THE LIGHTHOUSE: August 13, 2001YANKEE TAX COLLECTOR GO HOME!
from THE LIGHTHOUSE "Enlightening Ideas for Public Policy..." Vol. 3, Issue
32 August 13, 2001
In a disastrous case of "mistaken identity" (all the worse because it was
intentional), U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Prudence Bushnell issued a screed
demonizing Manual Ayau, founder of Guatemala's Francisco Marroquin
University, as "undemocratic" and an "archetypical far-right Latin oligarch"
who defends that country's "business elite" against the interests of his
impoverished fellow citizens.
It's hard to know where to begin countering those spurious charges. For
starters, Ayau's university has for 30 years been Central America's leading
institution promoting individual rights, the rule of law, and free trade. A
past president of the Mt. Pelerin Society, the prestigious international
organization of free-market scholars, Ayau came out publicly against tariff
protection for his industry in a 1966 newspaper op-ed, making him a social
pariah in some Guatemalan business circles.
"If anyone is the opposite of a 'Latin oligarch,' it is Mr. Ayau, who has
been an utterly gracious, noble, and courageous fighter for the freedom,
education, and welfare of Guatemalans for decades," wrote Independent
Institute president David J. Theroux in a letter to the Wall Street Journal,
which recently exposed Ambassador Bushnell's unwarranted attack. "In fact,
he may be the single most important leader for free markets and human
progress in Central and South America since well before World War II."
The reason for slander against Ayau? Apparently, Ayau has been an important
voice in Guatemalans' protests -- culminating in a recent national strike
and a massive march on the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala -- to protest a tax on
Guatemalan workers urged by the United States government at the best of
American trade unions. Who, then, is defending oligarchy and business
elites?
Theroux continues: "We know that empowering the people through
privatization, free trade and free-market economic development are essential
to liberate them, and the poor in particular, from the oligarchy of
government patronage the U.S. has long supported. And we know that U.S.
government foreign aid and other interventions are anathema to economic and
social welfare. But it is even more telling to see U.S. Embassy flacks
pursuing their covert schemes to protect their cherished system of
government privileges and central planning from a man whose only weapon has
been ideas. After all, whatever the interests of the public, the jobs of
U.S. bureaucrats might be at stake if Mr. Ayau's arguments were acted upon."
For more information, including a link to the Aug. 3, 2001 Wall Street
Journal article, see Francisco Marroquin University's reply to the U.S.
Ambassador's memo at http://www.ufm.edu.gt/debate/ For information on Latin
America's recent successes in reforming its centuries-old system of
political patronage and repression, see THE CAPITALIST REVOLUTION IN LATIN
AMERICA, by Paul Craig Roberts and Karen LaFollette Araujo, at
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink3-32-4.html
For a fuller context, see the Independent Institute archives on development
at http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink3-32-5.html
THE LIGHTHOUSE
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