In the southern cone especially, from Venezuela to Argentina, the…

In the southern cone especially, from Venezuela to Argentina, the region is rising to overthrow the legacy of external 1 of the past centuries and the cruel and destructive social forms that they have helped to establish.

The 2 of imperial control - violence and economic warfare, hardly a distant memory in Latin America-are losing their effectiveness, a sign of the shift toward independence. Washington is now compelled to tolerate governments that in the past would have drawn intervention or reprisal.

Throughout the region a vibrant 3 of popular movements provide the basis for a meaningful democracy. The indigenous populations, as if in a rediscovery of their pre-Columbian legacy, are much more active and influential, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador. These developments are in part the result of a phenomenon that has been observed for some years in Latin America: As the elected governments become more formally democratic, citizens 4 an increasing disillusionment with democratic institutions. They have sought to construct democratic systems based on popular participation rather than elite and foreign 5.