Strong Showing by FMLN in Congressional and Mayoral Elections SAN SALVADOR, APRIL 1, 1997 Six years after laying down arms and becoming a legal political party, the Farabundo Martf National Liberation Front (FMLN) enjoyed a strong show- ing in congressional and munici- pal elections held on March 18. The FMLN won the mayoralty of San Salvador-the most important political office after the presidency-as well as other key departmental municipalities, including Chalatenango City and Santa Ana. Of the country's 262 municipalities, the FMLN will govern 53, which contain 45% of the population. The conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) will govern 161 municipalities, while the remain- ing 48 will be governed by other parties. On the Congressional front, the FMLN won 27 out of 84 seats, while ARENA took 28. The con- servative National Conciliation Party (PCN) took 11 seats, the Christian Democrats took seven, and five smaller parties shared the remaining 11 seats. This means that ARENA will have to legislate in coalition with at least two other conservative parties. Voter turnout for the elections was dismayingly low. Only 39% of the country's 3.1 million regis- tered voters turned out for the elections. Some sources say, how- ever, that if the estimated half- million dead and "phantom" voters along with the 300,000 emigres were purged from the lists, the turnout is actually around 52%. The FMLN's strong showing is due to the fact that it has retained a firm stance against anti-popular economic measures, but always within the framework of seeking consensus and real solutions, said Sigfrido Reyes, a deputy in the Central American Parliament. "This attitude has given the FMLN enormous credibilty and respect," said Reyes, "because people see that it does not violate its principles." Another critical source of support was the FMLN's record governing the 14 municipalities they won in the 1994 elections, "where people have seen that they are capable of resolving day-to-day problems." While some right-wing sectors have tried to stir fear by suggest- ing that foreign investors will abandon the country in light of the FMLN's gains, the FMLN has stated that it will respect the mar- ket economy but that it will imple- ment policies to benefit El Salvador's poorest groups. -InterPress Service Union-Organizing Breakthroughs in Central American Maquila Sector WASHINGTON D.C., MARCH 25, 1997 Tabor activists here are hailing the recognition of a Guate- malan union by a major U.S. shirt manufacturer as a breakthrough in the fight for corporate responsibil- ity and stronger unions in over- seas assembly plants. On March 14, Bruce Klatsky, chief executive officer of Phillips Van Heusen, pledged to negotiate a labor contract with the Union of Modern Shirts Workers (STE- CAMOSA), which had battled seven years to gain recognition. Van Heusen, which is registered in Guatemala as Modem Shirts, had long refused to recognize unions organizing in its plants. Klatsky's decision was prompt- ed by a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, "Freedom of Association in a Maquila in Guatemala," which details evi- dence that Van Heusen's man- agers had consistently discrimi- nated against workers who joined the union. At least one manager is alleged to have made threats against the lives of organizers- threats not to be taken lightly given the history of labor violence in Guatemala. Klatsky, a member of the Human Rights Watch board of directors, pledged that any Van Heusen personnel found to have engaged in such discrimination "will be dealt with appropriately." "This case represents a signifi- cant step towards implementation of a new level of corporate responsibility," says Stephen Coats, director of the Chicago- based U.S.-Guatemala Labor Education Project. "By recogniz- ing the union on its own, Phillips Van Heusen has underlined the need for serious codes of conduct in countries which don't enforce their own labor laws." The announcement coincided with another breakthrough for Central American unions which have been trying to organize the region's growing maquiladora sector. On March 20 in Nicaragua, Fortex, a Taiwanese-owned com- pany with a plant of 2,000 work- ers in Managua's Las Mercedes free-trade zone, signed a collec- tive-bargaining contract with a local union, the first ever to be negotiated in the zone. The agreement was reached with the help of the Nicaraguan Labor Ministry, which formally recognized the union in January, and the U.S. group Witness for Peace, which sponsored a tour of Fortex union organizers to more than 50 U.S. cities last October. Witness for Peace had also sent hundreds of faxes to Nicaragua to press for an accord. Unlike the Nicaraguan case, STECAMOSA has not been rec- ognized by the Guatemalan Labor Ministry. None of the 80,000 workers employed in Guatemala's free-trade zones is protected by a collective-bargaining agreement Vol XXX, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1997 1 Vol XXX, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1997 1NEWSBRIEFS with an employer. In most cases, successful unionization has been blocked by illegal mass dismissals of union supporters or factory clo- sures, according to the Human Rights Watch report. Rather than facing mass dis- missals or targeted intimidation-- the traditional methods used in the maquiladoras-union mem- bers at Van Heusen faced "dis- criminatory treatment that includ- ed pressures to withdraw from the union or resign from the compa- ny." The low wages paid in the maquiladoras makes workers dependent on supplementary income earned on a piece-rate basis. Management's broad dis- cretion in determining who gets that work, according to the report, was used as a way to punish union members. The company also used generous severance payments to induce union mem- bers to resign. "Even if corporations don't illegally dismiss workers who want to join a union," said Mike McCormick of Human Rights Watch, "they may still be posing major obstacles that make union membership untenable." Coats of the U.S.- Guatemala Labor Edu- cation Project says the clandestine way STE- CAMOSA organized the plant may set an impor- tant precedent for unions elsewhere in Central America. Instead of publi- cizing their demands for an agreement from the outset, he says the union "worked to establish a strong base of support within the workforce first." The union which successfully organized the SAN DI Fortex plant in Managua existin pursued a similar strategy. of Ogp gratio -- InterPress Service desert Jamaica and Guyana Mourn Passing of Manley and Jagan KINGSTON AND GEORGETOWN, MARCH 25, 1997 he deaths of Michael Manley, the former Prime Minister of Jamaica, and Cheddi Jagan, President of Guyana, within a few hours of each other in the first week in March severed two links between Caribbean politics and the era of British colonialism. The heart-felt mourning that followed their deaths reflected their extra- ordinary stature at home and abroad. Michael Manley was born in 1924, the son of one of Jamaica's national heroes, Norman Manley, founder of the People's National Party (PNP) and the newly inde- pendent country's first prime minister in 1962. As a member of the light-skinned elite (his mother was Scottish), Michael Manley came from a privileged back- ground and had an effortless entrde into Jamaican politics. He began as an organizer of the PNP-affili- ated National Workers Union in 1952, quickly rising to the top. At the same time he became a mem- ber of the PNP national executive and was elected to parliament five years later. He succeeded his father as PNP leader in 1969. Manley served as prime minis- ter of a PNP government from 1972 to 1980, and his actions on behalf Jamaica's dispossessed earned him the wrath and distrust of Washington. CIA-inspired destabilization made governing impossible and led eventually to the election of the right-wing Jamaica Labor Party under Edward Seaga. When Manley returned to power in 1989 he had made peace with his enemies and had accepted economic liberal- ization. Cheddi Jagan, born in 1918, came from a very different back- ground. His parents were inden- tured laborers from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, brought to Continued on page 46 Continued from page 2 the sugar plantations of Berbice in the late nineteenth century. He worked his way through college in the United States, graduating from Northwestern Dental School in Chicago, where he met and married a Jewish-American student named Janet Rosenberg. Together, they founded the Political Affairs Committee in 1946 to campaign for independence, which later became the People's Progressive Party (PPP). When he was elected premier of what was then British Guiana in 1953, he was seen as the leader of the poor, rural, East Indian commu- nity. He was so distrusted by the British government of Winston Churchill that he was quickly dri- ven from office by British troops. He was subsequently forced out of office after again being elected pre- mier in 1964. His former lieutenant and rival, Forbes Burnham, then took his place and, with U.S. and British support, led the country to independence in 1966. After 28 years of the corrupt and autocratic rule of Burnham and his successor, Desmond Hoyte, Jagan was returned to power in 1992, but like Manley, a mellowed man. Both Jagan and Manley were trade-union organizers and champi- ons of the poor who began their political lives as radical socialists and enemies of British colonialism. Both suffered through Washington- inspired destabilization, and both ended their political lives accepting a certain degree of privatization, deregulation and foreign invest- ment: "good governance and effi- cient management," as Jagan put it. Manley retired from politics in 1992 and became a business consul- tant and a cricket columnist. He died on March 6 after a long strug- gle with prostate cancer. Jagan died in office on March 5 in a Washington hospital three weeks after suffering a heart attack. His body was cremated in the Hindu fashion on March 12 in his home town of Port Mourant. -Latin America Weekly Report [Editors' note: Cheddi Jagan was interviewed by NACLA just before he died. The interview will appear in our July/August Thirtieth Anni- versary issue.] Colombian Paramilitaries Attack FARC Rebels in Remote Panamanian Territory PANAMA CITY, APRIL 8, 1997 Sn April 2, a unit of Colombian paramilitaries entered the vil- lage of La Bonga, located in Panama's Darien province on the Atlantic coast, where they executed four suspected members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The attack was the latest of a series of incidents in the remote mountainous jungle which forms the border between Panama and Colombia. Colombian paramilitaries have been increas- ingly active in the region, a known rebel safe haven, over the past 12 months. Residents who fled to safety in neighboring Puerto Obaldia told of how the paramilitaries had entered their village shooting machine guns and singing anti-rebel songs. According to refugees from La Bonga, the paramilitaries raped sev- eral women, slaughtered livestock and destroyed several houses. They left signs reading "death to the toads (rebels)" signed by the "Campesino Self-Defense Com- mittee of Urabd and C6rdoba." Panama has also seen an increas- ing number of Colombian refugees from the Urabd region over the past several weeks, as military repres- sion has stepped up in response to a powerful FARC offensive in sever- al parts of the country. The government of Panama has refused to comment on the incident except to say that the border with Colombia is under control. Authorities seemed more worried about the impact on tourism-a key generator of foreign exchange-- than those who were killed or dis- placed by the incursions. -Jon Mitchell World Bank Agrees To Investigate Yacyreta Dam On Argentine-Paraguayan Border WASHINGTON, D.C., MARCH 21, 1997 O n March 3, the World Bank authorized an inspection panel to evaluate the environmental and resettlement problems associated with the Yacyreta dam, a joint pro- ject of the Argentine and Para- guayan governments intended to supply electricity to Argentina. The dam straddles the Paranm river, which forms part of the border between the two countries. Funded principally by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the project is now nine years behind schedule and has already cost $8.2 billion, well beyond the original estimate of $1.5 billion. Sobrevivencia, the Paraguayan affiliate of the U.S. environmental group Friends of the Earth, filed the complaint against the World Bank that led to the establishment of the inspection panel. According to the group, more than 5,000 people have been forced to leave their homes because of the dam's con- struction, while another 50,000-- mostly Paraguayans-will eventu- ally have to be relocated because the still-uncompleted dam has caused the Parani river to rise and submerge their old neighborhoods. Damming the river has also blocked fish migrations and fouled water quality, substantially reduc- ing fish catches and depriving resi- dents of a vital source of income. Health problems are also increas- ing because of the deterioration in the river's water quality. The World Bank panel has four months to probe allegations that the bank failed to uphold its environ- mental, social and financial policies in lending money for the dam- approximately $1.6 billion since 1979-as well as charges that the Binational Yacyreta Commission (EBY), the Argentine-Paraguayan entity that operates the dam, violat- ed the terms of its loan agreements. Sobrevivencia claims that the banks never consulted local residents in drawing up resettlement plans, they never provided adequate supervi- sion of the project, and they never held the borrowers to their contrac- tual obligations. Environmental and citizen-rights organizations in Latin America, Europe, and the United States are watching the process closely to see what effect it has on the credibility of the banks' inspection mecha- nisms, which were set up two years ago to allow communities to seek redress for harm allegedly done to them by the banks' operations. After the Yacyreta project is com- pleted, Paraguay will be the region's largest exporter of hydro- electric energy to the MERCOSUR member-countries, although four out of ten Paraguayans lack elec- tricity in their homes. -NotiSur SOURCES: InterPress Service is an international news service based in Italy. Its dispatches can be read on-line in the Peacenet con- ferences: ips.espafiol and ips.english. Latin America Weekly Report is pub- lished weekly by Latin American Newsletters. For free samples and sub- scription information: Latin American Newsletters, Dept. 96A11, 61 Old Street, London EC1V 9HX, England. Email: WR@latin.ftech.co.uk. Jon Mitchell is a freelance photographer and journalist based in Panama City. 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.
