(00:00:00) Minnesota meeting is pleased to present today's speaker. Dr. Milk open who will be giving us some of his insights on Central America. Dr. Copelan will be making his observations both as a student of the area and of course representing the institution where he is present in that institution is known as in KY dr. Present. Dr. Copelan has president of in KY and internationally acclaimed Postgraduate School of administration that trains its students for careers in both the public and the private sector both profit and nonprofit he and in KY are called upon by all active groups in the countries of Central America for purposes of providing research advice and counsel teaching and really the how to do it from their perspective. Of thus we have with us today truly a non-committed expert in Central America. We all hear a lot from the dedicated people on both the right and the left. I think today will be hearing from a person who is truly in the middle and can give some very objective analysis observations and reports in Chi is the Institute stands as the single most important source of management talent for Central and South American companies and countries and international organizations working in the areas such as the United Nations the inter-american development bank and many others. Dr. Copelan has distinguished himself in his career. He received his baccalaureate degree and his master's degree from MIT his PhD from Harvard. He is a White House Although from 1970 and has worked in the Department of Agriculture in Washington. He's also been on the staff and the faculty of Georgia State University the University of Houston, and of course Harvard University prior to taking his present job within Chi as president. He was a vice president for academic Affairs and Dean of the faculty at Babson College in Boston. It is now my great pleasure to introduce to you dr. Milk open. Well, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. What I wanted to do is to share some perceptions with you of some things that are taking place in the region things that are quite different from the way. I perceive them prior to moving down. I had felt that like a number of people who have interest in the international area. I was probably a little better informed than average of what was going on. Read the newspapers the Magazine's the journals and so forth and what I found in the 18 months that I've been there is something quite different from what I did anticipated before arriving 18 months doesn't make one an expert, but I'd like to take just about 2 minutes and tell you something about what in Chi is doing so you'll have some feel for evaluating the perspectives that I bring. Inkay as Tony has pointed out has become something that goes far beyond the traditional model of the business school. We've gotten heavily involved in the process of Economic Development. We've worked as the years of past with many sectors profit nonprofit in so doing we started to build relationships the transcend most of the sectorial boundaries and most of the national boundaries approximately 50,000 people have now been through and guys programs since its Inception in 1964 and they represent the leadership of virtually every sector in the Central American countries regardless, whether profit nonprofit regardless of political spectrum, and the net result is we've been able to deal very effectively establish, excellent relationships with virtually all the factions. That exists. As a result of this sin Chi has been increasingly called upon to get involved in dialogue. And so today we conduct dialogue sessions in most of the countries at any point in time. We'll probably have three or four either in action or about to take off. These will frequently bring together people who have very different viewpoints about things that are taking place where we'll do some research some background work. They will bring them together. They'll start to look at these things and in case he tries to stay out of the political side, we try to help people understand what's going on and let them make their own decisions and the net result is we've developed a I think a very strong record reputation for neutrality and for objectivity kind of like in the process to that of the sculptor who's asked how do you create create these beautiful flowing lines out of the stone that you work in and who responded? I don't create them. There were there all the time I just took away the extra stuff so you could see it. That's basically the way we try to work with the process. in the region Now what this does is it provides us enormous access to the players there to the situations that are arising we're working very closely with International organizations on a whole host of regional type problems. And we work closely with the government's with a private sectors on problems peculiar to the particular (00:06:19) countries. What I'd like to do (00:06:23) very quickly is share with you some insights that are perhaps somewhat different from those that you would get by normally reading the Press here in the US of a couple of the countries in the region and then in the question-and-answer we can expand this to include all of them and I'd like to begin by a problem that's of particular urgency and in a problem that's also of great importance to you as business and that's Panama what's happening today and what the future prospects look like. Then I'll spend a little time on Nicaragua and then we can move on from there as time permits. The Panamanian situation is an extremely complex one. I think everybody is aware that elections are forthcoming. There's a problem with this though. And that is if you take a look at all of the possible Alternatives, there are no Solutions in the electoral process. The Panamanian situation has reached pretty dire proportions right now unemployment is estimated at approximately 30% It's growing the labor unions are extremely concerned. They don't see an end to this. The economy is continuing to deteriorate and where you've got an economy that's primarily service-based and a large portion of that is based on the banking system, which requires trust the destruction of confidence in the economy is not just a temporary thing as money fleas is as people make other banking arrangements and so forth. It doesn't come back. And I think you'll find that a lot of panamanians on both sides of the issue are very concerned about the future and what can be done to stop this the difficulty is to try to get people to come together in dialogue and I'll talk a little bit more about that later because it's a critical factor in the whole region. It just has not happened. We a tin chi have been intimately involved in trying to facilitate a process, but it's been very difficult to bring people together. And each time. We're about on the verge some other incident happens, which makes it just inopportune for people to be able to engage in any sort of a meaningful give and take The big thing that was coming up. Let me just go back a short period of time was the elections and there was a lot of speculation. One of the speculations was the General Noriega was going to run for the election for the presidency to do this. He would have had to modify the Constitution but there were a number of things taking place that seemed to give signals that he was about to do. So the u.s. Posture by and large has been the general Noriega is there to consolidate control buying time. I'm not quite sure what that that results in but a lot of the u.s. Negotiating strategy has been based on the fact that the perception is that General Noriega is firmly in control of the country that he basically payment plans to consolidate his power. There's another Viewpoint and the Viewpoint. Is that that even if General Noriega I wish to step down there's nowhere at the moment for him to go. He's been Boxed In by several aspects here. One of course is the US sanctions including the indictment. And by the way, the US sanctions have been a very interesting thing because what they've really done the group that's probably been hit as hard as any other are the US companies and other foreign companies operating their companies that all of a sudden found it impossible to live within the law because if they pay their taxes for example a violated US law and if they didn't pay their taxes, they violated Panamanian law not a comfortable situation to be in Great burden, not employees of us organizations because the US companies for a while could not pay the Social Security tax. Well, if you can't play pay your Social Security tax for your employees your employees. Don't get the benefits not only that in Panama. You have to prove that you've paid your taxes before you can get a permit to leave the country. So once again, the burden of many of these sanctions really did not accomplish the purpose but created a great deal of hardship and they also provided an excuse if you talk with certain groups within Panama, you'll find that the shortcomings of the economy are clearly blamed on what the US has done now, I think if you take a look at the realities you find that the US sanctions fell far short of creating the kind of chaos that currently exists within the economy. You can put that more to a question of a lack of confidence. And what's been taking place but coming back to the elections? I think to some extent it came as a surprise the fact that General Noriega is not a candidate for president certainly came as a surprise to some of the US negotiators did not come as a big surprise to many of the panamanians. What you have right now is a very interesting situation in somewhat you unusual because the two sides have coalesced and that's a little different. There is a single candidate for the program inside consisting of a coalition of pro-government parties. Mr. Dookey who is the president of PR D which is the ruling party and the opposition parties have coalesced. Although something has happened to break the one of the leading opposition parties into two parts after our little faux Arias passed away a number of months ago and he was the head of the Panna Minista party, which was one of the largest and by the way arnulfo Arias from all indications was the duly elected president of Panama in the last election. He Did not take office because the election results went the other way, but there's widespread admission today of the doctoring that took place in that election process. He had run for president and he'd been elected three times in the past never finished a term. In fact one term lasted only a matter of days before he was deposed but his party garnered a large proportion of the votes each time and the Panama nice. The party was a very strong one that party after his death had an ideological split. And the government of Panama recognized one of the two splits and basically gave that portion of the party the symbols the flag the colors the the actual symbol which is what by and large is used by people when they go out particularly in the rural areas to vote. So in essence that party got fractionated into two pieces one of which is going to run independently, the second of which will has joined in a coalition with the other major opposition parties and the head of that as a man named in dada and he has been selected as the presidential candidate for the candidate for the opposition parties, which basically consists of the kind of Minista branch that doesn't have the party symbols the Christian democrats mole Irena liberals few other groups. So now you have to clear parties running for the elections. I'll keep it what does this mean in these elections will take place in May. Let's look at all the other scenarios number one in evaluating the election outcome. The government current government decides that the opposition is going to win. So there are no elections. Very likely alternative. I get a feedback that says that's about a 50-50 chance maybe a little bit better that there won't be elections. Where does that leave Panama? Probably right where it is, maybe a little worse because it will further lose credibility in the eyes of the international World. Okay. Let's take the other Branch there are elections. Okay. Now that Forks again number one, the elections are rigged. Well that puts you right back where we are. And again with a further loss of credibility. Okay, the alternative is the elections are clean. Okay. Now you got two possible outcomes, the current government parties win. The opposition wins current government party wins. Where does that put you right where we are today? No change. Let's assume the opposition parties win. Where does that put you? Well, that means that the mr. And dhara is now the president of Panama. The Congress is probably going to go in the direction of the current government parties and general Noriega will still be sitting in the military seat. Where does that put you not very far down the road. Those are the options? Now, what does that mean? That means that if anything is going to happen in Panama. There's got to be a way to break the deadlock and get people talking the elections provide no solution to anything. The problems the issues that that exist in Panama relate to things such as freedom of the press independent Judiciary System a whole host of issues related to human rights. How do you achieve those will part of the difficulty that you run into is in the dialogue? That's that's not taking place. You have hard and fast positions in some of the extreme elements of the government. It's very clear what the problem is. The problem is the US government if the US would stop doing what it's doing. Everything would be fine and Panama would return to you a healthy and prosperous economic situation. No way. There's just I mean, it's just totally unrealistic given the nature of the forces shaping what's going on in Panama. The Other Extreme group and there's a lot of sympathy for that would be the extremists on the right some of the more radical leaders of the cruzada who basically take the position that we cannot we will not negotiate over basic human rights. They must be provided first and then we'll talk. Well that's pretty difficult sort of set of conditions to match particularly when the granting of some of those rights would propose would pose serious problems for some of the people who are in a position to grant them or not. So you have to negotiate through the process. Obviously if somebody is likely to be indicted for example by an independent court system. They're not going to grant that Independence until something has been worked out in the way of a (00:18:13) compromise. (00:18:15) So the critical role in Panama is how do you bring the parties together? Here's where I think there's a very interesting opportunity today because we have a new Administration in Washington the US role can obviously be very significant. How do we get the US government to start looking at this not with the old labels not with castigating General Noriega not with raising the drug issues drug issues, by the way, which were very much in question as to the role of us drug enforcement agency CIA Etc them the Panamanian Defense Forces. It's not so clear to sit down and figure out who did what and why But the point is if we don't get over that rhetoric and start making some new approaches again, there is no solution and you can walk through Panama and I think I've talked with a number of people who get this feeling of deja vu if you ever spend time in in Lebanon Beirut, the causes are very different. But if you turn back the clock and you look at the beauty of Beirut the fact that it was a service economy built on banking Panama has Panama City has some of that same feeling and you kind of worry, where is it going? And what's going to happen? Of course us interest a very strong there because of the canal. Very clearly if the situation is going to change in my mind, at least it requires a very different approach to the Diplomatic negotiations that have been going on and at least I'm somewhat hopeful that there's an opportunity right now to make some major changes particularly if the current Administration takes some different approaches some softer approach has both softer and harder up by software. I don't mean in terms of backing down but one of the key things that seems to be neglected so frequently is you're not dealing with governments particularly in Latin America in a in an isolated framework, but you're dealing with people who have personalities and those personality figures frequently seem to get left out of the equation. (00:20:37) Let me switch (00:20:38) briefly to Nicaragua because here's an area where I think there's another enormous opportunity for the administration to do something different today. I'm a little concerned. I've heard some of the rhetoric that's been coming out just in the last few days when vice president Quayle recently made some statements that were somewhat negative two things that were were coming. It seems to me it's too early to make negative statements. There are again opportunities to try things. The recent meetings in El Salvador came out with something that that looks hopeful in some quarters. Basically two elements of this was Nicaragua's agreement to resume. Some of the freedoms in the the media area that had been removed and to move up the elections. That was an exchange for basically the other countries surrounding to help dismantle any support mechanisms for the contras that remain I had a meeting in Nicaragua or just a few days ago with the leadership of the private sector and I ask them. How do you feel about this about half were optimistic half were pessimistic interestingly Tony showed me an editorial from the Star Tribune which I would commend you to read and think it's one of the more balanced editorials that I've seen on the situation there which basically States there's a lot of reason not to trust what's going on, but it's a move forward and 10 basically has to take an optimistic approach if one wants to see any sort of Hope for the future. The Nicaraguan not economy right now is a shambles. In fact, that's putting it. Mildly. It's a total and utter disaster. The country has gone from a country that produced all the food at need and actually exported to one where malnutrition is very common among children where their there are areas where food has been in short enough Supply that starvation has been occurring fortunately good crops just recently harvested and and at least they'll be some breathing space for the future to give you some idea of what's occurred though over the years just prior to the revolution. There was a devaluation of the Cordova. It went from 7 to 1 to 10 to 1. It had been stable for many years at 721 today the open market rate if you look at equivalency because they drop three zeros. The open market rate on the Cordova is 5 million to one. The largest bill existing in Nicaragua today is a 10,000 that would be 10 million under the old ones 10,000 Court of a note. Ten years ago that note would have been worth 1.3 million dollars that notes worth two dollars today. Inflation there has never been in the world an inflationary system like what's taking place in Nicaragua? Our estimates for next year conservatively for the coming year put the inflation rate at 400,000 percent. That's not a mistake as 400,000. That means inflation of about 400,000 means inflation of bout a hundred percent per month. But if you look at some of our realistic projections who you're talking about inflation rates over the next few months hitting 200 300 percent. So the 400,000 is an extremely conservative figure. I think the government of Nicaragua is genuinely concerned and when you look at the situation, it becomes very interesting because The size of the country. I don't know what the population is now because you have to take into consideration. The refugees are outside of the country and so forth but between two and two and a half million. It's probably the size of the metropolitan area right here in Minneapolis, Saint Paul. You say there ought to be a way to put your arms around this and turn it around particularly where Nicaragua is a country endowed certainly from an agricultural point of view with good resources. Well, I think what you're seeing right now is a government that's very concerned that wants to turn this around that's caught in many respects by its own dealings in the past. And what came out of the El Salvador meetings? Maybe I'm not saying it is but maybe a genuine approach to try to change things. Now the question is how does it happen? Well, you've got to outside players big ones here the US and the Soviet Union and through the Soviet Union or through Cuba and other countries the Soviet Union influence is felt in Nicaragua. And the real question is is there a way to pull us together. There are several scenarios that one could look at how did things get the way they are and let me just go through this and then I'll stop and we'll toss Us open to any kinds of questions and issues one scenario. Is that basically the government has been inept in managing the economy that they are astute politically but just have not understood the basic economic situation. There's a lot of evidence to point to that scenario as is reasonable to try to get make sure that certain price basic Commodities and goods were available price controls were instituted Unfortunately. They were instituted in many cases below the cost of production. Well, you know what happens then so production dries up and that's the end of it a second thing the model of apron been following his involve the confiscation of large organizations private sector many of these have been put together into larger more unwieldy government sector organizations, the incentives for people to produce have been been largely eliminated and the network. Altars of just not been effective and so production has plummeted there. So one can argue that there's just an ineptitude when it comes to things economic. A second scenario that's posed as well. It's the conquerors and all of their influence in the disruption. They've caused. Well that was never really plausible and becomes even less plausible today when the contras are still are really no major threat and yet the economy is in a even worse tailspin now than it was (00:27:56) before. (00:28:00) A third and I think this to me is is starting to get more plausible than either the first to the second is that within the sandanista government you have very different factions political viewpoints ranging from very pragmatic trying to do things to more conservative to extremely ideological and that to try to keep things going and make things work. There are constant compromises and in that compromising process economic policies that make sense get modified and what comes out as something that makes much less sense and the net result is the economy suffers for it. The final scenario is one. That's a just a little bit more disturbing. And that is that what's happening is exactly what was intended to happen. And you'll find many people particularly in the private sector who feel very strongly that this is the case that in essence what happened was an attempt to get rid of the private sector to wipe out the old and build a new society and in the initial stages that meant forcing people out confiscation and so forth, but then the private sector turned out to be harder than people thought it didn't quite die it hung in tenaciously in some cases literally by the tips of the fingers, but it's there. Now how do you get rid of it under those circumstances particularly when you're doing a very delicate dance with the US Congress to try to get the contras out of your hair. Well, one of the answers is that comes up is you can throw people in prison. You can't Exile people shoe drive the economy into the ground and make it impossible for people to continue and you'll find that's a fairly prevalent view point of what's happened in Nicaragua on the part of some of the private sector people. That's kind of a scary one because it says no matter what you try to do their countervailing forces that are going to undermine any efforts to make progress be that as it may whichever of these scenarios you you accept It screams clear that whatever has taken place has gone much too far because the economy the economic state of the country is such that something has got to change. There's a great deal of unrest uneasiness back in July you may recall there were suspensions of freedom of the press. There were a lot of arrests one of the largest lake Country Companies still operating private sector the sugar industry was nationalized. I think all of that took place largely because the unrest had reached such a point that if actions weren't taken they were very good indications that the street demonstrations that were playing we're going to get out of hand. The net result of all of this is I think you have a very different climate in Nicaragua today and once again an opportunity to do something. An opportunity in terms of new approaches from the US government new approaches from the Soviet government the possibility of the US and the Soviet given the kinds of relationships that have been developing recently to get together and to work with not only Nicaragua but the other countries in the area to seek Solutions, there's little question in my mind that the eventual solution to the problems of the region require some sort of concerted effort. They can do it alone. These are small countries Guatemala being the largest. I guess Panama being the smallest in population over 8 million down to about 2 million. The problem is last point now. I want to stop but I think this is a critical one the ability for people to work together in the region is almost non-existent. One of the things I've had some fun with is throwing out a little bit of a challenge to people regarding the Spanish language. I was writing a speech some time ago and use the word in English translating in Spanish use the word compromise. There is no Spanish language equivalent for the word compromise. And I would assume that not being not being an area of my expertise but language usually involves to express put labels on Concepts that are very meaningful. There's a mentality there. That's the zero-sum game type of thing that says if it's good for you by definition its detrimental to me. And you can see that in every one of these areas opposition parties. The reason military groups are so strong as not because they seized power but because everybody else is so we can somebody has to do something and many of them start out motivated very positively then maybe power corrupts. So the whole issue here is how do we get people to work together? How do we get the government's that are outside of this to Foster that kind of attitude rather than move in and create greater division. This is one of the areas that we as an institution have been working on more and more intensively now with each passing day is literally to find processes to try to start changing that aspect of the culture to bring people together in a cooperative and collaborative type of basis. Let me stop there and we'll toss it open to questions and I don't mean to confine them to either to Nicaragua Panama literally anything relating to the (00:34:03) region. Thank you. (00:34:13) Thank you very much. Dr. Copelan be glad to take the first question. Yes, sir. Isn't the first thing that would probably have to happen in Nicaragua to start getting things turned around economically. And in most other ways is lifting the economic blockade that our government is placed on their country. And what are the prospects of that happening and how soon? I think the economic blockade would make a difference. I don't think it's that critical a difference Nicaragua. Now desperately needs various kinds of support. It's not getting that level of so the hurricane for example, cause enormous damage and just recovering from that has absorbed an enormous amount of resource. To me. What is more important? I'm not saying that's not important. What's more important is to find some way to get Nicaragua back into the community and trading actively with her neighbors first. The blockade has the sanctions have hurt Nicaragua in a number of ways, but I don't think they've been as critical as the political environment that's been created around it as to what's going to happen. And when your guess is probably better than mine, you see because I'm looking now at the United States largely through the media as well since I'm down there and my assumption is my view of what's taking place here in Washington is as distorted as one's views from Washington would be about what's taking place down there. I don't know. I just been very hopeful that within a new Administration and it seems to me that the Bush Administration at least in the initial. Ages has given signals that it's willing to take a much more moderate approach that there's hope there but then you start listening to the rhetoric that starts filtering out. And of course how much of that is distortion. Particularly since it's coming through the perceptions of a number of other people first. You don't get a lot of this first hand. I don't know. (00:36:30) Dr. Coleman, could you just expand on that a little (00:36:32) bit you've talked about in general terms how the Bush Administration the new Administration could take them have a more enlightened foreign policy what specific kinds of things would you (00:36:42) recommend? First of all, I think (00:36:48) direct dialogue is an absolute necessity. I do not understand and this may be my own personal naivete why we get into situations where one person refuses to talk to another about a problem Mutual problem. That's can only be solved in direct negotiation the US government for a long time and said we will not talk for example to president Ortega unless and sets conditions that involving the contras and others. It's got to be three party. I was somewhat disappointed when the summit took place between President Reagan and mr. Gorbachev. What was that number of months ago that the Nicaragua Nicaraguan situation never seemed to have made the agenda. Those kinds of things need to occur if we're going to work out any sorts of solutions here. The same thing is true in Panama the the labels the rhetoric the labels that have been placed on General Noriega do not help now. They may be great for the political mechanisms here in the United States, but they're not going to help them solve the problems where the problems exist. In Panama, there have got to be ways for people to sit down and start looking at the issues. Number one number two to recognize that in negotiations as I mentioned before we're not dealing with informal mechanisms. We're dealing with people and those people have egos. They have personal needs. They have a whole bunch of things that have to be taken into consideration. It's that type of thing that I see I have found and I have been in a situation where a number of the things that have gone on have been not directly involved but party to information and I've been impressed that in a number of cases what has been proposed. In terms of solutions involving the various players has been very meaningful and from a technical point of view should lead to Solutions. But the way it's been done his own most assured that the desired result would not occur. You know, it's almost it's not what I'm saying. It's the way I'm saying it you can come up to a person and say in terms of the words the same thing. And depending on the tone of voice depending on the context you put it in you can achieve a positive result or negative result with the exact same words a greater sensitivity to the needs of the region and frankly. What I find is in the political process the way it's structured basically the statements that are made played a home audiences rather than to the situation at hand. It's that type of thing. It's really more subtle. I don't see the great need for a whole new master plan to be worked out. There are lots of ideas that are floating around lots of things that have been tried that if approached in the right manner a softer approach a more understanding approach. I think would yield much different results than the results we have today. (00:40:21) Yes, ma'am. (00:40:23) My concern is that the presence of Soviets in a car has very strong. I have seen Soviet economies at the board of director meetings of the Central Bank of (00:40:37) Nicaragua which tells you how important is their (00:40:42) position in the government, but I don't hear you mentioning what the Soviet do (00:40:49) have to change as much as (00:40:52) United States is the one that has to change and as the one that has the blame on know. I certainly don't mean to imply that I guess it's easier for me to talk about the US government. My feelings are stronger. In the sense that it's my government Soviet actions are much one of the nice things have been a little critical about what you read through the Press but one of the nice things is we have that press and there are things to read it's much more difficult to understand what's going on the Soviet or vis-à-vis Nicaragua because it's not as open the problem in the with with our side as it may be to open too much of it is rumor and speculation over there. There's no information. There's no question of the importance and the impact and it doesn't surprise me at all what you say because Nicaragua so dependent today on support from the Soviet Union the Soviet Bloc my feeling at the moment though again, if you listen just as I mentioned with the Bush Administration if you listen to what Is going on in the Soviet Union the direction that mr. Gorbachev is trying to move in and a lot of signals that are coming. I don't think the Soviets are particularly happy with their role in Nicaragua and the dependency created. So it seems to me there's an opportune time now for that they taunt if you want to call it going far beyond that my guesses that the Soviets would like to get out of Nicaragua. I won't say as much as Afghanistan because that was a little stickier for them. But desperately would like to detach in some way. I don't know about the Cubans on Cubans tend to act somewhat independently from the Soviet Union, although they're highly dependent on the Soviets. One of the people who's intimately involved in analyzing what goes on in Nicaragua is a member of our faculties made a statement some time ago. He said, you know if the u.s. And the Soviets were just get out and leave us alone. We may not solve our problems immediately, but at least we'd only be able to throw rocks at each other rather than shoot bullets. And that's the first step towards making progress. I don't think there's any question a solution to what's going on in Nicaragua involves at least three parties and probably more because you have to get the surrounding area involved and it means the US and the Soviet Union have got to come to some sort of an agreement with the government of Nicaragua either to pull out or to channel their aid. U.s. Of course is not providing a to the government of Nicaragua. Although I guess you could say from some people would argue what's going to the contras is but to channel that into ways that are going to help move the economy move the government, encouraged Democratic processes. The sandinistas have been very firm. They've made statements saying they are not going to give up our no matter what in the past. Well the statement just coming out of El Salvador seems to indicate a different approach. Now you can stand there and say okay it's false. It's just to buy time that gets you know place or you can say, okay, let's operate on it. And in essence it seems to me at that point. There's an opening to address the three parts of the triangle. If you can call it such the government of Nicaragua the government of United States the government of the Soviet Union the Nicaraguan economy the suffering that's taking place and so forth. The hardships are just incredible and something has got to change and it seems to me the three parties are in a position if they want to do it to bring about that change. No one of them can do it by I'm selves and it looks like no two of them can do it by themselves. How you get the three together is another story. Dr. Copelan. Just a question for you in regard to education and that is can education play a larger role in developing friendships as well as the knowledgeable skilled Workforce in Central America. Absolutely. There are two aspects of that that I think are very important. One is the the type of educational exchange programs bringing people together. Those have to be managed. I think a little differently than many are now because many of the The Exchange programs that take place for example, the kinds of bring students up from the region to the United States or vice versa don't provide particularly in the region the diversity of contacts the students tend to be drawn from a certain segment of society. And so what needs to be done is a much more careful balancing to provide students from various economic levels various sector levels within the region the educational needs are desperate. I think Costa Rica probably has one of the best if not the best educational system. But as you get into the other countries you find that the educational system tends to be better in the major cities and tapers off in the countryside and what needs to be done in the long run is a development of much more egalitarian type of societal structure, which means the need for educational activity. It spreads out Countrywide many of the countries are wrestling with this the problem is how do you start it? Because to have a decent education system you have to have decent teachers. You also have to have appropriate levels of support going into the school system. This is an area where he coming back. I'd love to see the aid that the Soviets for example of providing and that the u.s. Is providing going more into those kinds of things. Unfortunately. If you look at all of the countries there what you find is a large proportion of the aid whether it's East or West is going into one of two areas Military Support or Debt Service Support. Neither of which is going to deal with a basic economic. Kinds of problems the amount of assistance again. If you take the whole array of countries going into building that basic infrastructure given the current situation is relatively small compared to the needs and compared to the amount of Aid going into the other areas. Maybe just one follow-on question to that. Dr. Copelan understand that you have two campuses one located in Costa Rica where the headquarters of in Chi is located. The other is in Managua Nicaragua. How is it that you can operate a school like you do in Nicaragua given today's condition and (00:48:10) situation. (00:48:14) It's not easy. We not only teach about for example the inflation and how one lives in hyper inflation, but we live through it. We have major problems in obtaining food. We have a self-sufficiency program. I'm not only the head of an academic institution. I'm the head of the large farm because we grow our own corn beans citrus fruits. We've just planted trees next year. We're looking at dairy cattle and Hogs to try to provide self-sufficiency there. So the on the economic side, it's difficult. We need gasoline. We need electricity. We need water all the things to keep a fairly large operation going on the political side. We've never had a great deal of difficulty. We've tried to maintain neutrality. We've never had any major problems with the government and in Nicaragua, in fact relationships have been excellent. We're doing a great deal of work with the government in trying to improve the management of public. Eyes, but at the same time we've never lost our focus on public and private Enterprise and we've been working with the groups there so that politically we've tried to be neutral. I think it's fairly clear that we are a school that promotes free enterprise. We are a management institution. We are a school that's trying to develop more efficient ways to provide the goods and services to bring about social and economic development, but We've maintained that neutrality that's allowed us virtually to work with all the groups and I think even from the early days of the Revolution we were perceived by the government as a resource for the country. We do occasionally get critical criticize anything we do to help strengthen the economy strengthens the regime that's in power that may be true in a sense. But if you want to bring about change the best way is to work from within the system not to throw Barb's from with outside from outside. And so what we've basically been doing again going back to the concept that I mentioned is not trying to tell people what to do, but try to explain what's happening and rely upon their good judgment then to make the proper decisions. And so consequently, I think most of the if not all of the factions in Nicaragua have tended to see us as a very helpful resource. So the economic situation is tough. We managed to struggle through the political has been easier for us and we kind of live from day to day. Yes, next question down here in front. Dr. Copelan. You've mentioned a couple of times the relationship with the necessity of trade with neighbors and with a and in the region, I wonder if you would comment briefly on the relationship with the neighbors with the other countries that particularly from the point of view of both Nicaragua and Panama how how can trade be developed? How important is the relationship with the neighboring countries? I think if you sit down and you take a look at the needs for trade critical if you turn the calendar back and actually this is one of the things that inspired the formation of in Chi in the 60s, you had a lot of growth taking place you had optimism in the area and therefore a need for an indigenous supply of management talent. You have the Central American Common Market going all of the countries in the region had economic growth rates that surpassed the growth and population. That's Not so today all of the economies. They are either stagnant or in a decline on a real growth basis. And Nicaragua's was the worst situation. I don't know Panama will probably be catching up fairly soon. If things don't change the real per capita GNP of Nicaragua today is less than it was in 1960, which is starting to get a few years back. Very clearly. I think if it's going to move ahead we need a revitalized. I'm not sure in the same format a Revitalize Central Market a common market for Central America. One of the big things that can be done. As far as the u.s. Is concerned is Building Bridges many of these countries are very small traditional exports things like coffee bananas. There are other countries much larger with much greater influence in the United States that they have to compete against so individually, these countries are in terms of economic bargaining power at a disadvantage. So if you sit down and you say how is that going to change the two aspects of it number one is for them to start pulling together, which means the Nicaraguan crisis has got to be resolved. Panama has always been kind of outside of that. But obviously that's an important element of this to but the Nicaraguan crisis has got to be resolved the countries of got to start. Building mechanisms to build trade internally and I think one of the areas where the Us and other Western countries can be of help is to start building bridges. For example, the maquila type of concept that's being used is developed in Mexico can be very important there. There are is unemployment in many of these countries that are good people hard-working people the idea of shipping unfinished products down having them assembled then moving them back into World Markets, very attractive some of the countries Guatemalan particular Costa Rica in particular have a strong infrastructure and relative stability things can start there. If El Salvador can work out its gorilla problems. It has high potential Honduras is a country with a great deal of potential it needs to be developed. So the two elements of that is number one getting people to work together there to rebuild and there's a American Parliament concept there are signs that if the peace talks can can can move ahead and president Arias of Costa. Rica has been very strong as his son died. So from Guatemala in pushing this that something may happen internally if we can then get the superpowers and particularly the United States Japan as well to start building trading (00:54:53) relationships. (00:54:55) I'm think that within a period of perhaps five years or so, it'll take that to undo some of the damage that's done. You can start to see that turn around.