IN BRIEF
News from Latin America For frequently updated news from Latin America, check our Web site <www.nacla.org>. Register on the site to receive our email newsletter CENTRAL AMERICA: CAFTA...
...However, Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco has hinted that he might call a national referendum on CAFTA because of widespread opposition to the deal...
...In the wake of its ratification, sectors of Salvadoran civil society have raised the argument that CAFTA is unconstitutional, and as a constitutional alteration requires a two-thirds majority to be legally passed...
...Whether these pronouncements will blossom into policy remains to be seen, but in the past, public sympathy for prisoners' human rights has, at best, been an ephemeral phenomenon...
...For the measure to pass the House, the text will likely have to be revised, thus obligating Central American legislatures to ratify the revised version if they want to be party to the trade agreement...
...These incidents only represent one aspect of the horrors of prison life...
...Meanwhile, efforts in Costa Rica to argue that CAFTAs constitutional violations require a two-thirds majority to pass the legislature have met with little success...
...House of Representatives continues to be about 40 votes shy of ratifying CAFTA...
...For a number of reasons, deficient labor provisions among them, the U.S...
...Unfortunately, the situation at Higuey is not unique but rather illustrative of a region-wide trend...
...the 1994 Maracaibo tragedy in Venezuela that led to over 100 fatalities...
...But the trade agreement passed with 49 votes in favor, and 35 against (the United Democratic Center joined the FMLN in opposing the measure...
...The Legislative Deputies of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) protested this breach of protocol, delaying a vote until late in the morning...
...At 3:30 a.m...
...According to Ungar's research, prisons in Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela are at least 160% over intended capacity, and an average of 60% of the prison population across all of Latin America still awaits sentencing...
...STIT in coordination with the Center for the Study and Support of Labor (CEAL) organized an international campaign that pressured Tainan into negotiating with the union...
...Instead, it simply encourages nations to make every effort to observe these international norms...
...Many argue that the fire was an accident waiting to happen...
...In early March, Guatemala's legislature passed the trade deal amid violent street protests and similar claims of procedural inconsistencies...
...Juan Ramon de la Cruz, the top prison official in the Dominican Republic, acknowledged that many of the country's facilities operate under a system of corruption and privileges...
...On March 3, Honduras became the second nation to pass CAFTA after adopting similar earlymorning tactics to slip the measure onto the congressional agenda...
...No politician wants to be seen as soft on crime, says Ungar, so they frequently lack the political and institutional will to pass penal reforms...
...A March 2004 Human Rights Watch report characterizes CAFTAs labor provisions as remarkable for their lack of enforceability 46 The trade agreement, for example, does not require the laws of participating states to comply with standards established by the UN and the International Labor Organization (ILO...
...I don't think it was an accident at all...
...Like many Latin American nations, the Dominican Republic lacks a separate, specially trained penal department...
...The fine system, however, is such that nations are likely to remedy violations only if doing so is more cost efficient than paying the fine...
...Atrocious prison conditions are often the sources of mutinies, massacres, riots and accidents, such as the blaze last May 17 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras that killed 103...
...The severity of the latest incident also reveals the enormous problems of inadequate administration and lack of guard training...
...on December 17, representatives of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), the Party of National Conciliation (PCN) and the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) voted to alter the day's agenda to include CAFTA...
...no fire should kill that many people," says Mark Ungar, a close observer of Latin America's prisons at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars...
...Many investigations have shown that everyday life behind bars in Latin America is rife with violence and organized crime...
...The Higriey prison was designed to hold 80 inmates, but contained 426, and the cellblock where the fire occurred was packed with 158 in an area built for 40...
...Ben PlimptonMAY JUNE 2005 IN BRIEF DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Prison Fire Highlights Abuses IN EARLY MARCH THE DOMINICAN Republic suffered the greatest tragedy of its penal history when a fire broke out at the Higuey prison, killing 136 and leaving many with life-threatening injuries...
...What's more, tariff benefits by member-states are only suspended if the violating nation fails to pay the fine, not if they fail to address the labor rights abuse...
...The only enforcement mechanism included in CAFTA contemplates fines for nations that fail to uphold domestic labor laws...
...If these people don't know how to deal with a riot or a fire in a prison, it's their responsibility-this case was a matter of negligence...
...The rest of Central America seems to be slowly falling in line behind El Salvador...
...In Brazil, 60 to 70% of all prisoners are awaiting trials for misdemeanors...
...There is an institutional resistance to reform," comments Ungar...
...The regular National Police are in charge of guarding the penitentiaries...
...Furthermore, proposing larger budgets for prisons has never been popular in countries where public funds are so desperately needed elsewhere (the Lagos Administration in Chile has responded by privatizing prisons...
...After the prison fire, Gen...
...The incident took place during a riot as two rival gangs clashed for control of the facility, setting fire to mattresses to fend off the guards' efforts to quell the uprising...
...The disaster, which left less than two dozen survivors in the entire cellblock, shocked the Caribbean nation and brought renewed attention to one of Latin America's most ignored and widespread human rights violations: the incarceration of prisoners in overcrowded and inhumane corrections systems...
...or the infamous Carandiru prison tragedy in Brazil in 1992 that inspired a recent popular film...
...Representatives of the Popular Resistance MovementOctober 12 (MPR-12) occupied the Assembly for several hours on December 16, while protestors filled the plaza below...
...cis-elsalvador.org>, a member organization of the Sinti Techan Network <www.redsintitechan.org...
...Given the weak labor protections in El Salvador and throughout the region, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which also includes the Dominican Republic, does not augur well for the replication of the Just Garments experience...
...In Nicaragua, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) has maintained public opposition to the trade agreement, but some speculate that certain FSLN legislative representatives may vote otherwise...
...The police or military that work as guards are frequently negligent or complicit, and often benefit from their position...
...The result of the negotiations was Just Garments, a factory that reopened under Tainan ownership but with STIT worker representation...
...Therefore, the fines will likely be viewed by the offending nation as simply a cost of doing business...
...Public insecurity has become a hotbutton issue throughout Latin America, and the politics of hard-line policing have proven an attractive political tool for easy votes...
...According to a report in Human Rights Quarterly, overcrowding in Dominican prisons, where the average facility is 215% over intended capacity, is the worst in all of Latin America and the Caribbean...
...Register on the site to receive our email newsletter CENTRAL AMERICA: CAFTA Moves Against Labor ALTHOUGH IT IS NOT THE ONLY labor union operating in El Salvador's maquiladora sector, the Union of Textile Industry Workers (STIT) is arguably the most successful...
...James T Kimer Contributors: Ben Plimpton coordinates the Human Rights Program at the Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad in El Salvador <www...
...In November 2002, STIT secured collective bargaining rights for workers employed at a Tainan Enterprises clothing factory outside San Salvador...
...Because of the delayed start of the legislative session, representatives met through the night...
...Many critics of CAFTA say the agreement's sections devoted to the protection and enforcement of labor standards are little more than cosmetic...
...In the weeks following the Higuey tragedy, President Leonel Fernandez blamed the National Police and the Department of Justice for the tragedy and called for widespread changes in prisons and the modernization of the legal system...
...The union is in the process of buying out Tainan, having secured a 55% stake in the factory so far...
...Taiwan-based Tainan had reacted to initial organizing efforts by firing key union supporters and eventually closing the maquila in April 2002...
...On December 17, 2004, El Salvador's Legislative Assembly was the first in Central America to approve CAFTA...
Vol. 38 • May 2005 • No. 6
