Newsbriefs

KEY MEMBERS OF
CLINTON’S LATIN
AMERICA POLICY STAFF
RESIGN
WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 3, 1996
Several key Latin America pol-
icy makers in the Clinton
administration announced their
resignations in February, includ-
ing Richard Feinberg, special
advisor to the President and
senior director for Inter-American
Affairs at the National Security
Council; Alexander Watson,
assistant secretary of state for
Inter-American Affairs at the
State Department; and Morton
Halperin, democracy unit director
at the National Security Council.
Many junior State Department
staff members are also transfer-
ring from their Latin America
posts in the coming months.
The changes prompted obser-
vers to wonder whether a major
shift in the administration’s Latin
America policy was underway. It
soon became clear, however, that
this was not the case. The depar-
tures of the senior officials appear
to be motivated more by personal
than by political reasons. Feinberg
is leaving to become dean at the
University of California, San
Diego. Watson will become direc-
tor of Latin American issues at the
Nature Conservancy. Halperin has
taken a fellowship at the Council
on Foreign Relations. In the case
of the junior staff, changes were
due to the routine staff-rotation
policy of the U.S. foreign service.
Some are concerned that the
turnover will create a shortage of
experienced Latin America staff at
the State Department in the next
six months.
Ambassador James Dobbins
will replace Feinberg. Dobbins is a
career foreign-service officer who
currently serves as coordinator of
the Haiti Working Group at the
State Department, but whose
experience otherwise is outside
Latin America. Eric Schwartz,
director of the Office for Human
Rights and Refugees at the Nat-
ional Security Council, has been
named to fill Halperin’s position.
Schwartz has ample experience in
the human rights field, but he also
lacks a strong background in Latin
America. Jeffrey Davidov, cur-
rently U.S. Ambassador to Vene-
zuela, has been nominated to
replace Watson.
— Enlace
PASTORS FOR PEACE
STEP UP PROTESTS
AGAINST CUBA
EMBARGO
NEw YORK, APRIL 1, 1996
Pastors for Peace, the intrepid
band of clergy who have been
defying the U.S. trade embargo
on Cuba, brought their message
to President Bill Clinton as he sat
in church on Palm Sunday.
Although they were hurried out
of the Foundry Methodist Church,
one group member managed to
grab Clinton’s hand and urge him
to end the stranglehold on free
trade with Cuba.
“If Clinton wasn’t aware of the
Pastors for Peace before, he is
now,” said Emily Thomas, of the
Interfaith Foundation for Com-
munity Organizations, which
sponsors the organization.
The Palm Sunday visit was part
of a week-long series of events in
the nation’s capital that began on
March 29, when three caravans of
Pastors for Peace activists and sup-
porters converged on Washington,
D.C. They drove in from Chicago
and Birmingham, Alabama, pass-
ing through Detroit and Pittsburgh,
then Raleigh, North Carolina, and
Richmond, Virginia, spreading
their message of reconciliation
with Cuba.
Pastors for Peace, which was
formed eight years ago, has orga-
nized six brigades bearing humani-
tarian aid to Cuba since 1992.
Despite restrictions on sending
materials to Cuba, the group has
successfully transported a variety
of supplies to the Caribbean nation.
According to U.S. law, the ship-
ment of any materials to Cuba,
even humanitarian goods, requires
a license. Pastors for Peace has
always refused to obtain a license,
however, because it does not
acknowledge the legitimacy of the
embargo.
While the material aid is impor-
tant, the organization also sees the
brigades as an opportunity to pro-
mote local organizing against the
embargo and to educate the public
about the harmful effects of U.S.
policy.
In June, 1995, a brigade orga-
nized by Pastors for Peace
brought 18 computers and a solar-
energy system into Canada for
shipment to Cuba. U.S. customs
officials waved them through,
even though the group had been
very public about their intentions.
Signs last year that the U.S.
embargo policy might be thawing
have evaporated in 1996. Even
before Cubans shot down two
planes flown by right-wing exiles
in February, the Treasury Depart-
ment hardened its stance on the
Pastors’ brigades. Treasury
agents intercepted the Pastors on
January 31, as they attempted to
cross from San Ysidro,
California, to Tijuana, Mexico
with a shipment of 345 comput-
ers for medical use. Seventeen
people carrying computer parts
were arrested.
“This is an election year,” said
Thomas. “The White House obvi-
ously wants to get tough.”
The computers, mostly older
models donated by supporters on
the West Coast, were destined for
Project Informed, a computerized
information-sharing system that
Cuban doctors were trying to set
Vol XXIX, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1996 1NEWSBRIEFS
up. A mainframe was donated by
European supporters.
In another incident, treasury
police raided a small storage fac-
ility in California on March 8, con-
fiscating assorted unusable com-
puter parts and medical supplies
that the group had collected. On
March 21, five members of Pastors
for Peace, led by executive director
Rev. Lucius Walker, initiated a
hunger strike to demand the return
of the materials. The fast contin-
ued as the Pastors traveled to
Washington D.C.
“The fast is about penance and
redemption during the week of
Passover and the Resurrection,”
said Thomas. “This is really about
the United States and our morali-
ty. We have a government policy
of making vulnerable people suf-
fer. That is immoral.”
-Annette Fuentes
TEAMSTERS PROMPT
CAUTIOUS SOLIDARITY
MEXco CrrT, APRIu 1, 1996
“In late March, full-page ads
appeared in several Mexican
newspapers calling on working
families in Mexico, the United
States and Canada to coordinate
their struggle to win better living
standards. The ads, placed by the
International Brotherhood of
Teamsters, came just two weeks
after the union convened a
Chicago “Summit” of U.S., Mexi-
can and Canadian trade unionists
and independent truckers to build
opposition to the new trucking
regulations instituted under the
North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). The regu-
lations, now on hold, would have
allowed Mexican and U.S. truck-
ers to move freely across the bor-
der and deliver their cargo any-
where within the four U.S. and
six Mexican border states.
It was militant Teamster action
last fall that put the regulations on
the back burner. Concerned that
low-wage Mexican truckers
would take work away from their
better-paid U.S. counterparts, the
union initiated a massive lobbying
and publicity campaign which
many Mexicans feel had anti-
Mexican overtones. The union not
only warned of the low road-safe-
ty and mechanical-inspection
standards in Mexico, but also
raised the specter of large drug
shipments entering the United
States by way of Mexican trucks.
The safety issue proved to be
the most effective in galvanizing
U.S. government action. On Dec.
18, 1995, U.S. Transportation
Secretary Federico Pefia—citing
safety concerns-announced a
unilateral decision on the part of
the U.S. government to indefinite-
ly delay implementation of the
new NAFTA rules.
Shortly after the Chicago
Summit, Authentic Labor Front
EL FISGON6
(FAT) spokesperson Alfredo
Dominguez painted a picture of
very tentative cross-border soli-
darity. Dominguez said the
Teamsters and the Mexican truck-
ers had certain interests in com-
mon that could help build a united
movement. “If NAFTA grows,”
said the Mexican unionist, “there
will be a gradual coming togeth-
er-harmonization-of wages
and salaries. Unions in both coun-
tries have an interest in seeing
that harmonization moves wages
higher, not lower.”
But because of the Teamsters’
somewhat ambiguous approach to
genuine labor solidarity, Mexican
trade unionists and independent
truckers are cautious allies.
“There are some aspects of the
Teamster campaign that are
painful to us,” said Dominguez,
“like the idea that our trucks are
dangerous, that our drivers don’t
know the rules of the road, that our
trucks will introduce drugs into the
United States. This is all nonsense.
Our trucks are exactly the same as
the ones driven by U.S. drivers. In
both cases, they are manufactured
here in Mexico. Our drivers know
the rules, and it would be easy to set
up joint training programs to unify
knowledge of the different state
laws. And drug traffickers are find-
ing new ways every day to intro-
duce drugs into the United States.
They certainly don’t need our
trucks.”
Jeff Cappella, a Teamster
spokesperson, said that the union
has taken Dominguez’s criticism to
heart, and was trying to distance
itself from the more nationalistic
elements of the anti-NAFTA move-
ment. The Teamsters’ goal, said
Cappella, was an internationalist
one: to renegotiate NAFTA so that it
included strong labor protections.
Over the next few months, the
coalition that came together at the
Summit plans to develop a “plan of
action” to improve salaries, benefits
and working conditions in all three
countries, but especially in Mexico,
so that trucking companies are not
tempted to continually move jobs to
the lowest wage site. The groups say
they will reconvene in six to eight
months to plan further joint actions.
-Fred Rosen
NAFTA ASSESSED ON
TWO-YEAR ANNIVERSARY
WASHINGTON, D.C., APRiL 8, 1996
N AFTA has failed to fulfill the
promises of its political and
corporate backers to improve the
public health and environment of the
U.S.-Mexico border, according to a
January report produced jointly by
Public Citizen, Ralph Nader’s
watchdog organization, and the
Mexican Network for Action on
Free Trade (RMALC). a non-eov-
ernmental organization based in
Mexico City.
NAFTA proponents predicted that
the trade agreement would decrease
the concentration of maquiladoras
on the border. On the contrary, the
Mexican maquiladora workforce
has grown 20% in the last two years,
from 546,588 in December, 1993 to
689,420 in October, 1995. As of last
summer, more than 85% of the
maquiladora workers were em-
ployed in one of the six Mexican
border states.
“The increased industrial con-
centration has only intensified air
and water pollution, dumping of
hazardous waste, and, most tragi-
cally, the rate of disease associated
with environmental degradation,
including hepatitis-A, cholera and
birth defects,” said Lori Wallach,
director of Public Citizen’s Global
Trade Watch.
NAFTA institutions that were
supposed to provide oversight and
funding for cleanup and environ-
mental enforcement have also been
disappointing. The Commission on
Environmental Cooperation (CEC),
for example, has not heard a single
case involving the Mexican govern-
ment’s failure to enforce environ-
mental laws. It has also rejected two
petitions by U.S. groups involving
the failure to enforce the U.S.
Endangered Species Act and a law
protecting forests on federal lands.
The North American Develop-
ment Bank (NADBank), created as
part of the trade agreement, can only
provide loans at market interest
rates. These loans are not based on
environmental need, but rather on
the ability of the community to
repay the loans. The NADBank,
which may have less than $2 billion
to lend, did not make a single loan in
the first two years of NAFTA.
Mexican government funding at
the local, state and federal level to
arrest the deterioration of public
health and the environment along
the border has been cut since the
agreement took effect, in part
because of the 1994 collapse of the
peso. Several border water-treat-
ment projects that were under con-
struction before NAFTA have been
halted due to lack of funding. The
U.S. Congress has also cut funding
for a number of border projects and
threatened future funding of the
NAFTA institutions.
-Public Citizen
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
PROMOTES WOMEN’S
PARTICIPATION IN POLITICS
RIO DE JANEIRO, MARCH 19, 1996
S ix months ago, Brazil’s National
Congress passed an affirmative-
action law requiring that women
make up one-fifth of the municipal-
level legislative candidates fielded by
political parties. This effort to reduce
unequal gender representation in
official politics was the result of a
cross-party alliance of several female
legislators in Congress, led by
Deputy Marta Suplicy from the
Workers’ Party (PT).
Currently, only 3% of Brazil’s
municipal council members are
women, according to Maria da
Gracia Ribeiro Neves of the
Women’s Nucleus of the Brazilian
Institute of Municipal Administra-
tion (IBAM). Women have, howev-
er, become increasingly active in
politics over the past 25 years. For
example, there were only 58 female
mayors in Brazil in 1972, but that
number increased to 108 in 1988
and 171 in 1992. Women were
elected as state governors in three
of Brazil’s 27 states in 1992.
Municipal elections slated for
this October will be a crucial test of
the new law. To date, over 100,000
women have registered as candi-
dates for these elections. “This
could change the history of Brazil,”
said the PT’s Suplicy, a psycholo-
gist known for her pioneering tele-
vision program about sex-related
issues. She noted that obstacles
remain, however, given persisting
stereotypes about women’s roles in
private and public life, as well as
their limited resources and their
inexperience in politics.
A good showing by female candi-
dates in the October elections, says
Suplicy, would pave the way for
congressional approval for a bill she
has proposed fixing a 30% quota for
women-following UN guidelines
-in elections for federal and state
deputies. Ester Grossi, former muni-
cipal secretary of education of Porto
Alegre and a PT deputy, predicts
that at least 10% of those elected in
the municipal elections will be
women.
To prepare the 100,000 female
candidates for political office, a par-
liamentary commission is seeking
assistance from the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) to
carry out workshops and seminars
about municipal administration
later this year.
-InterPress Service
PRESIDENT OF CONAIE
RUNS FOR CONGRESS
Qurro, MARCH 29, 1996
Luis Macas, president of the
National Confederation of
Indigenous Nationalities of
Ecuador (CONAIE), announced in
late January that he was running as
a candidate to the National
Congress in elections to be held on
May 19. CONAIE is a national fed-
eration that represents Ecuador’s
ten indigenous groups.
This marks the first time in con-
temporary Ecuadorian history that
an indigenous leader is competing
for national office. It is also a depar-
ture from Macas’ own position as
recently as last fall, when several
political parties offered him the
vice-presidential post on their tick-
ets. His role, he said at the time, was
as leader of Ecuador’s indigenous
peoples and not as a politician.
CONAIE itself had rules forbid-
ding its leaders from holding politi-
cal office, and in general opposed
forming alliances with political par-
ties or directly supporting a presiden-
tial candidate. Instead, it encouraged
its affiliate organizations to work
independently on local campaigns.
Grassroots pressure, however, has
pushed national leaders to rethink
their positions on electoral politics.
CONAIE’s board of directors is
now supporting Macas’ campaign.
Jos6 Maria Cabascango, CONAIE’s
director of promotion and organiza-
tion, is serving as his campaign
manager. If elected, Macas will
step down as CONAIE’s president.
Macas is running as an indepen-
dent candidate on the Pachakutik
Movement of Plurinational Unity-
New Country ticket, a coalition of
popular organizations and leftist
political parties. Pachakutik–a
Quichua word meaning transforma-
tion and rebirth-opposes the
neoliberal economic policies of the
current government, and favors
social changes that would create a
more inclusive and participatory
democracy. Its leaders speak of
four revolutions: ethical, socioeco-
nomic, educational and ecological.
Pachakutik-New Country is field-
ing local and provincial candidates
in most of the country.
Freddy Ehlers, a popular TV jour-
nalist with no previous political
experience, is running for president
on the Pachakutik-New Country
ticket. While the coalition remains
intact, Pachakutik members were
unhappy when Ehlers announced his
vice-presidential candidate, Rossana
Vinueza. Vinueza, an environmental
activist, is linked to the conservative
Catholic organization Opus Dei.
Ehlers is currently second in the
polls, trailing frontrunner Jaime
Nebot, candidate for the right-wing
Social Christian Party (PSC). If no
candidate wins a simple majority on
May 19, the top two contenders will
face off in a second round in June.
-Marc Becker
Sources
Enlace: Politica y Derechos Humanos en las Americas is a quarterly newsletter pub- lished by the Washington Office on Latin America. For subscription information, contact WOLA at 400 C Street, N.E., Washington, D.C., 20002, (202) 544-8045.
Annette Fuentes is a freelance journalist and a member of NACLA’s editorial board.
Fred Rosen is on leave from NACLA. He is working for the Mexico City newspaper, El Financiero International.
Public Citizen is a watchdog group found- ed by Ralph Nader. To obtain a copy of its report, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises: The Border Betrayed,” contact Public Citizen at 215 Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E., Wash- ington, D.C., 20003, (202) 547-7392.
InterPress Service (IPS) 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.
Marc Becker is a Ph.D. candidate in his- tory at the University of Kansas. He is writing his dissertation on indigenous and peasant movements in Ecuador.