Floyd Spence: “I think many of us over the years have paid a lot of attention to South America, our friends and neighbors down there…”

“I think many of us over the years have paid a lot of attention to South America, our friends and neighbors down there, but not as much as we should have. I remember the time when South America had many countries controlled by the military, had military dictatorships, and they did not do things according to the way we do business. With the training a lot of these people have gotten from our School of the Americas, we now have a different situation in South America. I just got back from a trip. The climate is entirely different. Most of these countries now are democracies. We do not have military dictatorships now. We have people there who go by the rule of law; people who want to be friendlier to us, and they keep wondering why we are not friendlier to them in trying to help them enter into the new millennium. We have tried to teach them these important lessons at the School of the Americas and it has made a significant differences in fostering stronger bilateral relations and observance of the rule of law.”