1973-03-29

Welcome to Latin American Press Review, a weekly selection and analysis of important events and issues in Latin America, as seen by leading Latin American newspapers. This program is produced by the Latin American Policy Alternatives Group.

Following upon the recent elections in Chile, election in which President Allende's governing coalition gained strength, we have two reports. On possible changes in the governing coalition of probable significance, Latin America reports from Chile that President Allende has suggested that the ruling coalition, Unidad Popular (Popular Unity), should unite to form a single left-wing party and is to summon a Congress of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) in the near future. There has been speculation that the foreign minister might play a prominent role in any such party if it were formed.

Also, the Latin American news staff of The Miami Herald reports on possible changes in Allende's cabinet. President Salvador Allende will name more communists and more socialists to his cabinet and will retain his military ministers, sources said Friday. The entire 15 man cabinet resigned Thursday night to give the socialists chief executive liberty in forming a new government. The ministers continued as caretakers. The sources said Allende planned to name at least one other communist and an additional socialist to the new cabinet. The socialists hold four portfolios in the cabinet and the communists three. This would reflect the results of the March 4th congressional elections in which both communists and socialists gained strength.

The changes in the Popular Unity Coalition and in the cabinet reflects changes registered in the recent election. One indication of the changes in Popular Support was analyzed by Tricontinental News Service.

An analysis of the women's vote in the recent Chilean elections shows a strong leftward drift among Chilean women who have traditionally voted conservatively. A quarter of a million more women voted for the left coalition in this election than in the 1970 election that brought Allende to power. This was an 8.5% increase. This report was from Tricontinental News Service.

More somber consideration for the ruling leftist coalition were reported from Latin America Newsletter. Chilean negotiators sit down with their opposite numbers in the United States at a conference table again this week to discuss the thorny question of Chile's debt. It is now three months since talks were first held, and in the meantime, the urgency of the issue has intensified for the Chileans. Despite its political boost from recent congressional elections and encouraging upturn in the price of copper, the Chilean government finds itself with an economy in the gravest straits.

Changes in administrative staff is also reported in the United States, when according to The Miami Herald Latin American staff. The Nixon administration has nominated Jack Kubisch as its next Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. His nomination to the post is viewed by Washington insiders as a triumph for the State Department because Kubisch, unlike Meyer and the other Nixon administration officials, is a veteran diplomat. It's unlikely that Kubisch's nomination will be confirmed in time for the meeting of the Organization of American States to begin in Washington April 4th, but it is at this meeting that he is expected to be reintroduced to the Latin American scene after a two-year absence.

This gathering likely will feature heated debates on the sanctions imposed by the OAS against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in 1964 when the US first built the sugarcane curtain. It will also serve as a forum for those Latin American nations who want to have the sanctions lifted and Cuba readmitted to the hemispheric group. Kubisch served in Brazil as Director of the United States International Development Agency from 1962 to '65. He was head of the Brazilian Affairs of the State Department in Washington from 1965 to '69. As a result, he has said to have strong emotional ties with Brazil and is considered an admirer of the economic plan used there.

Shifting from the diplomatic to the military front, Campainha, a weekly newspaper published by Brazilian exiles in Santiago, Chile, describes with concern the increasing militarization in Brazil. When General George Underwood, commander of the Panama Canal Zone, traveled to Brazil last year to discuss Latin American problems, particularly the internal politics of Peru, Chile, and Uruguay, General Sousa Mellow of the Brazilian military stated, "The General Underwood's visit with us reinforces the spirit of our presidents, who examined together the problems of the world which gave Brazil and the United States responsibilities to maintain the continuation of democracy." The statement by General Mellow demonstrates the purposes of the Brazilian arms race to assume the responsibility along with the United States of "maintaining democracy" in Latin America.

Campainha continues, "The warlike capacity of the Brazilian armed forces has already far surpassed the necessities of maintaining territorial boundaries. This excess capacity constitutes a danger for other Latin American countries to the extent that it seeks to create conditions to impose its leadership in Latin America. There is reason to believe that this could include intervention in countries that become unreceptive to Brazilian and North American models of development. The Brazilian preoccupation with entering the group of nations, which possess nuclear arms, reflects this objective. An agreement with the German Brazilian Commission of scientific and technical cooperation was signed last November, to further promote research in nuclear energy and the construction of missiles. Also, last year, Westinghouse Electric began constructing the first nuclear power plant in the country with a potential capacity of 600,000 kilowatts."

Campainha continues, "That the installation of arms factories in Brazil continues rapidly. Dow Chemical had proposed that their Brazilian plants begin producing napalm, which would be used in Vietnam. The so-called end of that war has postponed Dow's production of napalm in Brazil, but for how long?" Campainha asks. Print Latino reported last July that the Italian manufacturer Fiat, was trying to convince the Brazilian government to build a military aeronautics plant in Brazil. A similar offer was received from the French firm Dassault, which tried to sell its patent for the construction of its mirage jets in Brazil. Although in its propaganda, the Brazilian military government insists that the massive arms purchases are only in keeping with their intention to "modernize the army." Realistically, this arms race has one objective, to enable the Brazilian army to repress liberation movements both within and without that country.

Unfortunately, the increased militarization of Brazil is occurring in the context of growing tensions between the Brazilian government and other Latin American countries. Opinião, Brazil's major daily, reports from Rio, that Brazil and Paraguay are in the final planning stages of a huge hydroelectric dam on the Paraná River, and the agreement on the project will probably be signed next month when Paraguay's president visits Brazil.

The Itaipu Dam will be the largest in the world, cost over $2 billion supplied by the Brazilians, and provide energy to a huge area in Southern Brazil and Eastern Paraguay. The project has been criticized severely by the Argentinian government and by influential newspapers in Buenos Aires. Opinião predicts that the protests will grow now that the Peronist Party has won the elections, because the Peronists were outspoken during the campaign in criticizing Brazil's tampering with the Paraná River Basin.

Opinião continues that there are three basic reasons for Argentina's negative reaction to the proposed dam. First, it will seriously affect the flow of the Paraná River with unknown consequences for the trade and agriculture of six Argentine provinces. Secondly, the Brazilian project will make the construction of an Argentine hydroelectric plant further down the river impossible. Finally, the project has military implications, for if the Itaipu Dam is built, the Brazilians will have their hand on the faucet of the Paraná River and could use the dam as a weapon during war. For instance, flooding Argentina's most important and populous cities.

Opinião believes that the Argentinians have just complaints and urges the Brazilian government to stop rushing the planning stages and discuss the problem with neighboring countries. The Rio paper calls for a "disarmament of spirit without which it will be impossible to unite the forces necessary for the integral utilization of the Paraná River." That from Opinião.

Other observers are less optimistic than Opinião about the possibilities of an Argentine-Brazilian accord. Latin America sees the election of the strongly nationalistic Peronista Party in Argentina as likely to sharpen conflicts between the two nations. He reports that the Brazilian foreign office was preoccupied with Perón's victory and seized the deteriorations of relations as inevitable. The new government in Argentina, according to the Brazilian analysis, will be more than nationalistic. It will be overtly opposed to Brazil.

The probable foreign minister of the new Argentine regime has already spoken of smashing the Brasilia-Washington axis and it is expected that Argentine diplomats will soon try to restore Argentine influence in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Latin America concludes that an alliance of the other Latin American nations against Brazil is a distinct possibility if the Peronists can solve some of Argentina's internal problems. That from Latin America.

The following article on political developments in Peru since the illness of President Velasco Alvarado originated with the Latin America Newsletter. It was reprinted by the Brazilian Daily, Opinião. Peruvian President Juan Velasco Alvarado recovering in a hospital from an operation suffered a setback last Saturday when his doctors had to amputate his right leg above the knee. Official bulletins stressed the normality of such a complication, but there can be no doubt in the political impact of this new operation.

Prime Minister Edgardo Mercado Jarrín is temporarily presiding over government meetings. But until last week, Velasco still had to sign all legal instruments. The problem was partially that the Air Force minister should, in strictly military terms, take precedent. However, Mercado is probably the effective ruler of Peru at this point. Mercado is by no means as committed to radical change as Velasco, although he apparently moved to the left during his years as Peru's foreign minister.

Latin America continues. One of the most difficult tasks facing analysts of the Peruvian process has always been to cut through the revolutionary rhetoric and assess the true ideological commitment of the various generals who try so hard to outdo one another in verbal militancy. But there are interesting indications that the government's efforts to stimulate popular participation in the Peruvian revolution have been successful in awakening a militant consciousness in the workers' movement, which never existed there before. How far the militancy can control this development and how far they really want it to go remain to be seen. But the signs are that popular mobilization may be taking on a dynamism of its own.

The First National Congress of Comunidades Industriales, which entered a fortnight ago, provided some interesting evidence to support this view. A creation of the regime's theorists of social solidarity and inter-class collaboration, the Comunidades form of organization are nonetheless throwing up some radical demands which show that the class consciousness is very much alive and indeed growing. Although government officials who helped arrange the congress stressed all along its complete independence from official manipulation or influence, they were probably not prepared for the vigorous declarations of independence from the floor, which led the representatives of the ministry of industry to withdraw.

The ministry's Office of Labor Communities was also accused of lacking revolutionary consciousness and a unanimous vote accensure led to the abrupt departure of the ministry observers. Just for good measure, the Ministry of Labor was criticized for provoking industrial conflicts and the umpteenth call made for its complete reorganization.

Latin America's analysis on the Peruvian situation continues noting, although no open attacks were made on the government policy as such, a number of motions go considerably further than the official stance on such key matters as agrarian reform, nationalization, and workers' participation in decision making. The Communeros called for acceleration of land distribution programs without compensation for exppropriated landowners, complete nationalization of national resources and more active intervention by workers at all levels of management, not just on company boards. Other motions called for the immediate introduction of social ownership of the principle sector of the economy and the Comunidade organization in sectors where it does not yet exist.

From the Congress debates, it seems that despite official exhortation working class leaders persist in viewing the Comunidade as an instrument in their struggle against the capitalistas. A series of demands called for the takeover of firms which tamper with the balance sheets or to declare themselves in liquidation to frustrate the growth of the Comunidade. Other proposals are to exclude the landowners, the owners, and the executives from controlling counsel of the Comunidade and to exclude them also from the annual profit share out. Finally, delegates voted for a strengthening of the unions on the motion that they "constitute the main instrument of class struggle and defense of the workers."

To a certain amount of teaching can bring about a change in consciousness was shown by the experience of the big Northern Sugar cooperatives where, although they are a relatively privileged sector of the Peruvian working class, the field and factory workers directed their fire against the perpetuation of "capitalist attitudes among the managers and technicians." Something similar seems to be happening in industry which was previously a small and weak sector, but which is bound to grow enormously as a result of the government's accelerated industrialization programs.

The government by its no doubt well-intentioned encouragement of participation has opened the door to a militant class consciousness, which is not precisely what it intended. Although as the government is well aware, the Comuneros make up only a tiny and again privileged minority of Peru's working class, they could well become its vanguard. Unless an unexpected change of direction takes place at the top, the newfound self-confidence and independence of spirit among the leading sectors of the working class can only lead to an important radicalization of the Peruvian situation. The above analysis was from Latin America.

You are listening to Latin American Press Review. A weekly selection and analysis of important issues and events in Latin America as seen by leading Latin American newspapers. This program is produced by the Latin American Policy Alternatives Group. Comments and suggestions about the program are welcome and may be sent to us at 2205 San Antonio Street, Austin, Texas. This program is distributed by Communication Center, the University of Texas at Austin.

Today's feature concerns Panamanian discontent with the current Canal Zone treaty and the politics made evident during the recent United Nations Security Council meeting, which was convened in Panama City in order to focus on this issue. The article was chosen not so much because of the Panamanian problem's importance as a single issue, but because it is illustrative of changing alliances and growing nationalism in Latin America. But as a preface to the Panamanian article, we include an article from this week's Le Monde, which is a virtual litany of the woes that the failed US policy during this month of March.

The Unida Popular government of Salvador Allende, termed Marxist with virtually unanimous reprobation by the North American press, has strengthened its position in Chile as a result of the March 4th legislative elections.

In Paraguay, an aroused military now has control over the government in the name of principles, which would not at all be disavowed by the Tupemaros.

President Luis Echeveria Alvarez of Mexico is preparing to fly, first to Europe to strengthen his bonds with the common market and then to Moscow and Peking. This voyage is unlikely to inspire joy in Washington in view of the intense pressure exerted by the United States on former President Lopez Mateos to give up his projected encounter with General De Gaulle in 1963. To leave no doubt of his desire for greater independence from Washington, Mr. Echeverria recently addressed the Mexican Congress, which has just adopted a law imposing rigorous controls on the deployment of foreign capital. The speech was an unusual event in Mexico where the head of state goes to Congress only once a year for his State of the Union message.

In Lima, Peru the heir apparent to General Juan Velasco Alvaro, who has just undergone a serious operation, is Prime Minister Luis Edgardo Mercado Jarrín, who also holds the defense portfolio. It was he who, when foreign minister, firmly placed Peru alongside the non-aligned nations of the Third World. He, along with President Allende warmly approved the project proposed by Mr. Echeverria at the last Junta meeting in Santiago, Chile, calling for a charter of economic rights and obligations for all nations.

Also, despite pressure from Washington's tuna lobby, Ecuador's Navy is harassing the Californian factory ships fishing within the country's 200-mile territorial limit, a limit now adopted by most Latin American nations.

Le Monde continues that Venezuela has joined the Andean group formed by Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, whose common legislation regarding foreign capital is not very different from that contemplated in Mexico City.

And while there is little to glad in the hearts of Washington leaders in any of these tidings, Le Monde continues, it would seem that the Peronist landslide of March the 11th would prove even more worrisome. For provided the military now in control in Argentina honors the electoral verdict, this development upsets the entire balance of power in the southern part of the continent for given the nationalism anti-Americanism, even slightly left-leaning tendencies in modern Perónism, it is not unreasonable to think that Argentina under Peronist leadership might provide effective opposition to Brazil's sub imperialist ambitions. So decried in chancellor's up and down the continent as well as lend its hand in obstructing US economic hegemony in Latin America.

And, Le Monde says, as for Panama, the extraordinary meeting of the United Nations Security Council in Panama City, which opened last Thursday was a heaven sent opportunity to raise an insistent voice against the continuation of what is called the colonial enclave, the zone controlled by the American company running the canal and by Pentagon's Southern command. This article was taken from the French Daily Le Monde.

The following feature length article on Panama is from The Guardian. The United Nations Security Council meeting in Panama last March 15th to 20th might mark a turning point in the decline of US domination of South and Central America. The meeting which the Panamanian government has been planning for over a year focused its fire on the main current issues involving US hegemony over the region. In particular, the nationalist Panamanian government of General Omar Torrijos has struggled to overturn the US domination of the canal zone, a 500 square mile area which cuts Panama in half. The zone includes the Panama Canal itself and the surrounding area, which houses no less than 14 different US military bases.Torrijos wasted no time in bringing this issue before the conference. In his keynote address, he denounced US control of the canal zone as "neo colonialism," which he then traced back over the 70-year history of US Panamanian relations. While making few direct references to the United States, Torrijos spoke of the zone as "a colony in the heart of my country," and also said that Panama would never "be another star on the flag of the United States."

In addition, the Guardian continues, Torrijos denounced, with extensive support from other non-aligned nations, the economic sanctions opposed against Cuba by the organization of American states at the demand of the United States. The 10 Latin American ministers present at the meeting, all invited by the Panamanians, included Raul Rojas, Cuban foreign minister.

John Scully, the US's new delegate to the UN had earlier replied to Torrijos on several points, saying that the United States was willing to revise the treaty, particularly its most objectionable clause, which grants control of the zone to the United States permanently. Scully implied the United States would be willing to accept a 50-year lease with an option for 40 years more if engineering improvements were made to the waterway. Panama formally introduced a resolution at the March 16th meeting of the security council, calling for Panamanian jurisdiction over the canal zone and its neutralization. This resolution was supported by 13 members of the 15 member Security Council, but vetoed by the United States vote. Great Britain abstained.

The Guardian goes on to say that the Panamanians carefully and skillfully laid the groundwork for the United Nations meeting, waiting for a time when they not only held a seat on the security council but chaired the proceedings. By the time their proposal for the Panama meeting came up for a vote in January, the United States was so outmaneuvered that the only objection the US could raise to the UN floor was to complain of the cost of the meeting. At the same time in the statement of the press, the UN's delegation made it very clear that its real objection to the meeting was that it would be used as a forum for attacks on US policies towards South America. Once the Panamanians offered a $100,000 to pay most of the UN costs, however, the US resistance collapsed.

But the Panamanians, the Guardian says, never made any secret of their intentions for the meeting whose very site, the National Legislative Building, is only 10 yards from the zone's border.

Until 1903, Panama was not an independent nation, but was part of Colombia. After the Colombians refused to a agree to an unfavorable treaty over the building and operation of the canal by the US, the US engineered a Panamanian Declaration of Independence 10 weeks later. Two weeks after that, the US rammed through a treaty even more onerous than the one rejected by Colombia with a new country now called Panama.

Protests over the US control of the zone led to invasions by US troops on six separate occasions, between 1900 and 1925. Both public and governmental protests in Panama forced the United States to sign a slightly more favorable treaty in 1936, but US attempts to make new gains led to demonstrations in 1947 and again in '58, '59.

In January 1964, when students demonstrated near the border of the canal zone, planning to raise the Panamanian flag within the zone, US troops fired on them, killing 22 Panamanians and wounding more than 300. This is well remembered in Panama.

The canal zone was again involved on October 11th, 1968 when Torrijos then the leader of the country's army, took power. Torrijos overthrew President Arnulfo Arias, who had become unpopular for his weak stand in talks with United States over a new treaty concerning the zone. In his first two years in power Torrijos policies, The Guardian states, were similar to those of many South American military dictators. He savagely suppressed spontaneous as well as organized, popular liberation movements. Even during this period however, the United States was not completely sure of Torrijos loyalty. And while he was in Mexico in 1969, the Central Intelligence Agency supported a group of military officers attempting to overthrow him. The coup failed and the officers were imprisoned by Torrijos. Several months later, they escaped, were given asylum in the canal zone and flown to United States. Then in June 1971, an attempt was made to assassinate Torrijos.

Whether from personal conviction, desire to build popular support for his government or antagonism arising from the coup attempt, Torrijos's direction began to change. He refused to agree to the new treaty. He held elections in August of 1972. He refused to accept the yearly US canal rental of $1.9 million. We note that the US' annual profits from the zone alone, not including the canal itself, over $114 million a year, and Torrijos instituted a program of domestic reforms.

Torrijos also expropriated some larger states while increasing government credit and agricultural investments to aid poor peasants. A minimum wage was introduced and a 13th month of pay at Christmastime, over time, premiums and other benefits. 100 land settlement communities were created with about 50,000 people living on them and working government provided land.

The economic philosophy of Torrijos, The Guardian reports, seems somewhat similar to that of other nationalistic left leading groups such as the Peruvian military junta.

The article goes on to say, but major problems remain for the country. About 25% of the annual gross national product comes from the canal zone, and United Fruits still controls the important banana crop. Panama also continues to invite US investment and offers special treatment for the US dollar and high interest rates for bank deposits. While the government has helped encourage economic development with several public works projects, spending is now leveling off, partly because of Panama's growing international debts and the currency inflation plaguing the country. Because of its debts, it has also suffered a growing balance of payments deficits.

A better renegotiation of the treaty then is of economic as well as of political importance. The Panamanian position on a new treaty asks for termination of US administration in 1994, an immediate end to US control of justice, police tax, and public utilities in the zone, an equal sharing of canal profits, which are estimated to have totaled around $22 billion since its opening, the turning over of 85% of canal zone jobs and 85% of wages and social benefits there to Panamanians and military neutralization of the zone.

The Guardian continues that this last demand is the most disagreeable to the US, especially since it is coupled with the demand for the removal of all US bases from the zone. The US is willing to compromise on money and other issues, but not on the military question. The reason is simple. The Canal Zone is the center for all US military activity in South America, including the Tropical Environmental Database, the US Army School of the Americas, and the US Southern Military Command, which controls all US military activities in South America and the Caribbean, except for Mexico.

The zone also includes missile launching and placements and a new US aerospace cardiographic and geodesic survey for photo mapping and anti-guerrilla warfare campaigns. The special significance of these bases becomes clear within the general US strategy in South America. As Michael Klare writes, in War Without End, "Unlike current US operations in Southeast Asia, our plans for Latin America do not envision a significant overt American military presence. The emphasis in fact is on low cost, low visibility assistance and training programs designed to upgrade the capacity of local forces to overcome guerrilla movements. Thus, around 50,000 South American military officers have been trained in the canal zone to carry out counterinsurgency missions and to support US interests in their countries. In addition, the eighth Army special forces of about 1100 troops specializing in counterinsurgencies are stationed in the zone, sending out about two dozen 30 man mobile training teams each year for assistance to reactionary armies. This whole operation is as important and less expendable than US control of the canal waterway itself."

Thus, The Guardian article concludes Panamanian control of the Zone then would not only be a big advance on the specific question of national independence, but also would strike a powerful direct blow at US hegemony all over the South American continent.

More recent articles carry evaluations of the outcome of the security council meeting. Associated Press copy reports that General Torrijos said that he was not surprised by the US veto of the resolution before the UN security meeting "Because Panama had been vetoed for 60 years every time it tried to negotiate." The General said he was pleased with the seven-day meeting of the security council, the first ever held in Latin America, but even more pleased by the public support Panama received from other members of the Security Council. He said, "I look at it this way, only the United States voted to support its position, 13 other countries voted for Panama."

Torrijos later taped a national television interview in which he praised the Panamanian people for their calmness and civic responsibility during the council meeting, he said, "Violence gets you nowhere, and the people realize this." But General Omar Torrijos also says that he started immediately consulting with regional political representatives to decide what his country should do next in the Panama [inaudible 00:28:57] negotiations with the United States.

You have been listening to Latin American Press Review, a weekly selection and analysis of important events and issues in Latin America. This program is produced by the Latin American Policies Alternatives Group. Comments and suggestions about the program are welcome and may be sent to us at 2205 San Antonio Street in Austin, Texas. This program is distributed by Communication Center, the University of Texas at Austin.