Latin America: To Get Bolder or Give Up

In Bogota, the urbane and rainy capital of Colombia, 300 Latin American revolutionaries are meeting to plan an overthrow. Their target is not a paunchy dictator but a better-entrenched foe: the tariffs and trade barriers that divide Latin America. Their spearhead is the ambitious, nine-nation Latin American Free Trade Association, which so far in its four-year history has talked tall but acted small. As its two-month-long annual meeting began last week, the delegates muttered about "stagnation" and "frustration," agreed that LAFTA* has reached a decisive point at which it must either get bolder or give up.

Fear for Infants. The...