COMMENTARY

Reparations are a big and valid debate today. Should the U.S. compensate African Americans for centuries of slavery? Should France pony up for the billions of dollars it extorted from Haiti in the 19thcentury?

Yes and yes, by the way. But recent events remind me we should add another historical world power to the reparations roster: Spain.

Spain owes Latin America not just big-time financial restitution for its more than three centuries of colonial rapacity, but something just as important:institution restitution.

Last weekend Spain found itself in the middle of Venezuelas gothic political crisis. Good, I thought: Venezuelas mess is the sort of implosion of democratic institutionality thats so chronic in Latin America largely because Spain left the continent with no democratic institutionality to speak of in exchange for all the gold and silver it took.

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Spain's squabble erupted after a top minister in the socialist government met with Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodrguez at Madrid's international airport. Venezuelas regime is also socialist; but Spain like the U.S. and almost 60 other countries does not consider Rodrguezs boss, authoritarian President Nicols Maduro, to be Venezuelas legitimate head of state. It instead recognizes Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaid as the countrys interim president.

So Spains political opposition was angry that Rodrguez who like most top Venezuelan regime officials is barred from entering Spain under current E.U. sanctions got a cabinet-level meet-and-greet while Guaid, who visited Spain on Saturday, couldnt get a photo op with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Snchez. The question hanging over Madrid: Are Spains true sympathies with Guaids democracy-building plan, or with Maduros democracy-trashing plot?

The collapse of democratic institutionality is so chronic in Latin America because Spain left no real democratic institutionality there in exchange for all the gold and silver it took. It's time Madrid paid reparations: institution restitution.

Spain could put our minds at ease with reparations investing in a massive mission to help Latin American nations build the reliable democratic institutions that keep eluding them generation after generation. And if that elusion has eluded your notice, let's take a brief tour.

In Mexico, the countrys feeble, dysfunctional judicial system a showcase of the lawless legacy of Spanish conquistador rule looks as powerless as ever to do a damn thing about drug-cartel violence. Mexicos homicide rate hit a record high last year.

Yet that same judicial system this week is making one of Mexicos most respected human rights activists, Sergio Aguayo, pay 10 million pesos (half a million dollars) to former Coahuila state Gov. Humberto Moreira. Hed sued Aguayo for writing that Moreira had a corrupt stench." But theres just one egregious hole in the Mexican court's ruling: Aguayo wrote that in 2016 after Moreira was arrested in Spain for embezzlement and drug-money laundering!(Wednesday night Mexico's Supreme Court agreed to review the astonishing decision.)

Then travel to the Andes and South Americas poorest country, Bolivia where the Spanish empire extracted some 50,000 tons of silver but established squat in terms of constitutional governance. Bolivia looks set to trade a messianic left-wing nut for a messianic right-wing nut.

DEMAGOGUERY ADDICTION

Former leftist President Evo Morales, who ruled the country for 13 years, was recently forced into exile after getting Bolivias own laughable judiciary to aid his constitution-trashing scheme to rule for life. Who could now take his place? A racist Roman Catholic reactionary, interim President Jeanine Aez. Last Friday she broke her promise not to run in this years special presidential election because, like Evo, shes come to the savior's conclusion shes indispensable.

Should Aez win, it would just perpetuate Latin Americas political Groundhog Day. An incessant see-sawing between ideological extremes. An addiction to demagoguery instead of democracy thanks to the void of any historical tradition of the latter that Spain could have planted there. But didnt.

So why not call on todays Spain (and Portugal, vis--vis Brazil) to do its bit to redress this awful cycle to help develop stronger rule of law, bipartisan civics, effective tax collection and, most important, credible education?

Before the lefties scream about the U.S.s abuses in Latin America, which I wont deny, they should consider the region might not have been so vulnerable to los yanquis in the 20thcentury if los espaoles hadnt made it such a socio-economic basket case in the 16th-through-19thcenturies. And before the Iberophiles argue Spain invests billions in Latin America today, please remember the region is still home to some of the worlds worst inequality. Foreign direct investment alone doesnt fix that; fair and functioning institutions do.

If Spain wants to avoid future headaches like its current Venezuela imbroglio, it might consider what more much more it can do to help its former colonies build those institutions for once.

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As Venezuela's Mess Roils Madrid, It's Time To Add Spain To The Reparations Roster - WLRN