Newsbriefs
KEY MEMBERS OF CLINTON'S LATIN AMERICA POLICY STAFF RESIGN WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 3, 1996 Several key Latin America policy makers in the Clinton administration announced...
...On Dec...
...Despite restrictions on sending materials to Cuba, the group has successfully transported a variety of supplies to the Caribbean nation...
...Schwartz has ample experience in the human rights field, but he also lacks a strong background in Latin America...
...It has also rejected two petitions by U.S...
...He is working for the Mexico City newspaper, El Financiero International...
...Watson will become director of Latin American issues at the Nature Conservancy...
...The White House obviously wants to get tough...
...The NADBank, which may have less than $2 billion to lend, did not make a single loan in the first two years of NAFTA...
...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...
...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...
...Dominguez said the Teamsters and the Mexican truckers had certain interests in common that could help build a united movement...
...Its dispatches can be read on-line in the Peacenet con- ferences: ips.espanol and ips.english...
...The increased industrial concentration has only intensified air and water pollution, dumping of hazardous waste, and, most tragically, 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...
...Pastors for Peace, which was formed eight years ago, has organized six brigades bearing humanitarian aid to Cuba since 1992...
...In another incident, treasury police raided a small storage facility in California on March 8, confiscating assorted unusable computer parts and medical supplies that the group had collected...
...The regulations, now on hold, would have allowed Mexican and U.S...
...Macas is running as an independent candidate on the Pachakutik Movement of Plurinational UnityNew Country ticket, a coalition of popular organizations and leftist political parties...
...Public Citizen is a watchdog group found- ed by Ralph Nader...
...The North American Development Bank (NADBank), created as part of the trade agreement, can only provide loans at market interest rates...
...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 Administration (IBAM...
...Seventeen people carrying computer parts were arrested...
...Instead, it encouraged its affiliate organizations to work independently on local campaigns...
...If NAFTA grows," said the Mexican unionist, "there will be a gradual coming together-harmonization-of wages and salaries...
...If elected, Macas will step down as CONAIE's president...
...But because of the Teamsters' somewhat ambiguous approach to genuine labor solidarity, Mexican trade unionists and independent truckers are cautious allies...
...Transportation Secretary Federico Pefia---citing safety concerns-announced a unilateral decision on the part of the U.S...
...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...
...Ambassador to Venezuela, has been nominated to replace Watson...
...18, 1995, U.S...
...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...
...This is all nonsense...
...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...
...Ester Grossi, former municipal 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...
...counterparts, the union initiated a massive lobbying and publicity campaign which many Mexicans feel had antiMexican overtones...
...Annette Fuentes is a freelance journalist and a member of NACLA's editorial board...
...Shortly after the Chicago Summit, Authentic Labor Front EL FISGON6 (FAT) spokesperson Alfredo Dominguez painted a picture of very tentative cross-border solidarity...
...government action...
...They certainly don't need our trucks...
...Signs last year that the U.S...
...truckers to move freely across the border and deliver their cargo anywhere within the four U.S...
...And drug traffickers are finding new ways every day to introduce drugs into the United States...
...Marc Becker is a Ph.D...
...His role, he said at the time, was as leader of Ecuador's indigenous peoples and not as a politician...
...A mainframe was donated by European supporters...
...Alexander Watson, assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs at the State Department...
...Ehlers is currently second in the polls, trailing frontrunner Jaime Nebot, candidate for the right-wing Social Christian Party (PSC...
...Endangered Species Act and a law protecting forests on federal lands...
...While the coalition remains intact, Pachakutik members were unhappy when Ehlers announced his vice-presidential candidate, Rossana Vinueza...
...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...
...The U.S...
...and Morton Halperin, democracy unit director at the National Security Council...
...customs officials waved them through, even though the group had been very public about their intentions...
...Jeffrey Davidov, currently U.S...
...government to indefinitely delay implementation of the new NAFTA rules...
...Marc Becker Sources Enlace: Politica y Derechos Humanos en las Americas is a quarterly newsletter pub- lished by the Washington Office on Latin America...
...They drove in from Chicago and Birmingham, Alabama, passing through Detroit and Pittsburgh, then Raleigh, North Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia, spreading their message of reconciliation with Cuba...
...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...
...law, the shipment of any materials to Cuba, even humanitarian goods, requires a license...
...Feinberg is leaving to become dean at the University of California, San Diego...
...If Clinton wasn't aware of the Pastors for Peace before, he is now," said Emily Thomas, of the Interfaith Foundation for Community Organizations, which sponsors the organization...
...The Teamsters' goal, said Cappella, was an internationalist one: to renegotiate NAFTA so that it included strong labor protections...
...It is also a departure from Macas' own position as recently as last fall, when several political parties offered him the vice-presidential post on their tickets...
...To date, over 100,000 women have registered as candidates for these elections...
...While the material aid is important, the organization also sees the brigades as an opportunity to promote local organizing against the embargo and to educate the public about the harmful effects of U.S...
...In both cases, they are manufactured here in Mexico...
...Congress has also cut funding for a number of border projects and threatened future funding of the NAFTA institutions...
...Municipal elections slated for this October will be a crucial test of the new law...
...Ambassador James Dobbins will replace Feinberg...
...Some are concerned that the turnover will create a shortage of experienced Latin America staff at the State Department in the next six months...
...Pachakutik-New Country is fielding local and provincial candidates in most of the country...
...Fred Rosen is on leave from NACLA...
...Concerned that low-wage Mexican truckers would take work away from their better-paid U.S...
...The safety issue proved to be the most effective in galvanizing U.S...
...To prepare the 100,000 female candidates for political office, a parliamentary commission is seeking assistance from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to carry out workshops and seminars about municipal administration later this year...
...As of last summer, more than 85% of the maquiladora workers were employed in one of the six Mexican border states...
...trade embargo on Cuba, brought their message to President Bill Clinton as he sat in church on Palm Sunday...
...Even before Cubans shot down two planes flown by right-wing exiles in February, the Treasury Department hardened its stance on the Pastors' brigades...
...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...
...The fast is about penance and redemption during the week of Passover and the Resurrection," said Thomas...
...It soon became clear, however, that this was not the case...
...In the case of the junior staff, changes were due to the routine staff-rotation policy of the U.S...
...NAFTA proponents predicted that the trade agreement would decrease the concentration of maquiladoras on the border...
...According to U.S...
...Pachakutik--a Quichua word meaning transformation and rebirth-opposes the neoliberal economic policies of the current government, and favors social changes that would create a more inclusive and participatory democracy...
...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...
...Halperin has taken a fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations...
...embargo policy might be thawing have evaporated in 1996...
...NAFTA institutions that were supposed to provide oversight and funding for cleanup and environmental enforcement have also been disappointing...
...Many junior State Department staff members are also transferring from their Latin America posts in the coming months...
...Our trucks are exactly the same as the ones driven by U.S...
...Women have, however, become increasingly active in politics over the past 25 years...
...The groups say they will reconvene in six to eight months to plan further joint actions...
...In June, 1995, a brigade organized by Pastors for Peace brought 18 computers and a solarenergy system into Canada for shipment to Cuba...
...Jos6 Maria Cabascango, CONAIE's director of promotion and organization, is serving as his campaign manager...
...This is an election year," said Thomas...
...Lucius Walker, initiated a hunger strike to demand the return of the materials...
...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...
...Eric Schwartz, director of the Office for Human Rights and Refugees at the National Security Council, has been named to fill Halperin's position...
...This marks the first time in contemporary Ecuadorian history that an indigenous leader is competing for national office...
...The Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC), for example, has not heard a single case involving the Mexican government's failure to enforce environmental laws...
...groups involving the failure to enforce the U.S...
...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 affirmativeaction law requiring that women make up one-fifth of the municipallevel legislative candidates fielded by political parties...
...CONAIE itself had rules forbidding its leaders from holding political office, and in general opposed forming alliances with political parties or directly supporting a presidential candidate...
...A good showing by female candidates 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...
...On March 21, five members of Pastors for Peace, led by executive director Rev...
...and six Mexican border states...
...Women were elected as state governors in three of Brazil's 27 states in 1992...
...For subscription information, contact WOLA at 400 C Street, N.E., Washington, D.C., 20002, (202) 544-8045...
...We have a government policy of making vulnerable people suffer...
...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 movement...
...drivers...
...The fast continued as the Pastors traveled to Washington D.C...
...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...
...Grassroots pressure, however, has pushed national leaders to rethink their positions on electoral politics...
...The departures of the senior officials appear to be motivated more by personal than by political reasons...
...For example, there were only 58 female mayors in Brazil in 1972, but that number increased to 108 in 1988 and 171 in 1992...
...InterPress Service (IPS) is an international news service based in Italy...
...Unions in both countries have an interest in seeing that harmonization moves wages higher, not lower...
...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...
...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...
...candidate in his- tory at the University of Kansas...
...foreign service...
...These loans are not based on environmental need, but rather on the ability of the community to repay the loans...
...The union not only warned of the low road-safety and mechanical-inspection standards in Mexico, but also raised the specter of large drug shipments entering the United States by way of Mexican trucks...
...This could change the history of Brazil," said the PT's Suplicy, a psychologist known for her pioneering television program about sex-related issues...
...Vinueza, an environmental activist, is linked to the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei...
...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 computers for medical use...
...Pastors for Peace has always refused to obtain a license, however, because it does not acknowledge the legitimacy of the embargo...
...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...
...Its leaders speak of four revolutions: ethical, socioeconomic, educational and ecological...
...KEY MEMBERS OF CLINTON'S LATIN AMERICA POLICY STAFF RESIGN WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 3, 1996 Several key Latin America policy makers in the Clinton administration announced their resignations in February, including Richard Feinberg, special advisor to the President and senior director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council...
...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 supporters converged on Washington, D.C...
...Freddy Ehlers, a popular TV journalist with no previous political experience, is running for president on the Pachakutik-New Country ticket...
...If no candidate wins a simple majority on May 19, the top two contenders will face off in a second round in June...
...It was militant Teamster action last fall that put the regulations on the back burner...
...a non-eovernmental organization based in Mexico City...
...CONAIE is a national federation that represents Ecuador's ten indigenous groups...
...Our drivers know the rules, and it would be easy to set up joint training programs to unify knowledge of the different state laws...
...This is really about the United States and our morality...
...That is immoral...
...Several border water-treatment projects that were under construction before NAFTA have been halted due to lack of funding...
...The changes prompted observers to wonder whether a major shift in the administration's Latin America policy was underway...
...The ads, placed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, came just two weeks after the union convened a Chicago "Summit" of U.S., Mexican and Canadian trade unionists and independent truckers to build opposition to the new trucking regulations instituted under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA...
...He is writing his dissertation on indigenous and peasant movements in Ecuador...
...CONAIE's board of directors is now supporting Macas' campaign...
Vol. 29 • May 1996 • No. 6
