The Latin American debt that reached crisis levels from 1982 would have been sharply reduced by return of flight capital - in some cases, overcome, though all figures are dubious for these secret and often illegal operations.

For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence.

Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.

It's no secret that Cuba is a typical Latin American culture in that it has a fair amount of homophobia. Homosexuals have been notoriously persecuted under Fidel's government.

Well, by the standards of a lot of countries, by Latin American standards, it wasn't so bad.

In Latin America, specialists and polling organisations have, for some time, observed that the extension of formal democracy was accompanied by an increasing disillusionment about democracy and a lack of faith in democratic institutions.