The UN Development Conference at Monterrey, Mexico

The UN is an excellent idea whose time perhaps has not come, to judge by the UN Development Conference held in Monterrey, Mexico. Western leaders spoke generously and understandingly, but those from less developed countries kept replying "gimme." None of them spoke frankly about what their countries must do to improve their economies. Fidel Castro was particularly critical of the US and its system. He is a melodramatic actor, and, having delivered his philippic, he left Mexico at once, with an expression of displeasure which no one understood. Castro looks like Don Quixote, but Hugo Chavez looks and talks like an ignorant buffoon. He made the worst impression of all the speakers. Rioters in Caracas said he should stay in Mexico.

Commentators made much, and rightly, of the contrast between the ultra-modern section of Monterrey and its large, ghastly slums. However, the developed countries cannot be blamed for that. It is up to Mexico to clean up its act. President Bush was not given a warm reception when he said that aid was contingent on reform, although he promised generous aid and a solution to the problems of Mexican migrants to the US. Bush had made his position clear in four interviews he gave Latin American reporters before Washington, according to a New York Times ( 3/21/02) article forwarded by Emery Gorondy:

"He is expected to say definitively that the United States will double its foreign aid budget from $10 billion to $20 billion over three years. He will also reiterate that the increase in aid, which he wants to place in what he has referred to as a "millennium fund," will be contingent on the recipients' undertaking a range of economic, political and social reforms. "I'm not interested in funding corruption, period, And if a country thinks they're going to get aid from the United States and they're stealing money, they're not just going to get it out of this millennium fund. And hopefully not out of any fund." I have been at inter-American conferences at which Latin Americans simply wanted a handout from the US.

The African countries are even worse. That is why such demands for Africa from Kofi Annan, otherwise an admirable individual, sounded hollow. He asked developed countries to give 7% of the GNP to the less developed countries, especially Africa, but he did not face squarely the shortcomings of these countries. Sweden is close to meeting that figure, but the US, with .1%, is one of the worst laggards. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is especially skeptical about aid. He probably reflects the mood of the American people, for better or for worse. What does he think of the North American Development Bank created at Monterrey? It would seem to overlap with the Inter-American Development Bank, and its function essentially will be to get more aid for Mexico from the US and Canada.

Ronald Hilton - 3/23/02