John Paul II and Latin America

With the late Pope John Paul II's recent death and funeral there have been many televised specials celebrating his many life works, including those of acting as a peaceful mediator among warring parties and a voice of morality among injustice. He stressed that priests should not be political but was definitely the most political of all the popes. One thing I was wondering about, however, was his lack of influence in Latin America, a predominantly Catholic region of the world. He rarely visited and made no attempts to protest authoritarian regimes there or the human rights violations taking place, despite his repeated denunciations of similar violence in his homeland and Europe in general. Pope John Paul II even visited Archbishop Romero in El Salvador shortly before his death, and still refused to offer his help, even in light of the "be a patriot, kill a priest" propaganda prevalent at the time, all under the guise of not being "political." It is widely understood that John Paul II had an intense phobia of communism and its works, so maybe the slight threat of it made him disregard Latin America, but it is still perplexing as to why he didn't do more. Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?