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THE JAPAN TIMES
Honduran coup d’etat again demonstrates
folly of region’s reckless military spending
Oscar Arias
San Jose Costa Rica
THE WASHINGTON POST
Latin America is enveloped in a climate of uncertainty and turmoil that I had hoped our region would
never experience again. The recent coup d’etat in Honduras, which has embroiled that country in a
constitutional crisis, has provided a sad reminder that despite the progress our region has made, the
errors of our past are still all too close.
I have been asked by the leaders of our region to serve as the mediator in this crisis. Once again,
we must trust that dialogue – so often scorned as too slow or too simple – is the only path to peace
and the light that can guide us through these dark hours.
The resolution of the Honduran conflict will be known in time. Yet we need not see into the future to
know that this incident should serve as a wakeup call for the hemisphere. We should recognize that such
events are not random acts. They are the result of systematic errors and missteps that many of us have
been warning about for decades. They are the price we pay for one of our region’s greatest follies:
its reckless military spending.
This coup d’etat demonstrates, once more, that the combination of powerful militaries and fragile
democracies creates a terrible risk. It demonstrates, once more, that until we improve this balance, we
will always leave open the door to those who would obtain power through forced – whether a little or a
great deal, approved by the majority or only be a few.
Furthermore, it shows what happens when governments divert to their militaries resources that could
be used to strengthen democratic institutions, build a culture of respect for human rights and increase
levels of human development. Such foolish choices ensure that a nation’s democracy is little more than
an empty shell or a meaningless speech.
This year alone, the governments of Latin America will spend nearly $50 billion on their armies.
That’s nearly double the amount spent five years ago, and it is a ridiculous sum in a region where 200
million people live on fewer than $2 a day and where only Colombia is engaged in an armed conflict.
More military forces won’t provide additional bread for our families, desks for our schools or
medicine for our clinics. All
We need an army of doctors and teachers, of engineers and scientists.
We need a force that recognizes that only through better priorities
and wiser investments can we achieve the stability we seek.
they can do is destabilize a region that continues to view armed forces as the final arbiter of social
conflicts.
None of this is news. These are skewed priorities that many of us have spent years struggling to
change. These are skewed priorities that prompted the government of my country to propose the Costa
Rica Consensus, which would create mechanisms to forgive debts and provide international aid to
developing countries that spend more on education, health care, housing and environmental conservation,
and less on weapons and war. This initiative would do more to defend human rights and protect regional
democracies than any agreement or declaration ever could.
At one time in the history of the Americas, weapons and armies were associated with liberty and
independence, and with new opportunities for our people. At one time in the history of the Americas,
there were liberating armies. But today, we have seen far too many stories of tyranny, violations of
human rights and political instability – stories traced in the dust by the boots of our militaries.
The liberating army we need in the America today is one of leaders who join in the spirit of peace
and cooperation. We need an army of doctors and teachers, of engineers and scientists. We need a force
that recognize that only through development and liberty, through education and health care, through
better priorities and wiser investments can we achieve the stability we seek.
Two decades ago, when I introduced a peace plan designed to end the violence that was sweeping our
region, I dreamed of a Central America that would embrace these principles. I hoped for a Central
America that would become the world’s first demilitarized region.
Despite the tremendous gains and improvements we have made since that time, the recent events in
Honduras have confirmed that this dream of peace is as urgent and as challenging as ever. Those of us
who seek to protect democracies in this hemisphere have no time to waste.
I urge all leaders in the Americans to see the Honduran crisis for what it is: an urgent call for the
profound social and institutional changes our region has delayed for far too long.
Oscar Arias, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987,
Is serving his second term as president of Costa rica.
