Andres Oppenheimer reminds us of yet another reason to be skeptical of the effectiveness of regional multilateral development initiatives. Apart from the ongoing degradation of the OAS we referred to last week, we are now compelled to draw our attention to UNASUR, the 12-nation answer to the question : What do you get when you add Mercosur and the Andean Community? As Oppenheimer tells it:
"Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, a disciple of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, said that when he takes over as president of the 12-nation Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in July he will propose creation of a regional body to defend governments against critics in the media.
I'm not kidding. In what would be seen as a bizarre attack on basic freedoms in most modern democracies, Correa's May 28 statement called for "creation of mechanisms to defend citizens and legitimately elected governments against abuses by the press." The proposal was immediately backed by Venezuela and Bolivia, whose presidents routinely refer to any criticism in the press as "media terrorism."
Nobody has protested this idea just yet, which is the main reason Oppenheimer has issued a call to arms. I agree that this is a worrying prospect, but there are a couple things to keep in mind. For starters, we've seen similarly scary survey results of the American public when it comes to how little the public at large values press freedom. The American Journalism Review in 2004 found four out of 10 Americans think the press actually has too much freedom - and this is just the most immediately handy link I can find. There have been plenty others over the years - Latinobarómetro I know has covered this - if you dig further.
So the first question we have to ask is this: regardless of what one thinks of Latin America's Axis of Evo (Bolivia-Venezuela-Ecuador), is the bigger concern here the reticence coming from the region's leadership or the indifference coming from the public at large?
Second question: regardless of the answer to the first question, how much does UNASUR really matter in the broader comings and goings of hemispheric relations? Let's review for a moment what just else this new body has done of note. Really, one thing only: launched the Bank of the South, Hugo Chavez's brainchild for creating a South American alternative lender of last resort so that the region can reduce its dependence on the IMF, the IADB, or the World Bank, depending on which day of the week it is. How does it measure up? Well, it launched last month (a year behind schedule) with $7 billion (down from varying levels of previous estimates, one of which had Venezuela contributing $15 billion from its central bank reserves). Meanwhile, the World Bank's total 2008 assets were $233 billion while the IMF's were somewhere north of $300 billion and the IADB had around $70 billion in total assets as of the end of 2007.
Clearly, this institution has yet to get its legs. This is not an excuse to sit easy - press muzzling anywhere is a cause for concern and if nothing is done to nip this development in the bud it will likely get worse. But keeping the bigger picture in mind will increase the chances of getting this right on the first try.
Baume Mercier