Latin America: Five in Bogota

Ten months ago Chilean President Eduardo Frei called on his fellow Latin American heads of state and President Johnson to get together later this year and discuss economic integration and other regional problems of the hemisphere. The response was overwhelmingly in favor, and only the time and place remained to be set. Last week, in a small warmup to the bigger meeting, President Frei flew off to Bogotá for a threeday, five-nation "Andean summit."

Host was Colombia's newly inaugurated President Carlos Lleras Restrepo, who, with Frei, was joined by Venezuela's President Raúl Leoni, Ecuador's former President Galo Plaza Lasso, who substituted for Ecuador's Interim President Clemente Yerovi Indaburu, and Peru's former Premier Fernando Schwalb, who was filling in for President Fernando Belaúnde Terry. Among the balls, banquets and other ceremonial gatherings, the five met to discuss mutual economic and industrial development and the problems of the ailing Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA). A LAFTA ministerial meeting is scheduled for Montevideo next December, and the five nations gathered in Bogotá—all small and relatively undiversified—could well be trying to organize a pressure group to counteract the larger individual power of Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Predictably, the five denied any such intention. "We are not trying to create an economic bloc," Frei said. "We are only trying to start something which will spread through Latin America."

In their final "Declaration of Bogotá," the five countries pinpointed eight main areas for joint industrial development (metallurgy, chemicals and petrochemicals, fertilizers, food, electronics, timber, cellulose and manufactured metal products) and four other areas for nonindustrial development (roads, communications, electric power and banking). As a hint of what will come at the bigger hemisphere-wide meeting, the five also requested more say in the Alliance for Progress, which marked its fifth anniversary last week. The fruits of the Bogotá meeting may not show up for months, until committees work out the details and actual coordination of the broader programs. Until then, the five could draw satisfaction from the mere fact of having gotten together over a conference table.