Living conditions in Central America might improve under the Bush administration, a scholar of Central American affairs told members of the Interfaith Network for Peace and Justice Sunday.

Fred Morris, a minister for Malta United Methodist Church and editor of the Central American affairs journal in MesoAmerica, said Bush will be less “ideologically” motivated than former President Ronald Reagan was toward Central American policy, and less inclined to risk the political consequences of interventionist actions.

“Reagan had a personal fanaticism about Central America,” Morris said, “Bush wants Central America to go away.” He predicted the trade embargo against Nicaragua might not be renewed when it comes before Congress, and projected possible U.S. diplomatic involvement in future negotiations between the five regional leaders who met for talks recently in El Salvador.

Morris focused his remarks largely on the economic conditions in Central America and faulted high inflation rates, inequitable land distribution and repressive governments for problems with war and poverty in the region.

Nicaragua has a 10,000 percent inflation rate and faces severe reconstruction problems in the wake of Hurricane Joan, which caused about $850 million in damage, Morris said. However, he attributed Nicaragua’s economic woes largely to the cost of waging war against the U.S.-backed Contras and said a stabilized region would help the war-torn region regain economic stability.

The Sandinistas now “are beginning to put their resources back into productive activities,” but he cautioned economic conditions “make it impossible to do any long-range planning or business affairs.”

Debt plays a large role in the political life of Central America, Morris said. Costa Rica—the country in that region considered the most democratic—faces a national debt equalling 140 percent of its gross national product.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias faced consequences when he engineered the Central American peace plan that won him the Nobel Peace Prize, Morris said. Aid for that country was held back by the Reagan administration for “so long that the country almost went into bankruptcy,” he said.

Morris characterized Honduras as a “land-based aircraft carrier” for U.S.-based operations in Nicaragua. “Millions and millions have been spent on air-force jets,” Morris said, “while two-thirds of all Honduran children have second- or third-degree malnutrition.

The current Guatemalan military has no interest in overthrowing the civilian government because its presence insures U.S. aid and the current administration can be blamed for any economic crisis, Morris said. “It’s a convenient way to get money from the U.S.”

Morris said Guatemala’s civil war has been underreported in the U.S. press and might escalate to the scale of the conflict in El Salvador.

Guerrillas in El Salvador will probably “defunct” the Salvadoran military unless U.S. troops are deployed, Morris said. He said that if the projected conflict was to have taken place in a Michael Dukakis presidency, political pressure might have forced an intervention. He said Bush lacked the “Teflon” qualities often attributed to former President Reagan and would risk “backfire” in an interventionist posture.

Morris compared Salvadoran guerillas’ popularity to support for Ho Chi Mihn in Vietnam in 1956, where he maintained the revolutionary would have received 90 percent of the vote in a free election. He called the possibility of a Salvadoran election in the near future “remote.”

Panama will remain under the control of Gen. Antonio Noriega because of the leader’s popularity with the army and surging nationalist sentiment in the country, Morris said. He said Noriega inherited the “mantle of power” from his predecessors in the armed forces and runs a “populist government, if not the most democratic one.”

In addition to his work as an editor and minister, Morris has worked as a journalist, a missionary and a businessman in Central America.