Newsbriefs

With this issue, NACLA wel-
comes Rafael Barajas,
“El Fisg6n, ” as a regular
contributor to our newsbrief
section (see page 2). El Fisg6n,
whose work is featured in the
Mexico City daily La Jornada, is
one of Latin America’s preemi-
nent political cartoonists.
ARENA WINS ELECTION
MARRED BY FRAUD
SAN SALVADOR, APRIL, 1994
E 1 Salvador’s March 20 elec-
tions were hardly the culmi-
nation of the “negotiated revolu-
tion” that brought 12 years of
war to an end. Though the ruling
Nationalist Republican Alliance
(ARENA) was forced into a sec-
ond round for the presidency, it
won big, defeating the Left coali-
tion-the Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front
(FMLN), Democratic Conver-
gence (CD) and National Revolu-
tionary Party (MNR)-by 49% to
25%. (The centrist Christian
Democrats received 16% of the
vote). ARENA took half of the
Legislative Assembly and over
200 of the country’s 262 may-
oralties. [In the April 24 run-off, the ARENA candidate Armando
Calder6n Sol was victorious, gar-
nering about 70% of the vote.]
Despite the hoopla about “the
elections of the century,” these
seemed very much like those of
the past. At least 15% of the
electorate was denied the vote
through trickery or incompetence
on the part of the supposedly
independent but eminently parti-
san Supreme Electoral Tribunal
(TSE). Another 45% decided to
sit it out, driven perhaps by
fear-death squads killed 37
opposition party members during
the campaign-but also by dis-
trust of the electoral path
embraced so enthusiastically by
most of the FMLN leadership.
Undoubtedly ARENA has a
solid base of support, built
through patronage politics and
reinforced by the blatantly parti-
san media. However, the
FMLN’s 25% of the vote,
despite the irregularities, was
certainly a respectable showing
for a first venture on the hus-
tings. The center and Left oppo-
sition will hold slightly less than
a majority in the Legislative
Assembly (40 out of 84 seats).
The FMLN will have 21, the
Christian Democrats 18, and
Rub6n Zamora’s Democratic
Convergence one; ARENA will
have 39, the old military-linked
PCN four, and the evangelical
MU one.
The country faces another five
years of foot-dragging on the
Peace Accords, even if the Left
has a quota of real state power
and greater legitimacy in society
at large. President-elect Arman-
do Calder6n Sol, a death-squad
funder according to declassified
U.S. documents, is from
ARENA’s nationalist anti-U.S.
wing, more in tune with the pop-
ulism of party founder Roberto
D’Aubuisson than the neoliberal-
ism of current president Alfredo
Cristiani. He is also reputed to be
bull-headed, vindictive and utter-
ly bereft of the statesman’s qual-
ities needed to carry forth the
process of national reconcilia-
tion.
Traditional techniques of
ballot-stuffing or vote-buying,
though they occurred, were by
and large abandoned in favor of
more sophisticated methods of
technical fraud. The registration
process was unusually cumber-
some, particularly for poor and
illiterate voters. It required mul-
tiple trips to distant towns, and
often depended on the good will
of incumbent mayors to issue
birth certificates. Nearly 80,000
applications were rejected by the
TSE due to lack of birth certifi-
cates. Another 74,000 applicants
never received the TSE-issued
voter cards required to vote.
The actual voting procedure
required a high degree of litera-
cy in a country where 45% can-
not read or write and many
more are functionally illiterate.
Polls were few and far between,
and were organized alphabeti-
cally by voters’ last names. This
meant not only long trips and
longer waits, but enormous con-
fusion as crowds of voters
struggled to find the proper
table at which to cast their bal-
lots. Many polling places were
not set up in any recognizable
order: A’s followed by M’s fol-
lowed by J’s, etc.
Even after enduring the long
and humiliating struggle to regis-
ter and obtain a voter’s card,
even after making the great
effort to get to the polls and find
the proper table, and after wait-
ing in line for hours under a hot
sun, thousands of voters discov-
ered that their names had been
mysteriously dropped from the
registry. Supplementary lists of
recent registrants were often
unavailable. And to cap it all, thousands more discovered that
someone had already voted in
their place.
The beauty of technical fraud
is that it is impossible to tell how
much of it is due to sheer incom-
petence. The irregularities proba-
bly did not affect the lopsided
presidential race, but in close
municipal contests they could
easily have made the difference.
One observer team in the town
of Apopa, just outside the capi-
tal, found that 21 of 22 people
dropped from the rolls at one
table claimed to be FMLN sup-
porters. Voters excluded from
the registry due to lack of birth
certificates were concentrated in
former conflictive zones, particu-
Vol XXVII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 19941 Vol XXVII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1994 1NEWSBRIEFS
larly in towns where the 1991
mayoralty races were decided by
less than 100 votes.
The United Nations’ mission
in El Salvador seems bent on
declaring its own work a success
before departing at the end of
this year. It concluded that
despite serious anomalies the
elections did reflect the “will of
the majority.” The FMLN too
accepted the vote as valid,
though it wants the races in 37
municipalities nullified.
“-Mark Fried
CLINTON OUTLINES
INTERVENTION RULES
Moscow, JANUARY 14, 1994
Russian Correspondent: Mr.
President, on the territory of
the former Soviet Union, civil
wars go on without end. Russia,
unfortunately either cannot or
does not want to settle the civil
strife. What is your feeling?
The President: You will be
more likely to be involved in
some of those areas near you,
just like the United States has
been involved in the last several
years in Panama and Grenada
near our area….The thing I think
that we have to try to do…when
there is an involvement beyond
the borders of the nation, that it
is consistent with international
law and, whenever possible,
actually supported through other
nations either through the United
Nations or through some other
instrument of international law.
-White House Press Release
U.S.-SUPPORTED CANDI-
DATE TO HEAD OAS
WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL, 1994
O n March 27, member
nations elected Colombian
President C6sar Gaviria to be the
new secretary general of the
Organization of American States
(OAS). Gaviria, who defeated
Costa Rica’s Foreign Minister
Bernd Niehaus by a vote of 20 to
14, will replace Joio Baena
Soares, whose term ends in June.
The vote capped an acrimo-
nious struggle in which, accord-
ing to Costa Rica, the U.S. gov-
ernment exercised a great deal of
pressure in order to assure
Gaviria’s victory. In the months
leading up to the election,
Niehaus had assiduously lobbied
for support throughout the re-
gion, and was thought to have
won the backing of most of the
smaller countries in Central Am-
erica and the Caribbean.
But Gaviria’s candidacy,
announced not long before the
March 27 vote was held, imme-
diately attracted the backing of
Washington. The Costa Ricans
assert that U.S. pressures culm-
nated in nine regional countries
Contined on page 44
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reneging on a written commitment
to vote for Niehaus, and instead
casting their ballots in favor of
Gaviria.
Upon conclusion of the vote, a
bitter Niehaus addressed the OAS
delegates in uncommonly stern
terms. “[Many of the small
Caribbean countries] sacrificed
their word and their honor,”
charged Niehaus. “They didn’t
even show the elemental courtesy
to inform the Costa Rican govern-
ment of their decision to withdraw
their support…. The colonial stance
adopted by the weak is even worse
than the imperialist stance demon-
strated by the strong.”
Washington was able to take
advantage of a feud between Latin
America and the Caribbean over
the former’s insistence on ending
the West Indies’ preferential access
to the European banana market.
“We’re only counted when our
vital vote is needed to put someone
in high office,” said Ambassador
Kingsley Layne of St. Vincent and
the Grenadines, explaining his
country’s support for Gaviria. He
charged that Costa Rica, on a panel
of the General Agreement on Tar-
iffs and Trade (GATT), contested a
European move to secure a portion
of the banana market for small
states. “We thought that was an
unfriendly act that did not take our
minuscule (banana) production and
the vital nature of that industry into
consideration,” said Layne.
“Friendship is made of sterner
stuff.”
-NotiSur and
InterPress Service
INDIGENOUS GROUPS
CHALLENGE OIL DRILLING
IN ECUADOREAN AMAZON
WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 15, 1994
R epresentatives of the indige-
nous population of the
Ecuadorean Amazon met with
executive officers of ARCO Inter-
national in an unprecedented meet-
ing in March in Washington, D.C.
NAC4A REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
ARCO, a U.S.-based multinational
oil company, plans to begin drilling
for oil in the last virgin tropical
rainforest in Ecuador, in the territo-
ry of the 20,000 Quichua people of
Pastaza province.
Oil extraction, indigenous leaders
claim, devastates the delicate eco-
logical and cultural balance of the
rainforest. The Organization of
Indigenous People of Pastaza
(OPIP) has struggled for 12 years to
defend its territory against unbri-
dled development. Oil companies
appear to be starting to listen.
In a 12-hour marathon meeting,
ARCO executives and Ecuadorean
indigenous representatives dis-
cussed the four central OPIP pro-
posals: 1) environmental assess-
ment of damage already incurred
during ARCO’s exploratory phase;
2) a resource-management plan for
the territory which ARCO and
OPIP would jointly organize; 3) a
development fund for the affected
indigenous communities; and 4) an
international commission to
observe the process.
In the past, oil companies were
not under pressure to meet envi-
ronmental standards in the Ama-
zon. Since oil extraction began in
the Ecuadorean Amazon in 1972,
billions of gallons of toxic wastes
and oil have been dumped into the
environment. A number of indige-
nous groups have become extinct
or are on the verge of extinction.
Due to the increased organization
and militancy of indigenous groups
such as those in Pastaza, however,
oil companies no longer have such
a free hand.
OPIP has stated that if an agree-
ment is not reached soon, it will
call for a moratorium on oil
drilling until safer methods are
developed. ARCO and OPIP are
under pressure to resolve the dis-
pute before it becomes violent. In
December, 250 representatives
from every community in the Pas-
taza territory met at an ARCO oil-
well site for three days to discuss
the situation. The OPIP leaders
were hard-pressed to keep people
from storming the well, an event
that would almost certainly have
led to bloodshed.
-Melina Selverston
NEW GARCIA MARQUEZ
NOVEL
BOGOTA, APRIL, 1994
Sf Love and Other Demons, the
newly published novel by
Gabriel Garcia Mtrquez, is being
distributed in the Andean Group
countries, thus ending a “strike”
Garcia Mirquez announced last
May to protest the proliferation of
pirate editions of his works in his
native Colombia. The novel, which
recreates the dark world of the
Spanish Inquisition as it comes to
the Caribbean town of Macondo in
the eighteenth century, makes use
of the author’s fantastic literary
workmanship to interlace the
world of his childhood, his experi-
ence as a journalist, and docu-
ments of historical scholarship.
The Colombian publishing
house, Editorial Norma, which has
the exclusive publishing rights for
the Andean Group countries, sent a
first printing of 50,000 copies to
distributors in Lima, Caracas,
Quito, La Paz and Bogota. The
world-wide distribution of the first
edition will run between 200,000
and 400,000 copies. The entire first
edition will be printed on a special
champaign-colored paper made
from sugar-cane pulp as a means
of avoiding the easy reproduction
of the book by pirate publishers.
-InterPress Service
CHILEAN GOVERNMENT
FREES POLITICAL
PRISONERS
SANTIAGO DE CHILE, APRIL 1, 1994
In his final days in office, Patri-
cio Aylwin granted freedom to
six political prisoners in exchange
for “extrailamiento,” the Aylwin
Administration’s euphemism for
exile. As Eduardo Frei, the presi-
dent of Chile’s second post-dicta-
torship government, settles into
office, only one political prisoner
of General Augusto Pinochet’s 17-
year military regime remains
incarcerated.
Three of the former prisoners–
Hector Maturana, Juan Ordenes
and Hector Figueroa-had been
serving life sentences for the 1986
assassination attempt against
Pinochet. Five of the general’s
escorts died in the ambush on his
entourage. Miguel Angel Colina
was imprisoned for the 1988 attack
on the Los Queiies police station,
some 200 kilometers south of San-
tiago. All four were members of the
Frente Patri6tico Manuel
Rodriguez, an armed guerrilla
movement active during the dicta-
torship, which is linked to the
Communist Party of Chile. Bel-
gium accepted these four as politi-
cal refugees, granting each a month-
ly subsidy of roughly US$650.
Gen. Pinochet told the local
press that the army as an institution
“was hurt” by the government’s
measure granting his would-be
assassins the right to leave the
country. “But,” he said, “we will
keep silent.”
Two other political prisoners–
Jorge Escobar Dfaz and Marco
Antonio Mardones-left Chile on
March 26 bound for Norway,
where they had been granted asy-
lum, also as political refugees.
Both are members of the armed
Mapu-Lautaro movement. They
had been serving prison terms of
15 and 17 years respectively for
participating in two shoot-outs
with the police in 1989.
Only one of the 400 political
prisoners inherited by the Aylwin
government remains in custody.
The past administration gave con-
ditional pardons to 161 former
prisoners. Twenty-six others
exchanged their sentences for
exile-19 in Belgium, three in
Norway, three in Finland, and one
in France.
-Sibylla Brodzinsky
CENTER-LEFT PARTY
EMERGES AS STRONG
FORCE IN CONSTITUENT
ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS
BUENOS AIRES, APRIL 15, 1994
A s expected, President Carlos
Menem’s Justicialista Party
(Partido Justicialista, PJ-Pero-
nist) comfortably won in the April
10 Constituent Assembly elections,
virtually guaranteeing constitution-
al reforms to allow his reelection
bid in 1995. A major surprise,
however, was the resounding
defeat of the opposition Radical
Civic Union (Union Civica
Radical, UCR), as well as the
strong showing by the center-Left
coalition Broad Front (Frente
Grande), which has now emerged
as the third political force in the
country.
Official results gave the Justi-
cialistas 37.7% of the vote, allow-
ing them 139 delegates, less than
an absolute majority in the 305-
member Constituent Assembly.
The UCR, with 19.2% of the vote,
will have 74 delegates. The Broad
Front’s strong 12.5% gives it 32
delegates. The nationalist Dignity
and Independence Movement
(Movimiento por la Dignidad y la
Independencia, Modin), led by for-
mer army rebel Aldo Rico, came in
fourth with 9.1%, giving it 18 dele-
gates. The remaining 42 delegates
will come from a wide array of
smaller parties, which run the
gamut from left to right on the
political spectrum. In addition to
its weak performance at the nation-
al level, the UCR was soundly
defeated in its traditional strong-
hold of Buenos Aires, where the
Broad Front came in first place
with 36% of the vote.
The Broad Front, led by Carlos
Alvarez, successfully based its
campaign on criticisms of the
social costs of the government’s
neoliberal policies and the corrup-
tion that has plagued Menem’s
administration.
The Constituent Assembly will
begin deliberations in June, and
must conclude its work within 90
days. A pact signed in November,
1993 between Menem and UCR
leader and former president Ratil
Alfonsin assures passage of several
proposed changes, including
removal of the prohibition against
consecutive presidential terms;
reduction of the presidential term
from six to four years; creation of a
new cabinet post that will have
powers comparable to those of a
prime minister; and elimination of
the requirement that the president
and vice president be Roman
Catholic. -Notisur
Sources:
Mark Fried is former editor of NACLA
Report on the Americas, and a member
of NACLA’s Board of Directors.
InterPress Service is an international
news service based in Italy. Its dispatches
can be read on-line in the Peacenet con-
ferences: ips.espanol and ips.english.
Notisur is available as a closed Peacenet
conference: carnet.ladb. For subscription
information: Latin American Data Base,
Latin American Institute, University of
New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131;
(800) 472-0888.
Melina Selverston is a doctoral candidate
in political science at Columbia University.
Sibylla Brodzinsky is a NACLA correspon-
dent.