FUTURE FLASHPOINTS: LATIN AMERICA: BACK YARD UNTENDED AS TROUBLES GROW

Miami - Latin America and the Caribbean seemed to drop off the U.S. radar
screen after Sept. 11, but the region's problems could easily entangle the
United States in the coming decade.

Marxist guerrillas and cocaine cowboys in Colombia, an aging but crafty
dictator in Cuba, an anti-American populist in Venezuela, economic and
political paralysis in Haiti and the recent Argentina collapse are clear
warning signs that America's own back yard shouldn't be ignored, experts say.

''The biggest challenge in Latin America over the next decade is the
aftermath of Argentina,'' said Bruce Bagley, a Latin specialist at the
University of Miami. ''We're likely to see more rejection of market
reforms, a growing questioning of democracy and the emergence of more
populist leaders. The U.S. talks a good rhetorical game on free trade, but
in reality we're protectionist on textiles and agricultural goods. We're
going to have to alter that, even if it means job losses at home.''

The fear of a fresh wave of instability sweeping Latin America isn't new.
U.S. interests hit a high-water mark in the region in the mid-1990s as
market reforms and democratic elections took hold and long-simmering
conflicts in Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua were settled.

But lately the pendulum appears to be swinging back.

In 1999, Venezuela elected as president a populist firebrand and one-time
coup-plotter named Hugo Chavez, who has made Fidel Castro his biggest
friend and the United States his biggest rhetorical target.

Last year, Peru managed to replace Alberto Fujimori, a corrupt dictator, in
a democratic transition, but now faces severe economic problems.

Ecuador, meanwhile, saw a president deposed in 2000 by mass street protests
brought on in part by popular discontent with free-trade policies.

But Latin American dangers suddenly took on new urgency late last year when
chaos erupted in Argentina, a longtime U.S. ally and economic powerhouse.

The country has seen a revolving door at the presidential palace and is
staggering under a giant debt load even as its economy is in shambles. The
current leader, Eduardo Duhalde, has called for a rollback of market
reforms, setting off jitters throughout Latin America.

''The Andean countries are very fragile,'' said Jennifer McCoy, director of
the Americas Program at the Carter Center in Atlanta. ''The problems of
corruption and ineptness and the feeling that the free market model isn't
helping people's lives could create other implosions like we're seeing in
Argentina. It wouldn't be sudden like Sept. 11, but it would be a real
question of U.S. leadership. Will the U.S. lead or turn its back?''

Other experts single out Colombia as the region's powder keg. Marxist
guerrillas in the troubled Andean nation have tapped the lucrative drug
trade as a source for finances.

''After Sept. 11, people here are looking at the Colombian conflict with
different eyes,'' said Mirko Lauer, a columnist for the La Republica
newspaper in Lima, Peru. ''It put recent revelations that Colombia's
Marxist guerrillas have ties with Basque terrorists from Spain and the IRA
in a new light.''

Other analysts say the United States doesn't have to look so far from its
own shores for a potential crisis, however.

''Mass emergency refugee flows,'' said Mark Krikorian of the Center for
Immigration Studies, a Washington-based policy group. ''Two good
possibilities are Haiti and Cuba. I feel Cuba is guaranteed, because Castro
is going to die. No matter who takes over, there could be a melee and
controls could break down. It would be an unholy mess. Hundreds of
thousands of people might want to leave and many of them already have
relatives in the U.S.''

Krikorian also warned that Mexico could falter as it struggles to reform
its corrupt economic and political system, and that could also spawn a new
wave of immigrants to the U.S. Such a crisis could dwarf the Mariel
boatlift of 1980.

Another analyst points to U.S. oil dependency as a potential flashpoint.
Michael Skol, who runs a consulting firm after a career as a Latin American
specialist at the State Department, noted that Venezuela is a vital
supplier of petroleum. Continued problems there, coupled with instability
in the Middle East, could spawn a new U.S. energy crisis, he cautioned.

''I'm not predicting crisis in Saudi Arabia, but there are tensions there
like the ones that led to the rise of the Taliban,'' he said.

Wherever the next crisis breaks out, analysts agree that the United States
must improve its image in this hemisphere and in the developing world as a
whole, combating a widespread perception that America is a bully that talks
of freedom but invariably enforces its own self-interest.

''It seems to me that what is wrong are U.S. priorities,'' said former
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. ''Terrorism is one of many challenges to
humanity, but the basic threats to world peace are poverty, inequality,
illiteracy, disease and environmental degradation. In the face of this, the
U.S. spends $350 billion a year on defense and just .1 percent of GDP on
foreign aid. The biggest enemy is poverty, which prevails in 80 percent of
the world. Poverty needs no passport to travel.''

Mike Williams, based in Miami, is Cox Newspapers' Caribbean correspondent.
He also traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan after Sept. 11, covering the
December siege of Tora Bora.