Daily Headlines: May 22, 2015

* El Salvador: Salvadoran ombudsman David Morales called for reopening the investigation into the 1980 murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the prosecution of “some of the people who participated in the crime.”

* South America: Chile’s ex-intelligence chief during the Pinochet regime, Manuel Contreras, was sentenced to 505 years in prison while thousands of Uruguayans marched to commemorate victims of the former military dictatorship.

* Mexico: The Mexican government cut its economic growth forecast for 2015 even though first quarter growth increased at the rate predicted by financial analysts.

* Bolivia: President Evo Morales is reportedly facing mounting opposition from his own indigenous political base.

YouTube Source – Rome Reports
 
Online Sources – Fox News Latino, SBS teleSUR English, Bloomberg, USA TODAY

Weekly debate: Democracy and the economy in Latin America

Over the past few years countries throughout Latin America are enjoying extraordinary economic growth as shown by the following examples:

• Chile’s final quarter growth in 2006 was 4.3%.
• Uruguay’s GDP grew last year by 7%.
• Interest rates in Colombia were raised to 8.25% in response to strong economic growth.

While the news may be encouraging for investment and the overall economy of a country, economic development has not met rising growth. In Venezuela, for instance, a miniscule percentage of GDP goes to the poor, while 40% of the region lives below the poverty line.

It is this lack of economic development that has hurt democratic regimes throughout the region. Regardless of a government’s ideology or how much an economy has increased abject poverty continues, and this has gradually led to a lack of public confidence in democracy.

Now we’re not advocating a turn towards fascism or extreme socialism, but something has to be done in order for Latin Americans to regain faith in democracy and its institutions. So what do you think? What changes need to be done? Will democracy continue in the Americas or revert towards extremism?

Links- Bloomberg, MercoPress, Forbes, El Universal, Yahoo! News, Houston Chronicle

Image- Adelante! (Scene from the documentary “Favela Rising”)