The discoverer shall, as soon as practicable, give notice verified by affidavit, to the Department of State, of such discovery, occupation, and possession, describing the island, rock, or key, and the latitude and

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Washington’s Secret Colonies longitude thereof, as near as may be, and showing that such possession was taken in the name of the United States; and shall furnish satisfactory evidence to the State Department that such island, rock, or key was not, at the time of the discovery thereof, or of the taking possession and occupation thereof by the claimants, in the possession or occupation of any other government or of the citizens of any other government, before the same shall be considered as appertaining to the United States. The discoverer, or his assigns, being citizens of the United States, may be allowed, at the pleasure of Congress, the exclusive right of occupying such island, rocks, or keys, for the purpose of obtaining guano, and of selling and delivering the same to citizens of the United States, to be used therein, and may be allowed to charge and receive for every ton thereof delivered alongside a vessel, in proper tubs, within reach of ship’s tackle, a sum not exceeding $8 per ton for the best quality, or $4 for every ton taken while in its native place of deposit. No guano shall be taken from any island, rock, or key mentioned in section 1411 of this title, except for the use of the citizens of the United States or of persons resident therein. The discoverer, or his widow, heir, executor, administrator, or assigns, shall enter into bond, in such penalty and with such sureties as may be required by the President, to deliver the guano to citizens of the United States, for the purpose of being used therein, and to none others, and at the price prescribed, and to provide all necessary facilities for that purpose within a time to be fixed in the bond; and any breach of the provisions thereof shall be deemed a forfeiture of all rights accruing under and by virtue of this chapter. The introduction of guano from such islands, rocks, or keys shall be regulated as in the coasting trade between different parts of the United States, and the same laws shall govern the vessels concerned therein. All acts done, and offenses or crimes committed, on any island, rock, or key mentioned in section 1411 of this title, by persons who may land thereon, or in the waters adjacent thereto, shall be deemed committed on the high seas, on board a merchant ship or vessel belonging to the United States; and shall be punished according to the laws of the United States relating to such ships or vessels and offenses on the high seas, which laws for the purpose aforesaid are extended over such islands, rocks, and keys. The President is authorized, at his discretion, to employ the land and naval forces of the United States to protect the rights of the discoverer or of his widow, heir, executor, administrator, or assigns. Nothing in this chapter contained shall be construed as obliging the United States to retain possession of the islands, rocks, or keys, after the guano shall have been removed from the same.

It was the beginning of a new career for William Seward who, after two unsuccessful presidential bids, became Secretary of State thanks in large part to his success as a champion of American enterprise. As Secretary of State, he put his experience in authoring and passing the Guano Islands

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Act to use in his negotiations to purchase Alaska. Author Jimmy Skaggs suggested that, if Alaska was “Seward’s Icebox,” then the Guano Islands were surely “Seward’s Outhouse”.15 The senator’s politics and his methods continue to manifest in American foreign policy and through the curious legal applications of the Guano Islands Act, again proving that in the United States, the flag follows the profits. Foreign policy applications and interpretations regarding the U.S. government’s jurisdiction and its responsibility regarding islands claimed under the act developed on a case-by-case basis until the close of the Spanish-American War. At that time, the United States gained a significant amount of territory not contiguous to the rest of the country, and its stewardship and governance suddenly became a much more pressing manner. As a result, a series of cases brought before the Supreme Court in 1901 collectively known as the Insular Cases completed the codification of American policy regarding its island claims. In these cases, the court suggested that the level of incorporation of new territories into the structure and framework of the United States was not necessarily uniform—a territory and, by extension, its inhabitants could not claim the full rights and protections of the U.S. Constitution just because that territory was annexed, claimed, or “appertaining to” the United States.16 This “incorporation doctrine” meant that the federal government could determine, island-by-island, just how much or how little it wanted to be involved, completely on its own discretion. The completion of the Insular Cases finalized U.S. policy towards its guano “islands of convenience,” and opened the door for the government simply to use the islands as long as they were needed, govern them in whatever way was most convenient, place each island’s temporary citizens (guano mine workers, primarily) under the jurisdiction of the company in charge of mining or the jurisdiction of whatever entity it deemed appropriate, and then possess no obligation toward the islands’ continued development, conservation, or stewardship once the guano miners were done with it. This curious policy led to some exceptional events in the islands’ collective history.

Navassa Island and the Galilean Fishermen The story of Navassa Island, a flat, forested two square mile outcropping of coral and limestone about 40 miles off the coast of Haiti, is 15

Skaggs, The Great Guano Rush, 56. Juan R. Torruella, “The Insular Cases: The Establishment of a Regime of Political Apartheid,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 29, no. 2 (2007): 346. 16

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richer than its featureless landscape would suggest. Navassa was named by Christopher Columbus, who ran into it in 1504 on his way to Hispaniola from Jamaica and called it “Navaza,” meaning “plain”. Because of its proximity to Haiti and its use by Haitians, the island has always been claimed as national territory by Haiti, beginning with its constitution in 1801.17 Despite Haiti’s claims, though, it was claimed for the United States under the Guano Islands Act by Edward K. Cooper in September 1857. It met all the criteria—no foreign citizens lived on it, it lay geographically outside the lawful jurisdiction of Haiti, and it was covered in guano. Haiti quickly protested this annexation, and the protest reached the desk of President James Buchanan. Buchanan responded by issuing two separate reports to Congress about the value of the guano trade and the importance of providing guano to American farmers. With it, on July 7, 1858, Buchanan issued an executive order upholding Captain Cooper’s initial claim and protecting his rights to mine guano on the island. The executive order also suggested that military support would be provided if necessary to protect the claim. Faced with the Americans’ much larger military and willingness to use it, the Haitian government withdrew its protest, though it has been renewed multiple times in international courts since 1901. Once his claim was upheld, Cooper sold his discoverer’s rights to Navassa to the R.W.L. Rasin Firm, the company underwriting the expedition and with whom he was a founding partner. Rasin himself was the first businessman in Baltimore to import guano from the Caribbean. He, in turn, sold Navassa Island to a New York-based company, the Navassa Phosphate Company of New York, which was organized specifically to export guano from the island. Rasin and Cooper became paid agents in Baltimore for Navassa Phosphate’s offices.18 The company built mining facilities on the island including a barracks for up to 140 laborers, houses for supervisors, shops, warehouses, and a church.19 The living quarters, on Lulu Bay, came to be called Lulu Town. All of the laborers recruited by the company were black contract laborers from the Baltimore area, and all the supervisors were white representatives of the company’s ownership group. 17 U.S. General Accounting Office, "GAO/OGC-98-5 - U.S. Insular Areas: Application of the U.S. Constitution," U.S. Government Printing Office, November 7, 1997. 18 George W. Howard, “R. W. L. Rasin & Co’s Chemical Works,” The Monumental City, Its Past History and Present Resources (Baltimore: J. D. Ehlers, 1873), 734. 19 Brennen Jensen, “Poop Dreams,” Baltimore City Paper (March 21, 2001).

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Mining began in earnest in 1865. Workers on the island broke the guano apart with dynamite, and then chipped it apart by hand with pickaxes. It was then hauled by rail cars to the harbor at Lulu Bay, where it was transferred first to small boats and then to the company’s main barque, the S.S. Romance.20 Guano was a “cargo of last resort” for most ship owners. It developed a reputation as being very messy to load and unload, leaving a fine yellow dust everywhere. Its noxious odor, created by ammonia released during handling, stung eyes, dried out noses, and made breathing difficult. Workers loading the guano into ship holds could not stay in the holds more than five minutes at a time.21 Conditions were terrible, and the treatment of workers was worse—with no government protection, and their rights in the hands of a company thousands of miles away, the workers had simply been left in a near-slavery state by their overseers. The laborers from Baltimore had signed 15-month contracts to work for the company, making $8.00 per month, with food and housing provided. As was the custom for most maritime operations, the work was not paid until the end of the contract period. Navassa Phosphate Company deducted $1.00 per sick day, and handed out financial penalties for a variety of different rule infractions. Food was rationed strictly, and supplemented canned food and tobacco were sold through the company’s store at greatly inflated prices. Rooms were not ventilated and mattresses were not provided but sold at, again, greatly-inflated prices. Punishment for rule infractions often included being tied by the wrists for hours on end.22 Because the company had unlimited jurisdiction and the workers possessed no real recourse through the government and, in practice, no real rights as citizens, the conditions on the island were virtually ignored. Unsurprisingly, the deplorable conditions turned into a workers’ riot on Navassa on September 14, 1889. The workers’ uprising resulted in the deaths of five of the white supervisors. Over the course of about an hour and a half, enraged workers hacked off the arms, legs, and heads of several of the white supervisors, and bashed the heads of others with crowbars and axes.23 The surviving overseers were evacuated to Baltimore on a British warship six days later, and eighteen of the black laborers were charged with murder or accessory to murder and returned to Baltimore on the 20

Ibid. Lesher, “Baltimore and the Fertilizer Trade,” 125. 22 Ibid., 126-127. 23 Global Security, “The Navassa Island Incident,” http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/navassa-island.htm (accessed October 10, 2016). 21

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company ship Albemarle.24 Five trials were set up: George S. Key was charged with murder by pistol, Caesar Fisher and Henry “Texas Shorty” Jones were charged with murder by axe and stone, Henry Jones charged with murder with an axe, Edward “Devil” Smith with a stone, and Stephen Peters, Charles Smith, and Charles Davis were charged together for the murder of William Shea.25 The trials were publicized widely as the Navassa Island Riot Cases. Owing to the provisions of the Guano Islands Act and the Insular Cases, the men were transported back to Baltimore for trial because the company they worked for was based there and, essentially, held jurisdiction. Thus, these men were tried in far from a neutral court with a jury of primarily white businessmen (and likely from the same social circle as the owners of Navassa Island Phosphate Company). Naturally, four of the men were found guilty and three were sentenced to death in the spring of 1891.26 A grassroots movement on behalf of the accused men, organized across African-American churches in the Baltimore area and going by the name of “The Order of Galilean Fishermen,” raised money to defend the miners in appeals. Through the sale of a published account of the riot and biographies of the men (The Navassa Island Riot, Illustrated27), the order raised enough money to hire counsel and get a petition signed. The petition reached the office of President Benjamin Harrison, who commuted the sentences to imprisonment. After the close of the cases, the federal government finally stepped in to take some responsibility over the conditions on the island, landing a party of Marines from the USS Kearsarge on Navassa from May through June of 1891.28 After the highly publicized incident and trials, and in part due to stricter government oversight and waning interest in guano as a fertilizer, mining operations ceased on Navassa before the close of the century. The only residents of Navassa now are lizards and feral dogs. Though still hotly contested by Haiti, the island is now under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a marine sanctuary.

24

Lesher, “Baltimore and the Fertilizer Trade,” 127. Order of Galilean Fishermen, The Navassa Island Riot, Illustrated (Baltimore: National Grand Tabernacle, Order of Galilean Fishermen, 1889), 6-7. 26 Global Security, “The Navassa Island Incident”. 27 Order of Galilean Fishermen, The Navassa Island Riot, Illustrated. 28 Global Security, “The Navassa Island Incident”. 25

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The Swan Islands and the CIA The Swan Islands, three small islands about a hundred miles off the coast of Honduras, were claimed under the Guano Islands Act by George U. White on May 19, 1857. Like Navassa, the Swans were originally sighted by Christopher Columbus in 1502. Though the islands were never officially claimed or used by the Spanish, Honduras has claimed them as part of its sovereign territory by rite of succession after their independence from Spain in 1824. But, like Navassa, the islands lie outside the geographical jurisdiction of Honduras and were not inhabited at the time of White’s visit to the island. White sold his claim to Samuel and Charles Stearns who, along with Duff Green, formed the Atlantic and Pacific Guano Company in 1858.29 By 1862, the island was being managed by the New York Guano Company, and then in 1882 sold to the Pacific Guano Company, which mined the island with around three hundred employees until its disbanding in 1895.30 The island fell out of use in the early 1900s after the guano had been removed, and changed hands several more times before being leased directly by the United States. In fact, the history of the Swan Islands does not get really interesting until after the end of their service as a guano source. The island was leased by the Swan Island Commercial Company to the United Fruit Company as a coconut plantation, but ceased to be a viable producer in the 1920s, so the company leased Great Swan Island to the United States Weather Bureau, who established first a part-time and then a full-time weather station there. By the 1940s, the U.S. government had added a quarantine station for the importation of cattle from Latin America, and an aircraft radio beacon for guidance of air traffic in the Caribbean.31 For a time, the islands were only a temporary home for people and goods on their way somewhere else. In 1960, though, things took a strange turn. The radio beacon was upgraded to a 50,000 watt AM radio transmitter and a 7500 watt shortwave transmitter by its new owners, the Gibraltar Steamship Company. Strangely though, the company was never based in Gibraltar (in fact, its offices were located on Fifth Avenue in New York City), and it had no record of owning or maintaining any steamships.32 The Gibraltar

29

Tom Henderson Wells, “The Swan Islands Dispute,” Journal of Inter-American Studies 6, no. 1 (January, 1964): 59. 30 Ibid. 60-61. 31 Swan Islands Official Website, “Brief History,” http://www.swanislands.com/history.html (accessed October 1, 2016). 32 Al Williams, “Swans, Pigs, and the CIA: An Unlikely Radio Story,”

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Steamship Company—with no steamships and no connection to Gibraltar, was not even a company; it was, instead, a front for a secret Central Intelligence Agency operation during the height of the Cold War created in response to the rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba. The transmitters were not upgrades, but rather extra equipment transferred from Radio Free Europe via a covert naval operation. In 1960, the transmitters, now dubbed “Radio Swan” began broadcasting Spanish-language pro-U.S. propaganda into Cuba. Honduras, also receiving these transmissions, wanted no part of what was going on and resubmitted their claims to the island. These claims eventually reached the United Nations in October 1960, with none other than Castro himself speaking on behalf of the Honduran claim.33 The UN upheld the United States claim based on the Guano Islands Act. After some diplomatic saberrattling, the station announced in January 1961 that it would cease carrying political broadcasts, and instead switch to an all-news format. These news broadcasts, though, carried coded messages meant for Cuban dissidents. On April 17, 1961, a message was broadcast on both frequencies: “Alert! Alert! Look well at the rainbow. The fish will rise soon. Chico is in the house. Visit him. The sky is blue. The fish will not take much time to rise. The fish is red.” Presumably, this was the coded message for the activation of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.34 The invasion, though, was a disaster, and Radio Swan was exposed. The Gibraltar Steamship Company magically vanished, was bought out by another phantom company, Vanguard Service Corporation. Radio Swan changed its name to Radio Americas, moved its base of operations to Miami, and eventually ceased operations in 1968.35 The Swans remained in contention until 1972, when they were peacefully handed over to Honduras as part of a larger treaty agreement with the United States.

The Other Guano Islands Other island claims were made throughout the 19th and into the 20th century across the Caribbean. These included Alto Velo Island, which is now part of the Dominican Republic, and a series of banks and shoals— Bajo Nuevo Bank, Quita Sueño Bank, Roncador Bank, Rosalind Bank, Serrana Bank, and Serranilla Bank—which were all peaceably handed http://hackaday.com/2015/11/23/swans-pigs-and-the-cia-an-unlikely-radio-story/ (accessed September 20, 2016). 33 Tom Henderson Wells, “The Swan Islands Dispute,” 67. 34 Al Williams, “Swans, Pigs, and the CIA”. 35 Swan Islands Official Website, “Brief History”.

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over to Colombia in the Vasquez Saccio Treaty in 1972.36 One of the more noteworthy Guano Island claims occurred as recently as 1964, when Leicester Hemingway, brother of author Ernest, anchored a thirty foot bamboo raft on a shallow bank in the international waters off the coast of Jamaica and claimed it under the Guano Islands Act. Afterwards, he declared it to be the independent Republic of New Atlantis, making money by issuing and selling New Atlantis postage stamps until 1965, when the raft was destroyed in a hurricane and Leicester abandoned the project.37 Though the bank is now mostly underwater, the claim is still valid and technically a territorial dispute remains between Jamaica and the United States. Though outside the scope of this paper, it should also be noted that Guano Islands Act claims in the Pacific contributed a great deal to history, as well. French Frigate Shoals, off Hawaii, was claimed by U.S. Navy lieutenant John Brooke in 1859, and eventually became a crucial refueling station and Naval Air Station during World War II, contributing much to the U.S. Navy’s success of the Battle of Midway. Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands all hosted guano mining operations until the turn of the century—at one point, Jarvis Island was operated by a single man, Squire Flockton, who was left as its sole caretaker from 1881-1883, until his eventual suicide (likely fueled by a combination of gin and extreme loneliness).38 On all three islands, a U.S. government colonization program attempted to begin permanent settlement in the 1930s, but was unsuccessful. Johnston Atoll, Palmyra Island, and Midway Island all began as Guano Island claims and developed into important World War II bases and landing strips. Johnston Atoll came to be a significant military outpost, serving as an atomic bomb testing facility, an arsenal, and a storage facility for Agent Orange in the 1960s. Nikumaroro, now a part of the island nation of Kiribati, was an active Guano Island Acts claim and is likely where Amelia Earhart crash landed and possibly survived in 1937. Finally, Swains Island, still a part of the United States administered by American Samoa, has been owned by the same family since 1856. The Jennings family has run the island and its coconut plantations as a dynasty, 36

Vasquez-Saccio Treaty, March 31, 1983, UNTS 20, no. 21801 (1972), 379-392. Russell Hale, “Contents of a Country: Leicester Hemingway’s Republic of New Atlantis,” Harry Ransom Center, http://eupdates.hrc.utexas.edu/site/PageServer?pagename=Hemingway_New_Atla ntis (accessed October 2, 2016). 38 Steve Higley, “Photographs from the Visit of J.T. Arundel to Jarvis Island, 1909,” http://www.jarvisisland.info/arundel.html (accessed September 27, 2016). 37

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though with loose American legal jurisdiction over them.39 Nearly all of the islands now part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands group, and a significant number of islands transferred to Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia over the years began as Guano Island Claims. Unlike the direct military takeover and subjugation of lands usually attributed to colonialism, the United States brand of colonial expansion undertaken under the Guano Islands Act operated largely in the shadows. By placing an individual or a company in power with the government’s informal blessing and possibility of military protection, the U.S. government has been able to operate and benefit from its collection of dozens of islands across the globe. Whether profiting from partnerships with businessmen operating largely outside the scope of international law and human rights, like in Navassa, or through covert operations furthering its agenda in obscure and unnoticed places like the Swan Islands, Washington has used “Seward’s Outhouse” as a secret empire for over a century. The passage and execution of the Guano Islands Act in 1856 set in motion a foreign and domestic policy that has continued in U.S.-Latin American relations to this day—where business can be done and money can be made, the flag will soon follow.

39

Skaggs, The Great Guano Rush, 213.

BEACH, PLEASE: BOLIVIA’S CASE AGAINST CHILE FOR COASTAL ACCESS TYLER TALBERT, ESQ. CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

I. Introduction On October 20, 1904, Bolivia and Chile signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which formally ended the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) and left Bolivia landlocked. Bolivia, never content with its landlocked status, has attempted consistently to enter into negotiations with Chile to recover coastal access. Over more than a century, Chilean officials have made numerous declarations indicating a willingness to negotiate on the topic; such negotiations, though, have never come to fruition. In the past decade, Bolivian officials have become more insistent about obtaining access to the Pacific Ocean. Chile, in response, has definitively declared it has no obligation to negotiate with Bolivia or to provide it with coastal access. As a result, Bolivia filed suit against Chile in the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, to obtain access to the Pacific Ocean, or, at least, the ability to negotiate with Chile regarding access. Bolivia contends that: (a) Chile has an obligation to negotiate with Bolivia in order to reach an agreement granting Bolivia a fully sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean; (b) that Chile has violated this obligation; and (c) that Chile is obligated to negotiate in good faith and effectively in order to reach an agreement granting Bolivia a fully sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean. The case, in its simplest form, asks the ICJ to determine whether Chile is obligated under international law to enter into negotiations regarding Bolivia’s sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean. This piece explores the historical background which left Bolivia landlocked (Sec. II), the positions advanced by each of the parties in the ICJ (Sec. III), the likely legal claims advanced by each party (Sec. IV), and predictions as to the strength of each party’s claims and the likely

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outcome of the case (Sec. V). Significantly, both parties have not yet submitted briefs on the merits regarding their legal positions. As such, this work identifies and examines the strongest legal claims that each State is most likely to submit to the Court. The ultimate purpose of this paper is to provide an explanation of the history of the dispute, the subject matter of the argument, and a glimpse into the merits of the case.

II. The History of the Dispute Before analyzing Bolivia’s claims, legal arguments, and the merits, it is important to understand how Bolivia lost access to the Pacific Ocean, and how both states have addressed the issue. This section examines: (A) Bolivia’s history of coastal access; (B) The War of the Pacific; (C) the treaties that left Bolivia landlocked; (D) Chile’s half-hearted promises to negotiate with Bolivia; and (E) recent events precipitating Bolivia’s filing in the ICJ.

A. Sunnier Times: When Bolivia Had Ocean Access On August 6, 1825, Bolivia achieved its independence, and in contrast to its modern status, had access to the Pacific Ocean.1 At that time, Bolivia enjoyed a coastline of more than 250 miles.2 Bolivia’s coastal territory bordered Peru to the north and Chile to the south.3 Bolivia’s sovereignty over this territory, including coastal access, was codified in the Treaty of August 10, 1866,4 between Bolivia and Chile.5 The agreement demarcated the Chile-Bolivia border at the 24th Parallel.6 On August 6, 1874, the two countries signed the Boundary Treaty of 1874.7 This Agreement replaced the 1866 instrument.8 The 1874 Agreement 1

Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v. Chile), Application Instituting Proceedings of Bolivia, (24 April, 2013), available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/153/17338.pdf [hereinafter Bolivia Application]. 2 Ibid. 3 Farcau, Bruce. The Ten Cents War: Chile, Peru, and Bolivia in the War of the Pacific, 1879-1884. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2000 [hereinafter Farcau]. 4 Often referred to as the Treaty of Mutual Benefits 5 Farcau, supra note 3. 6 Ronald Bruce St. John, The Bolivia-Chile-Peru Dispute in the Atacama Desert” (1994): 1-32; available at http://www.dur.ac.uk/ibru/publications/view/?id=205 [hereinafter St. John]. 7 Farcau, supra note 3 (commonly known as The Treaty of Sucre); see also, Cristieli Carvalho dos Santos & Inaê Oliveira, Obligation To Negotiate Access To

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granted Bolivia certain economic and territorial benefits not present within the 1866 agreement.9 In exchange, Bolivia agreed to forego collecting taxes from Chilean companies in the territory for twenty-five years.10 The Agreement also provided that the parties would submit any disputes arising under the agreement to arbitration.11 This treaty temporarily relieved economic, political, and territorial tensions in the area between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia; but, the peace would not last the decade.12

B. The War of the Pacific: The Cost of Ten Centavos In February 1878, Bolivia passed legislation to impose an additional tax on several companies in the saltpeter and nitrate industry, including the Chilean mining company CSFA (Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta).13 The new taxing system required business, including the CSFA, to pay an additional ten centavos per hundredweight of nitrates exported from the Bolivian territory.14 Chile protested that the tax violated the 1874 Treaty, which did not allow for taxation increases on Chilean companies for twenty-five year.15 Accordingly, Chile submitted that Bolivia was barred from collecting the tax from Chilean companies under the agreement, and formally requested that Bolivia relent in its pursuit.16 Bolivia obliged and suspended the tax in April 1878, but only temporarily.17 With tensions still looming, in November 1878 Chile requested that the two parties submit the dispute to arbitration, pursuant to the terms of the agreement; Chile further cautioned

The Pacific Ocean (Bolivia V. Chile), ISSN: 2318-3195, Vol. 2, 2014, pp. 213-244 [hereinafter dos Santos & Oliveira]. 8 Farcau, supra note 3; dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7. 9 Bolivia Application, supra note 1 (such as the authority to collect taxes between the 23rd and 24th parallels); see also dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7, at 214. 10 Farcau, supra note 3. 11 Farcau, supra note 3; dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7. 12 St. John, supra note 6, at 12-13; see also dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7, at 215 13 Farcau, supra note 3; see also WILLIAM SATER. ANDEAN TRAGEDY: FIGHTING THE WAR OF THE PACIFIC 1879-1884, University of Nebraska Press, 2007 [hereinafter Sater]. 14 Sater, supra note 13. 15 Simon Collier & William Sater, A History of Chile, 1808 – 1994, Cambridge University Press (1996). 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid.; see also, Sater, supra note 13.

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Bolivia that its refusal to cancel the tax would force Chile to declare null and void the 1874 treaty, which Chile claimed Bolivia was violating.18 In December 1878, counting, in part, on its military alliance with Peru,19 Bolivia doubled down, and declared that the tax was unrelated to the treaty and began enforcing the tax against Chilean companies.20 As to Chile’s request that the dispute be submitted to arbitration, Bolivia declared that the CSFA taxation issue was a matter to be addressed by Bolivian courts.21 CSFA refused to pay the tax and on February 11, 1879, Bolivian authorities seized the property of CSFA to make good on the outstanding amounts owed.22 Bolivia threatened to sell the property at auction in order to satisfy the tax debts.23 Three days later, on February 14, 1879, instead of flowers, Chile sent its armed forces across the Bolivian border to occupy the port city of Antofagasta.24 Peru, bound with Bolivia by their Secret Treaty of alliance of 1873, was dragged into the conflict as well.25 This began the War of the Pacific (also known as the War of Ten Centavos).26 Although, the tax proved to be the casus belli, as Ronald Bruce St. John, describes, the conflict was about far more than taxes, it was the culmination of “the ongoing competition for economic and political hegemony in the region.”27 Either way, it would end with a landlocked Bolivia.

C. The End of The Conflict & The End of Bolivia’s Ocean Access The conflict spanned the next six years, with Chilean forces proving far superior to both Bolivian and Peruvian armies.28 By the end of 1879,

18

Sater, supra note 13; Farcau, supra note 3. Sater, supra note 13; 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. at 31. 22 Simon Collier & William Sater, A History of Chile, 1808 – 1994, Cambridge University Press (1996). 23 Ibid. 24 Sater, supra note 13, at 2. 25 Jorge Basadre, Historia de la República del Perú, La guerra con Chile, Lima, Perú: Peruamerica S.A., (1964). 26 Ronald Bruce St. John, The Bolivia-Chile-Peru Dispute in the Atacama Desert,at 12-13; In its submission to the Court, Bolivia omits all but the most scant details as to what led to the origin of this conflict. 27 St. John, supra note 6, at 12-13. 28 Ibid. 19

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all of Bolivia’s coastal areas were in Chilean control.29 The War ended with Bolivia and Peru’s surrender, and Chile acquiring a significant amount of land from the losers.30 On April 4, 1884, Bolivia and Chile signed a Truce Pact.31 Under the treaty Chile acquired significant territory, cutting Bolivia off from the sea.32 Bolivia, despite the language of the agreement, describes Chile’s presence in Litoral at this time as a “military occupation.”33 In 1895, a Treaty on the Transfer of Territory was signed between Bolivia and Chile, but never entered into force. It included provisions for Bolivia to regain access to the sea, subject to Chile acquiring sovereignty over certain territories.34 Even after the signing of the agreement, Bolivia continued to insist on access to the Ocean, and attempted to negotiate several agreements which would allow it to recover coastal access.35 On October 20 1904, the Parties signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship (the “1904 Peace Treaty”), which officially ended the War of the Pacific as between Bolivia and Chile.36 Under that Treaty, which entered into force on March 10, 1905, the entire Bolivian coastal territory became Chilean and Bolivia was left only with a right of commercial transit through Chilean ports.37

29 Ibid.; see also, dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7, at 216; see also US Department of State. “Chile-Peru Boundary”, International Boundary Study 65 (1966): 1-16; available at http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/limitsinseas/ibs065.pdf 30 dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7. 31 dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7 32 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, p. 12. 33 Bolivia, in its submission to the Court, describes its signing of the agreement as “under pressure. There was rumor that Bolivia was going to argue that the treaties under Articles 51 and 52 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties y arguing that they were obtained by coercion or by the threat or use of force (See, e.g., Mariano de Alba Uribe, Bolivia against Chile And The Obligation To Negotiate Under International Law, (9 July 2013). 34 Bolivia Application, supra note 1; see also, dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7, at 217. 35 Bolivia Application, supra note 1; see also, dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7, at 217-220. 36 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 14. 37 Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v. Chile), Judgment on Preliminary Objection, (24 September 2015); available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/153/18746.pdf [hereinafter Preliminary Judgment].

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D. Bolivia: “Let’s Talk”; Chile: “Maybe later.” In the 1950s, Bolivia renewed its desire to obtain access to the Pacific Ocean, and proposed to Chile a new round of negotiations.38 Bolivia sent a correspondence to Chile which proposed: for the Governments of Bolivia and Chile to formally enter into a direct negotiation to satisfy Bolivia’s fundamental need for obtaining an own and sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean, thus resolving the problem of Bolivia’s confinement, on the basis of mutual conveniences and the true interest of both countries.39

The Chilean Note, in response, stated: my Government . . . it is willing to formally enter into a direct negotiation aiming at finding the formula which would make it possible to grant Bolivia an own and sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean and for Chile to obtain compensations that are not of a territorial nature and that effectively take into account its interests.40

Despite these promises, the countries made no meaningful progress on the issue. In July 1961, the Chilean Embassy forwarded a Memorandum to Bolivian officials, reaffirming the note of 1950, and stating that Chile is willing to formally enter into a direct negotiation aiming at finding the formula which would make it possible to grant Bolivia an own and sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean and for Chile to obtain compensations that are not of a territorial nature and that effectively take into account its interests.41

On 8 February 1975, the Presidents of Bolivia and Chile signed the Joint Declaration of Charaña, in which they agreed, in part, to continue with the dialogue, to find formulas to solve the vital issues which both countries faced, such as the one relating to the “confinement” affecting Bolivia.42 In 38

St. John, supra note 6. Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 14, citing Note of Bolivia, 1 June 1950 (text at Annex 10). 40 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 14, citing Note of Chile, 20 June 1950 (text at Annex 11). 41 Bolivia Application, supra note1, at 14, citing Memorandum of Chile, 10 July 1961 (text at Annex 12). 42 Bolivia Application, supra note1, at 16, Joint Declaration of Charaña between Bolivia and Chile, 8 February 1975 (text at Annex 13) 39

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the course of negotiations surrounding this Declaration, Chile agreed that “Chile would be prepared to negotiate with Bolivia the cession of a strip of land . . .”43

E. Bolivia Gets the Hint: Taking the Case to the ICJ In July 2006, the Governments of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Michelle Bachelet in Chile agreed to the “Agenda of the 13 Points” between the two States.44 Point VI of the Agenda was the “Maritime Issue,” referring to Bolivia’s landlocked status.45 During the 22nd meeting of the Bolivia-Chile Bilateral Mechanism for Political Consultations, during 2010, both States: confirmed that they would maintain this climate [of high levels of mutual trust] so it would encourage the bilateral dialogue in order to address the broad topic of point VI of the Agenda.46

Bolivia, before the ICJ, argues that with this language, Chile committed to “bilateral dialogue [that] had to give rise to concrete, appropriate, and feasible solutions” on the Maritime Issue.47 This agreement, between the two countries, marks the last of its kind. From 2011 forward, Chile has indicated that Bolivia’s claim that it is entitled to ocean access is without merit. In February 2011, Evo Morales asked the Chilean Government to draft a written and concrete proposal to carry forward the process for solving Bolivia’s confinement.48 Chile replied that “Bolivia lacks any legal basis to access the Pacific Ocean through territories appertaining to Chile.”49 Chile has maintained this position, when further pressed by Bolivia on the topic, stating that there are no pending issues between the two countries, that “there is no dispute

43

Bolivia Application, supra note1, at 16, citing Note of Chile, 19 December 1975 (text at Annex 14). 44 Bolivia Application, supra note 1. 45 Ibid. at 18. 46 Ibid. at 16, citing Minutes of the 22nd meeting of Bolivia-Chile Mechanism for Political Consultations, 14 July 2010, (text at Annex 16). 47 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 18. 48 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 18, citing Declaration of the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales Ayma, 17 February 2011 (text at Annex 17). 49 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 18, citing, Declaration by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, 12 July 2011; available at http://www.minrel.gob.cl/prontus_minrel/site/artic/20110712/pags/201107121447 36.php.

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between Chile and Bolivia,” and that “Bolivia lacks any right to claim a sovereign access to the sea.”50 These statements, Bolivia concluded, constituted a repudiation of Chile’s commitment to negotiate on the issue of Bolivian coastal access; and, Bolivia determined that the issue could no longer be settled solely between the parties.51 Bolivia submitted its case to the ICJ, alleging that over the course of decades, Chile committed itself, through agreements, diplomatic practice, and a series of declarations, to “negotiate a sovereign access to the sea for Bolivia.”52

III. Legal Proceedings in the ICI On April 24, 2013, Bolivia instituted proceedings against Chile before the ICJ.53 The dispute, as stated by Bolivia, concerns “Chile’s obligation to negotiate in good faith and effectively with Bolivia, in order to reach an agreement granting Bolivia a fully sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.”54 The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations established by the UN Charter in June, 1945.55 The Court’s role is twofold: (1) to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by states; and (2) to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred 50

Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 10, citing Note 745/183 of Chile, 8 November 2011 (text at Annex 1); see also Declaration by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, 26 September 2012, as quoted in La Tercera: “Canciller Moreno y emplazamiento de Evo Morales: ‘Entre Chile y Bolivia no hay controversia, sino que hay tratados’” (text at Annex 2); see also Speech by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, Mr. Alfredo Moreno Charme, 15th plenary meeting of the Sixty̻ Seventh Session of the UN General Assembly, 28 September 2012, UN doc. A/67/PV.15; available at: http://www.minrel.gob.cl/prontus_minrel/site/artic/20120928/pags/201209281640 05.php. 51 Case Concerning Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bol. V. Chi.), Preliminary Objection, Public Sitting Held on 6 May 2015, p. 13; available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/153/18654.pdf [hereinafter May 6 Hearing on Preliminary Objection]. 52 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 10. 53 Bolivia Application, supra note 1; see also ICJ, Press Release: Bolivia Institutes Proceedings Against Chile With Regard to a Dispute Concerning the Obligation of Chile to Negotiate the “Sovereign Access of Bolivia to the Pacific Ocean,” (April 24,2013); available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/153/17340.pdf. 54 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 10. 55 Press Release of April 24, 2013, supra note 53.

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to it by authorized United Nations organs and agencies of the system.56 Its judgments have binding force and are without appeal.57

A. Bolivia’s Claim: Chile is Obligated to Negotiate Coastal Access The subject of the dispute lies in: (a) the existence of that obligation; (b) the non-compliance with that obligation by Chile; and (c) Chile’s duty to comply with the said obligation.58 Bolivia asserts that beyond its general obligations under international law, “Chile has committed itself, more specifically through agreements, diplomatic practice and a series of declarations attributable to its highest-level representatives, to negotiate a sovereign access to the sea for Bolivia.”59 However, “Chile has not complied with this obligation and . . . denies the existence of its obligation”.60 Accordingly, Bolivia requests as relief that the Court adjudge and declare that: (a) Chile has the obligation to negotiate with Bolivia in order to reach an agreement granting Bolivia a fully sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean; (b) Chile has breached the said obligation; and (c) Chile must perform the said obligation in good faith, promptly, formally, within a reasonable time and effectively, to grant Bolivia a fully sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.61

In short, Bolivia argues that through agreements, diplomatic practice, and declarations, Chile is now obligated to negotiate in good faith in order to reach an agreement granting Bolivia a fully sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.62

56

Ibid. Ibid. 58 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 10. 59 Oral Statement; see also Bolivia Application, supra note 1. 60 Ibid.; see also Press Release of April 24, 2013, supra note 53. 61 Bolivia Application, supra note 1. 62 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 57

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B. Chile’s Response: “We Settled This Years Ago!” Chile denies the existence of such an obligation, or that it has any obligation to negotiate with Bolivia over coastal access.63 In addition, on July 15, 2014, Chile filed its preliminary objections to Bolivia’s Application; the objection challenges the jurisdiction of the Court to hear the case.64 Chile argued that Article VI of the 1948 Treaty on Pacific Settlement (the pact of Bogota), excludes from the Court’s jurisdiction matters already settled by arrangement between the parties and matters governed by agreements or treaties in force when the Pact was signed in 1948.65 The territorial sovereignty issue and Bolivia’s access to the Pacific Ocean are matters that were settled by “and remain governed by” the 1904 Peace Treaty.”66 Accordingly, Chile submits, Bolivia’s claim “is therefore outside the Court’s jurisdiction.”67 Bolivia and Chile presented oral arguments on this issue during May 2015. Chile argued that the 1904 Treaty of Peace had definitively resolved the issue, suggesting that what Bolivia was asking for was either a renegotiation of the 1904 treaty or the negotiation of a complementary agreement. Those remedies were expressly precluded by the Pact of Bogota, according to Chile. In response, Bolivia argued that the subject matter of the dispute concerns the existence and breach of an obligation on the part of Chile to negotiate in good faith; this obligation, exists independently of the 1904 Peace Treaty, as it arises from declarations by Chile, committing itself to obligate regarding coastal access, which occurred after the Pact of Bogota.68

C. The ICJ’s Ruling on Jurisdiction The ICJ resolved the jurisdictional question on September 24, 2015, in favor of Bolivia, finding it had jurisdiction of the dispute and the case

63

Ibid. at. 10. Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v. Chile), Preliminary Objection of the Republic of Chile, (15 July 2014), available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/153/18616.pdf [hereinafter Chile Preliminary Objection]. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 See generally, May 6 Hearing on Preliminary Objection, supra note 51. 64

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could go forward.69 The ICJ held that the 1904 Peace Treaty does not expressly or impliedly address the question of Chile’s alleged obligation to negotiate Bolivia’s sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.70 Accordingly, the Court concluded that the dispute does not arise out of matters “already settled by arrangement between the parties” or “governed by agreement or treaties in force on the date of the conclusions of the [Pact of Bogota].”71 As such, the Court concluded that Article VI of the Pact of Bogota does not bar the Court’s jurisdiction, and dismissed Chile’s preliminary objection.72 The effect of this ruling is significant, not simply because it allows the case to go forward, but in the way the Court defined the issues. In arriving at its conclusion, the Court defined, and narrowed, the subject matter of the dispute, stating while it may be assumed that sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean is, in the end, Bolivia’s goal, a distinction must be drawn between that goal and the related but distinct dispute presented by the Application, namely, whether Chile has an obligation to negotiate Bolivia’s sovereign access to the sea and, if such an obligation exists, whether Chile has breached it. The Application does not ask the Court to adjudge and declare that Bolivia has a right to sovereign access.73

The Court’s opinion limits the legal issue to solely those pertaining to Chile’s obligation to negotiate based on its acts and conduct (namely, from 1950 forward).74 In its Application, Bolivia identified several arguments that entitled it to coastal access under the 1904 Treaty, and even prior agreements (including those from 1895).75 The Court’s jurisdictional ruling effectively dispenses with these arguments and narrows the issue

69

Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v. Chile), Judgment on the Preliminary Objection of the Republic of Chile, (24 September 2015), available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/153/18746.pdf [hereinafter Judgment on Preliminary Objection]. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. at para. 32 (emph. added). 74 Ibid.; see also Case Concerning Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bol. V. Chi.), Preliminary Objection, Public Sitting Held on 4 May 2015, p. 13; available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3& case=153&code=bch&p3=2. 75 Bolivia Application, supra note 1.

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before the Court to whether an obligation to negotiate exists, based on the acts and conduct of Chile.76

IV. Examining Bolivia’s Claims on the Merits The crux of Bolivia’s argument is that that Chile’s unilateral declarations create binding international obligations.77 The ICJ has enforced obligations arising from words or conduct in the past, applying an estoppel theory, though the Court has declined to actually refer to it as estoppel. The jurisprudence of the ICJ in this area is relatively favorable for Bolivia as the Court has been willing to bind states to their unilateral declarations, finding that they have obligating force under international law.

A. Proving an Enforceable Obligation through Unilateral Declarations Unilateral declarations may create binding international obligations.78 As the International Law Commission’s “Guiding Principles Applicable to Unilateral Declarations of States Capable of Creating Legal Obligations” demonstrates, international law has long recognized that a state may be bound not just by laws or treaties, but by its own words and actions.79 The International Law Commission is a United Nations organ tasked with the “promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification.”80 The ICJ often relies on the International Law Commission’s work in rendering its opinions.81 76

Judgment on Preliminary Objection, supra note 37. Again, noting that both parties have not fully briefed the issue on the merits. 78 See e.g. Nuclear Tests Cases (Austl. v. Fr; N.Z. v. Fr.), 1974 I.C.J. 253 (Dec. 20) [hereinafter collectively Nuclear Tests Case]; see also David D. Caron, The Interpretation of National Foreign Investment Laws as Unilateral Acts Under International Law, Essays on International Law, (2011). 79 International Law Commission, Guiding Principles Applicable to Unilateral Declarations of States Capable of Creating Legal Obligations, with Commentaries thereto, 2006 (A/61/10), available at: http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/9_9_2006.pdf [hereinafter ILC Principles on Unilateral Declarations]. 80 See, e.g., International law Commission, About the Commission, available at: http://legal.un.org/ilc/ilcintro.shtml. 81 Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicar. v. U.S.), 1984 I.C.J. 392 (Nov. 26), p. 99 [hereinafter Military and Paramilitary Activities Case]. 77

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There are three Guiding Principles in particular that have critical importance to Bolivia’s claim: (1) Declarations publicly made and manifesting the will to be bound may have the effect of creating legal obligations. When the conditions for this are met, the binding character of such declarations is based on good faith; States concerned may then take them into consideration and rely on them; such States are entitled to require that such obligations be respected. ... (5) Unilateral declarations may be formulated orally or in writing ... (7) A unilateral declaration entails obligations for the formulating State only if it is stated in clear and specific terms. In the case of doubt as to the scope of the obligations resulting from such a declaration, such obligations must be interpreted in a restrictive manner. In interpreting the content of such obligations, weight shall be given first and foremost to the text of the declaration, together with the context and the circumstances in which it was formulated.82

Significantly, these rules reflect codified principles of international law. The International Law Commission’s conclusions were derived from a comprehensive survey of state practice regarding the potentially binding character of unilateral declarations, which gave rise to these principles.83 As the Commission noted, these obligations may arise “in very different ways, including official notes, public declarations, presidential Unilateral acts of states, proclamations, political speeches and even conduct signifying acceptance or acquiescence.”84 Bolivia’s claim that Chile is obligated to negotiate in good faith, will be premised on creating a legally enforceable obligation based on Chile’s unilateral declarations. In determining the chance of success on such a claim, it is necessary to examine the ICJ’s jurisprudence on this issue and the issue of estoppel.

82

ILC Principles on Unilateral Declarations, supra note 79 (emph. added) International Law Commission: Victor Rodriguez Cedeño,, Unilateral Acts of States: Eighth Report on Unilateral Acts of States, (A/Cn.4/557), 26 May 2005); available at http://legal.un.org/ilc/documentation/english/a_cn4_557.pdf [hereinafter Eighth Report on Unilateral Acts of States]. 84 Ibid. at 136-37 83

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B. Enforcing an Obligation Through The Doctrine of Estoppel The international principle that states may assume obligations through their words or actions is predicated upon the doctrine of estoppel. Although, the ICJ has been averse to using the term “estoppel” the reasoning in several of its cases evinces a ready willingness to apply the doctrine. As the Court explained in The Nuclear Tests Case, “[j]ust as the very rule of pacta sunt servanda in the law of treaties is based on good faith, so is the binding character of an international obligation assumed by unilateral declarations.”85 Understanding the strength of Bolivia’s claims requires and examination of: (1) the elements in an estoppel claim; and (2) the ICJ’s jurisprudence on the topic of estoppel. 1. The Elements of Estoppel The doctrine of estoppel is a principle which prevents a party from acting inconsistently to the detriment of others.86 The doctrine is recognized in international law,87 and the ICJ has applied the doctrine in cases of territorial disputes, as well as other contexts.88 The ICJ has held that “[t]rust and confidence are inherent in international co-operation, in particular in an age when this co-operation in many fields is becoming increasingly essential.”89 International estoppel is based on good faith and promotes consistency in international relations,

85

Nuclear Tests Case¸ supra note 75, at para 49.; see M. GREEN, INTERNATIONAL LAW: LAW OF PEACE 137 (2d ed. 1982) (Pacta sunt servanda (agreements are to be observed) is a rule which predates international law. It applies to all agreements made within the framework of the international legal system, and is the basis of the law of treaties.”); GLAHN, LAW AMONG NATIONS: AN INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW , 498 (4th ed. 1981) (“One of the oldest principles in international law is one usually rendered as pacta sunt servanda: 'treaties must be observed.”). 86 Rubin, The International Legal Effects of Unilateral Declarations, 71 AM. J. INT'L L. 1 16, 19-20 (1977). 87 Ibid.; see also North Sea Continental Shelf Cases (F.R.G. v. Den.; F.R.G. v. Neth.), 1969 I.C.J. 3, 47 (Feb. 20), p.26 para 30; 76-78; see also Diversion of Water from the Meuse (Neth. v. Belg.), 1937 P.C.I.J. (ser. A/B) No. 70, at 25 (June 28); see also Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/ Honduras), Application by Nicaragua to Intervene, ICJ Reports (1990), p. 118 para 63; 88 dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7; see also, Nuclear Tests Case, supra note 78. 89 Nuclear Tests Case, supra note 78.

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and constitutes “a general principle of law recognized by civilized nations”90 Traditionally, international estoppel requires three elements: (1) The statement creating the estoppel must be clear and unambiguous (2) The statement must be voluntary, unconditional, and authorized, (3) There must be good faith reliance91 upon the representation of one party by the other party, either to the detriment of the relying party or to the advantage of the party making the representation.92

However, a fourth, and critical element is manifestly evident specifically in claims of estoppel in the context of unilateral declarations: intent to be bound.93 As the Court held in the Nuclear Tests Case, unilateral declarations may create binding obligations “when it is the intention of the State making the declaration that it should become bound according to its terms.”94 Accordingly, “that intention confers on the declaration the character of a legal undertaking.”95 The Court further elaborated on this in the Case Concerning the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v. Mali) where it held that whether or not statements may possess binding effect, “all depends on the intention of the State in question”.96 Accordingly, this will be at the heart of the dispute between the parties.

90

Ibid.; see also Statute of the International Court of Justice, June 26, 1945, Art. 38 (general principle of law recognized by civilized nations is one of the four sources of law the ICJ applies in determining cases. Although some jurists, including ICJ Judge Alfaro has opined that international estoppel may not require reliance the consensus is that this is a necessary element. For example, in the Military and Paramilitary Activities Case, supra note 81, the ICJ stated that “estoppel may be inferred from the conduct, declarations and the like made by a State which . . . [has] caused another State or States, in reliance on such conduct, detrimentally to change position or suffers some prejudice.” 92 Megan Wagner, Jurisdiction by Estoppel in the International Court of Justice’(1986) 74 California Law Review 1777; see also Bowett, Estoppel Before International Tribunals and Its Relation to Acquiescence, 33; see also, A. Vamvoukos, Termination Of Treaties In International Law: The Doctrines Of Rebus Sic Stantibus And Desuetude 294 (1985); BRIT. Y.B. INT'L L. 176, 176 (1957). 93 ILC Principles on Unilateral Declarations, supra note 79. 94 Nuclear Tests Case, supra note 78. 95 Ibid. 96 Case concerning the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v. Republic of Mali), Judgment of 22 December 1986, I.C.J. Reports 1986, p. 573, para. 39.

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2. ICJ Jurisprudence on Creating and Enforcing Obligations through Estoppel Claims of estoppel generally arise in two contexts: unilateral declarations and acquiescence.97 The claims in this dispute center on unilateral declarations. The ICJ98 has applied an estoppel theory to bind states to their previous words or actions on four occasions, two of which involved unilateral declarations.99 In none of these cases did the Court expressly identify the doctrine justifying its holding as “estoppel,” but all four contained references to good faith, consistency, or intent to be bound—language that supports an estoppel theory. a. The Legal Status of Eastern Greenland Case The Eastern Greenland Case is the most instructive case on point, as it involves a binding obligation arising out of bilateral negotiations between two countries on the topic of territory. In the Legal Status of Eastern Greenland,100 the Court held that Norway could not object to a Danish claim of sovereignty over Greenland because a Norwegian official previously had made a statement inconsistent with such a claim.101 The Case concerned Denmark’s ongoing efforts to assert sovereignty over Greenland. In correspondences between the two States, Denmark remarked on the continuing difficulties over the territorial dispute regarding Greenland. The Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs replied that “the Norwegian Government would not make any difficulties in the settlement of this question.”102 The Norwegian Government, in ICJ proceedings, argued that this statement (the Ihlen Declaration) could not be binding, and maintained that the Court must view the statement in the context of the overall negotiation of an agreement.103 However, the Court held that the intent of the declaration was clear—it was to ensure to Denmark that Norway would not contest “Danish sovereignty over Greenland as a whole” nor 97 See, generally ILC Principles on Unilateral Declarations, supra note 79; see also, dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7. 98 Or its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice, PCIJ, treated here interchangeably. 99 Wagner, supra note 92, at 1784. 100 Legal Status of Eastern Greenland (Den. v. Nor.), 1933 P.C.I.J. (ser. A/B) No. 53 (Apr. 5) [hereinafter Eastern Greenland Case]; see also Rubin, supra note 86. 101 Ibid., at 71. 102 Ibid. at 71. 103 Ibid.

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occupy “a part of Greenland.”104 Accordingly, the Court held that although there was not a “definitive recognition” of Danish sovereignty over Greenland, Norway’s assurances that it would not obstruct Danish plans for Greenland by the Minister of Foreign Affairs were binding on Norway.105 The Court held: The Court considers it beyond all dispute that a reply of this nature given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs on behalf of his Government in response to a request by the diplomatic representative of a foreign Power, in regard to a question falling within his province, is binding upon the country to which the Minister belongs.106

As the International Law Commission notes, this decision to consider the declaration an act with binding force, constitutes the one of the first examples in which the actions of a government official may give rise to an international commitment that is binding upon the State represented.107 The Court did not refer specifically to estoppel in its discussion, but the facts of the case met all of the requirements: clear, voluntarily given, expressing an intent to be bound, and relied upon. Although not mentioned by name, the Case nonetheless marks the beginning of the estoppel doctrine in the Court.108 This case will be at the forefront of Bolivia’s legal argument against Chile. b. The Nuclear Tests Case In the Nuclear Tests Case,109 the Court found that France’s unilateral statement that atmospheric nuclear tests would soon cease possessed binding legal effect.110 In the case, both Australia and New Zealand brought an action against France, seeking to bar France from conducting further nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Before final resolution of the case, France declared that “the atmospheric tests which are soon to be carried out will, in the normal course of events, be the last of this type.”111 104

Ibid. at p. 73 Ibid. (noting the significance that the foreign minister made the remark); see also Rubin, supra note 86. 106 Eastern Greenland Case, supra note 100. 107 Ibid. at 132. 108 Eighth Report on Unilateral Acts of States, supra note 83. 109 Nuclear Tests Case, supra note 78 (both Australia and New Zealand brought claims against France). 110 Ibid. (noting that Court did not reach merits upon a finding of mootness). 111 Ibid. at 266 105

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In determining whether to dismiss the case for mootness, the Court considered the legal relevance and binding nature of the statements unilaterally given in public by France. The Court began by nothing that “[i]t is well recognized that declarations made by way of unilateral acts concerning legal or factual situations, may have the effect of creating legal obligations.”112 The Court held that France “was bound to assume that other states might take note of these statements and rely on their being effective.”113 The Court held that binding unilateral declarations made “the State . . . thenceforth legally required to follow a course of conduct consistent with this declaration.”114 As such, the Court held that the objective of New Zealand and Australia had in effect been accomplished, in as much that France had undertaken the obligation to hold no further nuclear tests in the South Pacific.115 In short, the Court gave legally binding effect to a unilateral declaration made by France. The Court’s discussion of intent to be bound is instructive as well. In discussing unilateral declarations, the Court emphasized that “intention confers on the declaration the character of the legal undertaking . . .”116 The Court went on to note that “[a]n undertaking of this kind, if given publicly, and with an intent to be bound, even though not made within the context of international negotiations, is binding.”117 The Court suggested that intention “is to be ascertained by interpretation of the act.”118 Importantly, also the Court also noted that “when states make statements by which their freedom of action is to be limited, a restrictive interpretation is called for.”119 The International Law Commission’s 2006 Guiding Principles adopts this approach as well, stating that “a unilateral declaration entails obligations for the formulating State only if it is stated in clear and specific terms.”120 In the case of doubt as to the scope of the obligations resulting from such a declaration, such obligations must be interpreted in a “restrictive manner.”121

112

Ibid. It at 269. 114 Ibid. at 267; see also Wagner, supra note 92, at 1786. 115 Nuclear Tests Case, supra note 78. 116 Ibid. at 267. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid. para 47. 119 Ibid. 120 ILC Principles on Unilateral Declarations, supra note 79. 121 Ibid. 113

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The Nuclear Tests Case will be a significant weapon in the quiver of Bolivia. It provides steady support for the argument that a state may be bound by its unilateral declarations. Moreover, it signals a willingness of the Court to hold states to their declarations not only in the context of bilateral negotiations, as in the Eastern Greenland Case, but even more broadly in other contexts. c. The General Obligation to Negotiate Under International Law Some commentators122 have opined that Bolivia may argue that Chile is required to negotiate, because of a general “obligation to negotiate” in international law, requiring negotiation where disputes arise between two States.123 The basic outline of this argument is that where two states each possesses legal rights that can only be defined in relation to the rights of the other (such as a boundary dispute) the two parties are obligated under general principles of international law concerning good faith, to negotiate with one another.124 Both, the Fisheries Jurisdiction Case and the North Sea Continental Shelf Case hold that the obligation to negotiate “merely constitutes a special application of a principle which underlies all international relations, and which is moreover recognized in Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations as one of the methods for the peaceful settlement of international disputes.”125 However, there are two reasons, why this legal theory will not likely be at the heart of the dispute. First, and most simply, based on Bolivia’s application to the Court, it does not appear that Bolivia intends to pursue this theory.126 Bolivia in numerous submissions to the Court frames the issue as Chile’s “commitment to negotiate” rather than a more general “obligation” founded on principles of law. For example, in the Oral Submissions on the preliminary objections, Bolivia’s legal theory is clear; 122

Mariano de Alba Uribe, Bolivia against Chile And The Obligation To Negotiate Under International Law, (9 July 2013), supra note 33; see also dos Santos & Oliveira, supra note 7. 123 See, e.g., Fisheries Jurisdiction Case (U.K. v. Ice.), 1973 I.C.J. 3 (Feb. 2); (U.K. v. Nor.), 1951 I.C.J. 116 (Dec. 18) [herinafter collectively Fisheries Jurisdiction Case]; see also North Sea Continental Shelf Case, supra note 87. 124 Fisheries Jurisdiction Case, supra note 123; North Sea Continental Shelf Case, supra note 87; see also, Case Concerning Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Arg. v. Uru.), 2010 ICJ 14 (20 April, 2010); available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/135/15877.pdf [hereinafter Pulp Mills Case]. 125 Fisheries Jurisdiction Case, supra note 123; North Sea Continental Shelf Cases, supra note 87; 126 See generally, Bolivia Application, supra note 1 (pursuing theories creating an obligation to negotiate based on Chile’s prior unilateral declarations).

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Beach, Please: Bolivia’s Case against Chile for Coastal Access In the light of the information provided in Bolivia’s Application and Memorial, there can therefore be no doubt as to the subject-matter of Bolivia’s claim: it requests the Court to find that Chile committed itself, through a succession of agreements, declarations and promises made independently of the 1904 Treaty, to negotiate a sovereign access to the sea for Bolivia, and that by its recent repudiation of that commitment Chile has failed to comply with it.”127

Bolivia may, in their full merits briefing to the Court, address this issue, but the thrust of their attack in their written and oral submissions thus far has concentrated on creating an obligation based on the conduct of Chile.128 Second, based on the Court’s prior jurisprudence, the doctrine is inapposite in this case. The critical distinction between the ICJ cases discussing an obligation to negotiate and the present case, is that in this case, the dispute is already settled by treaty. A quick examination of the Fisheries Jurisdiction case, demonstrates this point.129 In the cases, both Great Britain and Iceland claimed that they had fishing rights in a certain area. Accordingly, the Court concluded “negotiations are required to define or delimit the extent of those rights . . .”130 These cases demonstrate a requirement of a dispute, not previously settled by agreement, in order to trigger an obligation to negotiate among states. In the present case, that element is lacking. The legal issue here is not, fundamentally, a territorial one, in which Bolivia claims that it is entitled to coastal access. Rather, Bolivia’s “dispute” is that Chile’s refuses to negotiate with Bolivia. The reason Bolivia, likely, omitted such an argument from its initial submissions is that the argument is shaky, both legally and logically. There is no support for the argument that where the issue has already been settled by agreement among the parties, the principle may be invoked to create a new obligation to negotiate that which has already been settled. Accordingly, it would be surprising to see the inclusion of this argument in Bolivia’s briefing on the merits.

127

May 6 Hearing on Preliminary Objection, supra note 51. See generally, Bolivia Application, supra note 1 (pursuing theories creating an obligation to negotiate based on Chile’s prior unilateral declarations). 129 Fisheries Jurisdiction Case, supra note 123. 130 Ibid. 128

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V. Predicting the Outcome of Bolivia’s Case Bolivia has a strong claim that Chile, through agreements, diplomatic practice, and a series of declarations, has committed itself to negotiate access to the sea for Bolivia. Bolivia will seek to enforce that right through the doctrines of unilateral declarations and estoppel. The meat of the dispute between the parties will likely come down to two elements, intent and specificity. Bolivia will likely succeed in proving these elements and on its overall claim. Ultimately, though, even prevailing, Bolivia’s victory may be hollow as a right to negotiate ocean access is just that, a right to negotiate; it is not a right to the sea.

A. Bolivia Has a Very Strong Claim that Chile’s Commitments Create and Obligation to Negotiate In enforcing the unilateral declarations of Chile under an estoppel theory, Bolivia needs to demonstrate that Chile: (1) voluntarily and freely; (2) made unilateral declarations; (3) that contained clear and specific language; (4) with an intent to be bound by those declarations; and; (5) that Bolivia has relied on those declarations. Bolivia will point to the plethora of statements made by Chile over in demonstrating almost all of these elements. As the Bolivian agent stated to the Court in the hearings on Chile’s preliminary objections Chile’s commitments and declarations were made by the highest-level representatives of the Chilean State, and [] they took the form of bilateral commitments and unilateral promises . . . [that] were repeated on numerous occasions, over several decades, thus creating legitimate legal expectations on the Bolivian side.131

Evidence includes the exchange of Notes in 1950,132 the Joint Declaration of Charaña of 1975,133 and the Note of 1975.134 Further evidence is the Memorandum of July 1961 ,in which the Chilean Ambassador to Bolivia confirmed that by the exchange of letters between the two countries in 1950 Chile had expressed its “full consent to initiate as soon as possible, direct negations aimed at satisfying the fundamental national need of own 131

See, May 6 Hearing on Preliminary Objection, supra note 51, at 12, citing Bolivia Application, supra note 1, Annex 24. 132 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, (text at Annex 10, 11) 133 Ibid. (text at Annex 10, 11) 134 Ibid. (text at annex 13).

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sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.”135 Furthermore, Bolivia argues that this commitment is reaffirmed in and consistent with several Organization of American States resolutions.136 Bolivia’s agent, in oral arguments, further stressed that in accordance with these commitments and promises, what the parties referred to as “the maritime issue,”137 remained on the official agenda of bilateral negotiations until 2011.138 It was its own item (Item VI of the agenda of 13 points.139 In that Point, both states confirmed that they would maintain this climate [of high levels of mutual trust] so it would encourage the bilateral dialogue in order to address the broad topic of point VI of the Agenda.140

It was not until 2011, when Chile removed the item from the agenda and refused to talk about the matter further, did Bolivia consider that Chile repudiated its commitment to negotiate.141 Bolivia has a very strong claim that these statements, whether taken independently or collectively constitute unilateral declarations that have binding international effect. Based on the above, it is beyond dispute that Chile made unilateral declarations, that were voluntary, and which Bolivia relied upon. The remaining two elements, requiring that the statements be “clear and specific,” and made with an intent to be bound, will be the crux of the dispute between the parties.

135

Ibid., citing Bolivia Application, supra note 1, Annex 24. Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 16, citing Resolution 686, General Assembly of the Organization of American States, 18 November 1983; available at http://scm.oas.org/pdfs/agres/ag03797E01.pdf (urging Bolivia and Chile to find a formula for giving Bolivia a sovereign outlet to the Pacific Ocean, on bases that take into account mutual conveniences and the rights and interest of all parties involved). 137 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 18. 138 Ibid. 139 Ibid. 140 Ibid. at 16, citing Minutes of the 22nd meeting of Bolivia-Chile Mechanism for Political Consultations, 14 July 2010, (text at Annex 16). 141 May 6 Hearing on Preliminary Objection, supra note 51. 136

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1. The Court Will Likely Find that the Chilean Declarations Possess the Requisite Intent. With respect to the “intent” element, the ICJ has noted that intention “is to be ascertained by interpretation of the act.”142 Given that these statements were made in official diplomatic channels, and generally in the broader context of bilateral negotiations between the parties, Bolivia’s claim that Chile manifested an intent to be bound is a very good one. Bolivia’s claim is even stronger than that in the Nuclear Tests case.143 The unilateral declaration in that case was a general public proclamation by France not in the context of negotiations or bilateral discussions.144 Nonetheless, the Court found the statement binding.145 Even more compelling, presently, the unilateral declaration(s) that Bolivia seeks to enforce were directly to Bolivia in bilateral negotiations. As commentators have noted, relying upon the Eastern Greenland Case, unilateral declarations may be given even more weight “when made in the context of a larger negotiating situation.”146 In this regard, Bolivia’s claim is analogous to, and in many ways even stronger than, the Ihlen Declaration that formed the basis of the Eastern Greenland Case.147 The Ihlen Declaration was made during a purely bilateral meeting between the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Denmark and the Norwegian ambassador to Copenhagen. With this in mind, the ICJ held “a reply of this nature given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs on behalf of his Government in response to a request by the diplomatic representative of a foreign Power, in regard to a question falling within his province, is binding upon the country to which the Minister belongs.”148 In this case, Bolivia has not just a single statement, like Denmark, but numerous statements spanning decades. These statements were regularly given by high-ranking government officials, including Ministers, and Vice-Ministers of Affairs, for each state. As such, Bolivia’s claim is on sure-footing. Bolivia will submit that, like the outcomes of the Eastern Greenland Case, and the Nuclear Tests Case, it is entitled to the same result. With this legal fabric, the ICJ’s jurisprudence, and Chile’s consistent agreements, diplomatic practice and declarations attributable to 142

Nuclear Tests Case, supra note 78, para 47. Ibid. 144 Ibid. 145 Ibid. 146 Wagner, supra note 92, at 1785, citing Rubin, supra note 86, at 16, 19-20. 147 Legal Status of Eastern Greenland Case, supra note 100. 148 Ibid. at 71; see also, Eighth Report on Unilateral Acts of States, supra note 83. 143

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its highest-level representatives, the Court will likely find that the statements were made were the requisite, binding intent, and Chile is obligated to negotiate with Bolivia. 2. The Statements Are Likely Sufficiently Specific to Bind Chile Chile will likely attack the specificity element, arguing that its promises were general aspirational statements to work with one another, not a specific binding obligation. In its Judgments in the Nuclear Tests Case, the International Court of Justice stressed that a unilateral declaration may have the effect of creating legal obligations for the State making the declaration only if it is stated in clear and specific terms.149 The Court echoed this language in the Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo,150 and was adopted by the International Law Commission in its Guiding Principles. In honing in on what level of specificity is required, the Court has not provided an abundance of guidance. The Court deemed the language in the Eastern Greenland Case and the North Sea Continental Shelf Cases, to meet the specificity threshold.151 The Court has indicated that the language must be “clear and unequivocal.”152 Additionally, the cases indicate a party may be estopped where it “clearly and consistently” adopts a particular position.153 With these examples as guidance, the specificity of the statements in this case weighs heavily in Bolivia’s favor. In the 1950 diplomatic Note, Bolivia proposed “for the Governments of Bolivia and Chile to formally enter into a direct negotiation to satisfy Bolivia’s fundamental need for 149

Nuclear Tests Cases, supra note 78, at p. 267, para. 43, p. 269, para. 51, and p. 472, para. 46, p. 474, para. 53. 150 Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New application: 2002) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Rwanda), Jurisdiction and Admissibility, paras. 50 and 52. 151 North Sea Continental Shelf Case, supra note 87; Legal Status of Eastern Greenland Case, supra note 100. 152 Payment of Various Serbian Loans Issued in France (France v SerbǦCroatǦ Slovene) [1929] PCIJ (ser A) No 20, 38 (Estoppel received passing attention in Factory at Chorzow (Germany v Poland) (Jurisdiction) [1925] PCIJ (ser B) No 3 and European Danube Commission (Advisory Opinion) [1927] PCIJ (ser B) No 14.; see also J C Witenberg, ‘l’Estoppel, Un Aspect Juridique du Probleme des Creances Americaines’ (1933) 60 Journal du Droit International. 153 Alexander Ovchar, Estoppel in the Jurisprudencee of the ICJ: A Principle Promoting Stability Threatens to Undermine It, 21 Bond L. Rev. 1, Art. 5 (June 2009), at 6.

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obtaining an own and sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean . . .”154 To which Chile replied my government . . . it is willing to formally enter into a direct negotiation aiming at finding the formula which would make it possible to grant Bolivia an own and sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean and for Chile to obtain compensation that are not of a territorial nature and that effectively take into account its interests.155

Chile reaffirmed this commitment in a 1961 Memorandum from the Chilean embassy to Bolivia, effectively quoting the language verbatim.156 More recently, though, Chile’s language is less concrete. For example, in the Minutes of the 22nd Meeting between Bolivia and Chile, 2010, the parties “confirmed” that they would maintain “high levels of mutual trust” so it would “encourage the bilateral dialogue in order to address the broader topic of Point VI,” the Maritime Issue, and thus “how to reach concrete, feasible, and useful solutions.”157 Chile will argue that this agreement fails to evince a “specific” “clear and unequivocal” intent to negotiate on the issue of ocean access.158 However, when looking to the overall history of the agreements, diplomatic practice, and declarations, spanning a period of more than half a century, Bolivia has a very strong argument that the evidence, collectively, demonstrates a “clear and consistent” position adopted by the Chilean government to negotiate a sovereign access to the sea for Bolivia.159 For these reasons, Bolivia will likely prevail in demonstrating

154

Note of Bolivia, at Annex 10, supra note 39. Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v. Chile), Preliminary Objection of Chile (15 July 2014), at Annex 11; in four volumes available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3&case=153& code=bch&p3=1. 156 1961 Memorandum of Chile Dated July 10, 1961, at Annex 12, supra note 41. 157 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 16, citing Minutes of the 22nd meeting of Bolivia-Chile Mechanism for Political Consultations, 14 July 2010, (text at Annex 16). 158 Chile may also submit that such declarations must be interpreted in a “restrictive manner.” However, the language of the Nuclear Tests Cases, supra note 79, prescribes this approach only where “states make statements by which their freedom of action is to be limited . . .” The Court will likely determine that the restrictive interpretation approach is unwarranted, as the obligation is only that to negotiate, not a restriction on rights or in which Chile’s freedom of action is limited. 159 Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 10. 155

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that Chile’s conduct gave rise to an enforceable international obligation to negotiate. 3. Chile’s estoppel by acquiescence argument against Bolivia a. Chile may argue that Bolivia Acquiesced to the 1904 Treaty. Chile may argue that allowing Bolivia’s claim to go forward undermines the finality of treaties and allows re-litigation of matters long settled. Because the issue has been settled among the parties, and because of Bolivia’s acceptance of the border for more than a century, it is improper for Bolivia to now attempt to amend what has already been agreed to. This is, in itself, an estoppel argument, estoppel by acquiescence namely. Chile can found its argument on an estoppel by acquiescence case, the Case of Temple Preah Vihear.160 The 1962 ICJ Case Concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear touches on the issue of estoppel by acquiescence.161 This case may be used offensively by Chile to argue that the issue of the borders is settled and should be precluded from re-litigation. The dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, filed by Cambodia, concerned ownership of the Temple.162 The substantially abbreviated facts were that the two countries agreed in 1904 to establish a Commission which would delimit the borders. Three years thereafter the Commission produced a series of maps, one of which indicated that the Temple was within Cambodia. Almost fifty years later there was a dispute concerning ownership of the Temple, which was submitted to the ICJ.163 The Court ultimately concluded that “Thailand’s subsequent conduct confirms and bears out her original acceptance” of the border.164 Moreover, the Court expressed a strong favor towards finality of agreements settling border disputes, stating “[i]n general, when two countries establish a frontier between them, one of the primary objects is to achieve stability and finality.”165 “This is impossible” the Court went on to note, “if the line so established can, at any moment . . . be called in question . . .”166 With that, Chile may argue that: (1) the issue has been settled by agreement among the parties; (2) Bolivia has accepted the border 160

Case Concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thai.), Judgment, 1962 I.C.J. 6 (June 15). 161 Ibid. 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid. 164 Ibid. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid. at 34.

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agreement and acted in conformity with it; and (3) there is a strong policy favoring the finality of border claims and territorial disputes. Accordingly, the Court should reject Bolivia’s claim. This argument is similar to Chile’s preliminary objection, though that objection was procedural, and this one substantive. Ultimately, though, this argument will likely fall on deaf ears. While it is correct that a treaty settles the border issue, and Bolivia has accepted that delimitation, the heart of the issue is not a dispute about the 1904 Treaty, its terms, or its enforceability. The core of the dispute is Chile’s subsequent conduct indicating its willingness to renegotiate the terms of the 1904 Treaty and Bolivia’s coastal access. The source of the obligation in dispute, then, is not an already settled treaty, but Chile’s own conduct. In Temple Preah Vihear, distinguishably, the dispute was whether an agreement that a party had accepted for decades was enforceable.167 There is no such similar dispute in this case. The acquiescence of acceptance of the 1904 Treaty does not then preclude Bolivia from asserting rights arising out of a different obligation, namely Chile’s promise to negotiate. b. Chile may argue that Bolivia acquiesced to Chile’s unwillingness to negotiate Chile may attempt to apply an estoppel by acquiescence argument in one other way. It may argue that the substance of the conduct giving rise to the alleged obligation occurred almost exclusively between 1950 and 1975.168 Even if these representations did give rise to an obligation, Chile will argue, Bolivia has done nothing for four decades to assert or act on such rights, and should therefore be estopped from now trying to enforce them. This argument asserts that Bolivia has acquiesced to the fact that while Chile has promised to negotiate, it never fully intends to. Right out of the gate, Chile would have an unclean hands problem. The doctrine of unclean hands it bars a party from benefitting from their own wrongful conduct.169 Chile is effectively arguing that because they failed 167

Ibid. See generally, supra notes 39-43. 169 See Hersch Lauterpacht, The Development Of International Law By The International Court 167-69 (1982) (discussing the role of the general principles of law in the jurisprudence of the ICJ); see also, Military and Paramilitary Cases, supra note 81, at 392-94 (doctrine bars a party from bringing a claim where its own wrongful conduct gave rise to the claim, or the applicant failed to uphold the obligation it is trying to enforce; where the applicant seeks to enforce performance of an obligation that the applicant itself has not performed, the Court “must clearly refuse to do so.” 168

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to make good on their obligation for so long, Bolivia is now precluded from trying to make them honor it now. The Court would undoubtedly reject such an argument.170 Secondly, even overcoming that hurdle, as Bolivia has indicated to the Court, it was not until 2011 that Chile repudiated its commitment to negotiate, and Bolivia concluded that the issue could not be settled solely between the parties.171 It was not until Chile broke with its long-standing practice of indicating a willingness to negotiate with Bolivia to obtain coastal access that Bolivia’s claim arose.172 Bolivia did act on its rights in a timely fashion, bringing the claim within just two years of Chile’s repudiation of its commitment to negotiate. As such, this estoppel by acquiescence will not prevail. Bolivia’s arguments, both in reply to these issues and collectively, are factually and legally sound. Accordingly, the Court will likely find that an enforceable obligation exists on behalf of Chile to negotiate.

170 Even if it was phrased as a laches claim, it would still fail; see, e.g., Certain Phosphate Lands in Nauru (Nauru v. Australia), Preliminary Objections, I.C.J. Reports, 1992, p. 240, at para 31, 36.; see also Chirstine M. Chinkin, The East Timor Case before the International Court of Justice, Eur. J. Int. L; available at http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/4/1/1199.pdf (“the purpose of laches is to prevent injustice to a respondent State through admitting a case after a long period of time . . . “). 171 May 6 Hearing on Preliminary Objection, supra note 51. 172 Chile has stated that Bolivia lacks any legal basis to access the Pacific Ocean through territories appertaining to Chile.” Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 18, citing, Declaration by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, 12 July 2011; available at http://www.minrel.gob.cl/prontus_minrel/site/artic/20110712/pags/201107121447 36.php.Chile has maintained this position, when further pressed by Bolivia on the topic, stating that there are no pending issues between the two countries that ““there is no dispute between Chile and Bolivia” and that “Bolivia lacks any right to claim a sovereign access to the sea.” Bolivia Application, supra note 1, at 10, citing Note 745/183 of Chile, 8 November 2011 (text at Annex 1); see also Declaration by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, 26 September 2012, as quoted in La Tercera: “Canciller Moreno y emplazamiento de Evo Morales: ‘Entre Chile y Bolivia no hay contro̻ versia, sino que hay tratados’” (text at Annex 2); see also Speech by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, Mr. Alfredo Moreno Charme, 15th plenary meeting of the Sixty̻Seventh Session of the UN General Assembly, 28 September 2012, UN doc. A/67/PV.15; available at: http://www.minrel.gob.cl/prontus_minrel/site/artic/20120928/pags/201209281640 05.php

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c. The Ultimate Shortcoming of Bolivia’s case Even if Bolivia prevails, its success may ultimately be a Pyrrhic victory. The relief that Bolivia may obtain from the Court is a finding that Chile is obligated to negotiate with Bolivia regarding coastal access. This critical point is noted by the ICJ in the judgment regarding jurisdiction. The dispute is “whether Chile has an obligation to negotiate” it is not whether “Bolivia has a right to sovereign access.”173 Accordingly, Bolivia’s prayer for relief is that Chile “perform the said obligation [to negotiate] in good faith . . .”174 Thus, a victory by Bolivia will mean that Chile is obligated to negotiate with Bolivia on the topic of coastal access. Chile will be bound to negotiate in “good faith”175 and in a way that is “meaningful.”176 But, Chile, ultimately, is under no obligation to reach any agreement with Bolivia to provide it with coastal access. In this regard, the Court’s prior jurisprudence in the Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay Case is particular instructive. There the ICJ held that “an obligation to negotiate does not imply and obligation to reach an agreement.”177 Accordingly, Bolivia could win the case, but still be left a landlocked state if the parties reach no subsequent agreement in negotiations.

VI. Conclusion More than one hundred years after the Bolivia and Chile settled the War of the Pacific, the dispute rages on between the countries regarding Bolivia’s coastal access. Chile’s half-hearted commitments have given rise to full-blooded frustration by Bolivia, spilling over to the filing of the case in the ICJ.

173

Preliminary Judgment, supra note 37. Bolivia Application, supra note 1. 175 Pulp Mills Case, supra note 124, at para 145 (“[e]very treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith. That applies to all obligations established by a treaty, including procedural obligations which are essential to co-operation between States.”). 176 Ibid. (noting that the Court also had occasion to draw attention to the characteristics of the obligation to negotiate and to the conduct which this imposes on the States concerned: “[the Parties] are under an obligation so to conduct themselves that the negotiations are meaningful”); see also North Sea Continental Shelf Case, supra note 87, at 47, para. 85. 177 Pulp Mills, supra note 124, at 68, citing Railway Traffic between Lithuania and Poland, Advisory Opinion, 1931, P.C.I.J., Series A/B, No. 42, p. 116. 174

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Based on Chile’s conduct over the past decades, Bolivia will likely succeed in demonstrating that Chile is now obligated, through the doctrines of unilateral declarations and estoppel, to negotiate in good faith regarding Bolivia’s coastal access. However, this victory may be a hollow one, as a right to negotiate, does not mean a right to coastal access. As such, even prevailing on its claims, Bolivia may walk away from the ICJ no better than when it left the table signing the 1904 Treaty, leaving it landlocked. Ultimately, Bolivia’s lawsuit is not about a legal right to coastal access, as it cannot establish that it has a legal right to the Pacific Ocean. Instead, Bolivia’s lawsuit is about establishing a legal obligation on behalf of Chile, to force Chile to negotiate about coastal access, where Bolivia can again request from Chile, “beach, please?”