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.
