TRADE LAW Sanctions Among Friends
Burkhalter, Holly
Since the mid-1970s, the U.S. Con- gress has attempted to prohibit foreign aid to countries engaged in gross vio- lations of human rights. But during the Reagan Administration, the body of human...
...The embassy dismissed as guerrilla propaganda "allegations" that Army troops had captured and killed Hernindez and claimed that "there is no reason to suspect military involvement" in the case...
...But good faith is the key, and there has been precious little of it from the Reagan Administration...
...Further, the Administration's refusal to respond appropriately has incurred the wrath of the statute's congressional sponsors...
...Embassy in San Salvador...
...In one case, the embassy acknowledged that "we have no specific information about the detention" of several union members by the Arce Battalion, but justified their arrest on the grounds that "The Arce Battalion operates in an area of heavy guerrilla activity and detention of suspected guerrillas is not uncommon...
...The fact of government repression was used to confirm the victims' identity as guerrilla supporters...
...In the case of Chile, the executive branch claimed that it did not have enough information to reach a decision and opted to continue reviewing the labor rights situation-while maintaining trade benefits...
...The USTR, as well as the Departments of State and Labor, have consistently circumHolly Burkhalter is the Washington representative of the Americas Watch, a New York-based human rights organization...
...Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter, "all of the arrested union members named in the petition were members of the organizations known by the U.S...
...Previous efforts to condition foreign aid depended exclusively on an executive branch determination as to whether countries met the human rights standard in law...
...A serious inquiry into the matter would have revealed that on the same day the three workers disappeared, scores of trade unionists and members of peasant cooperatives were arrested and interrogated by the Army as they returned from the march...
...Don Pease, the author of the statute, was so disgusted by the Administration's shenanigans that in a September 24, 1987 letter to the U.S...
...trade benefits upon respect for internationally recognized worker rights...
...Nonetheless, a formal review process alone could have been an important achievement...
...law requires something more than an inaccurate, undocumented and ideological diatribe against the victims...
...trade benefits are not limited to those unions endorsed by the State Department or their own governments...
...Trade Representative, he complained that "Frankly, the commitment of your office to enforce the law is open to question...
...But this strategy boomeranged recently when Rep...
...Upon accepting a case for review, the USTR claims to investigate allegations of abuse, bring them to the attention of the offending government during trade negotiations and suggest specific improvements as a condition for receiving benefits...
...labor unions initiated a process which may prove to be more potent and lasting than congressional efforts to qualify foreign aid: conditioning certain U.S...
...Kicking and Screaming There is nothing new about attacks by the Reagan Administration on civilians allegedly opposed to the Duarte government...
...But in the case of trade unionists and peasant cooperative leaders, U.S...
...We have no reason to believe that Army troops are involved or that [these] disappearances are related to labor activities" wrote the U.S...
...The USTR has denied Buchanek's charges, and claims to have brought up serious abuses against trade unionists with the Pinochet Government...
...Fired in June for blowing the whistle, Buchanek told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in a July 19 interview that charges of murder, imprisonment and exiling of unionists were brought to the attention of the USTR by the Americas Watch and the AFLCIO, but ignored by the USTR in its negotiations with the Chileans...
...With a stroke of the pen, USTR not only exculpated SEPTEMBER/DECEMBER the Salvadorean government for repression against labor-it wiped the record of violence against union and peasant leaders perfectly clean...
...At the insistence of several dozen members of Congress, in August the USTR rationalized its refusal to review labor rights in El Salvador, and submitted a rebuttal to the Americas Watch petition...
...The embassy's insistence that the disappearances were unrelated to labor activity is typical: in fact, the three were picked up on their way home from a union-sponsored May Day march...
...Leaps in Logic If such "ample evidence" exists, it was not apparent from the USTR's rebuttal to the petition, prepared by the U.S...
...Even the case of El Salvador gives cause for hope: the petition process has highlighted gross abuses of labor rights in that country despite the Administration's refusal to take up the case...
...Following the USTR's first labor rights review of countries receiving GSP trade benefits in 1985-1986, only Paraguay, Romania and Nicaragua lost their status, despite abundant evidence presented by human rights groups and trade unions of pervasive labor rights abuses in Korea, Chile, Taiwan and other countries...
...The passage of little-noticed legislation restricting trade benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) has great potential for protecting human rights worldwide where repressive governments interfere with labor organizing...
...Labor rights regulations, however, permit labor unions and human rights groups to bring information directly before the cabinet-level U.S...
...But during the Reagan Administration, the body of human rights laws enacted in the post-Vietnam era have fallen into dis- use and now represent no more than good intentions...
...In the case of El Salvador, the Administration has attempted to placate congressional critics by proposing individual briefings as a substitute for a formal review...
...If incidences of disappeared or jailed trade unionists had been raised by U.S...
...A Cossetted Ally In El Salvador, the AFL-CIO did not petition for a review by the USTR, and there is no indication that the Administration as much as glanced at that country in its 1985-1986 review...
...Not only did the USTR fail to rescind Chile's trade benefits on labor rights grounds, it also refused to acknowledge the applicability of another condition of the Generalized System of Preferences...
...Government to be front organizations of the insurgent FMLN...
...The petition contained 16 instances of abuses-including killings, imprisonment, torture and disappearances-against Salvadorean trade union and peasant union members in 1986 and 1987...
...Trade Representative (USTR...
...The law's requirement that serious petitions be formally reviewed has offered an opportunity to challenge the State Department's characterization of Salvadorean labor...
...Jack Buchanek, then director of the Labor Department's Office of Foreign Relations, has shed some light on the way that the USTR made its decision on Chile...
...Pease invited other members of Congress to attend a December 2 briefing with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William Walker...
...The embassy either did not know or suppressed the information that there was a judicial investigation of the murder in the Second Court of the Peace in San Miguel, and that a report presented by a government prosecutor confirmed that Herndndez had been captured on April 16 by the Cuscatldin Battalion of the 3rd Brigade of the Salvadorean Army...
...One of the most important recent cases of labor repression is the April assassination of Antonio de Jesus Hernindez Martinez, secretary general of the National Association of Farmworkers...
...The USTR's interagency working group (which includes representatives from the Departments of State, Labor, Commerce and Treasury) analyzed the petition and did not find a single bona fide case of abuse against trade unionists...
...In a June 1986 internal Labor Department memorandum, Buchanek had written: "If USTR wants to drop the murders and other issues from the negotiations, then I think USTR ought to notify the petitioners that it is doing so...
...Indeed, the embassy ignored three such detentions cited in the petition...
...assis4 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 0 2 '0 ca M1 4 REPORT ON THE AMERICAStant, Ronni Moffitt, is a textbook case of international terrorism, and one of the few such acts committed on U.S...
...If carried out in good faith, the executive branch's review of beneficiary countries' labor rights records during trade negotiations can mitigate abuses against trade unionists and encourage improvements in oppressive labor laws...
...The possibility of a victory in the case of Chile suggests that the Reagan Administration can be dragged, kicking and screaming, into compliance with the worker rights statute...
...It was not to be...
...Circumventing the Law Two case studies, El Salvador and Chile, illustrate the lengths to which the executive branch has gone to circumvent the law...
...negotiators in discussions with the Salvadorean government, some measure of protection might have been extended...
...Fortunately, labor rights conditions on U.S...
...Embassy about two members of the coffee industry union and one member of the bakers union who disappeared following their abduction by the Army 2nd Brigade in Santa Ana last May 1. As in the case of Antonio Hernmndez Martinez, the embassy appears to have accepted the Army's word that it was not responsible for the crime, in spite of the fact that the military's version of events differed markedly from reports by the victims' families and their unions...
...Moreover, congressional irritation at the Administration's negligence on the Salvador petition may well result in country-specific legislation in the future...
...The Chilean case looks more promising...
...It justified its decision on the grounds that it "received assurances" from Chilean authorities that they would not abuse unionists, and pointed to several cosmetic changes regarding the right to strike and bargain collectively...
...At this point, negotiations between Congress and the Administration on the implementation of the labor rights statute are deadlocked...
...Given the Reagan Administration's reluctance to actually deprive countries of benefits on labor rights grounds, it was inconceivable that the Administration would exact trade sanctions against as cosseted an ally as El Salvador...
...In 1983 however, a coalition of human rights groups and U.S...
...soil...
...According to U.S...
...vented the law, and responded feebly or not at all to congressional criticisms...
...Faced with the demand to ex5plain the decision to reject the petition, the State Department abruptly cancelled the meeting...
...There is more than ample evidence" that members of certain unions "may be FMLN guerrilla operatives," claimed Yeutter...
...In 1987, however, the Americas Watch filed a heavily documented petition requesting review of El Salvador's labor rights record...
...The USTR's failure to end Chile's benefits on terrorism grounds is unconscionable-and certainly illegal...
...It seems all but certain that the Administration will announce an end to Chile's GSP benefits within the next several months, and the House and Senate Foreign Affairs Committees have already endorsed legislation to deprive the Pinochet government of benefits under the OPIC...
...The Pinochet government's direct involvement in the 1986 carbombing murder of former diplomat Orlando Letelier and his U.S...
...law prohibits GSP benefits from governments which aid, abet or harbor persons engaged in acts of international terrorism...
Vol. 21 • September 1987 • No. 5
