Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 17:28:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: News: more news from July (98 KB)
Copyright 1993 Inter Press Service
Inter Press Service
July 28, 1993, Wednesday
HEADLINE: FINANCE: WORLD BANK GAINED $1.13 BILLION IN 1993
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, July 28
The World Bank announced here today that it posted a net income of
$1.13 billion for fiscal year (FY) 1993, which ended July 1.
The net income reached $1.645 billion last year. The Bank also increased
its loan-loss provisions from 2.5 percent to three percent of outstanding
loans based on an assessment of risk for its total loan portfolio.
The loan-loss provisions totaled $3.15 billion as of the end of the fiscal
year, $610 million higher than in 1992.
The Bank, whose membership grew from 160 to 176 countries in FY 93,
also reported that seven members found themselves in non-accrual status
by the end of the year.
The seven, which include three former republics of Yugoslavia, accounted
for 2.4 percent of outstanding loans, the Bank said, but noted that
Guatemala and Peru cleared their arrears during FY 1993.
The statistics released today covered only the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), as the World Bank is formally
known.
They did not address the record of the Bank's affiliates, such as the
International Development Association (IDA), which provides no-interest
loans to the world's poorest nations, and the International Finance
Corporation (IFC), the affiliate which provides support to the private sector
in developing countries.
The IBRD made record loan commitments of almost $17 billion in FY
1993, up from $15.2 billion in 1992. It disbursed $12.9 billion during FY
1993, up from $11.67 billion the previous year.
At the same time, it made new borrowing from capital markets of $12.7
billion, up from $11.8 billion last year. The Bank also refinanced the
equivalent of $3.8 billion in short-term borrowings to take advantage of
lower interest rates.
The Bank said its standard variable lending rate declined by 17 basis
points to 7.43 percent during 1993.
The Bank's reserves-to-loans ratio amounted to 11.4 percent at the end
of FY 1993. Reserves totaled $11.7 billion. The Bank said it hopes to
increase the reserves-to-loans ratio to 13 to 14 percent for 1994 and 1995,
respectively.
Copyright 1993 Inter Press Service
Inter Press Service
July 28, 1993, Wednesday
HEADLINE: PERU: POLICE SEARCH FOR SIX POSSIBLE CAR BOMBS
DATELINE: LIMA, July 28
The police in Lima are searching for six vehicles that were stolen at the
same time last night, probably to be used as car bombs by Peru's two
guerrilla organisations.
All six vehicles, five taxis and a minivan, were stolen in the same
manner -- the drivers were stopped at gunpoint, injected with a sleep-
inducing drug, and dumped in isolated areas.
July 27 marked the 172nd anniversary of Peru's independence from
Spain, and the date has traditionally been used by the Shining Path or
Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) to launch some sort of
attack.
The guerrillas launched a total of five attacks July 26 and yesterday,
including car-bomb explosions outside a Catholic high school and the U.S.
Embassy in Lima.
The bombing near the school and gun attacks on two police lieutenants in
poor districts of Lima were carried out by the Shining Path.
The Tupac Amuru Revolutionary Movment claimed responsibility for the
attack on the police barracks in the San Borja district, and police also
blamed this group for the car bomb at the U.S. Embassy, given the
sophisticated nature of the explosive device used.
Last night the Shining Path destroyed an electric tower, knocking out
power for 20 minutes in Lima and several coastal towns.
The civil war in Peru, which began in 1980 in the south central
highlands, has cost an estimated 25,000 lives.
Although both rebel groups are reported to be going through something
of a crisis following the capture of their respective top main leaders, their
capacity to launch military strikes appears undiminished.
Copyright 1993 Gannett Company, Inc.
USA TODAY
July 28, 1993, Wednesday, INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Maoist Shining Path rebels detonated a car bomb Tuesday outside the
U.S. ambassador's office in Lima, Peru, seriously wounding two Peruvian
guards. A man described as a rebel was shot to death. The only American
inside the office, a U.S. Marine security guard, was unhurt. A U.S.
spokesman said the blast caused structural damage to the building. Shining
Path has carried out few attacks since leader Abimael Guzman was
captured in September.
Copyright 1993 Inter Press Service
Inter Press Service
July 27, 1993, Tuesday
HEADLINE: PERU: CAR BOMB EXPLODES IN FRONT OF U.S. EMBASSY
DATELINE: LIMA, July 27
A car bomb exploded today in front of the U.S. embassy in Lima, injuring
two and causing material damage. The attack, presumedly orchestrated by
one of the country's two main rebel groups, was preceded by gunfire.
Yesterday, rebels from the Maoist "Sendero Luminoso" and the Tupac
Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) carried out three attacks in Lima,
none of which resulted in deaths.
In response, a national patriotic military march originally scheduled for
July 22 was rescheduled for today.
In addition to members of the army and police, university
representatives, and "repentants" (rebel deserters) took part in the "March
for Pacification."
Moreover, several local tabloids reported today that President Alberto
Fujimori will soon announce that Abimael Guzman, founder and head of
Sendero Luminoso, has formally surrendered and will ask his followers to
lay down their arms and abandon the armed struggle.
Still, analysts questioned the probability and veracity of any such
statement by Guzman, adding that while it might cause divisions within
Sendero Luminoso, many rebels would continue fighting.
Guzman was captured by police on Sept. 15, 1992 and has been in
protective custody since.
Copyright 1993 Agence France Presse
Agence France Presse
July 25, 1993
SECTION: News
HEADLINE: Immigration network smashed in Spain
DATELINE: BARCELONA
BARCELONA, Spain, July 25 (AFP) - Spanish police this weekend
smashed an illegal immigration network which brought mostly South
Americans into the country where a number of the women were forced
into prostitution.
A total of 73 people, most of them from the Dominican Republic, Peru,
Argentina and Colombia were arrested in this northeastern Spanish town
on Friday and Saturday, police said.
The network was based in the Dominican Republic, where a senior
official provided false documentation to the would-be immigrants. The
identity of the official was not immediately revealed.
The would-be immigrants paid between 2,900 and 4,100 dollars for the
documents allowing them into Spain, with a number of women ending up
prostituting themselves to pay their debts, police said.
Among those arrested here were four Spaniards, one Brazilian and one
Dominican who allegedly ran a prostitution network and a lawyer who was
involved in obtaining forged working papers.
Copyright 1993 Agence France Presse
Agence France Presse
July 24, 1993
SECTION: News
HEADLINE: Rebels collect five-million-dollar ransom for Japanese-Peruvian
DATELINE: LIMA
LIMA, July 23 (AFP) - A rebel group collected a five-million-dollar
ransom for releasing a Japanese-Peruvian businessman kidnapped five
months ago, the official Andina news agency said Friday.
Antonio Furukawa Obasu, who was taken hostage by the pro-Cuban
Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) on February 1, was
released late Thursday, apparently in good health, police officials were
quoted as saying.
The glass industry businessman's family paid the MRTA three million
dollars in cash and provided one million dollars' worth of logistics materiel.
A million dollars' worth of food was distributed to residents of
sprawling Lima shantytowns, the agency said.
The Furukawa family handed out food in the poor Manzanilla and El
Agustino neighborhoods last week, according to local media.
MRTA has made a habit of demanding such food handouts as their last
requirement before freeing kidnapping victims.
Another Peruvian businessman of Japanese origin, appliance dealer Raul
Hiraoka, was kidnapped two weeks ago. Authorities blamed the abduction,
in which Hiraoka was hit by gunfire and his driver was killed, on MRTA.
Peru's President Alberto Fujimori is the son of Japanese immigrants.
Copyright 1993 American Lawyer Media, L.P.
The Recorder
July 22, 1993, Thursday
SECTION: COMMENTARY; Foreign Policy; Pg. 9
HEADLINE: Force-Feeding Freedom; Encouragement of 'democracy' has a
hollow ring if not accompanied by emphasis on human rights
BYLINE: HOLLY BURKHALTER and JUAN MENDEZ; Holly Burkhalter is
Washington director of Human Rights Watch. Juan Mendez is the executive
director of Americas Watch, a division of Human Rights Watch.
The Clinton administration has announced that promotion of democracy
is a major new focus for U.S. foreign policy. At the United Nations
conference on human rights in Vienna last month, Secretary of State
Warren Christopher made democracy a centerpiece of his major human
rights address. Democracy has been added to the name of the State
Department's Human Rights Bureau, and new democracy offices have been
created at the National Security Council and the Department of Defense.
Notwithstanding the newly minted bureaus and titles, however, there is
nothing new about a democracy agenda for U.S. foreign policy. Democracy
promotion was particularly in vogue during the Reagan years, where the
near-exclusive focus was on elections.
But promoting democracy also means calling upon governments to afford
freedom to speak, publish, associate and organize, and to promote equality
before the law and respect for individual and minority rights. If the
Clinton administration were to take that approach -- while heeding the
mistakes of the past, advocating international human rights standards, and
aiding institutions that serve to check and redress official abuses -- they
could make a welcome contribution. It is not yet clear what the Clinton
administration has in mind for its ambitious new program, but there are
some early, ominous signs. Unnamed administration officials quoted in
The Washington Post recently described the necessity of pushing through
long-term structural goals, rather than winning immediate human rights
concessions. The concept that democratic institution building is somehow
at odds with protecting human rights sounds familiar.
TRAINING GROUNDS
In the very recent past, in the name of democracy, the United States has
heaped assistance on military forces that ravaged civil society and has
hailed as democrats the perpetrators of unspeakable crimes. Gross
atrocities were minimized, as "trends" toward democratization were
applauded. The bitter fruits of this policy were most clearly visible in
Latin America, particularly in El Salvador, the laboratory for the Reagan
administration's ruinous approach to so-called democracy.
Latin America has also been the testing ground for extensive U.S. aid and
training allegedly to "professionalize" military and police forces, and for a
U.S. aid program called Administration of Justice. The AOJ program
provides to Latin American governments grants and technical aid and
training in the area of judicial and police reform. The Clinton
administration and Congress appear poised to extend the AOJ program to
the entire world as part of the proposed expansion of democracy programs.
Before doing so, they should consider some of the mistaken assumptions
and practices that have characterized the project in Latin America to date.
The most flagrant abuse under the AOJ program was the creation of a
"Special Investigative Unit" in the Salvadoran Ministry of Defense for the
ostensible purpose of investigating military abuses. The United States
provided more than $ 5 million to the SIU, which did little to assist the
prosecution of abusers within the military, although it did harass and
interrogate victims of government abuse on a fairly regular basis. Worse,
the U.N. Truth Commission report released last March described in detail
how the head of the SIU unit had instructed the murderers of the Jesuit
priests in El Salvador how to take part and destroy the weapons used in
that crime, so that ballistics tests would not lead to them.
A particularly worrisome AOJ priority today is its funding of special
courts in Colombia, where $ 36 million is pledged over the coming four
years. The so-called faceless courts feature judges whose identities are
kept secret. They were created to deal with cases involving terrorism or
drugs, which genuinely pose a threat to the lives of Colombian judges,
lawyers and witnesses. But in practice, many of the cases taken up by the
special courts (which lack impartiality and independence, and restrict due
process) are actually cases of persons involved in political or social protest
who pose no personal threat to the judges.
For example, striking Colombian labor unionists have been brought
before the faceless courts and tried for terrorism. AOJ has been so pleased
with the faceless courts in Colombia that it plans to fund the same in Peru,
where the entire judiciary is under the thumb of Peru's autocratic
president, Alberto Fujimori. In Peru, the special courts are trying and
convicting a lightning speed thousands of people the government considers
subversive, including those who engage in non-violent dissent, criticize the
government or report on Army abuses. In a recent case, a doctor was
given a life sentence in prison for treating the wounds of a suspected
guerrilla.
DURABLE MYTHS
If AOJ wants to fund Latin American court systems, the least one could
expect is that they insist upon independence of the judiciary and due
process guarantees for the defendants. The AOJ program and other
training programs for foreign police or military forces are founded on the
durable myth that American aid can substitute for a government's own
commitment to protect human rights, as if abuses are caused by lack of
education and training, rather than by an absence of political will to end
repressive practices. Respect for rights cannot be taught in the classroom
if police and military officials watch their colleagues get away with murder
when they are back on the street or resume torture when they return to
the interrogation chamber.
Take the case of Turkey. The U.S. has for years provided Turkish police
with assistance under the Anti-terrorism Assistance Program,
notwithstanding the fact that Turkish authorities have refused to put a
stop to savage torture routinely inflicted on almost all prisoners, including
children. Last year, a Helsinki Watch researcher visiting the office of anti-
terrorism at police headquarters in Istanbul -- where torture is routinely
inflicted on political prisoners -- saw a large certificate on the wall,
testifying to the fact that the head of the unit had trained in the United
States.
Before the Clinton administration provides funds for any police and
military aid and training programs, there should be some prerequisites for
participation. Unfortunately, no such prerequisite is evident yet -- at least
not in the case of Turkey. The Clinton administration announced last
month that it would provide the Suleiman Demirel government with U.S.
assistance to end widespread human rights abuses and described its goal
of improving freedom of expression, and eliminating torture,
disappearance and killings. At the same time, Secretary of State
Christopher announced that the United States would provide Turkey with
an additional $ 336 million in military equipment -- without the slightest
commitment on the part of the Turkish government to take steps to
achieve such human rights improvements.
Accountability for human rights abuses key to stopping violations and
protecting the key to stopping violations and protecting the institutions of
civil society that make a democracy, but the U.S. government has neither
demanded that governments account for past abuses of human rights and
provide redress to the victims nor even encouraged them to try. At times,
the United States has actively discouraged efforts to end official impunity.
In Haiti, for example, the Clinton administration promoted a shameful
amnesty for the entire Haitian army, so that none can be prosecuted for
their crimes against the Haitian people, as a bribe to secure the army's
agreement to permit the return of the legitimately elected president. The
actual experience of soldiers who see that accountability for their crimes
can be eliminated by the stroke of a pen through an amnesty is likely to be
a more resonant lesson for them than the AOJ's best efforts to promote
human rights in its aid and training program.
Providing human rights and democracy funding to abusive governments
has been a problem in the past, and it's going to remain a problem.
Accordingly, many people involved in democracy programs prefer to
provide funds directly to non-governmental organizations. Certainly much
of the money earmarked by the Clinton administration for democracy
programs -- $ 2.7 billion, or 13 percent of the proposed foreign-aid budget
for next year -- will be given to private organizations.
Yet for citizens attempting to create democratic institutions within
repressive countries, U.S. money is not necessarily the answer. In the
Middle East and Asia, independent organizations simply cannot and will
not take U.S. funds. And even if they could, no amount of U.S. largess can
create a space for human rights activists, labor unionists, journalists,
political dissidents and religious figures to organize, to publish, to assemble
-- to exist -- in countries where rights are trampled. The best contribution
our government can make to fragile citizens groups in most of the world is
to pressure their governments to cease abuses against them.
CALLING FOR CONCRETE STANDARDS
Such pressure will be most successful if it is grounded securely in
internationally recognized human rights standards, rather than the vague
concept of "democracy," which, unlike human rights, has no formal status
in international treaties, U.S. efforts must make it clear that these
principles are not American luxuries but rights afforded under
international law, to which all governments are accountable. Nor do
cultural factors supersede these international standards, as some foreign
governments argued at the Vienna World Conference of Human Rights.
There is something ironic about the executive branch committing
extensive new funds for training and education in human rights and
democracy when the United States itself has paid so little attention to the
rich body of international human rights standards to which governments
worldwide have subscribed. The United Nations has promulgated detailed
standards with respect to such issues as the independence of judges, the
treatment of prisoners, conditions of detention and the use of firearms by
law enforcement officials.
The Geneva Conventions and their Protocols provide precise and detailed
standards with respect to the treatment of combatants and civilians in
both international and internal armed conflict. And the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees a broad range of
individual rights and upholds non-discrimination on the basis of gender
and ethnicity. The United States failure to ratify a large body of
international human rights instruments (or ratifying, but exempting our
own country from key provisions, as was the case in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) makes our government's promotion
of American standards particularly embarrassing. To his credit, Secretary
of State Christopher announced at the Vienna conference his intention to
consider signing four human rights treaties, including the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The Clinton administration has done the human rights cause a service by
upgrading attention to democracy and human rights in the new bureaus it
has created and by staffing them with people of integrity. But its
emerging democracy program is no substitute for a vigorous, vocal human
rights policy, where the United States strongly condemns governments that
torture and kill, assists international efforts to pressure such governments
into reform and defends the men and women in every country who
attempt to create institutions that check official abuse.
Copyright 1993 Central News Agency
Central News Agency
July 21, 1993, Wednesday
HEADLINE: ASIAN TEXTILES FACE ANDEAN ANTI-DUMPING TARIFFS
DATELINE: Taipei, July 21
Following the lead of Mexico, five Andean nations are planning to impose
anti-dumping tariffs on textile goods from Asian countries, including
Taiwan, government sources said Wednesday.
Mexico began levying exorbitant 1,000 percent anti-dumping tariffs on
Taiwan-made textile products early this month.
The Board of Foreign Trade (BOFT) said the five Andean countries --
Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru -- are now considering
imposing 30 percent anti-dumping customs duties on garments from
Taiwan and other Asian nations.
The five South American countries are also planning to implement a
quota system to regulate textile imports from Asia, BOFT officials said.
The officials pointed out that the five Andean nations have been hit by a
prolonged economic recession. "They want to protect their own textile
industries by levying high tariffs on foreign imports, particularly those
from major Asian textile producing countries," the officials explained.
Taiwan exported some US$ 30 million in textile goods to Mexico in 1992
and its aggregate sales to the five Andean countries were less than US$ 10
million, according to government tallies.
BOFT officials urged local textile makers to pay more heed to possible
changes in the Andean countries' import systems and tariff rates in order
to minimize their losses. (By Sofia Wu)
Copyright (c) 1993 Business International;
Business Latin America
July 12, 1993
HEADLINE: Intellectual property protection: An uphill battle
The government is trying to bolster protection for intellectual property,
but it faces plenty of obstacles Venezuela, threatened with a special
investigation by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) for
intellectual property rights (IPR) violations, is trying to implement
protective measures that could save US and other foreign companies
millions of dollars annually. But local pirates, political opposition, a court
challenge and lax enforcement are conspiring against immediate relief for
aggrieved parties.
Venezuela has been on a "watch list" of alleged violators of intellectual
property rights since 1992-under the so-called Special 301 provisions of
US trade legislation. On April 30 the USTR warned that it would conduct an
"out-of-cycle" review of the country's intellectual property policies if it did
not meet certain commitments by June 30. The move was seen as an
alternative to downgrading Venezuela to a category of more serious
violators, the worst of whom are subject to possible trade sanctions. Trade
officials are currently evaluating whether the commitments were met by
the June 30 deadline.
Old IPR law
US manufacturers lose an estimated $60-100 million annually in
Venezuela as a result of IPR violations. These include the illegal
registration of trademarks and the piracy of videocassettes, computer
programmes and satellite signals. Even when protective laws exist,
enforcement is lax, and the legal process slow and inadequate.
The Venezuelan government, under now-suspended President Carlos
Andres Perez, acknowledged the need to protect the intellectual property
of foreign companies. But differences with the USA remained, and bilateral
talks broke down in April. "It behooves the Venezuelan economy to have
stronger protection for those rights," says Gonzalo Capriles, Venezuela's
chief intellectual property rights negotiator. "But the fact that we share
that interest doesn't mean we agree with all the points the USA wants in a
new regime of protection."
Before last year, Venezuela relied on the barebone, antiquated Industrial
Property Law of 1955 to protect intellectual property. In 1992 the
government sought to supplement this old law with protections granted
under the Andean Pact's Decision 313. This is an updated version of the
pact's own IPR rules, which, among other things, now provide for drug
patents. However, a number of Venezuelan legislators questioned whether
Decision 313 could be enforced without congressional approval, and
domestic pharmaceutical-makers went before the Supreme Court to back
them. Although a ruling is still pending, the court decided, in a precedent-
setting case in March, that a French clothing manufacturer was entitled to
protect its famous trademark under Decision 313.
Striving for improvements
To satisfy US demands without going through the balky and otherwise
preoccupied Venezuelan Congress, the government--first under Mr Perez
and now under interim President Ramon Velasquez--is pushing to
strengthen protection for trademarks and patents through Decision 313.
An Andean Pact meeting to discuss more stringent measures has been
delayed several times; it is now scheduled for July 15-16. The USA admits
that Venezuela has made improvements in its intellectual property regime.
However, even if officials accomplish all they hope to through the Andean
Pact, it still will not be enough to satisfy US requirements.
The measures Venezuela plans to propose include: expanding protection
for vegetable varieties, biotechnology, industrial secrets, marks related to
place of origin, and nuclear and fissionable inventions; increasing patent
protection from the current ten years to 20 years; granting so-called
pipeline coverage to pharmaceutical products and making it retroactive to
1989 (the USA wants it retroactive to the mid-1980s); bringing mandatory
licensing guidelines in line with those being discussed under GATT;
establishing norms to fight trademark piracy; and cancelling the
trademarks of registrants who are simply trying to keep others from using
them. While Venezuela and Colombia appear committed to these changes,
Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia are less so, and it is unclear what the final result
of the meeting will be.
The Venezuelan government is also pushing for approval of a copyright bill
that has been stalled in Congress for a number of years but which appears
likely to pass before the end of the legislative session in August. The law
would include protection for computer software and television signals, as
well as fines and prison penalties for some violations. The USA also wants
to make it a crime to import and sell unscramblers for satellite signals.
The attitude of Israel Rapaport, president of Atari Mundial de Venezuela,
may be typical of what the Venezuelan government is up against. Mr
Rapaport is embroiled in a legal battle with Nintendo of America, which
claims he is selling counterfeit products under the Nintendo name.
Venezuela's patent registrar ruled that Nintendo is a famous trademark
and is entitled to protection. However, Mr Rapaport, who registered the
name in 1986, argues that he is the one who made it famous in Venezuela
and that it therefore belongs to him.
Nevertheless, David I. Wilson, attorney for Nintendo of America, says
things are moving in the right direction. "Venezuela has made progress in
adopting Decision 313 and in applying the famous trademark doctrine to
our situation. That's all to the good. But we don't know yet how long it will
take to get Atari Mundial out of business."
Helen J. Simon (Caracas)
Copyright (c) 1993 Business International;
Business Latin America
July 12, 1993
HEADLINE: Brazil's intellectual property rights violations
Venezuela is not the only Latin American country under scrutiny by US
trade authorities. Last April, the government also designated other
countries for particular attention under the Special 301 provisions of the
1988 Trade Act.
Brazil was put on the list of "priority foreign countries" --those where
intellectual property rights violations are most onerous. If negotiations to
address IPR problems in such countries fail, the USA can call for a special
investigation and apply trade sanctions. The US governments most serious
concerns regarding Brazil are in the area of patents. The draft of a new
patent law is before Congress, but it falls short of what US authorities and
foreign firms are demanding.
Argentina was placed on the "priority watch list", and the USA also
announced it would conduct an "out-of-cycle" review of efforts to improve
IPR protection. Although the Menem administration promised four years
ago to enact a new patent law, the bill has been lingering in Congress since
October 1991. US pharmaceutical producers say they lose $200 million a
year in Argentina because of patent piracy.
Besides Venezuela, other countries placed on the "watch list" for less
serious IPR infringements include Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador,
Guatemala and Peru. Complaints in these countries range from patent
infringement to copying of software, videotapes and audiotapes.
Copyright 1993 The Times-Picayune Publishing Co.
The Times-Picayune
July 11, 1993 Sunday, FIRST
SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. A23
HEADLINE: PRIEST DEFIES TERRORISTS FOR PARISH DEEP IN AMAZON
BYLINE: By MARY SPECK Knight-Ridder Newspapers
DATELINE: SAN JOSE DE CUTIVIRENI, PERU
All that remains of the church is its stone floor and a few charred posts.
A partially burned statue of St. Joseph, carved in wood with Indian
features, stands lopsided, propped in a hole, its only backdrop the morning
mist rising from jungle-covered mountains.
The mission at San Jose de Cutivireni was the life's work of Mariano
Gagnon, 63, a Franciscan priest from New Hampshire of French Canadian
and Iroquois Indian descent. The Rev. Mariano - or simply Mariano, as he
introduces himself - has only been back to "Cuti" once since Shining Path
guerrillas raided the small settlement in 1989, burning the church and
schoolhouse and killing three teachers.
But in Lima, where the priest now lives, he is busy planning a new
project to help the people of Cuti. A book about his experiences is soon to
be published. And he hopes to use the profits - and his minor celebrity
status - to protect the Ashaninka Indian community.
Mariano's aim is to "talk with the people, see what they need and try to
help them in ways that won't destroy their culture or the ecology." His
Franciscan Institute for the Defense of the Natives and Ecology of the
Amazon, despite its grandiose name, is so far a one-man operation, with
offices in the garage of a Franciscan parish in Lima.
Many of the 700 people he once served as priest no longer live in
Cutivireni. The former mission now is home to Indians from 11 Ashaninka
communities, living under the protection of a small army base. A minority
are from the former settlement.
At least two dozen died in the violence. About 170 others were airlifted
out of the area to the Urubamba River Valley where the Shining Path -
known in Spanish as Sendero Luminoso - was not active.
Mariano now hopes to place them in a new community where they can
live free from guerrillas and outside settlers.
"Cutivireni is lost to the natives," he said. "When the army leaves, settlers
will come in and destroy their way of life. Only the mission kept them out."
*** Adversaries on all sides ***
Mariano's fierce defense of his native parish has won him more than a
few enemies. While fighting to protect the Ashaninkas, he has clashed not
just with Sendero but with settlers, drug traffickers, the Roman Catholic
Church hierarchy and the U.S. Embassy.
He founded the Cutivireni mission in 1969, after spending two years
walking through the jungle area, just east of Peru's central Andean range,
taking a census of the native population.
It is a region of wild beauty, a dense, damp forest that covers the rolling
mountainsides like thick fur, broken by crystal-clear streams that cascade
into magnificent falls. Mariano has counted about 42 waterfalls in the area
immediately around Cutivireni, one of which tumbles about 1,000 feet.
In the early 1970s, as the priest and a few native volunteers worked to
build the airstrip, church, infirmary and bilingual schoolhouse, Cutivireni
still was isolated from the settlers who were gradually cutting down the
jungle for farmland and cattle pasture.
The priest knew the settlers eventually would reach Cutivireni, but he
was determined to hold them off as long as he could.
"I wanted to prepare the natives for what was coming," he said. "The
mission served as a temporary break so that they could learn to defend
themselves."
Mariano held church services for Ashaninkas only. He also formed a
small cooperative that allowed the Indians to sell their cacao crop and buy
goods they couldn't make themselves, such as machetes, knives and
fishhooks. And he helped the community buy a tractor.
*** Coca profits threatened ***
When the settlers arrived, many resented what they saw as the priest's
favoritism. Many had other reasons to distrust an American priest. They
feared he would object to their most profitable crop, coca, the leaves of
which are refined into cocaine for smuggling into the United States.
Five years before the mission was burned by Sendero, it had been
torched by about 20 armed men while the priest was away in Lima.
Mariano believes they were probably coca growers, trying to scare him out
of the area.
Then, a few years later, Sendero guerrillas appeared. At first, they asked
the priest only for tools and food, which he gave them. By 1989, they were
demanding that he support their cause "or face the consequences."
Sendero burned the mission in November 1989, while Mariano was
visiting the United States. Shortly afterward, U.S. drug agents bombed the
airstrips at Cutivireni and neighboring communities to stop their use by
traffickers.
When Mariano returned in December, he found the Ashaninka under
attack by Sendero, with no way to escape.
What followed was a 10-month ordeal as Mariano struggled to bring the
scattered community together so its members could defend themselves
while awaiting evacuation to a safer area.
*** Church forbids weapons ***
His efforts to supply the beleaguered Indians with shotguns brought him
into conflict with his own church hierarchy.
"The Franciscans do not oppose self-defense," he said. "I thought it was
hypocritical to say, 'We do not oppose self-defense but we won't help you
defend yourselves.' "
Nearly a year later, in September 1990, Mariano managed to enlist the
help of a small philanthropic organization called Wings of Hope. Packing
natives into a small, single-engine plane, they evacuated about 170 people
over the mountains to safety. It took 42 dangerously overloaded flights.
Copyright 1993 Latin American Information Services
Lagniappe Letter
July 9, 1993
SECTION: Peru
HEADLINE: Mining Properties Are Being Readied For Privatization
The government is to start putting its mines on the auction block in
August or September. Peru had intended that its privatization be the
fastest and most complete in Latin America, but the program has been
hitting some snags. As a result, the privatization committee, Copri, has
come under fire for delays in its published schedule and for some recent
failures. Nevertheless, the process is moving, with some of the mines
considered to be the most interesting among the offerings.
Sales Campaign For Cerro Verde. Nineteen international companies have
lined up to bid on the Cerro Verde copper deposits in the southern desert
highlands, 30 kilometers from Arequipa. The front runners appear to be
US-based Cyprus Exploration and Development in association with
Buenaventura, Peru's leading mining group. The Peruvians will probably
have only a 5% participation. Other big names showing interest are Magma
Copper, Phelps Dodge and Amax, all of the US; Canada's Lac Minerals,
Placer Dome, Cominco, Rio Algom and Metall Mining; Japan's Mitsu and
Marubeni; Finland's Outokumpu; and Chile's Compania Minera del Pacifico.
Chilean interests also are represented in the Lac and Metall Mining bids.
US-owned Southern Peru Copper Corp., the country's largest copper
producer, is interested in both Cerro Verde and the state-owned copper
refinery in Ilo, to be sold separately later in the year.
Investors consider Cerro Verde, with known reserves of 654,000 metric
tons at 0.74% copper content, to be the most attractive mine offering. Its
reserves promise 50 years of operation at 40,000 metric tons daily. The
facility also has pad leaching, solvent extraction and an electro-winning
plant with capacity for 33,000 metric tons a year of extremely pure copper
cathodes. Lack of financing for reinvestment and expansion meant that
1992 production -- and sales of $44 million -- were well below capacity.
Cerro Verde has numerous advantages over other mines. It is far from
terrorists, close to civilization, near port facilities and needs no on-site
camp facilities. It has been extensively explored and is ready to work in
two places already opened up. Shortcomings are shortages of water and
power, both of which will cost $50 million to resolve. New investment,
including construction of a plant equipped to handle 40,000 metric tons
per day, is estimated at $250 million.
Shape Up Program For Centromin. Chase Manhattan and Coopers &
Lybrand are co-promoting the sale of mining and refining giant Centromin.
They have contacted more than 100 mining concerns worldwide and are
sounding out the market by asking potential investors to fill out a
questionnaire describing their interest. The decision to sell Centromin as a
whole or in parts will be made when the market has been evaluated.
A new management team of private sector businessmen has overhauled
the ailing giant's finances. It has trimmed the work force from 19,000 to
12,500, reducing the payroll from $148 million to $112 million. The
company's liabilities have been rescheduled, and arrears to suppliers have
been paid. Debt has been sliced from $131 million to $21 million. A drastic
austerity plan brought in profits of $19.3 million last year, compared to a
$173.8 million loss in 1991. Sales totaled $405 million in 1992, with 71%
of output exported.
Centromin, however, remains a giant. It has six polymetallic mines and
one copper mine (Cobriza). Each plant has a concentrator except the
largest, Cerro de Pasco, which has two. Centromin also owns four
hydroelectric plants with 183 megawatts capacity; these could be sold
separately. The company also owns one of the world's last metallurgical
complexes, at La Oroya, which produces refined copper, lead, zinc, silver,
gold and 17 by-products.
Several Centromin officials have made a promotional visit to Asia.
Company president Hernan Barreto reported "enormous interest" from
prospective purchasers, including South Korea's Daewoo, Samsung, Korea
Zinc and Lucky Metals, along with China's Shougang Corp. (which bought
HierroPeru), China National Mining and China National Non-Ferrous. More
visits are planned for Europe, South Africa, Australia and North America.
Tintaya To Be Offered Later. Scheduled for sale in late 1993 or early
1994 is the Tintaya copper mine and plant on the high Andean plateau
250 kilometers from Cuzco. To prepare for the sale, the government is
hiring international consultants and an investment bank. Tintaya's main
reserves are down to 13 million metric tons, only enough to last another
four years. But six surrounding deposits will be offered along with
Tintaya. Projected development costs are $85 million.
Prospects look good for expanding Tintaya's already ecologically sound
processing plant with additional leaching operations, which could serve
other private mines in the area, managers say. Its water and power
supplies are adequate, unusual for Peru. Like Centromin, Tintaya is a sale
whose path might be smoothed by a debt-paper deal. A syndicate of
private banks led by the Toronto Dominion is still owed about $180 million
on their initial 1977 loan.
Copyright 1993 States News Service
States News Service
July 9, 1993, Friday
HEADLINE: EXPECTED CHANGE IN DRUG WAR NOT SOON IN COMING
BYLINE: By Kevin Galvin, States News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
With a Democrat in the White House, many anticipated a shift away from
the military rhetoric that dominated the drug war for the past decade,
recognition that interdiction efforts have largely failed and greater
emphasis on treatment and education.
But President Clinton has shown no sign he plans to tackle the drug
problem soon. Congress, on the other hand, seems ready to change the
nation's anti-drug efforts to focus more on demand and less on supply.
A group of House members is trying to redefine drug war priorities, and
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Narcotics and Terrorism Subcommittee, plans to hold hearings later this
year on the effectiveness of U.S. anti-drug efforts abroad.
"The fact is that the drug war has been rhetorical since Ronald Reagan,"
Kerry said in an interview in his Senate office. "We've had about six or
seven different declarations of 'war,' and each one required that the
president escalate the rhetoric, but it wasn't really a war."
Largely rhetorical or not, the drug war has cost billions of dollars. Given
the disappointing return on that investment and the clamor in Washingon
to slash spending, cutting back anti-drug efforts might seem like a prime
way to trim the budget.
Not so, say those who charge that treatment and education efforts have
been neglected for too long.
"I don't think you're going to find any savings in it because I would
argue strongly that any money you take out of there ought to go directly to
treatment and law enforcement," Kerry said. "I would put more cops on
the street, and I would have treatment on demand."
According to government estimates, only about 20 percent of the addicts
who want treatment can find an open clinic bed. Kerry said programs to
educate childen to stay away from drugs, which have been successful, are
grossly underfunded.
The U.S. effort to suppress drugs has always emphasized a law
enforcement solution. Roughly 75 percent of funds allocated to anti-drug
efforts go to law enforcement and interdiction efforts while just 25 percent
are dedicated to education and treatment.
Clinton drew praise for choosing Lee Brown as his National Drug Policy
Director from reformers who touted the former New York City Police
commissioner's record of emphasizing the need for drug treatment
programs.
But before naming Brown, Clinton slashed the drug czar's staff from 125
to 25, and the budget Clinton sent to Congress in February showed little
change from past drug war funding priorities. Some said the new
administration didn't have its own people in place to guide Executive Office
staffers in drawing up new guidelines, but then the Office of Management
and Budget acquiesced when the House cut $231 million out of treatment
and education programs. Brown told The Washington Post on Thursday
that he would fight to have those funds restored.
Perhaps even more surprising was Clinton's praise for past international
anti-drug efforts at a May news briefing.
"I think we should continue to support those programs," he said. "I
believe those programs have served a useful purpose. I think especially
where we have governments with leaders who are willing to put their
lives on the line to stop or slow down the drug trade, we ought to be
supporting them, and I expect to do that."
The evidence would seem to indicate otherwise.
While drug war rhetoric has focused on crop eradication and interdiction
efforts abroad, spending on such programs accounts for only 5 percent of
total federal drug fighting funds, according to a Rand Inc. report. But that
has translated to about $2 billion annually in recent years for initiatives
which have largely failed.
In 1990, for example, $1.7 billion was spent on interdiction and crop
eradication programs, according to an OMB analysis. Yet the State
Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy Administration
summary issued the following year showed few gains against drug
production abroad. The acreage of coca plants grown to produce the raw
material for cocaine remained nearly the same from 1990 to 1991,
indicating smugglers had all the supply they needed.
More than $2 billion was spent on interdiction efforts in 1991, including
$751 million at the Pentagon, $714 million by the Coast Guard and $481
million by Customs. An additional $660 million was spent abroad through
the Agency for International Development, the Drug Enforcement
Administration and others agencies. But in 1992 the drug trade in Peru,
source of more than half the world's supply of coca, continued to spread.
The price smugglers pay for coca leaf is far higher than the return on
any other crop peasant farmers can produce. The military in countries like
Peru and Bolivia have found it profitable to cooperate with traffickers.
Insurgents gain the upper hand when they side with villagers against U.S.-
backed police who aim to ruin their harvest. And the U.S. insistence on
fighting drugs abroad without significantly cutting demand at home strains
U.S.-Latin American relations.
Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Narcotics and Terrorism
Subcommittee, is no dove on drug matters. But like many who have
studied the drug war, he believes money spent on past interdiction efforts
was a grand waste of resources.
"The issue is, do you spend your resources intelligently enough so that
you're getting the maximum bang for your buck and getting the maximum
amount of education and treatment and domestic law enforcement?" Kerry
said. "The problem with the war on drugs is that we're not getting the
maximum bang for the buck." He said what is needed is "a shift in
resources."
Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Crime and
Criminal Justice Subcommittee, is working with Rep. Barney Frank, D-
Mass., and other House members to design a shift in drug funding
priorities to fight demand more than in the past.
Congressional staffers familiar with the project say the lawmakers would
like to emphasize alternative sentencing to ease prison overcrowding,
mandatory drug treatment for imprisoned addicts, and shift funding from
interdiction efforts to local law enforcement, treatment and education.
At a May summit of more than 100 top federal authorities involved in
the drug war organized by Schumer, Attorney General Janet Reno said past
efforts have halted only 25 percent of the drugs flowing to the country.
And even if efforts abroad succeeded in tripling the price of coca leaf in
the Andes, that would only yield a 2 percent increase in cocaine prices in
the United States, according to another Rand report.
As a prosecutor in Miami, Reno also favored alternative sentencing for
first time drug offenders. She told summit participants that a top priority
should be ensuring "that every person in America who wants drug
treatment . . . gets it."
Many criticize federal agencies for using drug war funds to pad their
budgets or operate redundant programs.
The Defense Department was allocated $1.14 billion in 1993 to fight
drugs, and much of that funding went toward high-tech surveillence
flights, including $137 million to monitor drug trafficking in the Andes,
$59 million for notoriously ineffective aerostat balloons that are supposed
to detect low-flying aircraft crossing the border and tens of millions of
dollars more on other detection systems that have had little effect on
stopping the flow of drugs into the United States.
"I have advocated covert actions on the grounds that it is a national
security threat," Kerry said. "I would rather put the money in some tightly
run covert operations than dealing with these sort of grandiose big scale
military things, and I think you can be a helluva lot more effective in
throwing wrenches into their operations."
Copyright 1993 Inter Press Service
Inter Press Service
July 8, 1993, Thursday
HEADLINE: HUMAN RIGHTS: PLAGUE OF ABUSE THE WORLD REFUSES TO
CURE
BYLINE: by Lucy Johnson
DATELINE: LONDON, July 8
It's like a plague causing misery to millions of people across the globe --
in South Africa, Bulgaria, France, Sri Lanka, Lebanon -- yet Amnesty says
nothing is being done to curb this endemic problem called human rights
abuse.
In its annual report released today, Amnesty International spared no
one the rod as it painted an ugly picture Thursday of the continued
worldwide abuse of basic human rights -- and all this in the face of the
just concluded United Nations World Conference on Human Rights.
"The World Conference has restated the human rights principles of the
past, instead of dealing with the violations of today and the threats of the
future," said Amnesty in a statement circulated with its 1993 report.
"The real yardstick of the World Conference will be action, not words.
What are governments now going to do to stop the torture, the
disappearances and the killings?" said Amnesty.
The report, that catalogues human rights abuses country-by country,
comes just two weeks after governments met at the United Nations-
sponsored human rights conference in Vienna to overhaul the U.N.
machinery for protecting human rights.
Amnesty accuses governments of merely repackaging their old
commitments to human rights instead of modernising mechanisms to
protect them.
The report reveals that during 1992 virtually no government was
innocent of human rights abuses, pointing to government-sanctioned
abuses in 161 countries. Prisoners of conscience were held in atleast 62
countries; torture was endemic in over 110 countries and political killings
were used in 45 countries to remove opponents and "trouble makers", the
report said.
In Africa, despite moves towards multi-party democracy, human rights
violations persisted on a massive scale with thousands of civilians
massacred by government forces.
Angola, Chad, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Zaire were among 14 countries
where unarmed civilians were killed outright by soldiers or "disappeared"
in their custody. In Somalia, the breakdown of national government led to
mass atrocities by warring factions. In South Africa, security forces
continued their covert role in politically motivated killings.
Europe in 1992 also saw a massive surge in human rights abuses, as the
crumbling of the Berlin wall has given way to a spate of inter-ethnic
conflicts. The report catalogues mass violations in war-torn Bosnia-
Hercegovina as well as abuses in little-publicised wars in Azerbaijan,
Tajikistan and other regions of the ex-Soviet empire.
"In numerous other European countries, human rights saw setbacks
rather than improvements," said Amnesty, drawing attention to the rise in
police brutality in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Romania and
Spain. Reports of police assaults in these countries suggest that many were
racially-motivated.
In its statement, Amnesty expresses concern that lax refugee protection
laws and increasingly stringent laws on asylum and immigration imposed
by the European Community (EC) in 1992 could exacerbate the rising
phenomenon of racially-motivated violence.
In Asia, human rights abuses saw little let-up. Burma (Myanmar), the
Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor and Sri Lanka all employed political
killings as a means of repression. In Cambodia, high hopes for a U.N.-
brokered peace deal faltered as politically-motivated killings escalated in
the run-up to elections.
In India, hundreds of political activists were extra-judicially executed
and scores more "disappeared" in conflict zones, while China executed at
least 1,000 people and continues to hold hundreds of prisoners of
conscience, the report said.
Amnesty also reported that serious human rights abuses, including
systematic torture, were committed by governments throughout the
Middle East.
Thousands were detained without charge or trial in almost every
country, the report said. In Iraq, new information emerged about some
100,000 Kurds who have "disappeared" from custody since 1988.
Extra-judicial killings were also rife across a region where peace-talks
are failing to bring a halt to decades old conflicts. At least 120 Palestinians
were shot dead by Israeli forces.
The report also draws attention to the December 1992 deportation of
415 Palestinians to South Lebanon in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli
policeman by the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas.
Many governments in the Americas still failed to make any serious
attempt to impose justice on human rights violators, charged the report.
Thousands were killed by armed forces, paramilitary groups or semi-
official "death squads" in Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Guatemala.
In Haiti, at least 100 people were killed in still unexplained
circumstances that point towards extra-judicial execution; and thousands
of Haitian asylum-seekers were forcibly returned to Haitiby the United
States without a hearing. The United States also executed 31 people in
1992 -- the highest number since the death penalty was reinstated in
1977.
Amnesty also drew attention to the grave human rights abuses
committed by armed opposition groups that in tandem with government-
authorised brutality often traps civilians "between two fires."
"When we compare the fine speeches and final document with the
damning evidence of political repression in this report it is clear that
governments have yet to prove that the World Conference will make a
difference to the lives of people around the world," said Amnesty.
Copyright 1993 Inter Press Service
Inter Press Service
July 8, 1993, Thursday
HEADLINE: LATIN AMERICA: U.S. FORESEES ECONOMIC TAKE-OFF IN NEXT
FEW YEARS
DATELINE: CARACAS, July 8
U.S. Trade Secretary Ronald Brown foresees Latin America's economic
take-off in the next few years and says countries in the region will soon
reach the economic growth level achieved by the "Asian economic tigers."
Brown, who is now in the eastern Venezuelan island of Margarita for a
three-day telecommunications summit which ends tomorrow, said Latin
America could now profit from its commitment to democracy and the free-
market economy.
Cooperation between Latin America's businessmen and governments
could liberate the region's "inestimable potential" and open a century of
prosperity unparalleled in the western hemisphere, he stressed.
Tomorrow, Brown is scheduled to meet with Venezuela's Interim
President Ramon Velasquez. He will also speak on U.S. trade relations with
Latin America, "beyond the North American Free Trade Agreement"
(NAFTA).
Participants in the first Latin American Telecommunications summit
include the Ministers and Vice-Ministers of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.
Officials say the summit, which will be held periodically from now on,
will provide a venue for discussions and eventual agreements between U.S.
and Latin American businessmen.
Brown said developing the telecommunications industry would provide
the region with badly-needed technology and services. He said it would be
best for the region to privatize its industry and eliminate the regulations to
lure in more foreign investors.
He cited the U.S. telecommunications industry as an example, saying it
was now the most competitive in the world.
Copyright 1993 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston Globe
July 5, 1993, Monday, First Edition
SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. 2
HEADLINE: Peru plans on selling a new image; Foreign Journal / PAMELA
CONSTABLE
BYLINE: Pamela Constable, Globe Staff
DATELINE: LIMA
The tall, sculpted windows of the Grand Hotel Bolivar are mostly
darkened, the string quartet no longer graces the lobby at teatime, and the
hotel's dignified saloon has been leased to a fried chicken outlet.
Just outside the faded colonial landmark, the real Lima begins: a swirl of
grit and noise and traffic where the sidewalks are choked from dawn to
midnight with peddlers' displays of sneakers, rusty tools, cheap saucepans
and stolen radios.
For more than a decade, as Peru has sunk into a maelstrom of debt,
inflation, political violence and social disintegration, the deterioration of
Lima's colonial buildings has become a metaphor for national decay.
Ornate ochre churches are overrun by beggars, laundry flutters from
cracked balustrades and most government offices long ago abandonded
their historic palaces for stark modern quarters in the suburbs.
Now, in a desperate attempt to bring back tourism and rejuvenate the
capital, the government has approved an incongruous addition to Lima's
motley mix: hotel gambling casinos.
"We're going to improve the whole area," boasted Wilfredo Chao, a
partner in the new casino at the Hotel Crillon, guiding a visitor among slot
machines and baccarat tables. "We're going to clean out the peddlers and
prostitutes, put in street lights, and make it very attractive to tour groups."
At the stately Bolivar two blocks away, meanwhile, Ricardo Lopez
Dominguez, the elderly reception manager, waited in the silent marble
lobby for the tourists to return.
" Peru was lost, but I am confident it will come back," he said.
In Peru's vast and unregulated survival economy, Jose Cardenas has
found a niche. In his tiny market stall, he grabs chicken after clucking
chicken from a cage, wrings its neck, drains the blood, scalds the skin,
plucks the feathers, scoops out the entrails and sets it on a plank for sale.
"I used to look down on work like this, but now I'm grateful to have it,"
he said. Cardenas once worked at a state ministry, and his wife sewed
textile piecework. But under the government's new austerity plan, both
private and public industry have radically cut back - and the family's
income vanished.
"Look around this market, and you will see former professionals of all
kinds; even teachers and bookkeepers," Cardenas said. "Now we are all
struggling just to eat."
A few stalls away, Jeremias Villavicencio, a wizened man covered in
brown polish, was tacking new heels on an old pair of boots. Like many
unskilled Lima residents, he said he had fled from guerrilla war in the
Andean highlands a decade before.
"I came here hoping to better myself and get an education, but I never
had the chance," he explained wistfully, putting down his hammer. "I still
keep my dreams inside and I don't ask for charity. I have good eyes and
ears and hands, but where can I go?"
Scattered through the congested, crumbling capital, a few historic jewels
have begun to glitter again. The new Bank of Credit is displaying a
breathtaking collection of winged symbols from Indian and Spanish
cosmologies: headdresses of vivid parrot and hummingbird feathers, and
elaborate oil paintings of avenging angels.
Across town, the national museum is jammed with visitors gaping at the
treasures of Sipan, excavated from the tomb of a Mochica Indian warrior-
priest who ruled a northern Peruvian valley in the second or third century.
"This discovery raises Peru back to the image we once had," said David
Balbin, an art student. "Foreigners associate our country with terrorism
and drugs, but this can show the world what advanced cultures we had,
and what we can accomplish again."
Copyright 1993 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle
July 4, 1993, Sunday, 2 STAR Edition
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Outlook; Pg. 4
HEADLINE: Indian power helping democracy take hold in hemisphere
BYLINE: DONNA LEE VAN COTT
TODAY Americans celebrate over 200 years of democracy -- a good time
to remember that in many countries of Latin America democratic
government is measured in only decades, or remains a distant dream.
Due to two recent events in Guatemala and Bolivia -- the most ""Indian''
countries of the Americas -- indigenous peoples in Latin America also have
something to celebrate today. A failed coup attempt that occurred in
Guatemala in late May culminated in the rise to the presidency of an
outspoken advocate of the rights of indigenous peoples, while in Bolivia, an
Aymara Indian leader led the presidential ticket to an unprecedented
victory. These events exemplify the rise of Indian leaders as important
actors in Latin American politics: an overdue milestone in Latin America's
long road toward wider democratic representation.
The rise of Guatemalan Maya leader Rigoberta Menchu as an
international figure during the past year enabled her to serve as the voice
of the indigenous population during last month's constitutional crisis,
sparked by the auto-coup on May 25 of former President Jorge Serrano.
And the alliance between Bolivia's victorious presidential candidate,
Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada and his vice presidential running mate,
Ayamara leader Victor Hugo Cardenas, enabled the ticket to pull off the
most decisive presidential victory since Bolivia's return to democratic rule
in 1982. But the extent of involvement of these two indigenous leaders in
national affairs would have been unthinkable even one year ago, before
the scene had been set for the emergence of Indian power.
In countries of the region with a significant indigenous population, the
political activism of Indian organizations became more self-consciously
""ethnic'' in the early 1980s. Typical rallying points were bilingual,
bicultural education and the regularization of informal property rights in
defense of encroachments by colonists and developers. These isolated
community-based activities swelled into a continent-wide movement in
the late 1980s as confederations of indigenous peoples -- often spanning
national borders -- organized to protest government-sponsored
celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the Spanish Conquest. Media-
savvy indigenous leaders -- with the aid of North American and European
activists -- deftly controlled the ""spin'' on the quincentennary, battling
hard to refute the idea that Christopher Columbus ""discovered'' America.
An ambitious educational campaign conveyed to the hemisphere's non-
indigenous inhabitants the persistence, variety and vitality of indigenous
cultures. As a result, the image of Indians improved markedly throughout
the region during the early '90s.
The selection of Cardenas, the Bolivian Aymara leader, as a viable ally
for a white, millionaire mining barron has its antecedents in the massive
Indian mobilizations that tore through neighboring Ecuador in the summer
of 1990. Videos of the Ecuadoran ""uprising'' circulated widely in Bolivia,
inspiring similar protests, such as October 1990's ""March for Land and
Dignity. '' Since that time, Indian-based peasant and union organizations
have stepped up protests, with 40,000 attending anti-quincentennary
demonstrations in La Paz. In addition, there has been an increase in
political agitation by Indian organizations around explicitly Indian issues
that is independent of the traditional unions.
Carlos Palenque, a mestizo, whose Party of Conscience of the Fatherland
(CONDEPA) came seemingly out of nowhere in 1989 to seize every deputy
and senatorial seat in the Department of La Paz, was one of the first
politicians to woo the Indian voter. In the run-up to the June 6 Bolivian
presidential election, Palenque, who placed third, used his popular late-
night talk show to appeal to Quechua and Aymara voters, and was often
seen on the campaign trail hoisting an Incan scepter. Fourth-place finisher
Max Hernandez, also of mestizo origin, campaigned in Quechua, his first
language, and likewise targeted his efforts primarily at the poor and
Indian population.
But it was Cardenas who attracted the most voter interest, garnering
running mate Sanchez de Losada -- with 36 percent of the vote -- an
unprecedented 15 percent victory margin in a field of 14. According to
political analysts, Cardenas delivered the votes of the indigenous
organizations -- and may have been a factor in the 80 percent voter
turnout -- with stump speeches urging further funding for bilingual
education and Indian political autonomy.
Though estimates vary, most demographers agree that Indians make up
the majority of the Bolivian population. The landslide forced runner-up
Gen. Hugo Banzer to concede defeat, virtually guaranteeing that the
popular choice will emerge from a secret congressional vote in August.
Indian voters, however, have not been as highly prized in Guatemala,
where they also constitute a majority of the population.
That may change if Rigoberta Menchu, and her allies in Maya
organizations such as the Campesino Unity Committee, can expand the
foothold they gained last month.
In October 1992, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Menchu, a Quiche
Maya activist and author of a best-selling autobiography describing the
military's oppression of indigenous peoples in Guatemala. Prior to the
award, Menchu's efforts had earned her death threats from paramilitary
groups. Her nomination for the prize had elicited objections from officials
in the Guatemalan government, whose attempts to portray Menchu as a
dangerous subversive failed. Her highly visible role in the negotiations
among the Guatemalan military, private sector, landed classes and in
meetings with the Organization of American States, represents a profound
reversal of policy -- if not sentiment -- toward Maya leaders on the part of
the Guatemalan political elite.
Guatemala's Maya may have an ally in the new president, Ramiro de
Leon Carpio, the former human rights prosecutor, who was chosen by
Congress to finish Serrano's term in response to a wide coalition of
domestic support for the restoration of democ racy.
Due to de Leon's past advocacy for the rights of the Maya population,
there is now a better chance than ever before that the demands of the
indigenous organizations will get serious government consideration. He
has already broken ground by naming, for the first time in Guatemalan
history, a Maya Indian to a Cabinet post; Celestino Tay Coyoy, a Quiche
Maya, will be minister of education.
Though it is far from certain, chances are also better that the military
will phase out the conscripting of Indians into civil patrols, and that human
rights violations by the military against the Maya will be investigated and
punished, given de Leon's previous harsh criticism of human rights abuses
by the security forces.
De Leon's shake-up of the top ranks of the armed forces -- including the
ouster of Defense Minister Jose Garcia Samayoa, who had originally backed
the Serrano coup -- may also indicate a change in military-indigenous
relations. Most notable is the appointment of Gen. Julio Otzoy Colaj -- the
only indigenous general in the army -- to the post of deputy defense
minister. De Leon has not made as many changes as some would have
liked, however, and took pains to praise the military for its role in
restoring democratic rule.
The recent events in Bolivia and Guatemala may be isolated cases; or
they may represent a regional trend toward greater respect for indigenous
leaders and their constituencies. National candidates in countries with
significant Indian populations -- Ecuador and Peru, as well as Bolivia and
Guatemala -- are realizing that the Indian voter must be part of any
winning coalition, as was demonstrated in Ecuador and Peru during their
most recent presidential contests.
Both Ecuadoran President Sixto Duran Ballen and Peruvian President
Alberto Fujimori courted the Indian voter. While Duran Ballen visited
Indian communities to seek the support of influential leaders, Fujimori
made an issue of his darker complexion in a direct appeal to Indian and
mestizo voters, who have long been excluded from political power.
It remains to be seen whether Indian political power will continue to
expand. Should the trend persist, however, it would mean a wider
distribution of political power that is vital to any improvement in the
standard of democracy in the region.
GRAPHIC: Photo: Guatemala's Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchu TYPE:
Editorial Opinion NOTES: Van Cott, an associate at the Inter-American
Dialogue in Washington, D.C., serves on the World Bank's advisory
committee on indigenous peoples and poverty in Latin America.
Copyright 1993 J. R. O'Dwyer Co., Inc.
PR Services
July, 1993
SECTION: Pg. 18
HEADLINE: Doing PR in South America has its worries and its rewards
A PR pro practicing in Central America, South America and the Caribbean
runs into many situations and problems that are not encountered north of
the border but these are far from insurmountable, according to Bruce
Rubin Assocs., Coral Gables, Florida, which has been in the Latin market
many years.
The problems include translating into Spanish or Portuguese; learning
local customs of each country; arranging for security guards, especially if
several important executives are touring; doubling attention to catering
and similar details; keeping a close eye on the political climate, and
learning to live with less sophisticated computer, telephone and other
systems.
Don't buy editorial
Despite what you may have heard about the need to "buy" editorial
space south of the border, Ruben Aguilar, VP of Bruce Rubin, says his firm
has never done this but has obtained "wonderful coverage" through
traditional, ethical strategies.
The firm has conducted PR and/or media relations campaigns in every
Central and South American country and Mexico.
He admits that "many Latin American countries have been plagued by
debased or corrupt practices" and that "nowhere is this more true than in
communications."
"All too familiar is the news release and photo sent to a publication's
owner along with an advertisement or a little gift.
"Don't do it. First, there's no reason to perpetuate a bad practice.
"Second, Latin journalism has made tremendous strides. While it's still
possible to find journalists with their hands out in exchange for a
placement, increasingly it is the news content of the material and the
veracity of the source that determine coverage.
"Third, you put your company or client in great jeopardy if you 'buy'
your publicity and that fact is uncovered.
"The '90s generation of TV, radio and print journalists thirsts for
information and reliable contacts that extend beyond any single story.
Treat media in Latin America as you would media in the U.S. You'll be
pleasantly surprised by your reception."
A key method of reaching many countries at once is the International
Edition of the Miami Herald, which is distributed in 30 countries including
several in the Caribbean and Latin America.
PR Newswire transmits copy along with Reuters to points in Central and
South America. Transmitted in Spanish, the distribution is available on an
individual country basis, in three packages, or as a complete newsline.
A "solid-story" helps to cut down on "no shows" at press conferences just
as it does in America, Aguilar said.
Embassy will help
He advised that U.S. Embassy staffers in the various Latin American
countries can be of great assistance to PR firms seeking to do business in
those countries.
"There are some great entrepreneurs working in the economic sections of
the Embassies who can provide an amazing array of assistance," he said.
"These fine men and women have helped us to arrange for select mailing
lists, speaker venues and even receptions at the Ambassador's home.
"Make sure you include them in your planning, and seek out their ideas,"
he advised.
Embassy people are also tuned into local politics and their reading of the
political climate should be sought, he added.
"More than you're accustomed to, politics are important to keep in mind.
Things tend to become a bit murky, and someone always has a 'best friend'
in the Ministry of Something or Other."
In spite of this, Aguilar predicts a lessening of the impact between
politics and general media relations in the 1990s.
Provide translations
"Latin Americans are more worldly when it comes to language," he
continued.
"As Americans, we expect the whole world to speak English. Latin
Americans are used to hearing CEOs who aren't fluent in Spanish and
especially, Portuguese.
"If you're bringing your CEO to Latin America for a series of speeches,
don't worry too much that he or she doesn't speak the language. Provide
translations by using one of the many instantaneous translation services
available.
"However, if you're doing a seven-stop single day media tour, you should
have people on hand who speak the local language and have translated
documents available."
Spanish is the dominant language used in all Central and South American
countries with the exception of Brazil, where Portuguese is the national
language.
The Spanish spoken in Puerto Rico is "basically the same" as that spoken
in Latin America.
The PR firm should have at least one Spanish-speaking executive, says
Aguilar, who speaks English and Spanish.
Meanwhile, if you are planning a high-profile, large-scale event that
involves exposure of senior management of a major U.S. company, then
security must be "seriously considered," says Aguilar.
He advised using local security just as local translation services are used.
"Contact the city or state police department and use some of their better
people in an off-duty capacity. Other options include private security or
enhanced corporate security if your client has its own security."
Security is usually not a consideration if a PR person is traveling with
one other person and just visiting a few selected media, he adds.
Watch details
Extra attention must be paid to such housekeeping details as caterers,
transportation and media tours, says Aguilar, who reminds PR people they
will be implementing a program in less sophisticated countries for
executives who are used in North American standards.
"If you normally would make one advance trip, either the client or the
PR firm should make two to insure that details are nailed down.
"Phone service can be unreliable, power black-outs may occur on a daily
basis, and for the most part you'll find it hard to rent computers and other
equipment that are normally available in the U.S."
Aguilar recalls that black-outs occured every afternoon during one
tenday stint in Buenos Aires.
"We set up and ran a press room using specially adapted typewriters
that had batteries attached to them," he said.
Availability of cellular phone service is the exception rather than the
rule in Latin American countries.
Coverage of S.A. grows
Coverage of South American news in North American media is growing,
says Aguilar. Latin American TV stations have equipment that is just as
sophisticated as the equipment in the U.S. and are as quick to cover crises,
he pointed out.
A crisis in a Latin country can wind up on U.S. TV the same day, he
notes. One client of the Rubin firm heard of a crisis brewing in Ecuador in
the morning and had Rubin staffers on an afternoon flight to Quito.
"Quick response enabled us to defuse a volatile situation," said Aguilar.
Latin America Media Network
PR Newswire now transmits copy along with Reuters news to news points
in Central and South America. Transmitted in Spanish, the distribution is
available on a select individual country basis, in three packages, or as a
complete NewsLine.
Argentina: Ambito Financiero Arte Radio Televisivo Argentina Diario Clarin
El Cronista La Nacion La Prensa La Capital Radio Continental Reuters The
Buenos Aires Herald The New York Times The Washington Post Vol Del
Exterior Voliia El Diario Presencia Reutes
Brazil: Agencia J. B. Editorial Abril, A.A. Estado de Sao Paulo Gazeta
Mercantil Jornal Folha de Sao Paulo Jornal do Brasil Jornal do Comercio O
Globo Reuters TV Globo Zero Hora
Chile: Chile Television Diario El Sur Editorial Gestion El Mercurio La Tercera
La Nacion La Epoca Reuters
Colombia: CARACOL -- Nat'l TV Editorial La Patria El Colombiano El
Espectador El Heraldo de Barranquilla El Mundo de Medellin El Tiempo El
Universal de Cartagena Globo Television Kroll Distribuidora de Periodicos,
Publicaciones Latinoamericanas La Prensa La Republica La Tarde Reuters
Costa Rica: La Nacion Reuters
Ecuador: Diario El Telegrafo Diario Expreso $5Ediciones Rocafuerte El
Comercio El Hincha El Universo de Guayaquil Hoy de Quito Radio HCIB TV
Dos Reuters
El Salvador: La Prensa Grafica Reuters
Honduras: Editorial Honduras Reuters
Mexico: ANSA Agencia de Noticias Compania Periodistica Baja California
Corporacion Mexicana de Radio y T.V. Diario Independiente de Colina El
Economista El Financiero El Heraldo de Mexico El Nacional El Norte de
Monterrey El Sol El Universal Excelsior Impulsora Secun Kyodo del Japon
La Jornada Novedades de Mexico Novedades de Yucatan Novedades
Editores NOTIMEX (Nat'l Wire Service) Radio Maratha Reuters Siglo 21
Televisa Tevescom The News Vision
Nicaragua: El Nuevo Diario La Prensa Sistema Nacional de Television
Reuters
Panama: La Prensa La Estrella de Panama Reuters
Peru: Diario La Republica Editorial Mercurio de Arequipa El Comericio de
Lima El Popular El Universal La Industria de Trujillo La Republica Ojo
Reuters
Uruguay: El Observador El Pais La Manana Reuters
Venezuela: Bloque DeArmas Compania Anonima Venezolana de Television
Corporacion Televen El Diario de Caracas El Nacional El Universal
Publicaciones Capriles Reporte, Diario de La Economia Reuers Venevision
GRAPHIC: Picture 1, Deborah Charnes Vallejo, of Bruce Rubin Associates,
meets with AT&T client rep Jacqui Brier Kiviat and Jay Rodriguez, Director
of Foreign Relations for the Latin American Chamber of Commerce, at the
Miami Free Zone. Rubin assisted AT&T with the introduction of an
Import/Export Hotline at a trade show.; Picture 2, Ruben Aguilar, VP of
Bruce Rubin Assocs., has managed PR programs for a variety of travel and
tourism clients including American Airlines and Greyhound Corp. He was
formerly VP-PR for the Convention & Visitors Bureau of Greater Miami.
Copyright (c) 1993 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.
Latin America Weekly Report
July 1, 1993
SECTION: PERU; Politics & Violence; WR-93-25; Pg. 293
HEADLINE: Sendero offensive nipped in the bud; EX-MAYOR SURVIVES HIT
SQUAD ATTACK TO MARK 'HEROISM DAY'
Sendero Luminoso seems to have suffered another reverse when it failed
in an attempt to assassinate a prominent left-wing politician, Michel
Azcueta, in Lima on 16 June.
Hit squad rounded up
The police claimed to have captured several members of the 'annihilation
squad' who attacked Azcueta as he arrived at the school where he teaches
in the sprawling shantytown of Villa El Salvador, to the south of Lima.
Azcueta was shot in the leg but his bodyguards fought off the senderistas,
one of whom was later found dead.
Local experts believe that the attack on Azcueta, a leading 'revisionist' in
Sendero's demonology, was intended to signal the start of the new
campaign of bombings and assassinations in Lima and the provinces, to
mark the 'Day of Heroism', the anniversary of the massacre of up to 300
senderista prisoners after a mutiny in three Lima gaols in June 1986.
Inexperienced gunmen
Police claim that the hit squad failed because of its inexperience, which
indicates that Sendero has lost its best cadres. In the past such selective
assassinations have been carried out with deadly efficiency.
Azcueta, who was born in Spain, is a former mayor of Villa El Salvador, a
community of some 200,000 people founded in 1971 after a notorious
clash between police and squatters led to a change of heart by the military
government then ruling. The settlement became a symbol of self-help
urban development and a stronghold of the legal or parliamentary Left
which Sendero holds in such contempt. Azcueta later became a Lima city
councillor, and stood unsuccessfully for mayor of the capital against
Ricardo Belmont in January.
Several elected officials of Villa El Salvador have been killed by Sendero,
the best known being former deputy mayor Maria Elena Moyano. Both she
and Azcueta were active campaigners against Sendero and were closely
identified with grassroots activities such as the organisation of soup
kitchens for the poor.
Life for 163 prisoners
Figures provided recently by the special prosecutor for terrorist cases,
Daniel Espichan, show that since President Alberto Fujimori introduced
draconian new anti-terrorist legislation in May last year 432 terrorists
have been found guilty by 'faceless' military judges, and 163 are serving
life sentences.
The political-military commander in the Huallaga valley, General
Eduardo Bellido, said on 15 June that operations against Sendero had been
stepped up, and 20 guerrillas had been killed in two battles in San Martin
department.
Copyright (c) 1993 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.
Latin America Weekly Report
July 1, 1993
The personal popularity of President Alberto Fujimori continues to
increase, according to the latest opinion polls, but people are not so
enthusiastic about re-electing him for a second term, as allowed by the
amended constitution (see Page 280). A poll by Apoyo gave Fujimori a
popularity rating of 66% compared with 59% in May, but showed only 41%
favouring his re-election. Another poll, by Datum, suggested 58% wanted
re-election.
The opposition parties seem to have profited from their determined
stance on the re-election and death penalty issues, and on the need for an
independent inquiry into the disappearances of nine students and a
lecturer in 1991 (see Pages 251, 268). Their rating has gone up to 35%
from 20% in January.
Both opposition parties in the Congreso Constituyente Democratico and
those which boycotted the November elections (APRA and Libertad, but
not Accion Popular so far) have agreed to join forces in a 'no' campaign
when the amended constitution is put to a referendum, possibly in August.
Copyright (c) 1993 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.
Latin America Weekly Report
July 1, 1993
SECTION: DEBT ROUND-UP; WR-93-25; Pg. 295
HEADLINE: Peru seeks 'social compensation' funds; JAPAN TO ENCOURAGE
OTHER DONORS WITH US$ 200M PACKAGE
As this issue goes to press, Peruvian economy minister Jorge Camet is
trying to persuade a group of 22 donor nations meeting in Paris to put up
at least US$ 100m in grants for the Fondo Nacional para la Compensacion y
el Desarrollo Social (Foncodes), the fund set up to alleviate the social effects
of the government's economic adjustment efforts.
For this year the government has tentatively budgeted US$ 400m-worth
of investment in social projects through Foncodes. Apart from what it is
seeking from the donor countries, Peru is also angling for about US$ 200m
from the World Bank and the IDB.
Reports from Tokyo say that the Japanese government is willing to give
Peru a lending hand by taking the opportunity of the Paris meeting to
announce a loan package of US$ 200m for infrastructure, health and
education projects.
Japanese foreign ministry sources say their government fears that the
response from other donors may be 'insufficient' and that their own
example might encourage them to loosen their purse strings.
There are signs, though, that Peru is finding it hard to keep up with the
inflow of credit now on offer. For example, as transport minister Dante
Cordova Blanco recently reported, a US$ 200m IDB loan for the
reconstruction and maintenance of the Pan-American highway has long
rain largely idle because of the lack of the appropriate engineering studies.
The government's target was to have completed reconstruction of more
than 1,000 kilometres of highways by July this year with the IDB monies
and US$ 90m of own funds.
Already a request is being prepared for extra funds from the World
Bank to rebuild the highway running from Huanuco to Pucallpa, in the
eastern lowlands.
Coming on the heels of the agreement with the Paris Club (see Page 223),
the approach to the donor nations for 'social' credit is a stepping-stone
towards the crucial phase of Peru's 'reinsertion' in the international
financial community: the renegotiation of the debt with the commercial
creditor banks.
Copyright (c) 1993 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.
Latin America Weekly Report
July 1, 1993
SECTION: REGION; Privatisations; WR-93-25; Pg. 296
HEADLINE: Argentina moves on YPF sell-off; FIRST REGIONAL ATTEMPT TO
LET GO OF THE OIL INDUSTRY
On 2 July, the government of President Carlos Menem launches the most
radical yet of the region's privatisations, that of the state oil company
Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPF). Its importance lies not only in the
size of the operation (with expected revenues in the neighbourhood of US$
5bn), but in its political significance: oil has traditionally been the 'strategic
sector' par excellence in Latin America, and thus reseved to the state.
Both of the region's major oil producers, Mexico and Venezuela, are
determined to keep the industry in state hands, privatising only on the
margins -- and of the others, only Peru and Ecuador seem likely to go a bit
further.
The company
YPF owns 52% of the installed capacity in Argentina's oil industry,
produces 65% of the country's oil derivates and controls 55% of the sales of
fuels. The company's assets have been calculated at US$ 7.4bn; it has a net
patrimony of US$ 4.6bn and debts totalling US$ 878m.
In preparation for the sell-off, since 1990 the company has been
shedding personnel; already down from 51,000 to 10,600, by the end of
this year it will have only 8,000 people on its payroll.
Oilfields (first the marginal ones, then the 'central areas') have been
passing into the hands of private operators over the past couple of years.
Last year, on a turnover of US$ 4bn, it posted profits of US$ 259m. This
year, after investing US$ 784m, it is projecting profits of US$ 529m. For
the next year it has planned investments worth US$ 917m, and it is
projecting a 10% increase in gross revenues as a result of sales of natural
gas to Chile and a 6% increase of sales on the domestic market.
Ownership
Currently, the federal state owns 51% of YPF, the provinces another 39%,
and the employees 10%. By the time the current privatisation plan is
completed, the federal state will be left with 20.3%, the provinces with
11.2%, and the personnel with their 10%-58.5% will be transferred to
private hands.
On offer in July will be 110m to 126m shares (31% to 36%), on which a
reference value has been placed of US$ 17-20 per share -- which would
spell revenues of US$ 1.9bn to US$ 2.5bn.
Pension debt
The government intends to devote just under a quarter of the shares to
mopping up its US$ 9bn debt with the pension system. It is planning to
reduce that obligation by about US$ 1.3bn in August.
In order to prevent these funds from boosting inflation, already on a
disquieting upward drift (see Page 276), economy minister Domingo
Cavallo has announced the creation of a special savings account with a
preferential interest rate which, he hopes, will persuade pensioners to
keep their money off the streets.
UCR opposes early sale
The timing of the sell-off -- and the reduction of the pension debt -- has
moved the opposition Union Civica Radical (UCR) to denounce the operation
as 'electioneering': legislative elections are scheduled for 3 October. The
UCR lists several objections to the sell-off:
* 'An inadequate privatisation may give birth to a private monopoly which
may prove hard to control.'
* 'An excessively speedy transfer of YPF shares could result in an erosion
of the value of the company's assets.'
* Privatisation of YPF 'could seriously affect the country's capacity to set
long-term policies.'
They have asked President Menem to postpone the first offer. He is
most unlikely to heed them.
* Power transmission
Four consortia have qualified as bidders for Transener SA, the new
company created to operate Argentina's high-tension power transmission
grid (the lines and substations of the Sistema Argentino Interconectado,
SAI, hitherto in the hands of three state-owned enterprises.)
They are: (1) The local firms Jose Cartellone and BEA Inversora, plus
Conevial and Endesa of Chile and Impregilo of Italy; (2) the local Techint
with International Houston of the US; (3) The local firms Electrica del Plata
(of the Soldati Group) and SADE Inter Holding (of the Perez Companc
group), Duke and Energy of the US, and The National Grid Finance, of
Britain; and (4) the all-Spanish Endesa-Red Electrica Fenosa-Compania
Mercantil Abengoa.
A pre-award is expected on 25 June. The new company should have an
annual turnover of US$ 480m.
Copyright (c) 1993 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.
Latin America Weekly Report
July 1, 1993
SECTION: IN BRIEF; Peru; WR-93-25; Pg. 297
HEADLINE: Centromin
The Peruvian government has appointed Chase Manhattan and Coopers &
Lybrand as advisors for the privatisation of Centromin, the country's
largest state-owned mining company, with a turnover in 1992 of US$
450m. The first divestment in the mining sector was that of Hierroperu,
which went to China's Shougang in a US$ 312m cash and investment
package. Currently under way is the sale of four companies belonging to
Mineroperu.
SECTION: IN BRIEF; Peru; WR-93-25; Pg. 297
HEADLINE: Siderperu
The government has announced the privatisation of Siderperu, the
country's largest steel producer. Its sales in 1991 totalled US$ 108m and
its assets have been valued at US$ 355m.
SECTION: IN BRIEF; Peru; WR-93-25; Pg. 297
HEADLINE: Aeroperu
After having reportedly threatened to rescind the purchase of Aeroperu
when the government authorised other airlines to fly routes which were
hitherto exclusive to the flag carrier, Aeromexico has relented, following an
official commitment to make these grants conditional upon reciprocity.
Copyright (c) 1993 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.
Latin America Weekly Report
July 1, 1993
SECTION: WR-93-25; Pg. 297
HEADLINE: UPDATE: INFLATION IN THE REGION
Country Source March April May Last 12m Jan-Dec 1992
Argentina Indec 0.8 1.0 1.3 12.3 17.5
Bolivia INE -0.05 0.1 0.8 7.4 10.5
Brazil FGV 27.8 28.2 32.3 1,501.2 1,157.8
Chile INE 0.6 1.4 1.5 13.2 12.7
Colombia Dane 1.9 1.8 1.6 22.2 25.1
Costa Rica DGEC 0.4 1.0 0.4 9.2 16.9
Ecuador Inec 2.3 3.6 4.5 54.8 60.2
El SalvadorDigestyc 0.7 0.4 n.a. n1 21.5 19.4
Guatemala BCG -0.4 1.4 n.a. n1 15.6 14.2
Honduras BCH 0.8 1.9 0.9 8.8 8.8
Mexico Bco.Mex. 0.6 0.6 0.6 10.0 11.9
Nicaragua Fideg 0.8 2.1 2.3 32.6 9.9
Panama DEC 0.2 0.2 n.a. n.a. 1.6
Paraguay BCP n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 24.3
Peru INE 4.2 4.4 3.0 52.6 57.0
Uruguay DGEC 3.6 4.1 4.7 54.4 58.9
Venezuela BCV 2.3 2.8 2.8 35.3 31.9
n1 To April. Previous: WR-93-21, Page 245.
Copyright (c) 1993 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.
Latin America Weekly Report
July 1, 1993
SECTION: PERU & VENEZUELA; Diplomacy; WR-93-25; Pg. 298
HEADLINE: Relations resumed after 14 months; SUSPENSION OF PEREZ
REMOVES LAST REMAINING OBSTACLE
Peru and Venezuela resumed diplomatic relations on 18 June after an
interruption of 14 months. Venezuela broke off relations after President
Alberto Fujimori staged his autogolpe on 5 April last year. The then
President Carlos Andres Perez, as always, took the lead in opposing this
attack on constitutional normality in the Americas.
Relations were not improved last November, when Peru gave asylum to
fugitive Venezuelan air force personnel following the year's second
unsuccessful military coup attempt.
The suspension of Perez and his temporary replacement by Ramon J
Velasquez, a noted champion of regional integration, was a suitable
moment to overcome these episodes. Caracas announced that Peru had
compiled with Venezuela's demands for 'democratisation'.
This was also the line taken by the Organization of American States,
which expressed its displeasure at Fujimori's coup and was mollified by
elections to a constituent assembly last November. Peru was allowed to
return to the Rio Group two months ago for the same reason.
Peru suspended its participation in the Andean Pact's common tariff
regime last August, for a period ending this December. The resumption of
relations with Venezuela is expected to herald a greater commitment to
the pact by Peru.
Copyright (c) 1993 Latin American Newsletters, Ltd.
Latin America Weekly Report
July 1, 1993
On 21 June Peru became the second Latin American country to adopt a
private pension fund system based on capitalisation. Five companies have
been authorised to operate and another three are pending approval. Of
these eight, five have among their partners firms already operating in
Chile, the pioneer in the field.
Existing state pensions will be honoured, and transfer to the private
funds will be voluntary. The companies reckon that they could attract up
to US$ 300m-worth of contributions in the first year.
Copyright 1993 The Mining Journal, Ltd.
Mining Magazine
July, 1993
Davy International, a member of the Engineering Division of Trafalgar
House, has been awarded a contract by Southern Peru Copper Corp. to
provide all engineering, procurement and construction management
services required for the smelter modernisation in Ilo, Peru. The project
will include the design and installation of facilities for smelter offgas
cleaning and cooling and a 175,000 t/y sulphuric acid plant. Further
modifications will include a new flux and revert preparation and storage
system plus additional water supply and seawater cooling systems. Basic
and detailed engineering will be carried out in San Ramon, California. All
work is scheduled for completion by 1995.
Davy International, 2440 Camino Ramon, Suite 100, San Ramon,
California 94583, U.S. Tel: (+1 5120) 866 1166. Fax: 6225.
