Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 17:29:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Aug 1-5 (73 KB)
Copyright (c) 1993 The British Broadcasting Corporation;
Summary of World Broadcasts/The Monitoring Report
August 5, 1993, Thursday
SECTION: Part 4 The Middle East, Africa and Latin America; 4(D). LATIN
AMERICA
AND OTHER COUNTRIES
PAGE: ME/1759/III
HEADLINE: Peru: CCD approves death penalty for "terrorists"
The plenary of the Democratic Constituent Congress (CCD) on 3rd August
approved capital punishment for "terrorists", Television Panamericana
(Lima) reported. The death penalty was approved by 55 votes in favour,
21 against and one abstention during a secret vote.
Copyright (c) 1993 The British Broadcasting Corporation;
Summary of World Broadcasts
August 5, 1993, Thursday
SECTION: Part 4 The Middle East, Africa and Latin America; horn of africa
PAGE: ME/1759/B
HEADLINE: SOMALIA; ANTI-UNOSOM RADIO ACCUSES USA OF
"ORGANISING INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM"
Radio Mogadishu, Voice of the Great Somali People, in Somali 1700 gmt 3
Aug 93 Text of commentary by anti-Unosom radio
"The US Is The Organiser of International Terrorism": this is the subject
of tonight's news commentary.
Following the [defeat of] Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in the second
world war, two forces appeared with opposing ideologies, namely socialism
and capitalism, in the USSR and US. These two forces strove hard to amass
more friends so as to outstrip each other in political, economic and military
terms. Often they used political or economic suppression, conspiracies,
assassinations and military might. In order to achieve these objectives the
US set up the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, whose responsibilities
include gathering information on the governments of the world, and taking
steps to counter governments and individuals seen as opposed to US
interests.
History will never forget the civil wars in South America during the last
four years, all of which were mobilised by the CIA, the US spy system.
These wars caused the death of millions of people, and countless others
were injured. They include the wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bolivia,
Chile, Peru and Panama, which the US forcibly occupied.
On the African and Asian continents, if we take Asia first: the death of
King Faysal Bin al-Aziz Al Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia in 1975 was no doubt the
work of the CIA, which saw him as a political veteran and a Muslim who
could have endangered US interests in the Arabian peninsula. As clearly
stated in "The Secret Wars of the CIA" book written by (?Howard Wards)
in 1982 [title, author and publication date as heard], it can also be taken
that the CIA was responsible for the death of Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat,
the heroic President of Egypt, who the US and Israel saw as dangerous to
the existence of Israel and US policy on existence of Jews. It is also self-
evident that this agency was behind the explosion of the plane carrying
Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, the former President of Pakistan, the reason for his
assassination being his great love for Islam.
In recent months the CIA organised terrorist acts against Turkish
embassies in Europe because the Turkish government has supported
Muslims fighting Armenian Christians in Azerbaijan. Lastly, the recent
unprecedented explosions in Rome and Milan in Italy were no doubt
organised by the CIA so as to confuse Italian domestic politics since Italy
has opposed the (?crooked) policies of the US in Somalia. Therefore Somali
people who are well aware of the blackened history of the US call on the
international community at large and governments friendly to the Somali
people, those who love the good and Muslim and African countries in
particular, to counter the ugly acts perpetrated by the US forces wearing
the uniforms and the name of the UN.
It is surprising says the commentator, [name indistinct] Husayn Jesto,
that the US describes Third World countries, and Muslim countries in
particular, as terrorist, while US international imperialism has agencies for
terrorising developing countries so as to curb the emergence of forces
questioning or reacting to injustice in the world.
Copyright 1993 Agence France Presse
Agence France Presse
August 4, 1993
SECTION: Domestic News
HEADLINE: Peru assembly approves death penalty for terrorism
DATELINE: LIMA
LIMA, August 3 (AFP) - Peru's constituent assembly Tuesday approved
the death penalty for terrorist offenses, giving President Alberto Fujimori
a major victory in his bid to eliminate guerrilla violence in the country.
Fujimori, who grabbed extraordinary powers last year before allowing
elections of the assembly to rewrite the constitution, has called for capital
punishment to help him crush the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru
Revolutionary Movement.
The 55-21 vote with 77 abstentions after stormy debate will put the
death penalty measure in the Peruvian constitution for acts of treason, war
and terrorism, according to assembly speaker Jaime Yoshiyama.
The Roman Catholic church voiced strong opposition to the measure, and
a number of lawmakers cited moral and religious grounds for voting
against the proposal.
Carlos Ferrero, a member of Fujimori's New Majority alliance said,
"Those of us who are in favor of the death penalty are doing what we are
doing without joy or enthusiasm, but simply out of necessity in the fight
against terrorism."
The majority defeated an effort for a roll call vote, saying that those
voting for the death penalty might be subject to reprisals by guerrillas.
Copyright 1993 The Financial Times Limited;
Financial Times
August 4, 1993, Wednesday
SECTION: Pg. 7
HEADLINE: Business and the Environment: Mines make a clean sweep -
Peru's biggest copper producer is taking the lead in reducing industrial
pollution
BYLINE: By SALLY BOWEN
Measured in terms of biodiversity, Peru is one of the world's richest
countries. But economically it is one of the world's poorest, having suffered
a GDP collapse of around 25 per cent in the past six years. For most
Peruvian companies, concern for environmental issues is a luxury they
cannot afford. But the environmental theme looks certain to gain
prominence in the near future. Privatisation of state-owned mining
companies is under way and the government is pursuing an aggressive
policy of encouraging foreign investment in natural resources.
Multinational concerns embarking on mining or petroleum ventures in
Peru will be bound by a self-imposed code of ethics to apply the same
environmental standards in Peru as they do in, for example, Canada,
Finland or Australia.
The environmental lead in Peru is being taken by Southern Peru Copper
Corporation, the country's largest privately owned company and
responsible for two-thirds of all national copper output. SPCC is majority-
owned by Asarco of the US, while Phelps Dodge and Newmont Mining have
minority holdings.
SPCC's environmental initiative is not entirely voluntary. In 1987, a
commission was appointed by the government to investigate repeated
complaints of air and water pollution caused by the company's smelter
complex at Ilo, the port town 600 miles south of Lima, from which SPCC
refines and ships blister (almost pure) copper.
Eighteen months ago settlement was reached between SPCC and the
administration of President Alberto Fujimori over a long-standing
contractual dispute inherited from the previous government. Under the
agreement, SPCC committed itself to investing Dollars 300m (Pounds
200m) over five years - a third for environmental improvement work and
the remainder for general expansion and investment in two new plants.
North of the Ilo smelter site - on a coastline that is home to sea birds
and seals - is a long, pitch-black beach. Years of slag dumped from the
smelter first into the ocean, then on the shore, has been swept along by
currents and deposited a couple of kilometres away.
Another problem is the tailings from SPCC's two mines, 70 miles away in
the mountains to the east. At a rate of 86,000 metric tonnes a day, they
are channelled down to the coast where they spill into the bay, forming a
large artificial beach over a mile long. Fortunately, SPCC's ore is largely
free from toxic impurities but substantial percentages of mineral solids
remain.
'Worldwide, dumping tailings is just not acceptable anymore,' says Eric
Ivey, general production manager. 'We have to accept our responsibility.'
Exhaustive studies are under way to determine whether tailings can safely
be dealt with by submarine disposal.
The process, already operating off the west coast of Canada, is to pipe
the tailings out and deposit them on the seabed 30ft down. Deprived of
oxygen and light, there is no chance the tailings can affect marine life, says
Rescan Environmental, SPCC's Canadian consultants. If studies, scheduled
for completion late this year, confirm this, the flumes for marine disposal
will be installed.
Most controversial are the emissions from the Ilo smelter chimneys.
SPCC officials have for years claimed that what the locals call smoke is
water vapour plus gas, with infinitesimal percentages of sulphur dioxide
which, the company claims, is an irritant rather than a toxin.
However, the Ilo smelter's smoke has been a local issue for years - and a
steady source of income for many local inhabitants. 'They plant alfalfa,
which is particularly susceptible, and there's certainly been some damage,'
says Ivey. 'We've been paying out several hundreds of thousands of
dollars a year in compensation and the sum was escalating all the time.'
If all goes to plan, however, that source of income will soon dry up. SPCC
is working on the installation of a capture acid plant, using technology
developed by Chile's copper corporation, Codelco. The idea is to close one of
the three smelter furnaces and eliminate one chimney-stack in an attempt
to push up sulphur dioxide content to a capturable 5 per cent.
SPCC estimates the capture acid plant will cost around Dollars 80m; the
project is currently at the basic engineering stage. 'It's high school
chemistry to understand it, but to control it is another, expensive, matter,'
says Ivey.
The slag problem is being resolved by building a sturdy sea wall to
prevent any further erosion of the original dumping place. The slag is
unsightly but inert, 'very similar to what comes out of a volcano', says
Ivey. Locals claim the fishing around the black slag beach is excellent. The
sea wall is costing the company more than Dollars 1m.
SPCC has spent an additional Dollars 1m on a sewage treatment plant for
their Ilo company housing complex where 8,500 workers and their
families live. As in most Peruvian coastal towns, much of Ilo's sewage goes
straight into the sea with little or no prior treatment. SPCC will recycle the
water recovered and put it to industrial use.
The Peruvian mining sector seems destined to take the lead in attacking
environmental problems caused by industry. Already, a new mining law
requires environmental impact studies for all new operations, and Daniel
Hokama, mines and energy minister, has publicly recognised the
environmental 'debt' acquired by many state-owned companies now
scheduled for privatisation.
One important point that remains unresolved, according to Manuel
Pulgar, a Peruvian environmental lawyer, is the absence of legal standards
for pollution. 'If you haven't established permissible levels,' he says, 'then
you cannot talk about enforcement.' He would like Peru to follow Chile's
example and set maximum emission levels.
'If you're changing the environment - even if you're not harming it -
you have to address the problem,' says Ivey. It remains to be seen how
swiftly other Peruvian companies will take that message on board.
Copyright (c) 1993 The British Broadcasting Corporation;
Summary of World Broadcasts/The Monitoring Report
August 4, 1993, Wednesday
SECTION: Part 4 The Middle East, Africa and Latin America; 4(D). LATIN
AMERICA AND OTHER COUNTRIES
PAGE: ME/1758/III
HEADLINE: Peru: military courts sentence 57 people, 18 to life
imprisonment
The military courts between 22nd and 27th July had sentenced 57
"terrorists", 18 of them to life imprisonment, Television Global (Lima)
reported on the 31st. The others had received prison terms ranging from
10 to 30 years, the report added.
Copyright (c) 1993 The British Broadcasting Corporation;
Summary of World Broadcasts
August 4, 1993, Wednesday
SECTION: Part 4 The Middle East, Africa and Latin America; D. LATIN
AMERICA AND OTHER COUNTRIES
PAGE: ME/1758/D
HEADLINE: PERU AND BOLIVIA; Fujimori, Paz Zamora sign agreement at Ilo
on economic and tourism cooperation
SOURCE: Television Global, Lima 0100 gmt 31 Aug 93
(Excerpts) Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and Bolivian President
Jaime Paz Zamora arrived together in Ilo at 1155 gmt [local time] on 30th
July. After being greeted by local authorities and members of the official
commissions, the two presidents went to Bolivia Mar. A child named
Gustavo Lora was first to speak on this five-km stretch of land given to
Bolivia for the construction of a tourist centre. The two presidents then
spoke:
[Fujimori - recording] In due time, this will make Peru and Bolivia
economic partners in Mercosur [Common Market of the South], the Andean
Pact and the Group of Three. [End of recording]. . .
[Paz Zamora - recording] These facilities will be built by private
enterprise. The state is not planning to subsidise any productive
investments; these will have to come from private enterprise. [Reporter]
Bolivia Mar will be for the benefit of the two peoples? [Paz Zamora] Yes, of
course. [End of recording]
Once they arrived at the city's tourist hotel, the presidents and foreign
ministers exchanged notes on the creation of the Binational Autonomous
Authority of the Basin of Lake Titicaca, Desaguadero River, Poopo Lake and
the Salar de Coipasa. They also signed agreements that will make feasible
this entity, an agreement on Amazonian cooperation, and an agreement on
the promotion and reciprocal protection of investments.
With regard to the agreements signed in January 1992, it was pointed
out that on 12th August the sealed international bids will be opened for
the building of the industrial duty-free zone and the tourist duty-free
zone.
Thus, the path of Peruvian-Bolivian integration is opened with the
setting of 24th January 1994 as the deadline for launching the Ilo Free
Zone.
Copyright The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., 1993
BNA INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & FINANCE DAILY
Aug. 3, 1993
Tax Treaties U.S., COLUMBIA SIGN TAX INFORMATION ACCORD
WASHINGTON (BNA) -- The United States and Columbia have signed an
agreement to exchange tax information, the Treasury Department
announced July 30.
The accord, signed July 21 in Bogota, authorizes both governments to
exchange information for purposes of administering their tax laws,
Treasury said in a press release. The treaty will enter into force when both
governments exchange diplomatic notes.
The new agreement includes a variety of restrictions designed to protect
taxpayers' rights, according to Treasury. For example, information obtained
under the agreement is confidential, it said.
Requested information will be furnished by the Internal Revenue Service
only when there is sufficient evidence that there is non-compliance with
Colombian tax laws and that the information will be used only for tax
purposes, Treasury explained.
Copies of the U.S.-Colombia tax agreement will be available in a few
weeks, Treasury said.
Treasury also noted that the United States and Peru have exchanged
diplomatic notes, bringing into force as of March 31, 1993, a tax
information accord. The agreement qualifies Peru as a country in which
foreign sales corporations can incorporate and maintain offices, as
provided in the Internal Revenue Code.
Copyright 1993 American Banker-Bond Buyer a division
of Thomson Publishing Corporation
LDC Debt Report/Latin American Markets
August 2, 1993
SECTION: Vol. 6; No. 30; Pg. 1
HEADLINE: Suits Against Ecuador, Peru Could Shake Up Debt Market
Two boutiques are breaking the unwritten rules of the Brady game by
suing Ecuador and Peru for repayment of foreign debt at face value. Both
stand to win bigtime if they can latch on to any Western domiciled assets
or force a profitable settlement. If successful, their plays could also upset
traditional bank advisory committee consensus debt restructuring and
change the LDC debt market.
The strategy seems simple: Buy unrestructured loans at a discount, sue
the country for the full face value, then try to get a U.S. or European court
to attach any vulnerable assets.
Thats what the New York investment and trading boutique Pravin
Banker Associates and the Swiss firm Weston Compagnie de Finance et
DInvestissement are attempting, in respective suits against Peru and
Ecuador. Ecuadors lawyer says Weston is also suing Russia on the same
grounds in British courts.
Pravin Banker and his group are suing the Republic of Peru and its now
defunct Banco Popular for $1.5 million$1.425 million plus $85,000 in past
due interest. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern of
District New York last January, cites unmet obligations in the countrys
1983 debt restructuring accord and alleges that Peru and Banco Popular
wrongfully dishonor~ed! their work and failed to meet their capital debt
obligations. Attorneys for both sides filed information through the spring,
and Judge Robert Sweet is scheduled to consider the case for summary
judgment or dismissal on Sept. 8.
Although the amount of the Pravin Banker suit is small, its timing could
add some pressure to debt negotiations about to begin between the
Citibank led bank advisory committee and Peru.
Peruvian Finance Minister Jorge Camet has sent a letter to some creditor
banks indicating Peru might be ready to meet with creditor banks in mid
August.
These little guys come in and theyre going to get more than the other
~bigger players! get, said one person familiar with the case, who suggested
that Pravin Banker was really seeking a monetary settlement.
What would become of the LDC debt market, another market participant
wondered, if players routinely began filing suits to expand their stakes?
Pricing would change dramatically, and so might the rules of the game. The
outcome of the suits could thus set a significant precedent.
According to court papers, the Pravin Banker suit seeks to attach
Peruvian assets for repayment of obligations Pravin Banker bought on the
secondary market from Mellon Bank in December 1990. ~Its unclear how
much Pravin Banker paid for the debt; a person familiar with the suit said
it was about 27 cents on the dollar, which would mean the company paid
about $385,000. But Peruvian debt was trading at only about 4 cents on
the secondary market then; at that price the firm could have paid as little
as $57,000.!
We think we have a pretty strong case, said Valerie Fitch, an attorney at
Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts, which is representing Pravin
Banker. She declined to comment further. An official at Pravin Banker also
declined to discuss the case.
Other creditors are following the case with interest, though. There are
some 10 inactive creditors suits against Peru, all filed in 1990, mostly by
large institutions such as Morgan Guaranty, Societe Generale, Wells Fargo,
Bankers Trust, Bank of America and others. Although Peru and the banks
had signed a tolling agreement that would have prevented the country
from using statute of limitations as a legal defense, this was never
activated, banking sources say.
The impact of the Pravin Banker suit is going to depend on how other
banks react, said a source familiar with the case.
In other words, will the big banks revert to the legal route or maintain
the negotiating route in working to regularize Perus approximately $10
billion in obligations?
An attorney with ties to commercial bank creditorsbut not involved in
this caseprivately considers the suit a very good idea. It gets peoples
attention, he said.
Peru, for its part, plans to fight. Its attorney, Baker & Hostetler of
Washington, has moved for dismissal, arguing that: Peru's bank advisory
committee is the proper creditor negotiating agent
The claims are barred under principles of international comity
The claims are superceeded by laws and decrees issued by the
government of Peru since 1984, binding Banco Popular with regard to its
debt obligations. Among these is the Dec. 1992 government order that
Banco Popular be liquidated.
The New York court doesnt have jurisdiction
Plaintiff claims are impossible and impracticable. Defendants are unable
to repay their debts because of unforeseen circumstances outside the
contemplation of the parties at the time of these agreements.
Banco Popular is prohibited by Peruvian law from remitting the funds
The suit constitutes unjust enrichment
The enforcement of the suit would violate U.S. policy to eradicate the
debt crisis Similar Suit Against Ecuador
Weston, a Zurich emerging markets investment boutique, is suing the
government of Ecuador and 10 of its entities for $30 million, also for non
payment of debt obligations.
This is a straightforward action for money due but unpaid, Weston
attorney Michael Straus of Davis, Scott, Weber & Edwards wrote in an
affidavit. The case, filed in April, is scheduled for trial in the Southern
District Aug. 9.
But Ecuador initially charged that Weston may not be the real owner of
the obligations. In statements both later disavowed, Ecuadors attorney,
George Weisz of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, contended that Weston
managing director Raphael Gerstel said he was approached by unnamed
individuals at Lazard Brothers in January with a proposal that Weston
acquire both Russian and Ecuadoran debt, and that Cayman International
Bank and Trust Company, of the Cayman Islands, was induced to offer
completely nonrecourse financing to Weston for the purchase of both
Ecuadoran and Russian debt.
Within days thereafter, lawsuits were commenced against both Russia
and Ecuador, Weisz wrote in a court brief. Weisz also contened that Straus
was present during these meetings, before any suit was filed, saying it
may have been because Straus had represented a plaintiff in a similar suit
filed in New York against Paraguay.
Ecuador believes that the purported assignment between Cayman Bank
and Weston was a sham, Weisz wrote. Although dressed up to appear as
though it conveyed title to the underlying credits to Weston, it in fact
was...nothing more than a hunting license issued by the Cayman bank to
Weston. At any time, Weston can step out of its position by reassigning the
credits to the Cayman Bank without liability to Weston, he claimed, in an
argument calling for Cayman to be joined to the suit.
There is nothing unusual or improper about purchasing another partys
claims for payment of discounted notes, overdue invoices or other unpaid
receivables, for investment and profit, Straus retorted in court papers. Nor
is it sinister, and certainly not criminal, to buy such debt with the intent to
bring suit thereon if a demand for payment is refused. On the contrary,
New York law expressly permits and ratifies such business purposes and
has for over a century.
The Weston suit initially resulted in a temporary freezing of $4.6 million
in assets of Flota Petroleum Ecuatoriana held in New York banks. The two
sides then negotiated a consent order to reduce this to $900,000, an
amount being held in escrow pending the outcome of the suit.
Ecuadoran newspaper reports at the time said that, of $20 million
initially claimed by Weston, $13 million was under the jurisdiction of
Ecuadors bank advisory committee, and any recovery would have to be
shared out among creditors. But the remaining $7 million would go to
Weston.
Weston has now raised its total claim to $30 million, saying that the
increase represents newly calculated past due interest.
Ecuador apparently moved to shift remaining vulnerable assets out of
the United States, and said that the Central Bank had adopted
precautionary measures to protect its foreign reserves.
According to Cleary, Gottlieb, Weston has also sued Russias International
Bank of Economic Cooperation in British courts for 31.8 million
Deutchmarks (U.S. $18.7 million) plus 774,000 Deutchmarks ($455,000) in
interest.
The New York court file contains a March 22, 1993 letter from Westons
Gerstel to V. Syunikov, managing director of the Russian bank, demanding
those amounts. Weston has acquired obligations from an Aug. 15, 1985
loan agreement between the IBEC and Yasuda Trust and Banking Co., Ltd.,
whose obligations were unpaid, according to the letter.
***
Weston Compagnie de Finance et dInvestissement and the government of
Ecuador have settled Westons suit for an undisclosed amount, according to
lawyers for both sides who jointly telephoned LDC Debt Report as we went
to press Thursday evening. The settlement was for Weston alone, and
would not be distributed among other creditors, they said.
The attorneys, Michael Straus of Davis, Scott, Weber & Edwards, who
represents Weston, and George Weisz of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton,
who represents Ecuador, said Weston would now join the group of
creditors represented by the Lloyds led bank advisory committee.
Weisz said he now disavows allegations he made in court papers that
Cayman International Bank and two individuals at Lazard Freres could
have been involved in planning the suit.
The withdrawal of this lawsuit is very gratifying for us, Ecuadoran
Monetary Board president Ana Lucia Armijos said in a statement released
Thursday evening.
Copyright 1993 American Banker-Bond Buyer a division
of Thomson Publishing Corporation
LDC Debt Report/Latin American Markets
August 2, 1993
The debt market drifted mostly upward in a peaceful, sluggish week in
which strong long bond prices and the beginning of vacation season were
the main influences. But several exotic issues rallied powerfully.
Traders cited robust local demand for Argentine issues, a big pop to 40
for Peru on the news that the country was finally seeking a meeting with
creditor banks (in the middle of this month) and a jump for Nigerian pars
after the country made a scheduled July 21 debt payment.
On the down side, Venezuelan issues came off on fears that acting
president Ramon Velasquez would have trouble securing an enabling law
that will allow him special powers to enact a fiscal program. And a press
conference in the United States by Mexican and U.S. congressmen opposed
to the North American Free Trade Agreement pushed down Mexican
prices.
Brazil IDUs traded cautiously throughout the week, following the twists
and turns of government decisionmaking on the handling of indexation of
wage increases. Although the market liked a compromise wage accord
arrived at Thursday IDUs came up about 1/2 point, and were trading at 74
3/8 bid 74 5/8 offer in the afternoon IDUs were down about 1/4 to 1/2 a
point over the week. One New York trader who specializes in Brazil
suspects that the accord will lead to indexation anyway. The IMF cant be
pleased, he said.
Argentine pars topped 56, a gain of nearly a point over the week, both
on privatization activity and on more local demand. Nervousness about the
sustainability of the convertibility plan is leading some domestic investors
out of peso investments and into dollar ones, one trader said. Discount
bonds came up about half a point, quoted at 70 1/8 bid 70 3/8 offered.
Fears that FRBs wouldnt be reconciled by the Sept. 1 deadline was holding
back buying; FRBs were quoted at 72 7/8 bid / 73 1/8 offer.
Mexican issues slid on familiar Nafta nerves, coming down from above
74 Thursday to 73 7/8 bid / 74 1/8 offer, still a slight gain over the
week.Discount bonds also came off slightly.
A Venezuelan selloff bought pars down from a climb that neared 72, but
the Thursday afternoon price of 70 3/8 bid / 70 5/8 offer was still
relatively stable over the week. DCBs fell below 70, then rose to 70 bid 70
1/4 offer, just under their price a week ago.
Peru, Nigeria and Morocco were some of the best performers last week.
Peru was seen at as high as 40 on the news of a possible debt meeting, a
jump of nearly four points, but several traders said that was pretty
expensive for an issue with a lot of high expectations yet to be fulfilled
built into the price.
Copyright (c) 1993 The British Broadcasting Corporation;
Summary of World Broadcasts/The Monitoring Report
August 2, 1993, Monday
SECTION: Part 4 The Middle East, Africa and Latin America; 4(D). LATIN
AMERICA AND OTHER COUNTRIES
PAGE: ME/1756/III
HEADLINE: Bolivia and Peru sign agreement on access to the sea
An agreement was signed on 30th July between Presidents Jaime Paz
Zamora of Bolivia and Alberto Fujimori of Peru in the Peruvian port of Ilo
"in which Peru has given Bolivia, for 99 years, 350 hectares without
sovereignty rights to install a free, industrial port and a tourism zone
called Boliviamar", Radio Fides (La Paz) reported.
In an interview with Television Nacional de Chile (Santiago) after the
signing ceremony in Ilo, Paz Zamora said that in his recent remarks,
describing Chile as "indolent", he had not intended to offend the Chilean
authorities.*
Copyright (c) 1993 The British Broadcasting Corporation;
Summary of World Broadcasts
August 2, 1993, Monday
SECTION: Part 4 The Middle East, Africa and Latin America; D. LATIN
AMERICA AND OTHER COUNTRIES
PAGE: ME/1756/D
HEADLINE: BOLIVIA; Paz Zamora says he did not intend to offend Chile
SOURCE: Television Nacional de Chile, Santiago 0100 gmt 31 Jul 93
(ME/1754 iii - Text) The issue of Bolivia and its relations with Chile
continues to be in the headlines. Today Bolivian President Jaime Paz
Zamora said his recent remarks were not intended to offend Chilean
authorities. Paz made these remarks at the Peruvian port of Ilo, where he
and Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori signed an agreement on the use
of the sea coast. The following report is from our special correspondents in
Peru:
[Correspondent - video recording] This is Ilo, a port of 60,000 inhabitants
situated 200 km north of Arica. For Bolivians, Ilo represents their desire
for a sea outlet, a sea coast they lost in the Pacific war. The concession was
established in January 1992 when Presidents Fujimori and Paz signed a
peace and cooperation agreement. Today the two Presidents met in this
city, amid strict security measures and great expectations by reporters, to
make a fact of the initiative. Peru handed to Bolivia 162 hectares in the Ilo
free trade zone besides certain benefits in the port facilities.
This is the monument to Bolivian-Peruvian friendship [journalist shows
monument]. It is located in Boliviamar, a piece of land five km long and
450 metres wide that Peru handed to Bolivia as a concession until the year
2091.
During the ceremony the Presidents insisted on the issue of integration,
but the Bolivian President's remarks characterising the Chilean
government as indolent and with a retrograde and Stone Age position
remained in the air:
[Fujimori] The brotherhood among Latin American peoples is very deep
and cannot be affected in any way.
[Correspondent] President Paz Zamora celebrated Bolivia's return to the
Pacific Ocean by stepping into the water.
[Unidentified journalist] Mr President, do you continue to think the same
things about the Chilean government? Or have you reconsidered the
statements you made last week?
[Paz Zamora] No, but this is not the point. I think [sentence unfinished].
The only thing I said was the truth about the Bolivian people without
trying to offend anyone. I think this is the way it must be interpreted and
not in any other way. In any case I said sharply here that this process of
integration was not against anyone. It was for all, for everyone's benefit.
[Correspondent] We conducted this interview with Bolivian President
Jaime Paz Zamora here, by the ocean. Paz will hand over the presidency to
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada next week.
Copyright 1993 Reuters, Limited
August 2, 1993, Monday, BC cycle
SECTION: Money Report. Bonds Capital Market.
HEADLINE: PERU INFLATION UP 2.7 PCT IN JULY
DATELINE: LIMA, AUG 2
Peru's consumer prices rose 2.7 pct in July, up nine-tenths of a
percentage point from June and bringing year-on-year inflation to 48.9
pct, the National Institute of Statistics and Information (INEI) said.
Inflation so far this year reached 26.6 pct, it said. INEI Chief Felix Murillo
said the biggest rise was seen in the transport and communications sector,
but it reflected only partially rises in utility rates and public transport
fares.
"The rise in residential phone rates is not fully reflected nor are
transport rises seen at the end of the month," he said.
A 4.0 pct rise in water rates and a 6.3 pct rise in gasoline decreed last
Friday will also not likely be felt fully until next month, he added.
The private economic consulting firm Apoyo SA said July consumer
prices rose 3.3 pct, while Cuanto SA said inflation last month reached 4.1
pct.
Peru, recovering from a hyperinflationary spiral, saw an inflation rate of
56.7 pct in 1992 compared with 139.2 pct in 1991 and 7,650 pct in 1990.
Copyright 1993 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
The San Francisco Chronicle
AUGUST 2, 1993, MONDAY, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A5
HEADLINE: Mayan Ruins Found in Rugged Mountains of Belize
BYLINE: Charles Petit, Chronicle Science Writer
An American archeologist is reporting today that scientists have
unexpectedly discovered extensive Mayan ruins in a jagged and
inhospitable mountain range in the small Central American nation of
Belize.
The ruins are in terrain so harsh that most scientists believed it could
not have supported extensive settlement by people who, although highly
sophisticated in fields such as agriculture, mathematics and government,
used few metal tools and had no pack animals.
The communities may have been mining towns set up to send valuable
minerals to cities up to several hundred miles away, said the leader of the
expedition, Peter S. Dunham, an assistant professor of anthropology at
Cleveland State University.
Although looters beat the scientists to two of the sites -- in one case, by
only a few days -- and apparently carried away valuable carvings and
other relics, the largest of the communities appears to have been
untouched by humans since the Maya abandoned it about 1,000 years ago.
The structures include pyramids, ceremonial courts, residences and other
buildings. They appear to date from the late classic period of Maya
civilization, from about A.D. 250 to 900, based on their similarities to well-
known, and much larger, cities and ceremonial centers in the Yucatan
Peninsula of Mexico and in Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
''Nobody lives up there now, and if you go there, you can see why,''
Dunham said in a telephone interview. ''This is probably the last area (in
the Maya region) that had not been penetrated by archeologists.''
Although only a few Maya centers were still active when Spanish
conquerors swept through the area in the 16th century, from about 1000
B.C. to A.D. 1500 the Maya built one of the New World's greatest
civilizations, similar to or greater in grandeur than those of the Aztecs in
the Mexican interior and the Incas in Peru. Today's Maya Indians are
mostly poor farmers living in small villages.
Official announcement of the discovery will be made today by the
National Geographic Society in Washington, which paid for much of the
research.
STEEP RIDGES
In April, local guides took Dunham, five of his students and two other
colleagues deep among the steep ridges and ravines of the Maya
Mountains of southern Belize.
Tips by hunters had led Dunham to believe that lost cities might be
found in the mountains. The range rarely exceeds 3,000 feet in height but
is extremely rough; heavy rains have carved deep fissures into its
limestone- rich rock, a type of geologic formation known as karst. Because
water percolates rapidly into the porous, fractured ground, there are few
streams or lakes, but the area's dense tropical forest is home to flocks of
tropical birds, rare monkeys, tapirs and jaguars.
One site, on an island in the Monkey River, had been reached by looters
less than a week before Dunham got there. They apparently carried off
masonry mouldings that hunters had told Dunham were to be found atop
the site's major pyramid, a broad, ceremonial platform more than 100 feet
across at the base and about 20 feet high. The research team cleared away
enough shrubbery to discover, at the center of the site, a plaza nearly as
big as a football field.
But another site, near the central divide of the mountain range, looked as
though nobody had visited its four acres of ruins for 1,000 years. ''The
structures are not huge, but what is impressive is how sophisticated the
layout is,'' he said. ''Whoever designed it was a master Maya urban
planner.''
The overgrown ruins include reservoirs that still hold water and
elevated causeways linking carefully designed clusters of buildings, as well
as five monumental ''stelae'' -- carved stones standing upright to
commemorate what are presumed to have been rulers and prominent
families.
RICH IN MINERALS
The communities, Dunham said, are in regions rich in minerals, including
pyrite for mirrors, hematite and limonite for red and yellow pigments and
granite for grinding stones. ''We have not found the equivalent of a Maya
New York or Chicago,'' he said. ''It is more like a Wichita, which is our
nation's breadbasket city. It is a clue to their economy.''
He said further exploration and study of the sites may shed light not
only on Maya culture and commerce, but on the still-mysterious reasons
for the collapse of much of their civilization by about the year 1000.
GRAPHIC: MAP
Copyright 1993 U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
August 2, 1993
SECTION: WORLD REPORT; Vol. 115, No. 5; Pg. 38
HEADLINE: Breaking the rules
BYLINE: By Linda Robinson; Tom Gibb; Patricia Garip-Bertuol; Berta Thayer;
David Benson
DATELINE: Brazil; Guatemala; Venezuela; Panama; Colombia
HIGHLIGHT: Latin American democracies are trying to ward off the
'Fujimori virus';
When Latin American leaders gathered at a summit meeting in Brazil
this month, the group's lone Communist, Cuba's Fidel Castro, was greeted
with a warm embrace while Peru's elected president, Alberto Fujimori, got
a frosty handshake. The curious spectacle was mute testimony that while
communist revolution no longer threatens Latin America's struggling
democracies, Peru's brand of authoritarianism does. With the military's
backing, Fujimori usurped the powers of Peru's courts and legislature last
year in a "self-coup," and he came to the summit with a ready rationale for
his actions: Peru's "pseudo democracy" was crippled by "corruption,
violence and an inefficient state." Such talk makes Fujimori's neighbors
understandably nervous, for it fairly describes many of their own
countries.
Since last year's summit, the presidents of Brazil and Venezuela have
been ousted for corruption and Guatemala's leader was thrown out trying
to steal power Fujimori-style. The Peruvian protests that his methods are
not "an export product," but his ideas have clearly caught on: If
democracies are not functioning effectively, what's wrong with breaking
the rules?
Latin America has heard that argument before: The generals who seized
power in the 1960s promised to resurrect a purified democracy. Now, as
market-oriented economic reforms bite harder, the gaps between rich and
poor continue to grow and people become increasingly impatient with
selfish politicians, many civilian governments are threatened by continuing
crises and the spread of the contagious "Fujimori virus."
Peru. Fujimori's appeal is enhanced by his popularity at home (story,
Page 40). Yet his experiment has strengthened him, not democracy; the
leftist Shining Path guerrilla siege continues and a sycophantic Congress
has approved a constitutional revision to allow Fujimori's re-election --
breaking a regional taboo against re-election born of a legacy of populist
strongmen such as Argentina's Juan Peron.
Brazil. Caretaker President Itamar Franco is likely to be the third
Brazilian leader to fail since democracy returned in 1985. His cure for
1,500 percent inflation is lopping three zeros off the currency (the rate is
now 72,000 cruzeiros to the dollar). His economy minister admits that state
spending is the cause of chronic inflation, but the Constitution ties his
hands by mandating huge public expenditures. The country is breeding
political parties like rabbits; 42 are now registered, making stable
governing coalitions impossible. The latest target of corruption charges, the
justice minister, may be nominated to the Supreme Court as "punishment."
Fed up, many Brazilians are moving to Miami, the press is speculating that
Franco may attempt a "Fujimorazo" (usurping of powers) and there is open
talk of a return to military rule.
Venezuela. President Carlos Andres Perez is on trial for corruption. Now
that oil revenues no longer suffice to keep everyone happy, the cogollos, or
party bosses, are attacked for corruption and cronyism. The Supreme
Court, which is also investigating Perez's predecessor, has been plagued by
letter bombs; the military, which attempted two coups against Perez, is still
restless. The leading candidate in elections next December pretends that
peace can be bought with renewed government handouts, but that would
only worsen already high inflation and a ballooning budget deficit.
Guatemala. President Jorge Serrano's stab at a Fujimorazo in May was
foiled by an unusual alliance of liberals and businessmen who previously
had supported coups but were alarmed this time by a U.S. threat to
suspend trade privileges. They set up a fax network to bypass the
censored press and marshaled charts and graphs to show how Guatemala
would be hurt by a power grab. The new president, Ramiro de Leon Carpio,
is a noted reformer and human-rights advocate who has set his sights on
ending Guatemala's 32-year-old guerrilla war. But that will require
concessions from the Army, and any move to reform the military or
disband the paramilitary patrols that roam the countryside could mean de
Leon's ouster. The July 3 murder of his cousin, a top politician, may be a
warning to de Leon, who says solving it is his "test of fire." His next two
years will be one long test of fire.
Colombia. The country's low resistance to graft has led some to dub it a
"narcodemocracy," and in fact President Cesar Gaviria doesn't control much
of his country: Drug traffickers and the region's hardiest insurgents
dominate huge areas, bomb oil pipelines and terrorize cities. The jailbreak
of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar last year caused Gaviria's popularity to hit
bottom, and he has been forced to declare a state of emergency -- further
vitiating Colombia's claim to be a functioning democracy.
Chile. While it is Latin America's shining example of democracy and
economic reform since dictator Augusto Pinochet turned over the reins in
1989, Chile is not out of the woods yet. When President Patricio Aylwin
sought authority to appoint and remove military commanders (including
Pinochet, who remains as commander in chief), the former dictator
promptly staged a show of force reminiscent of the bad old days. The wily
general's ace card is an electoral system that makes reforming the
Constitution difficult. After December elections, Aylwin's successor may
confront the issue, setting the stage for a showdown between democracy
and the military.
Nicaragua. Yet another Fujimorazo may be in store as President Violeta
Chamorro battles opposition on many fronts. Since her election over the
leftist Sandinistas in 1990, her coalition has turned against her, and former
Contra rebels and soldiers have rearmed. Last week 45 people died in the
city of Esteli in the worst fighting since Nicaragua's civil war.
Chamorro's critics blocked U.S. aid, but the Clinton administration
released the aid in return for her pledge to talk with opponents, return
confiscated properties and remove Sandinista Gen. Humberto Ortega as
head of the armed forces. But opposition leaders believe that the
Sandinistas will continue to dominate the military, the Supreme Court and
the Congress. Meanwhile, Nicaraguan politicians are more concerned with
personal ambitions and family feuds than with rescuing the country from a
deep depression and labor strife. And U.S. leverage is slipping as aid levels
plummet.
Panama. Despite massive American aid, Panamanian democracy remains
weak more than three years after a U.S. invasion ousted dictator Manuel
Noriega. Earlier this year, the country's Catholic bishops denounced the
government as corrupt. Some 80 percent of those in jail still await trial.
Although the economy is growing at 8 percent a year, 40 percent of
Panamanians live in poverty.
El Salvador. Last week, 18 months after the United Nations brokered an
end to 12 years of civil war, a U.N. human-rights report found that political
murders are still committed in El Salvador. In May, the investigation of a
Managua auto repair shop explosion uncovered an arms cache belonging to
a Salvadoran rebel group that supposedly has joined the country's
fledgling democratic process.
But now that communism no longer is the enemy, Washington is losing
its zeal for building democracy in the region, despite the troubles
throughout Latin America. Congress is burying the National Endowment for
Democracy, and Latin aid is being reduced. In current dollars, the region
received $ 2.2 billion in U.S. aid in fiscal 1984, at the height of Ronald
Reagan's crusade against communism; this year, it will get some $ 1.2
billion. Key State Department officials are not yet in place. Ironically, the
administration has made its strongest commitment to democracy in the
region in Haiti, where the obstacles to success may be greatest.
Administration officials rushed into action during Guatemala's crisis but
they have just begun to fight for the North American Free Trade
Agreement with Mexico and Canada, which is a crucial first step toward
the long-term stability that growing north-south economic ties could
provide. Although many Latin Americans resented U.S. heavy-handedness
during the 1980s, they may come to lament the neglect of the 1990s.
Fragile freedoms
Progress toward democracy in Latin America is slowed by political
corruption, economic difficulties and terrorism.
[Free]
Jamaica; Belize; Honduras; Costa Rica; Ecuador; Chile -- Democracy
restored, but Army angered by charges of corruption and human-rights
abuses and wary of attempts to increase civilian control over the military.;
Argentina; Uruguay; Bolivia; Brazil -- Weak interim president cannot get
Congress to support political or economic reforms. Corruption charges
plague government and presidential hopefuls.; French Guiana (Fr.);
Dominican Republic
[Partly free]
Mexico; Guatemala -- Reformist new president contends with corrupt
Congress and reactionary military notorious for human-rights abuses.; El
Salvador; Nicaragua -- President in conflict with civilian opposition and
armed groups and with United Sates over Sandinistas' continued
domination of security forces, Supreme Court and Congress.; Panama --
President weak, judicial system paralyzed, corruption flourishes. Massive
U.S. troop drawdown from former Canal Zone may destabilize country.;
Colombia -- Drug money corrupts courts, police, and politicians of two main
parties. State of emergency limits democracy.; Peru -- Despite reform
efforts, political parties and courts remain weak and the Army is divided.
Human-rights abuses continue, as do drug trafficking, corruption and
guerrilla violence.; Paraguay; Venezuela -- Interim president faces
population hostile to painful economic reforms and alienated by cronyism
and corruption of two main parties.; Guyana; Suriname
[Not free]
Cuba; Haiti
[Weak/unpopular president]
Brazil; Venezuela; Guatemala; Colombia; Nicaragua; Panama
[Lacking civilian control of military]
Peru; Venezuela; Guatemala; Chile; Nicaragua
[Corruption]
Peru; Brazil; Venezuela; Guatemala; Colombia; Nicaragua; Panama
[Violence]
Peru; Brazil; Guatemala; Colombia; Nicaragua; Panama
Copyright 1993 U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
August 2, 1993
SECTION: WORLD REPORT; PORTRAIT; Vol. 115, No. 5; Pg. 40
HEADLINE: Iron fist, common touch
BYLINE: By Linda Robinson
DATELINE: Peru
HIGHLIGHT: Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori relies on a laptop
computer, military tribunals, tough economic reforms and populist politics
In San Juan de Lurigancho on Lima's desert outskirts, Peruvian President
Alberto Fujimori dances a huayno valicha, twirling an Indian woman in
traditional Andean shawl and skirt as a crowd gathered for the opening of
a new kindergarten laughs and claps. Clad in jeans and a green knit shirt,
the slight, bespectacled professor turned politician beams as short, brown-
skinned mestizos press slips of paper scrawled with personal pleas into his
hand. Later that night, he will enter them into his laptop computer.
Everyone ignores the military police with AK-47s who stand guard on the
rooftop. As he departs in his bulletproof Mercedes 560 SEL, Fujimori rolls
down the 2-inch-thick windows to shake hands and toss calendars with his
photo to the mob rocking the car. "See how they greet me?" he asks a
reporter riding with him.
Since he emerged from the ranks of the pitufos, or midget candidates, to
sweep Peru's 1990 presidential election, Fujimori's open contempt for
democratic practices has made him Latin America's most controversial
leader. After issuing a blizzard of decrees in 1991, he shut down Peru's
Congress, purged the courts and suspended constitutional guarantees in
April 1992, charging that corrupt politicians were frustrating him. He has
attacked the opposition press and human-rights groups. Now, a new
Congress that is more to the president's liking is rewriting Peru's
Constitution.
There is strong support for la mano dura, the iron fist, in Peru, a country
plagued by economic chaos, drug trafficking, hyperinflation, the
hemisphere's most virulent insurgency and a corrupt, hidebound system
that has ignored the country's Indian and mestizo majority since Spanish
conquistador Francisco Pizarro crushed the Incas. "Peruvians elected a
president who was not of either group," Fujimori said in a three-hour
interview with U.S. News, referring to the racial divide between Peru's
dark-skinned majority and its light-skinned Spanish elite. "So both could
accept me."
A dictator? Fujimori shut down the Congress and the courts and has
cracked down on the Maoist Shining Path rebels, whose leader was
captured and jailed last September; cut inflation from 7,650 percent in
1990 to 139 percent in 1991 and to 57 percent last year; mounted an
aggressive campaign to privatize some of Peru's largest state-owned
businesses, and restored the country's creditworthiness. Although many of
his objectives are not controversial, his methods have provoked sharp
criticism from human-rights activists and democracy advocates, who
charge that Fujimori is a dictator who rules at the sufferance of the
military.
The Peruvian people are less critical: Fujimori's approval rating is 64
percent, in part because of his ability to combine la mano dura, modern
technology and a populist touch. Two of his campaign slogans were a
pledge to be "un presidente como tu" (a president like you) and "work,
honesty and technology," which played on his Japanese ancestry.
Work and technology are the symbols of Fujimori's presidency. He
governs Peru almost single-handedly from the keyboard of his Toshiba
T4400SX, an 80-megabyte laptop computer for which only he has the
password.
"Nothing escapes me," he says, as he switches on his Toshiba and begins
scrolling through a vast array of files. Among other things, the computer
contains a list of all government properties; a plan to convert a bank in the
town of Huacho into a district court; ideas for using an idle, $ 100 million
paper plant built by Peru's 1968-80 military regime; a list of inoperative
milk factories; notes on an unfinished hospital in Arequipa, and a list of
congressmen who Fujimori claims have "irregularities" in their conduct. "I
don't tolerate these things," he says, without revealing just what he plans
to do.
He breaks off to call an aide named Sato. "Have the sewing machines
been sent to the Brena school yet?" he asks, referring to a promise made a
few days earlier. "But no later than this week," he insists before hanging
up.
Next, he punches up the cases of a journalist and a farm organizer
unjustly detained on terrorism charges; so far Fujimori has not been able
to free them. And with disappearances running at 20 people a month, he
cannot possibly oversee every case himself. He ordered the Army into
Lima's Canto Grande prison in May 1992 to regain control of it from
alleged members of the Maoist Shining Path terrorist group. Human-rights
groups believe some 30 guerrillas may have been executed.
Gardens are now planted in the prison yard, but more than half of the
inmates are still awaiting trial. Fujimori's solution, secret military tribunals
that can impose life sentences after trials that can be as short as three
hours, has raised questions about his devotion to due process. "This is an
authoritarian regime. It would be hypocritical to call it democratic,"
concedes Congressman Francisco Tudela, who nonetheless supports the
president.
In May, a senior Peruvian general charged that a member of Fujimori's
tiny inner circle, a shadowy ex-Army captain named Vladimiro
Montesinos, runs a death squad that a year ago murdered nine university
students and a professor who were suspected of being Shining Path
sympathizers. The general, Rodolfo Robles, sought asylum with his family
in the U.S. Embassy in Lima, then was flown to Buenos Aires. Fujimori
responded that he still has full confidence in Montesinos and in armed
forces chief Gen. Nicolas Hermoza, who Robles charged coordinates the
alleged death-squad activities.
Reaching the people. If Fujimori is highhanded, he also has an
undeniable common touch. Every weekend he visits a slum or a remote
village in the Andes or along the Amazon, wearing the chuyo hats and
ponchos the villagers give him. In Olivos de Pro, home to 5,000 squatter
families, he appeared one Saturday at a nearly completed school he had
ordered built nine months earlier. "Look at the straw classrooms they had
before," he says, pointing to thatched huts with dirt floors next to the new
three-story building. "How do you like it?" he asks a boy hanging off the
scaffolding. "Esta chevere!" the youth shouts back. ("It's cool!")
Fujimori himself lives a modest life. One aide grumbles that there are
now only two menus, instead of four, in the presidential palace, and "the
cook doesn't even know what a bearnaise sauce is." Fujimori has taught his
cook how to prepare sushi, one of his favorite foods. He gets his four
children up in the morning and plans his workday so he can eat lunch with
them.
Son Kenji, 12, keeps a pet snake in the palace living room and
occasionally brings it into cabinet meetings. In a visit one evening, no
maid's or decorator's touch was visible in the mismatched, jumbled living
quarters filled with Indian handicrafts from his trips to the interior.
Fujimori's bedroom suggests that reports of his estrangement from his wife
are true: The room has a twin bed for the president and a cot where he
says Kenji sometimes sleeps.
While unpretentiousness may be Fujimori's most Japanese trait, he also
attributes his secretive style to his ancestry. Of the autogolpe, or self-coup,
he launched a year ago, he says, chuckling: "Almost no one knew of it. This
too may be part of my heritage. I'm very reserved. What is secret is
secret." He adds: "Unfortunately, these traits have been confused with
authoritarianism." A mathematician and agronomist, he is more concerned
with results than with a detailed notion of the "authentic democracy" he
wants. "We'll have a system with the same guarantees as any other," he
says airily. The harsh U.S. reaction to his autogolpe and Washington's
decision to suspend aid surprised him. "It seemed to me a little
exaggerated," he says mildly. But, he allows: "I could have used fewer
tanks."
But if Fujimori was born with some instinctive feel for the strategic
lessons of China's Sun Tzu, surprise and secrecy, he honed his skills in the
political caldron of Peruvian academia. His first bid to become vice rector
of the National Agrarian University failed when his running mate betrayed
him after Fujimori had already delivered his followers' votes. "I learned
how dirty politics was," he says. But Fujimori got even a few years later
when he was elected rector of the university after concealing the student
support that clinched his victory.
After he became rector, he foiled repeated strikes provoked by his rival
professors. Recalling how by using a crowbar that he had stashed away in
the trunk of his car, he broke the chains strikers had put on the university
gates, Fujimori hooted with laughter until he was red-faced and gasping:
"There was la mano dura, discipline."
But imposing discipline and building a society that encourages it are two
different things. Fujimori is not an institution builder, and in precarious
Peru, this may be his most frightening flaw. "[His] historic role is
destroying institutions that don't work...." says a former top adviser. "This
is dangerous as hell but an opportunity for moving into modernity. It's like
the French Revolution: The kings are out, but we don't know what's coming
next. It could be Napoleon, it could be Russia [Bolshevism]. He does not
have the power to imagine new institutions. ... He has made himself, not
institutions, stronger."
GRAPHIC: Picture, No caption (Keith Danemiller -- SABA); Picture, Peruvian
populist. Fujimori dances with constituents at a festival marking the
opening of a school. (Vera Alicia Lentz -- Black Star for USN&WR)
The Xinhua General Overseas News Service
Xinhua General News Service
AUGUST 2, 1993, MONDAY
HEADLINE: italy to offer loans to developing nations
DATELINE: rome, august 2; ITEM NO: 0802050
the italian inter-ministerial committee on cooperation and development
has decided to provide some developing countries with 137 billion liras
(about 90 million u.s. dollars) in assistance or low-interest loans. the
foreign ministry announced that the committee would provide algeria,
tunisia and morocco with low-interest loans, and offer energy sources to
peru and kenya, which would total 114 billion liras (about 75 million
dollars). the remaining 23 billion liras (over 15 million dollars) in low-
interest loans will go to italian companies which have joint ventures with
albania, china and thailand. in addition, the committee has canceled some
debts owed by zambia, sierra leone and some other countries.
Copyright 1993 The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego Union-Tribune
August 1, 1993, Sunday
SECTION: OPINION Ed. 1,2 Pg. G-3
HEADLINE: Time to get off the pesticide treadmill
BYLINE: THOMAS LEBHAR LEBHAR, of San Diego, is senior copy editor at
Academic Press, which publishes scientific journals, one of which is
Biological Control,
Critics who attack the Clinton administration's new resolve to reduce
farmers' use of pesticides, as a government-created environmental scare
with no scientific backing, are high in the speculation category and short
on scientific evidence themselves.
Scientific research does, in fact, underscore the need to restrict pesticides
-- but the government's reason for doing so is not compelling enough.
The administration's rationale behind its new policy direction is to
protect children exposed to pesticides through the produce they eat.
However, the residue levels are really quite low, and if the administration
maintains this as its only argument, the chemical industry's salaried
intellectual courtesans of the "smoking isn't bad for you" variety will
dissect, misstate and obfuscate the plan into nothingness.
The administration's goal of reducing pesticides is worthy and necessary,
primarily because millions of people worldwide (including in the United
States) are directly exposed to dangerous chemicals from farm fields and
in the air and runoff water.
The World Health Organization estimates that severe poisonings affect 1
million people per year (from a total of 25 million poisonings) and between
4,000 and 19,000 per year die from them.
Furthermore, pesticides have proven over time to be less than useful. In
every area of the world where they are used, they provide an immediate
and dramatic gain in crop yield, followed quickly by an equally
remarkable return of the pests. The pesticides jolt the arthropod
ecosystem and the typical response is a rebound as the rapidly
reproducing and evolving insects develop resistance to them.
This often is accompanied by a rise in secondary insect pests that
previously were not a major problem. As their primary competition is
initially overcome by the pesticide and predators such as spiders, wasps,
fish and birds are killed by the poison, they access ecological niches
previously unavailable to them. According to Fred Gould, an ecologist from
North Carolina State University in Raleigh: "Since the DDT case, the insects
have, as a group, never met a chemical they couldn't take to the mat."
David Pimentel, an entomologist at Cornell University, has found that
insects today take a larger percentage of the U.S. harvest than before the
introduction of pesticides; damage from fungi and plant diseases also is
higher.
The major causes include increased pest resistance to chemicals, the
planting of crops more susceptible to pests and the abandonment of
nonchemical pest control techniques such as crop rotation.
In Indonesia in the 1970s, the government heavily subsidized pesticide
purchases by farmers and transformed the country from the largest
importer of rice in the world to a net exporter by 1984. The pesticides
soon killed more predatory creatures than pests. Eventually, a minor pest,
the brown planthopper, gained resistance to the chemicals and became the
most destructive rice pest in the nation.
Between 1987 and 1991 pesticide use in Indonesia dropped 65 percent
and rice yields were up 15 because the nation adopted a policy of
integrated pest management (IPM) to lower chemical use and more closely
monitor and guard against pests. The country saved $120 million annually
on pesticide cost, which covers the cost of IPM.
In Peru in the 1950s, DDT and related pesticides created crop booms. By
1956 there were record losses from insects. Under a government
sponsored IPM program, crop sprayings were reduced from an average 16
to 2.35 per season. IPM helped the farmers reap record crops within two
seasons. The program encouraged farmers to protect beneficial insects and
to use techniques of field cleanup and structured planting schedules to
disrupt the generation cycles of the pests.
Our nearby Imperial Valley, which provides salad and fruit crops for the
nation during winter, has suffered from a severe infestation of whiteflies.
Farmers estimated the damage to the 1991 fall harvest at $200 million.
The whiteflies' advantages include a very short generation of two weeks, a
broad host spectrum and a tendency to gather on the undersides of leaves
where it is difficult for insecticides to reach. Furthermore, many of their
natural enemies have been killed off by pesticides, leaving them free to
spread.
There are predatory wasps that will feed on the whiteflies which could
be released into the environment. However, they are very sensitive to
pesticides and can only be used in their absence. The wasps may not
provide a magic bullet but they are also not the napalm strike of biocidal
pesticides.
Worldwide, farmers use about one pound of pesticide for each person on
the planet; in the United States the percentage is probably higher. It is
estimated that carbofuran annually kills 1 million to 2 million birds, many
of which are insectivorous, in the United States.
In the summer of 1991, insecticide runoff from Louisiana sugar cane
fields killed an estimated 750,000 fish, and, according to the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, pesticides negatively impact about 20 percent of the
declared endangered and threatened species. There are hundreds of
arthropod, fungus and weed species that have developed pesticide
resistance as fast as we can make and test the chemicals. The process,
dubbed "the pesticide treadmill," is a losing system that has not resulted in
better crop yields but has poisoned millions of people and other creatures,
disrupted ecosystems and resulted in resistant super bugs.
An integrated system of biological control agents, such as predatory
species, fungi or bacteria, careful attention to field pests, and judicious use
of chemicals when absolutely necessary will result in equivalent or better
yields without the buildup of toxins in the ecosystem and without
significantly different cost.
The Clinton administration's promised reassessment of pesticide use is
long overdue. One can only hope that it goes far enough and is not
throttled by the multibillion-dollar pesticide industry, which is one of the
lobbying overlords in the halls of Congress and the only beneficiary of the
pesticide treadmill.
Copyright 1993 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
August 1, 1993, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 1; Page 9; Column 1; Foreign Desk
HEADLINE: FISH STOCKS DOWN TO PARLOUS LEVELS
BYLINE: By DAVID E. PITT, Special to The New York Times
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS, July 30
Rival fishing nations grimly acknowledged this week that their fleets
have thinned out stocks of the world's edible marine fish to levels
unimaginable only a few years ago, and that only coordinated conservation
and management steps will restore them.
But at the conclusion of three weeks of talks here, a core negotiating
group of 70 governments remained far apart on the central problem: how
to reconcile the time-honored freedom to harvest the sea with the
biological consequences of overfishing. It is a notion that went largely
unnoticed until catch rates worldwide began declining sharply about four
years ago.
"There has been broad agreement in principle on the nature of
conservation measures that need to be taken," said Satya N. Nandan, a
diplomat from Fiji overseeing the talks, the first phase of a yearlong United
Nations fisheries conference. "But because there are competing national
interests, the issues are very delicate, and the process is difficult and
naturally slow."
The negotiations, one of a series of follow-up conferences on
environmental problems mandated by the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro, represent the first effort to regulate global fishing since the United
Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, which ended in 1982.
Three Nations Balk
As the conference moved toward adjournment, the high stakes in the
struggle for dwindling numbers of fish were reflected in an increasingly
tense dispute between Russia and several other nations in the Sea of
Okhotsk, a formerly rich fishing ground off Russia's east coast, where
unregulated fishing appears to have brought stocks of pollock to the verge
of collapse.
On June 15, Russian officials halted pollock fishing within their 200-mile-
wide territorial zone in the sea, and called on Japan, Poland, South Korea
and China to join in a three-year moratorium in the Okhotsk "peanut hole,"
a 35-by-300-mile area formed by the converging boundaries of Russian
waters.
But Poland, South Korea and China refused, saying there was no
convincing evidence that the stock was in peril, and announced this week
that instead they would reduce their fishing activities in that area by 25
percent.
Russian officials in New York responded that Moscow was prepared to
take "all necessary measures" under international law to halt the fishing,
which diplomats said could entail stopping or seizing foreign trawlers and
assessing captains for damages.
On Wednesday, the United States announced in a joint statement with
Russia released at the United Nations that it would support steps to enforce
the Okhotsk moratorium, which it said was in line with efforts by the two
countries to save endangered pollock stocks in another area, the Bering
Sea.
"It's a very tense situation, and time is running out," a United States
official said.
Threat Seen to Law of Sea
Mr. Nandan said he was worried that an accumulation of similar
disputes could threaten the Law of the Sea, which he said "contributes to
the peaceful use of 70 percent of the earth's surface."
The fisheries negotiations involve 60 "like-minded" coastal countries led
by Canada, Iceland, Argentina, Chile, Peru and New Zealand, whose
economies are bound up with fisheries within the 200-mile territorial
limits, and 10 so-called distant-water countries like China, Russia, Japan
and the United States whose fleets include more advanced, long-range
vessels.
A paper drawn up by Mr. Nandan as the basis for future talks focuses on
proposed guidelines that would be used by regional groups worldwide to
begin restoring endangered populations of two key categories of fish:
"straddling stocks" like cod, pollock and orange roughy, which swim back
and forth between territorial waters and the high seas, and highly
migratory species like tuna and billfish.
Representatives of more than 50 private groups attending the conference
as observers expressed concern that while major issues and possible
solutions had been clearly defined, there were no corresponding signs of
the requisite political will.
"There is little evidence that any common commitment exists to adopt
legally binding obligations at the global level that will inform and guide
regional, national and local action," said Malika Naqasima of the Fiji Women
and Fisheries network, who addressed the conference on Friday on behalf
of many of the groups.
GRAPHIC: Map of Russia and Japan, indicating proposed fishing moratorium
zone in Sea of Okhotsk.
