Media Entrepeneur Gustavo Cisneros Stated that the Best Way to Defend Democracy and Freedom of Speech in Latin America is to Eliminate Poverty

At the Miami Herald Americas Conference today, media entrepreneur
Gustavo Cisneros claimed that if poverty and inequality were vastly
reduced in Latin America, democracy and freedom of speech would
flourish as the appeal of populism wanes.

The head of the Cisneros Group of Companies proposed a 2008 summit
of entrepreneurs and government leaders to forge a strategy to provide
the tools of wealth creation to the 100 million poor Latin Americans.
Gustavo Cisneros said the poor needed enterprise, credit, technology
and education to help themselves escape poverty through free economic
growth, and called for a concerted US-Latin American war against
poverty and ignorance.

Among the other topics addressed during the speech, Cisneros cited
the US$1 trillion in 2006 income of 43 million Hispanic-Americans to
the US economy, calling for a fair US immigration law.