U.S. GOVERNMENT
REVIEWS BAN ON SALE
OF ADVANCED WEAPONS
TO LATIN AMERICA
WASHINGTON, JUNE 5, 1996
S ecretary of Defense William
Perry said in March that the
U.S. government may modify its
arms policy towards Latin
America. The remark has given
new hope to a defense-industry
effort to open the Latin American
market to U.S.-made military
equipment. The current policy,
first adopted during the Carter
administration, prohibits military-
equipment manufacturers from
selling advanced weaponry, such
as F-16 attack aircraft, to Latin
American nations.
Perry’s comments, which were
delivered after a visit to the U.S.
display at a Chilean air show in
March, reinvigorated a lobbying
effort that had failed to get the
issue off the State Department’s
back burner. While the Pentagon
is believed to be in favor of lower
restrictions, the State Department
has thus far blocked the move on
the grounds that it would lead to
weapons proliferation.
Shortly after Perry’s statement,
members of Congress wrote to
Secretary of State Warren
Christopher in support of relaxed
restrictions. An April letter to
Christopher, signed by 79 House
representatives, called U.S. barri-
ers “excessive and unwarranted.”
Several senators also wrote to the
Secretary of State about what
they called “anachronistic restric-
tions” on U.S. arms sales. The
“harmful” policy, they wrote, has
allowed foreign competitors to
gain “a sturdy foothold in Latin
America.”
The defense industry has long
argued that with the shift to more
civilian control of the military
and improved economic growth
in Latin America, the time has
come to lower the barriers to U.S.
arms sales to the region. In addi-
tion, the industry claims that U.S.
manufacturers are losing deals to
foreign companies because of the
no-sale policy.
While the current U.S. policy
prevents the sale of attack jets
and similar advanced equipment,
not all sales are banned. Recent
reports indicate that the Clinton
administration is considering
selling dozens of Sidewinder air-
to-air missiles to Brazil and
Chile. In addition, Brazil and
Ecuador have inquired about pur-
chasing several Blackhawk heli-
copters.
The United States is already
the world’s largest arms supplier
to Latin America. According to a
Congressional Research Service
report published in August, 1995,
U.S. companies controlled 31%
of the Latin American arms mar-
ket between 1991 and 1994. This
represents almost a tripling of
U.S. sales to the region from the
previous four-year period. Russia
is the next largest arms supplier,
with a 26% share of the market.
Opponents of lower restric-
tions note that the lack of military
threats in the region should pre-
clude any new weapons agree-
ments. Opening the floodgates of
advanced fighter aircraft and
other equipment, critics say,
would likely tip the delicate
political and military balance that
has been reached by one-time
adversaries. Furthermore, a new
arms race would drain economic
resources, possibly damaging
regional development and bur-
geoning trade relationships.
Defense-industry officials con-
cede that Latin America does not
present a huge marketing oppor-
tunity. But, analysts say, with the
Pentagon’s weapons purchases
on the decline, and tougher inter-
national competition, even the
niche markets are worth fighting
for.
Insiders in the Clinton admin-
istration note that the Capitol Hill
missives have spurred proponents
of the policy shift in the State
Department to request a closer
look at the present government
policy. Without a clear call to
sustain the current restrictions on
advanced weaponry, officials
point out, it will be difficult to
hold off what appears to be a
ground swell of support for
renewed sales to the region.
-Tom Cardamone
AMAZON CHIEF SUES
THE BODY SHOP
SAO PAULO, MAY 27, 1996
he Body Shop pioneered the
idea that environmental and
political correctness could also
be applied to soap, shampoos and
skincare. Campaigns to save the
Amazon rain forest and indige-
nous peoples, and well-publicized
ethical trading projects with
countries in the Third World
raised not only the company’s
profile, but its profits. In 1995,
retail sales in the Body Shop’s
1,210 stores in 45 countries
totaled $800 million.
Therefore, the company was
badly rattled when Chief Pykati-
Re of the Brazilian Kayapo
indigenous group announced in
February his intention of suing
the Body Shop for the “unautho-
rized use of my image for public-
ity ends.” Emissaries were hur-
riedly sent to Pykati-Re’s village,
Pukanu, one of two Kayapo vil-
lages in remote northern Brazil
which supply Brazilian nut oil for
a Body Shop hair conditioner, to
persuade him to back down. The
members of the community were
offered a contract recognizing
their right to payment for the use
of their image.
An image of Pykati-Re in tradi-
tional feathered headdress has
been used in posters exhibited
since 1990 in Body Shop stores
Vol XXX, No 1 JuLY/AUG 19961 Vol XXX, No 1 JULY/AUG 1996 1NEWSBRIEFS
throughout the world. In addition,
his photo decorates the Body
Shop’s factory in England and
was used in publicity to raise
funds in Europe to help indige-
nous peoples. He also appears
alongside Anita Roddick, the
Body Shop’s founder and direc-
tor, in an American Express
advertisement. “I’m in need of
money to help my community,”
Pykati-Re wrote in February,
“and this is why I’m in a hurry to
ask for compensation.” His
lawyer, Hildebrando Pontes Neto,
is a specialist in indigenous
rights.
The Body Shop’s defense is
that the price it pays for the
Brazilian nut oil is well above the
“market price” and includes pay-
ment for the Kayapo image. In
fact, since there is no internation-
al market in Brazilian nut oil, the
price is fixed according to the
Body Shop’s own criteria. That
price only came to include a pay-
ment for the image after the sub-
ject was raised by the Kayapo
community in 1993. At that time,
the Body Shop announced that it
had reached the world’s first cul-
tural and “intellectual property”
agreement between a Western
company and an indigenous
group.
According to the Body Shop’s
then manager in Brazil, Saulo
Petean, the Kayapos were only
consulted about the agreement
after it was announced, and did not
understand what it meant. Saulo
Petean, who worked with the rub-
ber tappers’ leader Chico Mendes
before his murder in 1988, was
fired in January after being
accused of stirring up trouble.
Many of Petean’s allegations
against the organization, howev-
er, were borne out by a 1995
independent evaluation, commis-
sioned by the Body Shop, of the
store’s “ethical trading project”
with the Kayapo. Although the
experts found positive aspects to
the project, the Body Shop did
not accept their criticisms and
chose not to publish the report.
After visiting the Kayapo vil-
lages involved in collecting and
pressing the Brazil nuts and mak-
ing bead necklaces, the authors
reported, “The concept of intel-
lectual property rights, widely
discussed internationally, is not
at all understood in the villages,
even by most leaders. This raises
an ethical question about the use
of the Kayapo image in ‘market-
ing’ internationally.”
They concluded: “There is an
implicit-if unanswered-ques-
tion: is the Body Shop’s trading
link with the Kayapo ‘aid’ or has
it been a deliberate profitable
investment in marketing of the
company’s name?”
— Jan Rocha
VENEZUELA TURNS
TOWARD NEOLIBERALISM
CARACAS, MAY 27, 1996
P resident Rafael Caldera,
elected on a platform of oppo-
sition to neoliberal economic poli-
cies, announced a wide-reaching
austerity package on April 15.
During his first two years in
office, Caldera was the only Latin
American president to resist the
dictates of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). The aus-
terity measures mark his entry
into the neoliberal fold.
Under the austerity package,
the price of gasoline will increase
five-fold-twice as much as the
government’s original plan,
which would have set the price at
slightly above the cost of produc-
tion. The government lifted con-
trols on the exchange rate and on
interest rates. Caldera is also
Continued on page 45
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2
seeking congressional approval for
an increase in taxes on wholesale
and “luxury” goods from 12.5 to
16.5%, a rate which is half way
between the government’s initial
proposal of 15% and the IMF’s call
for 18%. On May 24, the govern-
ment lifted price controls on seven
basic commodities.
In his about-face, Caldera was
supported by his coalition partner
Movement toward Socialism
(MAS), the country’s largest leftist
party. MAS’s endorsement was
clinched by the president’s cabinet
reshuffle. Three MAS representa-
tives joined the cabinet, including
veteran MAS leader and theoreti-
cian Teodoro Petkoff as planning
minister. The MAS leadership in
Congress had begun to take a defi-
ant stand toward Caldera, against
the advice of historical leaders like
Petkoff and former MAS president
Pompeyo Mirquez. The new cabi-
net appointments appear to have
derailed that incipient opposition.
In his concerted effort to garner
support among the MAS member-
ship, Petkoff stressed Caldera’s
social program which accompanies
the austerity package. For example, Caldera doubled the “family
bonus” (to about US$19) granted
for each child attending a shanty-
town primary school. The Caldera
administration has also implement-
ed a gasoline subsidy for public
transportation which is clearly
designed to avert the need for fare
increases. Such increases in 1989
triggered a week of mass rioting,
which resulted in an estimated
thousand deaths.
The announcement of the auster-
ity package delighted neoliberals
who had been prophesying eco-
nomic disaster for Venezuela since
Caldera’s election in December,
1993. Despite their elation, howev-
er, many argued that Caldera’s “shock treatment” does not go far
enough. They are calling for “struc-
tural changes” to guarantee true
economic transformation: privati-
zation of the steel and aluminum
industries as well as several banks
which the government recently
took over; sharp reductions in state
spending; and the dismantling of
the system of worker severance
payments.
His neoliberal critics would also
like to see Caldera open up the oil
industry to further foreign invest-
ment. In February, the administra-
tion granted oil-exploitation rights
at ten sites to mixed-ownership
firms with heavy foreign participa-
tion. The neoliberals are now call-
ing for the sale of 15 to 30% of the
stock in the state oil company
PDVSA.
In the wake of Caldera’s conver-
sion to the neoliberal model, the
IMF, the World Bank and other
multilateral financial institutions
have promised $7 billion in loans to
Venezuela. This infusion of cash
will no doubt reactivate the econo-
my in the short run, but will exacer-
bate the long-term problem of the
country’s enormous foreign debt.
-Steve Ellner
COMMUNITY RADIO UNDER
ATTACK IN EL SALVADOR
JUNE 3, 1996
Community radio stations in El
Salvador are struggling to sur-
vive in the face of concerted efforts
by the right-wing ARENA govern-
ment to shut them down. The coun-
try’s 11 community radios were
formed in the wake of the January, 1991 peace accords that resolved
the country’s civil war. While the
accords legalized the two guerrilla
radios, Radio Venceremos and
Radio Farabundo Marti (now RV
and FF), the community radio sta-
tions were not granted legal status.
This lack of legal recognition has
given the opposition a crucial
foothold.
Owned and operated by local,
non-profit groups, El Salvador’s
community radio stations are a cru-
cial means of communication in
rural areas that lack basic infrastruc-
ture such as telephones, mail service,
newspapers or paved roads. The low-
power broadcasters transmit local
and national news, community-edu-
cation programs, announcements
from government agencies, notices
of community meetings, music
from salsa to rock, and emergency
messages.
The Telecommunications Admin-
istration of El Salvador (ANTEL),
the government agency charged with
regulating broadcasting, has led the
attack against the community radio
stations. The situation came to a
head on December 4, 1995, when
Juan Jos6 Domenech, the head of
the ruling ARENA party and then
president of ANTEL, ordered the
police to close down the stations and
seize their equipment. Domenech
charged that the stations were illegal
and part of a plot by the Farabundo
Marti National Liberation Front
(FMLN) to influence the 1997 elec-
tions. (The stations are, in fact, not
affiliated with any political party.)
In Guarjila, Chalatenango, a thou-
sand local residents blocked the
roads with stone barricades to pre-
vent the police from carting off the
equipment. The other ten stations,
however, were forced off the air for
over two months.
The stations turned for redress to
the Supreme Court. They argued
that the government’s action violat-
ed the Constitution, particularly
Article 6 which guarantees the right
of freedom of expression and for-
bids the seizure of communication
media.
In late January, the Supreme
Court issued a preliminary ruling in
favor of the stations. ANTEL inter-
preted the decision narrowly to
mean that the government had to
return the seized equipment. By
contrast, the Association of Parti-
cipatory Radios and Programs of El
Salvador (ARPAS) argued that the
Court had recognized their right to
broadcast. In March, the Court
affirmed its earlier ruling, but said
that it could not issue broadcast
licences-a decision that has left
the legal status of the stations once
again up in the air.
Negotiations over technical and
legal issues began in January
between ARPAS and ANTEL. By
that time, businessman Juan Jos6
Daboud had replaced Domenech,
who had left ANTEL to devote
more time to his duties as head of
ARENA. The technical team con-
cluded that El Salvador’s radio
spectrum had enough frequencies to
accommodate the community radio
stations. The legal team, however,
made little progress on the crucial
issue of legal status. The talks,
which were mediated by the UN
and the national human rights
office, broke down in March when
ANTEL walked out.
Since then, the community radio
stations have suffered acts of van-
dalism and intimidation, apparently
in an effort to force them to back
down. A radio antenna was sabo-
taged at one station, and armed gun-
men appeared at another facility
associated with community radio
demanding that the radio equipment
be handed over.
-Diana Agosta
TENSIONS RUN HIGH IN
CHIAPAS
MEXICO CITY, JUNE 7, 1996
T he dialogue between the
Mexican government and the
Zapatista National Liberation Army
(EZLN) has been put on hold pend-
ing the return of a more stable polit-
ical atmosphere. Tensions have
been raised by heavy government
troop movements around areas con-
trolled by the EZLN, by stiff sen-
tences handed down to “presumed
Zapatistas,” and by the increased
activity of paramilitary groups in
northern Chiapas.
Assailing the current climate of “persecution” in the country, the
EZLN denounced the “absurd” six-
year jail sentence given in late May
by a judge in the state of Vera Cruz
to “presumed Zapatista” Francisco
Santiago Garcia for “sabotage.”
The sabotage in question was never
proven, and Garcia claims he was
tortured to confess to political
activity he never engaged in.
The sentence handed down to
Garcia follows two sentences given
a month earlier in Chiapas to a 35-
year-old television correspondent,
Javier Elorriaga, and an 18-year-
old Tzeltal campesino, Sebastian
Entzin. Elorriaga was sentenced to
13 years and Entzin to seven for
“rebellion, terrorism and conspira-
cy,” after they had served as mes-
sengers between the guerrillas and
the government in the early days of
the uprising.
On June 6, a Chiapas state judge
suspended the sentences of
Elorriaga and Entzin on the
grounds of insufficient evidence.
The move has been universally
seen as a peace gesture from the
federal government, since judicial
autonomy is believed here–espe-
cially by the Zapatistas–to be gen-
erally honored in the breach.
Eighteen “presumed Zapatistas,”
including the two just released,
have been detained for over a year.
Most of them were rounded up dur-
ing a government offensive in
February, 1995, two months before
a non-retroactive amnesty was
declared for all members of the
EZLN. The EZLN maintains that
the prisoners are being held as gov-
ernment bargaining chips.
In a June 2 statement, Sub-
comandante Marcos said that the
negotiations had “become hostage
to power struggles” within the gov-
ernment. Marcos told reporters that
certain forces in the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI), acting contrary to the wishes
of President Ernesto Zedillo, were
trying to provoke the EZLN to
abandon dialogue and to resort
once again to arms.
Meanwhile, paramilitary activity
in Chiapas is on the rise, especially
in the northern part of the state.
Jesuit priests working with indige-
nous groups in the area have
received death threats from PRI-
affiliated paramilitary groups with
names like “Peace and Justice,” and
“The Youth Group.”
Social tensions exploded in mid-
April in the Chiapas village of
Bachaj6n–a village still organized
as a communal ejido, within the
jurisdiction of a municipality called
Chil6n-when the village assembly
elected a member of the center-left
Party of the Democratic Revolution
(PRD) as ejidal (agrarian) commis-
sioner. In response, a rival PRI-affil-
iated (mostly mestizo) group called
the “Chinchulines,” led by Jer6nimo
G6mez Guzmdn, seized the munici-
pality buildings, and drove Chil6n’s
PRD mayor and many of
Bachaj6n’s indigenous residents
into hiding or exile.
On May 5, a group of indigenous
PRD members, armed with
machetes and rifles, killed G6mez
and burned his house to the ground.
Groups of Chinchulines then retali-
ated. By the end of the day, six peo-
ple-four Chinchulines and two
PRD members-were dead, and
dozens of houses were burned to
the ground.
Sources
Tom Cardamone is director of the
Conventional Arms Transfer Project for the
Council For A Livable World Education
Fund in Washington, DC.
Jan Rocha is a British journalist based in
Sao Paulo.
Steve Ellner teaches at the Universidad de
Oriente in Venezuela. An updated version
of his book Organized Labor in Venezuela,
1958-1991: Behavior and Concerns in a
Democratic Setting (Scholarly Resources,
1993) was recently published in Spanish
by Editorial Tropykos.
Diana Agosta is a doctoral candidate in
anthropology at the City University of
New York (CUNY), and works in commu-
nity television.
Fred Rosen is on leave from NACLA. He is
working for the Mexico City newspaper, El
Financiero International.
