Newsbriefs
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...
...The Caldera administration has also implemented a gasoline subsidy for public transportation which is clearly designed to avert the need for fare increases...
...Since then, the community radio stations have suffered acts of vandalism and intimidation, apparently in an effort to force them to back down...
...This raises an ethical question about the use of the Kayapo image in 'marketing' internationally...
...The sentence handed down to Garcia follows two sentences given a month earlier in Chiapas to a 35year-old television correspondent, Javier Elorriaga, and an 18-yearold Tzeltal campesino, Sebastian Entzin...
...In late January, the Supreme Court issued a preliminary ruling in favor of the stations...
...His neoliberal critics would also like to see Caldera open up the oil industry to further foreign investment...
...Groups of Chinchulines then retaliated...
...manufacturers are losing deals to foreign companies because of the no-sale policy...
...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...
...Tensions have been raised by heavy government troop movements around areas controlled by the EZLN, by stiff sentences handed down to "presumed Zapatistas," and by the increased activity of paramilitary groups in northern Chiapas...
...An April letter to Christopher, signed by 79 House representatives, called U.S...
...Jan Rocha VENEZUELA TURNS TOWARD NEOLIBERALISM CARACAS, MAY 27, 1996 P resident Rafael Caldera, elected on a platform of opposition to neoliberal economic policies, announced a wide-reaching austerity package on April 15...
...Recent reports indicate that the Clinton administration is considering selling dozens of Sidewinder airto-air missiles to Brazil and Chile...
...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...
...For example, Caldera doubled the "family bonus" (to about US$19) granted for each child attending a shantytown primary school...
...The members of the community were offered a contract recognizing their right to payment for the use of their image...
...The talks, which were mediated by the UN and the national human rights office, broke down in March when ANTEL walked out...
...Despite their elation, however, many argued that Caldera's "shock treatment" does not go far enough...
...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...
...By the end of the day, six people-four Chinchulines and two PRD members-were dead, and dozens of houses were burned to the ground...
...The technical team concluded that El Salvador's radio spectrum had enough frequencies to accommodate the community radio stations...
...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...
...Insiders in the Clinton administration 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...
...An image of Pykati-Re in traditional 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...
...The Telecommunications Administration of El Salvador (ANTEL), the government agency charged with regulating broadcasting, has led the attack against the community radio stations...
...The other ten stations, however, were forced off the air for over two months...
...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...
...The "harmful" policy, they wrote, has allowed foreign competitors to gain "a sturdy foothold in Latin America...
...The austerity measures mark his entry into the neoliberal fold...
...The lowpower broadcasters transmit local and national news, community-education programs, announcements from government agencies, notices of community meetings, music from salsa to rock, and emergency messages...
...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...
...sales to the region from the previous four-year period...
...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...
...In his concerted effort to garner support among the MAS membership, Petkoff stressed Caldera's social program which accompanies the austerity package...
...policy prevents the sale of attack jets and similar advanced equipment, not all sales are banned...
...Domenech charged that the stations were illegal and part of a plot by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) to influence the 1997 elections...
...According to a Congressional Research Service report published in August, 1995, U.S...
...The move has been universally seen as a peace gesture from the federal government, since judicial autonomy is believed here--especially by the Zapatistas--to be generally honored in the breach...
...Jesuit priests working with indigenous groups in the area have received death threats from PRIaffiliated paramilitary groups with names like "Peace and Justice," and "The Youth Group...
...Several senators also wrote to the Secretary of State about what they called "anachronistic restrictions" on U.S...
...Russia is the next largest arms supplier, with a 26% share of the market...
...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...
...The remark has given new hope to a defense-industry effort to open the Latin American market to U.S.-made military equipment...
...Furthermore, a new arms race would drain economic resources, possibly damaging regional development and burgeoning trade relationships...
...He also appears alongside Anita Roddick, the Body Shop's founder and director, in an American Express advertisement...
...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...
...The stations turned for redress to the Supreme Court...
...In Guarjila, Chalatenango, a thousand local residents blocked the roads with stone barricades to prevent the police from carting off the equipment...
...This lack of legal recognition has given the opposition a crucial foothold...
...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...
...sharp reductions in state spending...
...Campaigns to save the Amazon rain forest and indigenous peoples, and well-publicized ethical trading projects with countries in the Third World raised not only the company's profile, but its profits...
...government may modify its arms policy towards Latin America...
...The sabotage in question was never proven, and Garcia claims he was tortured to confess to political activity he never engaged in...
...In the wake of Caldera's conversion to the neoliberal model, the IMF, the World Bank and other multilateral financial institutions have promised $7 billion in loans to Venezuela...
...That price only came to include a payment for the image after the subject was raised by the Kayapo community in 1993...
...Opponents of lower restrictions note that the lack of military threats in the region should preclude any new weapons agreements...
...They argued that the government's action violated the Constitution, particularly Article 6 which guarantees the right of freedom of expression and forbids the seizure of communication media...
...Three MAS representatives joined the cabinet, including veteran MAS leader and theoretician Teodoro Petkoff as planning minister...
...Negotiations over technical and legal issues began in January between ARPAS and ANTEL...
...On June 6, a Chiapas state judge suspended the sentences of Elorriaga and Entzin on the grounds of insufficient evidence...
...and the dismantling of the system of worker severance payments...
...Steve Ellner teaches at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela...
...Fred Rosen is on leave from NACLA...
...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...
...The legal team, however, made little progress on the crucial issue of legal status...
...arms sales to the region...
...Such increases in 1989 triggered a week of mass rioting, which resulted in an estimated thousand deaths...
...On May 24, the government lifted price controls on seven basic commodities...
...The MAS leadership in Congress had begun to take a defiant stand toward Caldera, against the advice of historical leaders like Petkoff and former MAS president Pompeyo Mirquez...
...Saulo Petean, who worked with the rubber 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, however, were borne out by a 1995 independent evaluation, commissioned by the Body Shop, of the store's "ethical trading project" with the Kayapo...
...Meanwhile, paramilitary activity in Chiapas is on the rise, especially in the northern part of the state...
...In addition, his photo decorates the Body Shop's factory in England and was used in publicity to raise funds in Europe to help indigenous peoples...
...Therefore, the company was badly rattled when Chief PykatiRe of the Brazilian Kayapo indigenous group announced in February his intention of suing the Body Shop for the "unauthorized use of my image for publicity ends...
...By contrast, the Association of Participatory Radios and Programs of El Salvador (ARPAS) argued that the Court had recognized their right to broadcast...
...companies controlled 31% of the Latin American arms market between 1991 and 1994...
...Shortly after Perry's statement, members of Congress wrote to Secretary of State Warren Christopher in support of relaxed restrictions...
...barriers "excessive and unwarranted...
...A radio antenna was sabotaged at one station, and armed gunmen appeared at another facility associated with community radio demanding that the radio equipment be handed over...
...The EZLN maintains that the prisoners are being held as government bargaining chips...
...ANTEL interpreted the decision narrowly to mean that the government had to return the seized equipment...
...His lawyer, Hildebrando Pontes Neto, is a specialist in indigenous rights...
...At that time, the Body Shop announced that it had reached the world's first cultural and "intellectual property" agreement between a Western company and an indigenous group...
...Assailing the current climate of "persecution" in the country, the EZLN denounced the "absurd" sixyear jail sentence given in late May by a judge in the state of Vera Cruz to "presumed Zapatista" Francisco Santiago Garcia for "sabotage...
...arms sales...
...This represents almost a tripling of U.S...
...MAS's endorsement was clinched by the president's cabinet reshuffle...
...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 production...
...In 1995, retail sales in the Body Shop's 1,210 stores in 45 countries totaled $800 million...
...The neoliberals are now calling for the sale of 15 to 30% of the stock in the state oil company PDVSA...
...In his about-face, Caldera was supported by his coalition partner Movement toward Socialism (MAS), the country's largest leftist party...
...In addition, the industry claims that U.S...
...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...
...He is working for the Mexico City newspaper, El Financiero International...
...Sources Tom Cardamone is director of the Conventional Arms Transfer Project for the Council For A Livable World Education Fund in Washington, DC...
...During his first two years in office, Caldera was the only Latin American president to resist the dictates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF...
...Social tensions exploded in midApril 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) commissioner...
...The government lifted controls on the exchange rate and on interest rates...
...The United States is already the world's largest arms supplier to Latin America...
...Jan Rocha is a British journalist based in Sao Paulo...
...Steve Ellner COMMUNITY RADIO UNDER ATTACK IN EL SALVADOR JUNE 3, 1996 Community radio stations in El Salvador are struggling to survive in the face of concerted efforts by the right-wing ARENA government to shut them down...
...While the accords legalized the two guerrilla radios, Radio Venceremos and Radio Farabundo Marti (now RV and FF), the community radio stations were not granted legal status...
...In fact, since there is no international market in Brazilian nut oil, the price is fixed according to the Body Shop's own criteria...
...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 pending the return of a more stable political atmosphere...
...Elorriaga was sentenced to 13 years and Entzin to seven for "rebellion, terrorism and conspiracy," after they had served as messengers between the guerrillas and the government in the early days of the uprising...
...On May 5, a group of indigenous PRD members, armed with machetes and rifles, killed G6mez and burned his house to the ground...
...While the current U.S...
...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...
...Diana Agosta is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the City University of New York (CUNY), and works in community television...
...They concluded: "There is an implicit-if unanswered-question: 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...
...But, analysts say, with the Pentagon's weapons purchases on the decline, and tougher international competition, even the niche markets are worth fighting for...
...Defense-industry officials concede that Latin America does not present a huge marketing opportunity...
...This infusion of cash will no doubt reactivate the economy in the short run, but will exacerbate the long-term problem of the country's enormous foreign debt...
...Eighteen "presumed Zapatistas," including the two just released, have been detained for over a year...
...The current policy, first adopted during the Carter administration, prohibits militaryequipment manufacturers from selling advanced weaponry, such as F-16 attack aircraft, to Latin American nations...
...Owned and operated by local, non-profit groups, El Salvador's community radio stations are a crucial means of communication in rural areas that lack basic infrastructure such as telephones, mail service, newspapers or paved roads...
...Emissaries were hurriedly sent to Pykati-Re's village, Pukanu, one of two Kayapo villages in remote northern Brazil which supply Brazilian nut oil for a Body Shop hair conditioner, to persuade him to back down...
...In addition, Brazil and Ecuador have inquired about purchasing several Blackhawk helicopters...
...They are calling for "structural changes" to guarantee true economic transformation: privatization of the steel and aluminum industries as well as several banks which the government recently took over...
...The country's 11 community radios were formed in the wake of the January, 1991 peace accords that resolved the country's civil war...
...In a June 2 statement, Subcomandante Marcos said that the negotiations had "become hostage to power struggles" within the government...
...In response, a rival PRI-affiliated (mostly mestizo) group called the "Chinchulines," led by Jer6nimo G6mez Guzmdn, seized the municipality buildings, and drove Chil6n's PRD mayor and many of Bachaj6n's indigenous residents into hiding or exile...
...In February, the administration granted oil-exploitation rights at ten sites to mixed-ownership firms with heavy foreign participation...
...The announcement of the austerity package delighted neoliberals who had been prophesying economic disaster for Venezuela since Caldera's election in December, 1993...
...Most of them were rounded up during a government offensive in February, 1995, two months before a non-retroactive amnesty was declared for all members of the EZLN...
...Perry's comments, which were delivered after a visit to the U.S...
...The stations are, in fact, not affiliated with any political party...
...The Body Shop's defense is that the price it pays for the Brazilian nut oil is well above the "market price" and includes payment for the Kayapo image...
...After visiting the Kayapo villages involved in collecting and pressing the Brazil nuts and making bead necklaces, the authors reported, "The concept of intellectual property rights, widely discussed internationally, is not at all understood in the villages, even by most leaders...
...The new cabinet appointments appear to have derailed that incipient opposition...
...Although the experts found positive aspects to the project, the Body Shop did not accept their criticisms and chose not to publish the report...
Vol. 30 • July 1996 • No. 1
