ARGENTINA-US: Clinton Concerned about Gap between Rich and Poor

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 17 1997 (IPS) - U.S. President Bill Clinton said Friday in Argentina that the subregional blocs in the Americas were building hemispheric integration, but warned of the need to guarantee that the expansion of trade closed the gap between rich and poor.

Mercosur (Southern Cone Common Market), the Andean Community, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Caricom are helping to build “the final objective, which in my view is the Free Trade Area of the Americas” (FTAA), he said.

But we must guarantee that the increase in trade “narrows rather than widens the gap between the haves and have-nots,” he underlined.

Speaking to an audience of business representatives, Clinton said the world was experiencing a wave of progress, but added that “the benefits and burdens” should be fairly distributed. He called for development compatible with the preservation of the environment, an independent judicial system and high-quality education for all.

The president’s wife Hillary also stressed the need to cut the distance between rich and poor. In Argentina, that gap has widened in the past six years in spite of steady economic growth.

Clinton also broached the subject with six leaders of the opposition Alliance – comprised of the Radical Civic Union and the Front for a Country with Solidarity – who he met with Thursday to discuss how to reconcile the free market with the eradication of poverty.

Clinton suggested that they work towards strengthening the dwindling middle class and fomenting employment by boosting small and medium companies, a recommendation also put forth by his wife, who referred to the micro-enterprises established by poor women.

“We must build an economy for all those willing to work within it,” Clinton told his business audience Friday.

Argentine President Carlos Menem, meanwhile, acknowledged that high unemployment was one of the pending issues his government was working on, along with assisting the poorest sectors.

The United States sees Argentina as a strategic ally in the region. In recognition of that and the Southern Cone country’s participation in peace-keeping missions, Clinton asked the U.S. Congress to designate Argentina as a principal non-member ally of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Clinton and his wife made a good impression on government officials as well as opposition leaders, representatives of the Jewish community and women’s organisations that met with Hillary.

“For the past two years we have been asking President Menem to meet with us, and he hasn’t. Today we see the difference between him and Clinton,” said the father of one of the 29 victims of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. Clinton also met with families of victims of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish mutual association, which left 86 dead.

The leaders of Argentina’s Jewish community – Latin America’s largest – asked Clinton for stepped-up cooperation in the fight against terrorism, while the families of the bombing victims criticised what they described as slow investigations plagued with omissions, errors and scarce political will to punish the perpetrators.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who met with Hillary Clinton, came away with the same positive impression.

Estela Carloto, president of the human rights group which is seeking the children of ‘disappeared’ victims of the last military dictatorship (1976-83), stressed that the group had never before been received by a First Lady – either from Argentina or the United States.

The only manifestation against the visit occurred Thursday, when a march called by leftist parties to protest Clinton’s presence in Argentina culminated in the smashing of storefronts and the windows of banks and other buildings along Santa Fe avenue in Buenos Aires.

The police allowed the protesters to riot, and observers said the area looked like “no man’s land” due to the passivity of the security forces. In the wake of the destruction, police arrested 206 people, half of whom had been released by Friday afternoon.

Prior to Clinton’s visit to Argentina, which will continue over the weekend in the southern Andean resort town of Bariloche, the president visited Venezuela and Brazil, to promote free trade in the region prior to the second Summit of the Americas scheduled for April 1998 in Santiago, Chile.

Formal negotiations towards the FTAA and the integration of 800 million people – a goal embraced by 34 heads of state and government from the region at the first summit in Miami in 1994 – are to be launched at the April gathering.