European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 2, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 18 the stars and stripes sunday february 2,1986 at Tijuana Mexico a Section of Border runs along a Avra Road behind would be immigrants waiting in foreground. The North South Gap problems poverty escalate in the third world by Charles j. Hanley associated press rusting Fence slices straight and True across Zapata Canyon cutting the world cleanly in two. North of the line lies High tech san Diego powerhouse America cruising into the 21st Century. To the South sprawls Dusty Tijuana dirt poor Mexico slumping Back toward the 19th. For us says a mexican economist it s All Disneyland up  an. ,01 billions of others worldwide or the  Border is just one link in a Fence that threads visibly and invisibly around the Globe separating two worlds leaving four fifths of the wealth on one Side three fourths of the people on the other. Today decades into multiyear development plans that were to lilt the planet s poor up by their Bootstraps the South is tailing behind. Widespread malnutrition and african famine overwhelming debts and overcrowded cities ignorance and political turmoil the Gap s symptoms Are everywhere. Some striking Progress has been made especially in health. From 1960 to 1982, the world Bank reports life expectancy in the third world Rose from 42 years to 59. But rapidly expanding populations and a decade of on off economic crisis the latest caused by paralysing debts Are dragging the third world Down. One measure in Industrial countries economic output per person moved ahead by $1,200. To $8,500, from 1975 to 1983, but it barely inched Forward in the third world just touching $1,000, then falling Back to $980, reports the authoritative overseas development Council of Washington. We can never catch up concluded the mexican economist Bernardo Gonzalez Arechiga a close student of the  relationship. The Gap that sharply divides the world into Rich and poor was explained deplored and debated in a series of recent interviews with political and academic specialists on four continents. Solutions Are in dispute. Many put their Hopes in birth control and education. Some especially in Washington extol free Market policies. For All however the mid-1980s, years of unpaid debts and unfed millions have become a Lime for charting new courses in third world development. The food bomb is there especially in Africa. And the debt bomb is there even More than a few years ago threatening the very existence of the International financial and monetary system Willy Brandt former West German Chance Lor said in an interview in Bonn. Brandt s global coir Mission on North South relations has or noted the idea of interdependence that the North s economic health ultimately depends on the South s development. But it has taken a debt crisis one threatening . And other Western financial institutions to galvanize the North s attention. The North South Story of debts gaps and despair unfolds dramatically Here along the  Border. San Diego and Tijuana each has almost 1 million people. But they Are far from  the California City is a glittering place of yacht clubs and Champagne brunches of Nobel science laureates and spotless streets. Above All it is a City of economic growth of burgeoning High technology companies. Just 10 Miles away Tijuana remains mired in the third world an Urban expanse of Street paddlers and Dingy squatter settlements of Homes without running water of cheap labor Industry with a limited future. In san Diego the median household size is 2.5 persons in Tijuana 5.3. In san Diego the average Home sold for $131,200 last year in Tijuana thousands of worthless hovels Are built with second hand materials from across the Border. In the United states Gross National product per capita stands at $14,110 South of the line it is $2,240. To the North a person typically lives to age 75 to the South subtract nine years. The imbalance makes the Border a Magnet. Each Day at dusk in Zapata Canyon where cramped shacks Jam up against the Southern Side of the Border Young men gather restlessly waiting to make a desperate nighttime dash North to join millions of other mexicans working illegally in the United states. The parched hillsides can look like a War zone. American reconnaissance helicopters Clatter overhead. After dark Mobile Border patrols aimed with night vision goggles crisscross the wind blown mulches the North on the Lookout for leakage from the South. Here in Tijuana mexicans Are so close to the rest world. They see its benefits. It creates expectations and resentment and envy said Leo Chavez an american anthropologist studying Border society. Most important there s the feeling that in the United Stales you work hard and you earn o lot of Money. Here you work Haid and you just work  How do mexicans explain the Gap said Tijuana mayor Rene Trevino an economist we produce mostly primary products. We Don t have a diversified Economy. We have Loo High a rate of population growth. Twenty years ago we could feed ourselves. Now we must import Corn and  and now they must pay Oft a monumental debt As Well. Recession and High interest rates have combined to swell third world debt to Northern Banks and governments to about $1 trillion. Mexico owes one tenth of that. To pay it Oil under supervision of the North dominated International monetary fund Mexico slashed spending and raised taxes. For Ordinary mexicans it was like taking a one third Cut in pay. It helped for a while but now the vice is tightening again. Declining prices Lor its Oil exports Mexico s big Money maker Are cutting mexican foreign income by 15 percent. Other third world debtors Are also losing income in part because their exports canno gel past Trade barriers the Northern governments have erected to protect their own industries. The debtors Are growing angrier. In Mexico City protesters have marched to the chant either we pay or to eat said Tijuana s Trevino Mexico wants to pay but we have to be Given the Chance to improve our Economy  this Chicken or egg Riddle which comes first development or repayment will dominate the North South debate in the years to come. Some say it could Lead to a wider dialogue the global negotiations third worders seek lot granting them Trade and other preferences reshaping the global economic Structure in a kind of affirmative action program Tor poor nations. The debt dialogue is dealing with an immediate urgent problem Alister Mclntyre the grenadian who is. Acting head of the . Conference on Trade and development noted in an interview at his Geneva Headquarters. But it has implications for wider policies Trade policies and so on. Everything is linked to everything  in economic development things always tie together. When asked for Root causes of the North South Gap the experts run Down a list population control natural resources such As Mineral deposits and River systems political stability. And invariably they come Down to what Mclntyre Calls the human  the More one investigates the . Official said the More one comes to the conclusion that a Large part of the answer resides in the deficiencies in skills know How and the rest of  in a word in education. But some observers especially in Washington add another underlying cause third world ideology policies of state ownership Price controls and other government intervention in what president Reagan Calls the magic of he  almost All third world countries engage in such statist policies. In some it May have held Back development. In others such As India it May have helped build economies that though inefficient could be the springboard for an eventual assault on the economic Gap