Senator Helms Proposes
U.S. Aid to Cuba
WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 26, 1997
Shortly after the Pope’s Jan-
uary visit to Cuba, Senator
Jesse Helms, with the support of
the Cuban-American National
Foundation (CANF), announced
a proposal under which the U.S.
government would provide
humanitarian aid to Cuba in the
form of foods and medicines,
including “Food for Peace” ship-
ments. Some U.S. newspapers
interpreted this as a conciliatory
gesture on the part of Helms and
the CANF-a change of heart
inspired by the Pope’s visit.
Change of heart? Not likely. The
real purpose was apparent in the
announcement itself-to derail the
Dodd-Torres bill, introduced last
year, aimed at lifting the embargo
on the sale of food and medicines
to Cuba. There would now be no
need for such a measure, said
Helms’ office and the CANE The
U.S. government itself would pro-
vide. Hence, the embargo in its
entirety must remain firmly in
place.
In fact, however, the rationale
for their new measure reverses the
long-standing position of the
CANF, and of Senator Helms, and
may actually help pass the Dodd-
Torres bill. In the past, both
Helms, the CANF and the other
right-wing extremists in Miami
had insisted that Cuba could
obtain all the food and medicine it
needed in third countries, and
could thus do without U.S. prod-
ucts. Shortages, it was said, were
not the result of the U.S. embargo.
But if there is such a need that the
American taxpayer is asked to
fund shipments of foods and med-
icines to Cuba, as the proposal
suggests, then it also follows that
the prohibition on the sale of those
items should be lifted. Why should
we provide government-funded
assistance but not give Cuba the
opportunity to buy food and med-
icines from the United States?
Helms and the CANF contend
that Castro’s rejection of their pro-
posal demonstrates that there is not
sufficient need for food and medi-
cines to warrant relaxation of the
prohibition against sales. But under
the circumstances, few will agree.
After all, both Helms and the
CANF are Castro’s sworn mortal
enemies. Helms has said that his
purpose is to say “adios, Fidel,”
while CANF leaders were recently
linked to a boat and rifle involved
in an assassination plot against the
Cuban president. Not exactly the
kind of folks from whom one
would accept a chocolate cake, no
matter how hungry one might be.
American taxpayers, moreover,
will doubtless applaud Castro’s
contention that Cuba is not seek-
ing charity, but the opportunity to
buy what it needs. In sum, those
who of us who support the Dodd-
Torres bill are grateful to Senator
Helms and the CANF for
undermining the main argument
against it.
-Wayne Smith/Cuba Info
Elections in Jeopardy in
Paraguay
ASUNCI6N, FEBRUARY 10, 1998
W ith little more than two
S months before Paraguay’s
May 10 presidential elections, retired Gen. Lino C6sar Oviedo–
candidate for the governing
Colorado Party-remains in jail
on charges linked to an attempted
coup in 1996. Polls put Oviedo at
the head of the race with 45.5%,
compared to opposition candidate
Domingo Laino of the Democratic
Alliance (AD), with 33.3%. While
President Juan Carlos Wasmosy
has made ambiguous statements
about postponing the elections,
Latino has been leading efforts to
make sure that the elections are
held as scheduled.
Paraguayan media reported
unusual troop movements around
Asunci6n on January 30 while
President Juan Carlos Wasmosy
was out of the country on an
official visit to Central America.
The saber-rattling came after a
civil judge accepted a habeas
corpus motion and appeared to be
on the verge of releasing Gen.
Oviedo, Wasmosy’s chief politi-
cal rival, from prison. When Was-
mosy returned to Paraguay the
following day, he said that the
events were “small obstacles that
democracy must overcome.”
Critics accuse Wasmosy of keep-
ing Oviedo in jail in order to post-
pone the elections and stay in
office.
After winning the Colorado
Party primary last September,
Oviedo told foreign journalists
that as soon as he took office, he
would jail President Wasmosy on
corruption charges. Wasmosy and
his Cabinet members have been
accused of mishandling state
funds and provoking the country’s
worst banking crisis, which has
brought Paraguay’s financial sys-
tem to the brink of collapse.
Wasmosy ordered Oviedo’s
arrest on October 30, calling
Oviedo’s corruption charges an
attack on the presidency. Oviedo
was sentenced to a 30-day
disciplinary prison term. But
on January 9, 48 hours before
Oviedo was scheduled to be
released, Wasmosy set up a spe-
cial military tribunal that ordered
Oviedo’s indefinite arrest pending
an investigation into his partici-
pation in the failed April 1996
coup attempt.
If Oviedo loses the present
court case, he will have to drop
out of the presidential race and
could receive a five to 25-year
sentence for jeopardizing national
1NEWSBRIEFS
security in the attempted coup. If
he is forced to withdraw from the
presidential race, he would be
replaced by vice-presidential
candidate Ra1l Cubas Grau,
Wasmosy’s former Industry
Minister. A new ticket would also
include Colorado Party president
Luis M. Argafia as the vice-presi-
dential candidate.
Oviedo, who remains detained
in the first cavalry division head-
quarters outside Asunci6n, has
done nothing to discourage those
who believe he will become pres-
ident in May, even if he is not
allowed to stand for election. He
has taken to comparing himself
with Gen. Juan Domingo Per6n,
who won the presidential election
in Argentina while he was still in
exile. His supporters regard the
military tribunal as a put-up job,
saying they will rebel if he is not
allowed to run. The country’s
1992 Constitution gives Para-
guayans the right to rebel against
political authorities who are hold-
ing onto power illegally.
-Latin America Weekly
Report and NotiSur
CARICOM Brokers
Post-Electoral
Agreement in Guyana
GEORGETOWN, FEBRUARY 24, 1997
Akey provision of the deal
brokered on January 17
by the Caribbean Community
(Caricom) between the ruling
People’s Progressive Party (PPP)
and the People’s National
Congress (PNC) was finally put
into motion last week, with the
naming of the independent team
that will audit the results of the
highly contested December 15
elections. The agreement averted a
dangerous confrontation between
supporters of the two major parties.
The auditing team will review the
vote-counting procedures follow-
ing the December poll and scruti-
nize the role of the Elections
Commission, which has been
sharply criticized by the PNC.
In the December election, Janet
Jagan, the U.S.-born widow of
former President Cheddi Jagan,
carried the PPP to a narrow vic-
tory. The leaders of the PNC
immediately cried foul, charging
Jagan and her party with wide-
spread electoral fraud. The official
results emitted by the Elections
Commission showed that the
PPP won by 60,000 votes over its
nearest rival, the PNC, which
has charged that had the elections
been fair, they would have won by
a margin of some 10,000 votes.
Supporters of the PNC also argue
that the poll was tainted by serious
logistical difficulties. This, as well
as long delays in the public
announcement of results from areas
in the capital and lower coastal dis-
tricts which have traditionally been
PNC strongholds, have bolstered
PNC claims that they were cheated
from returning to office.
The PNC has refused to accept
the election results and has repeat-
edly dubbed Jagan’s administra-
tion illegal. At the height of the
protests following the election,
PNC leader Desmond Hoyte
claimed that if the results were not
overturned, he would make “the
country ungovernable” for the 77-
year old Jagan, while his support-
ers took to the streets to clash with
police. Daily street protests effec-
tively closed down businesses
and government offices for sev-
eral weeks.
Jagan’s narrow victory and the
PNC’s threats created a climate of
tension and confusion, casting
doubt on the ability of Guyana’s
political institutions to resolve the
conflict. That is where the
Caricom stepped in. The regional
body took the initiative after three
weeks of turmoil, and sent a mis-
sion headed by Sir Henry Forde, a
former attorney general of
Barbados, to mediate between the
parties in contention.
Along with the independent audit,
the negotiated agreement also calls
for new elections within 36 months,
a 90-day ban on street demonstra-
tions and major constitutional
reforms. Both parties have agreed to
abide by the findings of the audit, but
neither side has changed its position.
What one correspondent described
as an “uneasy calm” has settled over
Georgetown. But the PNC is deter-
mined to do nothing that might give
the Jagan government an appearance
of legitimacy, going to the extreme
of even organizing its own carnival
celebration this year.
In Guyanese politics, moreover,
there is always the risk that political
leaders will use ethnic divisions to
intensify otherwise political con-
flicts. While a majority of Afro-
Guyanese support the PNC, most of
the PPP’s support comes from peo-
ple of East Indian ancestry. This is at
odds with the growing integration of
the two communities in daily life, as
the Georgetown independent
Staboek News noted, saying that
what is needed is “mature and sober
statesmanship” to deal with the deep-
seated divisions in national politics.
-Latin American Weekly Report
Southern Cone Activists
Devise New Strategies
Against Human Rights
Violators
SANTIAGO AND BUENOS AIRES,
FEBRUARY 24, 1998
The military regimes that ruled
South American countries in the
1970s and 1980s did a good job of
protecting themselves against being
brought to justice for their crimes
once electoral rule was restored.
They granted themselves amnesties,
rewrote constitutions or bullied their
civilian successors into passing leg-
islation that guaranteed their
impunity. But Chilean and
Argentinean human rights activists
are not giving up. Where frontal
attacks have proven fruitless, they
have begun to think laterally, devis-
ing strategies reminiscent of the
FBI’s final prosecution of Al Capone
for tax evasion.
In Chile, young activists of the rul-
ing Concertaci6n coalition have
begun a campaign to press charges
of illicit enrichment against Gen.
Augusto Pinochet. They are demand-
ing that he be required to make
sworn statements of his assets before
he took power in September 1973
and upon leaving his post as com-
mander-in-chief of the armed forces
this year.
Activists want Pinochet to explain
how, on a general’s salary, he was
able to acquire his mansions in La
Dehesa, Bucalemu, El Melocot6n
and Presidente Errizuris in San-
tiago’s affluent Las Condes district.
This latter home was built for him as
the commander-in-chief’s residence,
and reports say that he will remain
there after retiring, meaning the army
will have to build a new residence for
his successor. According to local
reports, Pinochet has just bought a
$250,000 apartment in the Refiaca
district of Vifia del Mar, only minutes
away from the National Congress,
where he will in all likelihood serve
as a senator for life.
In neighboring Argentina, opposi-
tion leaders are trying to determine
if members of the military regime
stashed away the proceeds of rob-
beries from disappeared prisoners in
Swiss bank accounts, through a
Spanish-initiated investigation into
numbered bank accounts in
Switzerland. Swiss authorities iden-
tified one account held by retired
general Antonio Bussi, current gov-
ernor of Tucumin province, where
he played a prominent role in the
country’s dirty war in the 1970s.
Bussi claimed that he had failed to
mention this account in his statement
of assets because he had already
closed the account. In fact, it was
only a hedge against high inflation at
home, he said, but this would still be
considered tax evasion. Bussi is now
facing the prospect of impeachment.
-Latin American Weekly Report
Uncertainty in Ecuador’s
Upcoming Elections
QUITO, FEBRUARY 27, 1998
Sn May 31, voters in Ecuador
will replace interim President
Fabian Alarc6n, who was appointed
by Congress after it ousted Abdald
Bucarim in January 1997. Possible
candidates for the nation’s executive
post include a general, a TV journal-
ist, a soccer coach, and a former
Supreme Court president.
The principal contenders are Jaime
Nebot and Jamil Mahuad, with
Freddy Ehlers following third.
Nebot, head of the right-wing Social
Christian Party (PSC), currently
leads in the polls, although he insists
he will not run. He ran unsuccess-
fully for president in 1992 and 1996.
The second-runner is Jamil Mahuad, Popular Democracy mayor of Quito, who announced his candidacy on
February 25. Ehlers, a TV journalist,
is backed by the Pachakutik Move-
ment and by campesino groups.
Other contenders include Gen.
Paco Moncayo, head of the armed
forces, who retired in mid-February
in order to run in the May elections,
and former president Rodrigo Borja
(1988-1992), leader of the Democ-
ratic Left (ID). Borja has not
announced his candidacy, and
observers say his running would
divide the left.
Other candidates include indepen-
dent deputy Ricardo Noboa, an
unsuccessful candidate in several
past elections, deputy Isidro Romero,
who parlayed a ten-year stint as head
of the Barcelona Soccer Team into
congressional seat, and Carlos
Solorzano, former president of the
Supreme Court who was fired by
Congress. Former deputy Jacinto
Veldzquez, a center-right indepen-
dent who ran for president in 1996,
is also a candidate.
To date, only Mahuad, Vel.zquez
and Solorzano have declared their
candidacies. Veldzquez, who regis-
ters 7% in recent polls, has said that
if he fails to obtain at least 12% by
March 20, he will withdraw.
Nebot’s refusal to be the PSC can-
didate may be a strategic political
move. Some analysts say he is wait-
ing for “a call from the Ecuadorian
people” to give greater legitimacy to
his campaign. Others interpret his
reluctance to indications in the polls
that he could be defeated by Ehlers
in the expected runoff, which would
take place if no candidate wins a
majority on July 12. If Nebot does of the Constitutional Tribunal declar-
not change his mind, the PSC will ing that law unconstitutional.
field another candidate. Noboa, who Three of the four judges who
was formerly with the PSC, has voted in Fujimori’s favor are tempo-
shown an interest in being the party’s rary government appointees, a pro-
candidate if Nebot refuses to enter vision established in the aftermath of
the race. Fujimori’s 1992 coup that has been
-NotiSur strongly criticized as compromising the independence of judges. The
Opposition Challenges Supreme Court decision confirms
Fujimori’s Bid for a Third opposition allegations about the
“Term decreasing autonomy of the Peruvian
judiciary. LIMA, FEBRUARY 17, 1998 The ultimate decision about
A group of congressmen led by Fujimori’s ability to run for a third Jorge del Castillo of the APRA term rests with the National
Party have filed charges against the Elections Board (JNE). Government
four Supreme Court judges who supporters recently passed a law
voted in favor of a resolution that which gives the Supreme Court a
would allow President Alberto say in the nomination of new JNE
Fujimori to run for a third term. The members-a move opposition lead-
Peruvian high court handed down its ers criticized as an attempt to pack
decision on February 10, upholding a the Elections Board. With the judi-
1996 law and overturning the ruling ciary and the National Elections
Board in his pocket, Fujimori’s third
bid for the presidency is almost
assured.
-Latin American Weekly Report
Sources:
Wayne Smith is a visiting professor of Latin
American Studies at Johns Hopkins
University and director of Cubalnfo, a bul-
letin on Cuban affairs published every three
weeks. For subscription information: 1755
Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 421,
Washington, DC, 20036 (202) 232-0290.
E-mail address: cubainfo@igc.apc.org.
Latin American Weekly Report is published
weekly by Latin American Newsletters. For
free samples and subscription information:
Latin American Newsletters, Dept. 96A11,
61 Old Street, London EC1V 9HX, England,
E-mail: WR@latin.ftech.co.uk.
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)
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