Friday, July 14, 1961 Summer Session Kansan
Page 5
KU Students Graduate from Costa Rica School
By Melvin Mencher
Assistant Professor of Journalism
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica—Two students from the University of Kansas have graduated from the Institute of Political Education after an intensive 10-week course in contemporary Latin American affairs.
Sarah Walker, 20, of Leavenworth, and Benjamin Morris, 21, of Quinter, are among the nine KU students who are spending their junior year at the University of Costa Rica. They attended the institute in addition to taking courses at the University.
The KU-Costa Rican program, which involves both exchange of students and faculty, is in its second year. It is subsidized by the Carnegie Corp. and the U.S.State Department.
Hard as this workload was, the young Kansans found it rewarding — despite the problems they encountered at the institute, where anti-U.S. sentiment was strong and vicious.
The institute serves as a training ground for young men and women who return to their countries to work for liberal, anti-Communist parties. The institute is supported by these parties. The idea of the founders is that only a united, democratic liberal movement in Latin America can keep the Latin countries from falling under the repressive right or the tyranny of communism.
Morris and Miss Walker are interested in Latin American political and social movements and decided to attend the institute to further their knowledge.
At first, the two young North Americans had trouble. Anti-U.S. sentiment is strong in Latin America, especially among the young intellectuals and among liberals. The spirit of anti-Yankeeism is most powerful in dictatorships and where there are non-representative governments of the far right.
Some of the students at the institute were exiles from Trujillo's dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, Miss Walker said. Others were from Nicaragua, where the Somoza government permits no free elections.
France, Algeria May Get Together
PARIS—(UPI)—Political sources believe France and the Algerian Moslem rebels probably will resume talks next Thursday that definitely will determine Algeria's future.
The French press concluded that President Charles De Galle is determined to stop the Algerian drain on the French economy and manpower one way or another by the end of the year.
In a radio and television address to the nation, De Gaulle restated the French position on Algeria without referring to the negotiations with the Algerian rebels, now in recess.
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To Latin Americans, politics is not simply a matter of the ins fighting the outs. In addition to the vast ideological differences that separate the parties, politics in some of the countries is a matter of life and death.
One of last year's graduates who returned to Nicaragua, Morris said, was jailed on his return and nobody has heard about him since.
"The United States has a bad history in Latin America," he continued. "Latin Americans remember that we gave dictators arms and money. We even gave three dictators decorations. The Latin Americans don't forget this."
Into this atmosphere walked the two young Kansans. The institute is some 10 miles outside San Jose. The men live at the institute and the women live in the nearby town of San Ysidro. In this tight atmosphere, intimate contact was a daily matter.
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"I would go into breakfast and it would start." Miss Walker said. "They would begin to talk about the United States and how we supported dictators.
"The Nicaraguans were the hardest to get along with. Some of them had been put in jail by Somoza, and they had little sympathy with our friendship for Somoza."
The cold, critical reception they got was not unexpected. The director of the institute had warned them. Although he was anxious to have them attend — in order, he said, to show the other students that "all gringos don't have horns" — it was up to Morris and Miss Walker to decide. They were eager to go.
Morris agreed that U.S. foreign policy and the tactics of businessmen in Latin America often deserve criticism. The criticism, he said, was all the more telling because it came from people who are passionately anti-Communist and were not
"The United States has made mistakes in Latin America," Miss Walker said.
The remarks, criticisms and questions went on for a while. But slowly, the Kansans broke some barriers and were able to reach their classmates. They did it, they said, by admitting the truth.
mouthing the usual Communist slogans about "Yankee-imperialism." "These students spoke for the people of their country," Morris said.
And the Kansans tried to do the same thing. They pointed out that few North Americans are capitalists, that there are problems in the U.S. with which the government is coping through social and economic reforms — the same kind of reforms the U.S. government hopes to see carried out in Latin America.
"Some of the students had never seen an American," said Miss Walker. "After they got to know us, several became more friendly."
"They began to realize that all Americans aren't rich and that we don't come to Latin America to exploit the people."
A mark of the KU students' success was demonstrated at graduation. Of the 45 students, Miss Walker and Morris received the loudest applause.
There are seven other KU students in the exchange program here, and all are involved in projects which put them into direct contact with the people of Costa Rica.
In addition to their school work, Linda Viola of Abilene and Patricia Manuel of Kansas City, Mo., are assisting in an experimental teaching program by the University of Costa Rica at a public school. The young women teach Costa Rican second and third graders English.
Carolyn Hunnicutt, whose family has dairy cattle in Sabetha, is doing a paper on the Costa Rican cattle industry.
Cleve Howard, a pre-med student, Wichita, is interested in the practice of medicine here. Heather MacAlpine of Stillwater, Okla., is studying the cultural life in this small Central American republic.
The Revolution of 1948 has interested Lawrence M. Wright of Ottawa, and Danny White of Fredonia is studying conservation among farmers.
All the students live with Costa Rican families, and for the nine months they are here the students all have Costa Rican mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and occasional aunts, uncles and grand-fathers.
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