Recent issues are described below. Professor John Lynch assesses the figure of San Mart n in the American revolution, stressing San Mart n s personal and leadership qualities in the face of both the liberator s detractors and those historians who discount the significance of the impact of an individual on the historical scene. In this paper C sar Landa explores the long-standing and continued difficulties surrounding judicial reform in Peru. He explains that to secure an authentic reform of the administration of justice the judicial function must be at the service of the people s rights. This means that the judges must vary their position with regard to the law because, although fundamental rights were once only valid within the limits of the law, now the law is only valid within the limits of the fundamental rights.
Judicial reform remains a central question to be addressed by government in Peru.
Miguel Urioste, a leading participant in the public and political life of Bolivia over the last three decades, analyses the challenges and opportunities for the country's agriculture and rural society in the period since civilian government was restored. For Urioste the objective of democratic rural development in this, one of Latin America's least urbanised countries, requires a balance of realism in planning, recognition of strong local community tradition and acceptance of technical innovation. He considers the role of NGOs, trade liberalisation, the impact of fiscal reform and poverty reduction programmes as well as alternative strategies. This paper situates three Spanish-American poets in a context of a conflict between poetry's duty to create better citizens and its shockingly personal revelations. A short poem by Rub n Dar o, another by Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda's 'Tango del viudo', and his fascination with Josie Bliss, are read as landmark moments in a conflict which all good poems enact within the reader.