Inter Press Service - October 22, 2003
Diego Cevallos

The governments will assume new commitments and conceptions of security, although analysts warn that they could be so broad as to end up as mere rhetoric.

Hemispheric security is a multi-dimensional problem today, which covers social, environmental and health questions, rather than simply military threats, according to the document to be signed on Oct. 27-28 at the Special Conference on Security in Mexico City, convened by the Organisation of American States (OAS).

It took five years of preparatory meetings and two reschedulings of the special conference to reach agreement on such concepts among the 34 OAS member states, which include all of the countries in the hemisphere with the exception of Cuba.

The implicit objective of old agreements still on OAS shelves was to take a military stance in confronting purported threats from the now-defunct Soviet Union and the former East European socialist bloc.

Although some analysts say the United States will impose its security agenda, which has a marked military focus, on the region in the conference in Mexico, the draft of the final declaration, on which agreement has already been reached, does not seem to support that argument.

Terrorism, drug trafficking and military attacks are mentioned as security threats in the document, but so are questions like the AIDS epidemic, poverty, social injustice, and human rights violations.

The document also states that the threats are not the same for every country, and that each member nation can define its priority concerns in a sovereign manner.

Nevertheless, Ana Mar a Salazar, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defence under the government of Bill Clinton (1993-2001), believes Washington will continue to impose its anti-terrorism agenda.

In the preparatory meetings leading up to next week's conference, the administration of George W. Bush presented documents describing armed attacks by one state against another, terrorism, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and massive unchecked immigration as security threats in the hemisphere.

But it also mentioned other threats, like the fragility of democratic systems, human rights abuses, natural disasters and environmental degradation, economic instability, corruption, diseases like HIV/AIDS, and extreme poverty.

In expanding the list of security threats, the United States apparently sees eye to eye with many other countries in the Americas.

OAS documents indicate that the consensus today is that the question of security has a "multi-dimensional" character.

"The big surprise is that the declaration to come out of the security conference takes into account the priorities of all countries in the hemisphere," which dashes the notion that "the OAS is going to 'militarise' hemispheric security and cast it in an 'anti-terrorism' light" under pressure from Washington, said Jorge Chabat, a researcher at Mexico's Centre for Economic Research and Teaching.

In the view of Jos Luis Pi±eyro, an expert on hemispheric security and a professor at the Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico, the new concept of hemispheric security is moving in the right direction, but could become mere rhetoric if it does not translate into changes in the OAS institutional structure.

The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, from which Mexico withdrew in 2002 on the argument that it was obsolete, and the Inter-American Defence Council, which links the hemisphere's defence ministers, are under review, and no consensus has yet been reached regarding their future.

It will only be possible to assess just how committed the governments are to the new conception of security when it becomes clear whether or not there have been changes in the region's support for bodies like the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO), the Inter-American Council for Integral Development, and the Inter-American Defence Council, Pi±eyro commented to IPS.

He said that if the new conception of security translates into reality, military spending in the region could drop, which would free up much-needed funds for many governments.

According to studies by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the region has a combined total of 1.4 million active-duty troops, and defence spending amounts to 26.5 billion dollars a year.

For each dollar earmarked for defence, 1.10 dollars go towards education and 90 cents to health care, reports ECLAC.

The United States is the region's main supplier of arms, the U.N. regional agency adds.

Miguel Ruiz, Mexico's representative to the OAS, said the greatest achievement that will come out of next week's conference on security will be that for the first time, the region will expand the rigidly military-based conception of security to include concrete commitments to the fight against poverty, environmental conservation, and strengthening health and justice.

"This would have been impossible 10 or 20 years ago," he said.

The meetings aimed at reaching agreement on an updated concept of security in the Americas began to be held after the 1988 Summit of the Americas in Chile, when the question was first brought up.

But there were problems agreeing on a date for the conference due to discrepancies, and to events like the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

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+ OAS (http://www.oas.org/)

+ ECLAC (http://www.eclac.cl)

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