Word: authoritarianism
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...Reagan Administration's view, overemphasis on human rights only undermines "authoritarian" regimes that have a capacity for change, and increases the chance that they will be succeeded by "totalitarian" governments-specifically, Communist ones-that obliterate human rights altogether. Says Ernest W. Lefever, who has been selected as Haig's top assistant for human rights policy: "There
...thought you were too stuck up and clubby, and you probably were. Now you are consciously, sub-consciously and unconsciously racist and facist and sexist and communist (or Marxist-inspired) and incestuous and pederastic and homophilic and homophobic and wishy-washy and contentious and anarcho-syndicalist and autocratic and authoritarian and libertarian and middle-class and upper-class and naive and snobby...
...start with the facts. Since 1932, when the Salvadorean military quelled protests for a minimum wage by killing 30,000 peasants and workers, the people have lived under authoritarian rule. The present junta, presided over by Jose Napoleon Duarte, took power when a group of young army officers got rid of the right-wing government of General Carlos Romero in 1979. The new junta, however, began to disintegrate just three months later when every civilian cabinet member resigned in opposition to the military's domination of government. Many of those disenchanted civilians joined the forces of the Revolutionary Democratic Front...
...least, one must agree with Kirkpatrick when she says that rightist authoritarian regimes are more likely to be democratic than, say, Cuba or China. At present, the possibility of, say, Cuba or Poland becoming free and democratic is certainly absurd; yet in the past few years three Latin American countries, and only one with the prompting of President Carter--the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Peru--have all peacefully discarded their military regimes...
...expert on Eastern Europe at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont, writes in the current issue of Foreign Policy: "It undermines the legitimacy on which Communist power rests by refuting the claim of the Communist Party to be the sole authentic representative of the working class." Communist orthodoxy predicates authoritarian rule: a bedrock belief of Marxism-Leninism is the absolute dictatorship of the proletariat, as represented by its vanguard, the Party. In practical terms, Moscow-style Communism also insists on rigid central planning; that kind of "command" economy is in trouble if it cannot command its own workers. For these reasons...