1973-05-03

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

The latest developments in the Watergate scandal are receiving wide international attention. Mexico's Excélsior, for example, reported extensively on former Attorney General Mitchell's payments of more than $2 million to Republican spies, and the paper provided detailed reports on subsequent events.

The Watergate affair has also occasioned some editorial comment in the Latin American press. Brazil's News Weekly Visão said, "The revelations surrounding Watergate will not have much practical effect since Nixon is already reelected. The wave of mud, which stretches from the Democratic headquarters to the basement of the White House will result in a few convictions, but little else."

Visão continues, "At this point, it is possible to expect that the case will end with a few resignations, because of sudden illness in the family or pressing private business affairs of some prominent White House aides. Certainly the interest of justice will not be entirely served, though the law makes no distinction between those who execute a crime and those who order it. Experience clearly shows that the former almost always go to jail, while their chiefs only lose their jobs. But it is also easy to predict that the example of Watergate will serve some use and that this type of electoral politics will lose for a good while its attractiveness."

"We conclude," Visão writes, "That the wave of reaction created around Watergate was not useless. It was a wave which was born after the official investigation had dried up and became irresistible, in spite of the frank opposition and all the capacity for pressure of the most powerful force of the republic, the White House."

Other types of police activity of the United States also received attention in the Latin American press. Excélsior, the Mexico City Daily, comments that the Watergate scandal has shown that in violent clashes against anti-war demonstrators in the US, the attackers have not always been US citizens who support the war, but frequently Cuban refugees drafted by the CIA. These counter demonstrators use typical storm trooper tactics. Their clumsiness and immorality are a well-known disgrace.

But in the US, it is aggravated by taking advantage of former exiles who are all ready to do what is requested of them, not only to assure their own refuge, but as a repayment of gratitude. Publicly, little has been said of the government officials who recruited the Cuban exiles. One of the Cuban witnesses in the Watergate affair described how upon being apprehended by the police while in the act of assaulting an anti-war demonstrator, he pointed to his recruiters and was immediately set free. It is clear that the Cuban youth were recruited to commit an illegal act, guaranteed impunity by the same authorities whose job it is to prevent and punish such crimes.

Another comment on US police. A Brazilian exile publication Frente printed in Chile, has made public a letter from the late FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover, praising his agents who took part in the 1964 coup against Brazilian President Joao Goulart. Directed to a Mr. Brady, the letter read, "I want to express my personal thanks to each of the agents posted in Brazil for service rendered in the accomplishment of Operation Overhaul." Hoover continued, saying that he felt admiration at the dynamic and efficient way in which you conducted such a large scale operation in a foreign country and under such difficult circumstances. "The CIA people did a good job too. However, the efforts of our agents were especially valuable. I am particularly pleased the way our role in the affair has been kept secret," Hoover concluded. This is from Frente.

Excélsior reports that the People's Republic of China and Mexico have signed a commercial agreement, the first in history between the two countries. The agreement involves immediate sales to China of more than $370 million dollars in Mexican products and was reached during President Echeverria's recent trip to China.

The Miami Herald reports another result of Echeverria's trip. President Luis Echeverria of Mexico gained a diplomatic success today with the announcement by his government that China will sign a treaty assuring Latin America of freedom from nuclear weapons. A spokesman for the Echeverria government in China said, Chairman Mao of China will sign the Treaty of Tlatelolco in all its meanings. The pact, signed by Latin American nations in 1967, bans nuclear arms from all of Latin America. This is the first time one of the five nuclear powers has said it would sign all of the treaty. Until now, China has refused to sign the agreement if their other powers did not approve it without restrictions. The United States and Great Britain have signed only parts of the pact, while France and Russia have agreed to none of it as yet.

Tri Continental News service reports on the Latin American reaction to the US strategic reserve's policy. The Nixon Administration's plan to sell 85% of the US' non-ferrous metal reserves and other minerals on the open world market is causing great concern in many underdeveloped countries, particularly those of Latin America. The US government has traditionally stockpiled vast reserves of strategic materials for use in case of a national emergency and as a hedge against the ups and downs of the world market. Nixon now claims that the US economy and technology are sufficiently dynamic to find substitutes for scarce materials during possible large scale conflicts, and has presented a bill to Congress authorizing sale of almost nine tenths of the US strategic reserves, which would flood the world market next year if approved.

Tri Continental News Service continues, at a recent meeting of Latin American energy and petroleum ministers, the Peruvian Mining and Power Minister called the US government's moves in reality economic aggression against the Latin American countries. He went on to explain that such a move would force down prices of those materials and have a disastrous effect on the economies of Latin America. Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, who export one or more of the affected minerals, would be hurt most severely. Guyana, Mexico and Columbia would also suffer negative effects.

Excélsior reports that the Peronist government of Argentine President-elect Hector Cámpora has organized a youth militia to support the revolutionary action of the government that will assume power May 25th. Formed on instructions from the ex-Argentine president General Juan Perón, the youth militia will participate in all the processes of liberation, from revolutionary work to the control of the actions of the government. The militia will deal with questions like the control of prices and even the action of the government in large terms and will be supported or criticized according to whether the people feel the actions of the youth militia are just or unpopular. Whether or not certain sectors of the youth militias will be armed is not certain. Any violence against the regime will determine whether or not the militias will be armed, a spokesman stated, so that the people will be able to continue to advance the revolutionary process.

In a later related story, the Miami Herald reports from Buenos Aires, the army announced Friday it will not tolerate the organization of people's militias sponsored by Peronist youth. The army chief of staff sent a message to all army units stating, "In view of public statements by leaders of certain political sectors regarding the organization of people's militias, the army announces its opposition to such projects. It will not tolerate the existence within the nation of armed organizations other than the traditional armed forces."

The Miami Herald reports from Rio on recent political arrest in Brazil. Grim accounts are emerging in the wake of the latest wave of political arrest, of widespread use of sophisticated torture techniques by Brazil's security forces. The accounts include use of electric shocks, prolonged interrogation, cold rooms, intense noise, and occasional physical beatings. When the details first began surfacing, many observers were inclined to dismiss them as left-wing propaganda. For many of the people who have been arrested, allegedly are members of leftist organizations ideologically opposed to Brazil's militarily controlled regime. Brazil's censored press has printed no torture stories.

The Miami Herald continues, but dozens of conversations with lawyers, doctors, politicians, and diplomats, plus details of the personal accounts from some of the prisoners who are being released have built up a massive information so consistent it no longer can be dismissed. Names of former prisoners cannot be given, because they say they have been threatened with rearrest if they talk. The details of the methods of operation of the security forces are frightening, in a country where a person accused of acting or conspiring against the rigid security laws has almost no protection. Lawyers, politicians, family and friends of some of the victims tell similar stories of the circumstances of arrest that more nearly resemble kidnappings, in which are reminiscent of Gestapo methods in Hitler's Germany.

Account after account tells of invasion of private homes by armed men dressed in civilian clothes who refuse to identify themselves. The arrested person is taken from the residence, pushed into the back of a car, told to lie on the floor and is hooded. Others are arrested sometimes during the day on city streets. One account tells of a prisoner being beaten and kicked while lying on the floor in the back of a car. This prisoner refused to talk to reporters of his experiences, but when he was released, his face still was badly cut and bruised. The hood is not removed until the prisoner already is in a cell and for the first two or three days is taken out only for long periods of questioning. During this period, the prisoner receives neither food nor water.

According to the Miami Herald, the treatment is designed to lower the physical resistance of the prisoner and to induce fear of the coming shock, humiliation, and degradation. Men and women are told to remove their clothing. Some are given thin prison uniforms, but others remain nude. They are put for varying periods in cold rooms. Descriptions of these vary from cell-like rooms to structures that resemble commercial refrigerators in which the prisoners cannot stand up. The noise treatment is given in specially prepared rooms which are silenced with acoustic tiles and in which the prisoner remains for long periods without hearing any noise, then blasts of sound are channeled into the cell.

Some prisoners say these are noises of people screaming as if in pain, and they seem to be tape recordings greatly magnified electronically. The prisoners also spend periods in rooms with metal floors through which they receive electric shocks. Details of the treatment of the prisoners have surfaced slowly, because of the difficulty lawyers and relatives have in getting in touch with the prisoners. In cases in which the people are arrested away from home, it is sometimes more than a day before relatives become concerned. From then on, locating the missing person is an extremely difficult task.

The atmosphere of uncertainty and fear this flouting the law generates has been condemned openly several times by Brazil's Bar associations and by leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. But lawyers say that despite the protest, the situation has not improved. In the recent wave of arrest, which began in March, nearly 300 persons are believed to have been detained in Rio alone. Though some of these later were released, the arrests still are going on. Nationwide, the number arrested is estimated at about 700 to 800 persons. Lawyers say they have not been able to speak to many of those still held prisoner, even though the detention has been officially notified with officials of the military courts. The security authorities say they're inquiring into two organizations, the Communist Party of Brazil and the National Armed Resistance. This report from the Miami Herald.

In a related story, United Press International reports from London. Amnesty International asked for an impartial inquiry into the alleged deaths of some 26 jailed opponents of the Brazilian military government. The organization, which is concerned with political prisoners throughout the world, said in a statement, that political prisoners have been run down or shot by friends in exchanges of gunfire with police, with such surprising frequency that we believe an impartial inquiry is essential. The organization also said it was concerned about reports that a number of those who died had been tortured while in prison.

La Prensa of Santiago reports on changing campaign practices in Venezuela. Still 10 months away from the presidential elections, Venezuela is very much immersed in pre-election politicking. Without exaggeration, the parties and candidates have already spent sums of money equivalent to the entire budgets of many less fortunate countries. In relation to the size of the population, these must be the most expensive elections in the world. How could they not be, when one minute of TV time cost about $1,000 dollars?

La Prensa continues, in previous campaigns, considerable sums were also spent, but there was more reliance on cheaper campaign techniques, such as mass rallies and public assemblies. Things have changed fundamentally however. TV is now the main vehicle for campaigning and the fault lies with the oil money and with the North American consumerism psychology applied to politics in such new sacred political texts as Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders", and Joe McGinnis' "The Selling of the President", a book which describes Nixon's 1968 campaign.

The weekly report Latin America from London states that the US government is considering selling surplus stocks of a herbicide used in Vietnam to the governments of Brazil, Venezuela, and Paraguay. The herbicide Agent Orange was withdrawn from military use in Vietnam, because it was believed to damage human and animal fetuses in the womb, resulting in deformed children.

You are 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 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.

For our feature today, we'll be talking with Mary Elizabeth Harding, an American citizen who worked for 14 years in Bolivia with the Roman Catholic Order of Maryknolls Sisters. Mary was arrested on December 5th in Bolivia and charged with belonging to a terrorist organization. International press coverage and protests were credited for securing her release this last January 14th. Mary, how did you happen to go to Bolivia in the first place and what kind of work were you doing?

Well, I went to Bolivia in 1959 as a Maryknoll sister. I was assigned there and I worked for about four years with children in a little parish school in Cobija, Bolivia. Then I went up to La Paz, which is the business center and the political center of the country, and I began to see through my work with public school children there, how very difficult life was for working class people in Bolivia. I was aware that the religious community was more accepted by the people who owned the business, the people who owned the factories and in La Paz than the working class people. I began to question my commitment to the religious community, and in 1970 I asked to be released from Maryknoll. That time I was working in a factory. I stayed on working in the factory until about a year later, then I began teaching English to support myself.

What kind of factory was it?

It was a plastics factory. Came this little factory where we made a plastic tooling and bagging and little plastic artifacts, little kitchen utensils, spoons, cups, saucers, things would be stamped out of these hydraulic machines.

What were the working conditions there and wages?

It was a pretty difficult place to work. The machinery was very old, very unreliable. Accidents were frequent, and when I say accidents, I mean bad accidents because remember, these machines close under tons of pressure. Now when they don't open again, then until they're ready, and if you got a hand or your fingers caught in the machine, it meant you lost that part of your hand.

What were the circumstances of your arrest and how were you finally released?

Shortly after I went to La Paz, I began to question the role of my religious community as being an agent in bringing about the kind of changes that I felt were needed in Bolivia. I began to develop a friendship with many young people in the country who also had reached this level of questioning how much longer we could go on. The way we saw it, we were putting band-aids on a completely sick, corrupt body, and we felt that to really put Bolivia back in the hands of Bolivians would mean a drastic, a radical change in her whole economic and political system. I really consider it an honor to have met some of these young people. Most of them are no longer alive. One fellow died in the guerrilla focal that took place in 1970.

I became very concerned about the question of the conditions of the people who were arrested in the country. I was very concerned for the political prisoners and I was very active in a group. See, there was actually a committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Bolivia, which had a recognized charter from the United Nations. But the situation was so tense and has been so tense and so difficult since August of 1971 when Hugo Banzer Suarez came into power, that we were literally afraid to reactivate this committee, to organize a committee which would try to defend the human rights of people arrested for political reasons in Bolivia. We set up kind of a network of reaching the prisoners with supplies, with food or clothing or medical things. Then they in turn let us know of the condition of the people in the prisons and who had been arrested and where they were. It was the only way the families of the prisoners could keep in touch with the people in the prisons.

You were arrested last December?

I was arrested on the 2nd of December, and I was released on the 14th of January. I was arrested by these secret agents that are used by the police now. They're not uniformed men. They carry no identification. You're transported in automobiles that have no license plates. I was taken to the Ministry of the Interior and I was pretty badly treated there for a few days, and I think that's quite significant. I don't know if people realize, I think some people think that the brutal treatment or the torturing of political prisoners goes on kind of around the fringes of the government, that the government doesn't really have the responsibility for, can't really control it. That's not true. No, I know in my own case, I suffered several beatings right there in the Ministry of the Interior. I know the case of a 67-year-old woman, Delfina Burgoa, who was arrested and taken to the Ministry and beaten, terribly tortured for information.

I remained in the Ministry for about 12 days, and then I was taken to the police station where I stayed in solitary confinement for four weeks, and then I think it was a accumulation of pressures. People here in the States were writing letters to me in care of the president of the country. People were writing letters to Senator Kennedy because I'm from Massachusetts and to Senator Church because they knew that—Well, he had made some very interesting observations about American economic assistance, which were picked up in the Bolivian newspapers, and I had sent those clippings to him and kind of maintained a contact with him. So those people put on the pressure that they could, and my friends in La Paz were continually visiting the consul and the Minister of the Interior.

Is your case unusual in Bolivia, or are there many people in Bolivia who are in prison for political reasons?

There must be a thousand people right now in prison in Bolivia. That might not impress you terribly when you think of 200,000 political prisoners in South Vietnam. But when you remember that there's—the Bolivian population is 4 million and some. The people who would be politically aware, the people who live around the cities, who would be more conscious of what's going on, what was involved in the change of government, that wouldn't be more than maybe 300,000 people. When you take into consideration the fact that periodically 20 or 30 people are released from jail and sent out of the country, and then another 20 or 30 take their places in the jail, the number of a thousand becomes very relative.

Are most of these political prisoners people that are involved in organized subversion of the government or—It seems like that would be harder.

Subversion is a very good term. It's pretty hard to define what subversion is all about. This particular government, the government of Hugo Banzer Suarez, considers any criticism or any offering of alternative solutions for Bolivia's problems as subversion. The people in the jails in Bolivia are many students, professional people, there are many women in prison. No respect is made for a woman's condition. I know of several cases of women who were expecting children when they were arrested and pretty badly beaten up. I know of a case of a Bolivian intellectual, a man who founded the Partido Indio in Bolivia. He was accused of criticizing the government and these secret agents went to his house to arrest him, but they didn't find him. The only one in the house was his nine-year-old grand-nephew, so they took that child. He was later released among the men who escaped from Quati back in November of '72.

There were many young fellows in that group, 15, 16 year old boys. I know people who have been murdered. I know people who have suffered very serious consequences as a result of the treatment they received in prison. Now, no one who's in jail in Bolivia who's considered a political prisoner has ever passed to the judiciary process. No one has ever had a trial. The right to habeas corpus is not respected. This guarantee is written into the Constitution, but General Bond said, wrote it right out by a supreme decree, and the Association of Professionals challenged the president on that. They challenged the constitutionality of that, and when they did, their leader, the man who was the head of the Association of Professionals, was arrested.

Mary, there's a lot of criticism of US support of military dictatorships in, for instance, Brazil, Argentina, and other Latin American countries. What's the US policy toward the Bolivian government?

The United States policy is very clear towards the present Bolivian government, and it was very clear towards the government that just preceded General Hugo Banzer Suarez. The man who was in office before, he was in office for some 10 months, and he received $5 million worth of economic assistance. The American company, the construction company, Williams Brothers, that was building the pipeline to pipe out the natural gas just couldn't complete its contract. They couldn't complete the construction of that pipeline under General Torres, but it was miraculously completed under Hugo Banzer Suarez and the amount of economic assistance to the General Suarez was–in the first six months of Suarez' period, he received nine times what Torres had received in a year—in 10 months.

The United States has very direct economic interests in Bolivia. Bolivia has very rich mineral reserves. Everyone's heard of Bolivian tin. Well, Bolivia also has deposits of zinc, tungsten, radioactive materials, and a real wealth of petroleum resources. The Denver Mining Corporation is now investing some $10 million dollars in exploiting the tungsten outside of Aruro and the Union Oil Corporation of California has been given the franchise to develop the oil reserves down in the Santa Cruz area. Bolivia right now represents a very good place to invest capital from the United States of America.

Mary, what do you think North Americans can do to help the Bolivians in their struggle against repression?

I think the best thing North Americans can do for Bolivians or other Latin Americans, other third world people, is to become politically aware and conscious of what's going on here right in their own country. When we talk about economic assistance and how that's used to manipulate the internal politics of countries like Bolivia, there's a long history of this in Bolivia, we're talking about dollars and cents that we as American citizens pay into in the form of taxes. I think we have to become conscious of the fact that this money that we kick in is used then to manipulate other countries.

The United States government, state department officials who are represented in the embassies of foreign countries are, they are not to let the Bolivians know how the United States, how American citizens feel for them and are really anxious to see them develop their own country. They're there for the specific reason of protecting the investments of United States' economic interest. Like the Oil Corporation of California that we mentioned, Gulf had tremendous money invested in Bolivia and received some seven times more in profits than she lost in that famous $80 million loss when Gulf was nationalized.

Thank you, Mary. We've been talking today with Mary Elizabeth Harding, a former Maryknoll sister who spent 14 years working in Bolivia, was arrested last December by the Banzer government in Bolivia, and finally released in January of this year.

You have been listening to Latin American Press Review, a weekly selection and analysis of important events and issues in Latin America, as seen by leading world newspapers with special emphasis on the Latin American press. 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, University of Texas at Austin.