1973-12-10

This is the Latin American Press Review, a weekly selection and analysis of news and events in Latin America as seen by leading world news sources, with special emphasis on the Latin American press. This program is produced by the Latin American Policy Alternatives Group of Austin, Texas. 

According to the Christian Science Monitor, Venezuela is about to begin a major review of its oil policies amid calls for production cutbacks. A number of voices favoring the idea of slowing production and thus preserving reserves have been raised in recent weeks, including those of key people in the nation's oil industry. While such curtailment is only being discussed at the moment, the fact that it has come up at all suggests something of the direction of Venezuelan thinking on oil. 

The issue is getting close attention in Washington because the South American nation is the second-largest supplier of oil and petroleum products to the United States. With the cutoff of Middle East Oil, Washington is increasingly concerned about Venezuela's current study of its oil production. With the Venezuelan presidential elections out of the way, the issue of oil production and the drafting of new legislation will become uppermost in Venezuelan politics. 

Although it has been something of a campaign issue, most of the 14 presidential candidates have hedged on specifics, resorting merely to general statements that new programs are needed. The two major candidates, Lorenzo Fernandez of the ruling Social Christian Party, and Carlos Andres Perez of Acción Democrática favor an early Venezuelan nationalization of the oil industry. Present oil concessions to foreign firms run out beginning in 1983, and Mr. Fernandez, for example, has called for an end to these concessions long before that date. 

One aspect of Venezuela's current oil policy debate centers on the sort of government agency that will be set up in the near future to take effectively control of the foreign operated concessions, either before 1983 or at least by 1983. The changeover will be more one of name, however, rather than actual substance since Venezuela already maintains a fairly firm control on what foreign owned oil firms do with their concession. Production, for example, is quite strictly controlled. Thus, any change in oil production levels could be decreed by Venezuelan authorities and the oil companies would have to comply. 

The call for a cutback in production is being spearheaded by Dr. Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, a former minister of mines and hydrocarbons, and the man widely known as the grandfather of Venezuela's oil industry. He argues that current reserve levels not only are insufficient to warrant an increase in production, but also require a production curtailment by as much as half. He would wait until the current world emergency situation as a result of the Middle East oil cutoff is resolved, but would then impose the cutback. Dr. Perez, Alfonzo, and others who seek the cutback. Point out that current production is running at 3.4 million barrels daily, almost half of which goes to the United States. That means about 1.2 billion barrels yearly. Total reserves are thought to be about 13.9 billion barrels. 

Although additional reserves may well be located, and there is also an extensive tar belt in the Orinoco River basin, which could be tapped. Dr. Perez Alfonso maintains the present production levels even though drawing significantly higher prices than was the case a few years back, will deplete the reserves too rapidly. One of his associates argued recently that present reserves ought to be made to last at least until the end of the century. The issue is far from resolved, but world oil users, including the United States, may well be faced with declining Venezuelan oil exports. 

The Mexico City Daily Excelsior reports that a gorilla band of the People's Revolutionary Army, the ERP, surrounded a commercial sector in San Salvador, capital of El Salvador, on November 25th and attacked an armory. The 15 guerillas, some dressed in army uniforms, escaped with 50 automatic rifles and 50 revolvers. A guard trying to stop the raid fired on the attackers and a gun battle ensued in which three people were killed, including a guard, an armory employee, and a woman passing by on the street outside. 

When the police arrived, the guerrillas had fled but had distributed copies of a message to the people, which said this expropriation of arms has as its aim, the arming of the people so that they can carry forward their task to make a socialist revolution. The message continued that, "In every factory, in every farm, in every store, it is the poor that works so that the rich may live in luxury and idleness." It then says that if someone protests and tries to exercise his rights, the police or another repressive force appears in defense of the rich." This was the second ERP strike so far this year in El Salvador. Three months ago, four gorillas attacked the Bank of London and Montreal taking more than $9,000. This from Excelsior. 

The News Loop Weekly Latin America states that the release of two ships, one Cuban and one Soviet, from detention by the Canal Zone authorities earlier this month was an excellent augury for the arrival of Ellsworth Bunker in Panama this week and the start of the first serious Canal Treaty negotiations since the 1968 military coup the. Ship's detention at the behest of the Chilean Junta for turning back after the September coup in Santiago, and so failing to deliver goods bought by the Allende government enraged the Panamanians as a typical example of how, in their view, a Latin American political dispute in which Washington has an interest can impinge on the supposedly free traffic through the Panama Canal controlled by the USA. In the Panamanian view, such things could not happen if it controlled the canal itself. 

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Ellsworth Bunker will confer for a week with Panama's foreign minister Juan Antonio Tack. They will discuss Panama's insistence on a new Panama Canal Treaty to replace the 1903 treaty hastily negotiated by the US with the then two-week-old Republic of Panama. Egged on by President Theodore Roosevelt, Panama had just torn away from its mother country, Colombia. As Secretary of State John Hay wrote a friend at the time, the United States had won a treaty "very satisfactory to the United States, and we must confess, not so advantageous to Panama." 

Repeatedly down the years efforts to draft a new treaty that while protecting the vital interest of the United States, would give the proud small Republic of Panama less cause for complaint and more financial rewards have failed. Sometimes the stumbling block has been the influence in Congress of the 40,000 American Zonians who want no change in their comfortable colonial style of life. Sometimes it has been the posturing for home audiences by Panama's politicians. However, by 1964, the stalemate erupted in anti-American riots that killed four Americans and 22 Panamanians. In 1967, president Lyndon Johnson offered new treaty concessions, but they were unacceptable to Panama. Now in January comes the 10th anniversary of the rioting. 

Mr. Tack and his chief, General Torrijos Herrera, Panama's strongman, both want a new treaty. The Latin American foreign minister's meeting at Bogotá recently unanimously voted to back Panama's request for a new treaty. And last March's United Nations Security Council session in Panama clearly favored the idea. Although the United States vetoed a resolution that called on the parties to work out a new accord. Since then, the US and Panama have steadily narrowed their differences. Actually, appointment of Mr. Bunker is seen widely as an indication that Washington is now prepared to compromise and work out a new treaty. 

Panama is willing to allow the US to operate and defend the existing canal, which cost $387 million to build and which opened to world traffic in 1914. It has no objection to the United States improving the present canal with a new set of locks that might cost $1.5 billion or even building a new sea level canal that might cost $3 billion, take 15 years to build and 60 years to amortize, but it wants a definite treaty to end in 1994. The United States, for its part, has been holding out for guaranteed use for at least 85 more years, 50 years for the present canal, plus 35 years if a new canal is ever built.

Panama also wants an end to US sovereignty in the Canal Zone, that 53-mile channel with about 500 square miles on either side that cuts the small country in half. Panamanians traveling between one part of their country and the other must submit themselves to United States red tape, United States Police, United States jurisdiction. This rankles, and virtually all of Latin America now backs Panama.

Panama is reported willing to grant the United States two major military bases to defend the canal, one at the Atlantic end, one at the Pacific, but it wants to eliminate the nine other US bases and place all 11,000 US military personnel in the country on a status of forces agreement such as the United States has with Spain and many other allied countries. United States negotiators stress that Panama derives an annual $160 million merely from the presence of 40,000 Americans on its soil. But a recent World Bank study has pointed out that this now represents only 12% of Panama's gross national product and that this 12% is the only part of the gross national product that is not growing. This report is from the Christian Science Monitor. 

According to the Mexico City Daily Excelsior, Mexico's delegate to the OAS foreign minister's meeting proposed expanding the concept of attack, which appears in the Rio Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance to give the word an economic connotation. The Mexican representative denied the charge made by the Peruvian delegate that Mexico did not support the treaty. Peru proposed changing the concept of attack to that of aggression, including economic aggression. Peru also proposed establishing differences between intercontinental and extra continental aggression.

Pointing out that making this distinction was the only way for Latin America to avoid becoming an instrument of the military politics of the United States. Argentina partially supported the Peruvian proposal and Mexico, Brazil, and the United States opposed it. Excelsior goes on to say that a subcommittee on reform of the OAS approved a declaration of principles on the right and sovereignty of the states to control over their riches, natural resources, and maritime resources. A motion of the US stating that the sovereignty of a country over its resources should not affect the sovereignty of other nations was flatly rejected by almost all the delegates.

Excelsior reports that the US State Department revealed today that at next year's Inter-American Conference of Foreign Ministers to be held in Mexico, it is likely to present a program for the development of energy resources in Latin America. Excelsior also states that in Paris, European analysts warned that the oil scarcity could provoke an economic catastrophe in Latin America if the neighboring nations respond by exploiting the continent's oil resources irrationally. 

The Guyana Weekly, New Nation reports that the first meeting of the Caribbean Common Market, CARICOM, which met in Kingston, Jamaica in October, adopted a resolution opposing the US's recent reduction of the region's sugar quota from 220,000 tons to 23,000 tons. The resolution requested the US authorities not to implement the announced quota reductions. The United States had apparently cut back imports from the area due to the independent action of the Caribbean countries. The New Nation stated, "The real reason for the US decision is our independent approach to domestic and foreign affairs. The US decision serves as a beacon to the forces of the Third World to close their ranks to counter the economic, social and political pressure of the superpowers." 

You are listening to the Latin American Press Review, a weekly selection and analysis of news and events in Latin America as seen by leading world news sources with special emphasis on the Latin American press. This program is produced by the Latin American Policy Alternatives Group. Comments and suggestions are welcome and may be sent to the group at 2205 San Antonio Street, Austin, Texas. This program is distributed by Communication Center, the University of Texas at Austin.

The views expressed are solely those of the Latin American Policy Alternatives Group and its sources and should not be considered as being endorsed by UT Austin or this station.

Today's feature will be an interview with Dr. Richard Schaedel, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin concerning his recent trip to Chile. Professor Schaedel has traveled extensively in Latin America, was a visiting professor at the University of Chile in Santiago and organized the Department of Anthropology there in 1955 and has served Chilean universities in a consultant capacity frequently, most recently, three years ago. 

Dr. Schaedel, what was the purpose of your recent trip to Chile? 

Well, there were actually two purposes, one being personal. I had my son down there and was concerned that he leave the country as soon as possible. Second was essentially to inform myself as to the real nature of the takeover and its consequences for the social science community in Santiago, not just the Chileans and the social science community, but also social scientists from other Latin American countries, a number of whom had been jailed or harassed in various ways and several of whom had actually been killed.

So that since reports were, to say the least, confusing emanating from the press, I wanted to take firsthand stock of the situation and also form an estimate of the likely number of graduate students and professionals in the social sciences who would probably be looking for positions in other Latin American countries or in Europe or the United States as a result of their inability to get along with the junta or because of persecution by the junta directly.

We've heard that in most Chilean universities, certain entire departments and particularly social science courses have been abolished. Is that true from your findings? 

Yes, that's very definitely true. Particularly this affects sociology. It's very unlikely that the career of sociology, at least to the doctoral level, will be continued in Chile, and it's possible that Catholic University may allow a kind of degree but not the full doctorate, whereas the University of Chile will simply give general introductory courses and there will be no advanced training.

There was an important Center of Socioeconomic Studies, CESO is the acronym, and that was totally abolished. This institute had been carrying out very important original social science research on contemporary Latin America over the past decade, and it established a ratifying reputation and that's been completely abolished. Essentially, it was a institute functioning within the total University of Chile system.

Another institute which was somewhat autonomous and concerned itself with rural affairs, ESERA is the acronym. This was directed by a North American with the funding from FAO, Food and Agricultural Organization in the United Nations, and this was heavily intervened. That particular institute wasn't abolished, but all of the research that had been carried out, the papers, the records of that research were appropriated by the junta and were given over to a paper factory. These are just a few examples of the kind of measures that are being taken to suspend the training of social scientists, particularly at the higher level. 

Dr. Schaedel, from your recent visit to Chile, do you think the press reports of thousands of summary executions, unauthorized search and seizure of residences and torture of suspected leftists, do you think these reports have been accurate? 

Yes, I think there's no question that all these things occurred. I think the only issue is to determine quantitatively how accurate they were. One of the basic problems is simply the overall body count, a result of how many people are actually killed as a result of the takeover, both in the immediate fighting on September 11th and succeeding days, and also in the executions that were conducted out of the Stadium of Chile and the National Stadium. A lot of controversy is waged in the press on this subject, and I would say that the estimates, the minimal estimates that, below which, it would very hard to go, would be somewhere in the range of 3,000 to 5,000, and it's quite probably a larger number than that. 

The junta has consistently refused to allow any of the international agencies the opportunity to establish these figures for themselves, and it certainly is not interested in carrying out or reporting on the number of people killed. Incidents of torture in the stadium are abundantly verified by a number of, certainly I had the opportunity to speak to about 10 people in Santiago who were eyewitnesses to this. Unauthorized search and seizure, everyone that I talked to in Chile could give me evidence on that. Houses have been searched up to three times, including the house of the resident representative of the United Nations in Santiago. 

So generally speaking, I would say that with very few exceptions, most of the reports are essentially accurate with this reservation that I don't think we'll ever be able to get a good quantitative estimate of the number of people who have been tortured, the total number of illegal search and seizures, or even the total number of deaths. All this will have to be reconstructed and extrapolated from the eyewitness accounts. 

I'd just like to mention in passing that I got a document from a Colombian faculty member at the School of Social Sciences in Chile who had spent 30 days being moved from the stadium of Chile to the National Stadium, and prior to that he had been in several other places of detention and it's a rather gruesome account of the kinds of things that happened to him. He was a Colombian citizen who was seized at his house on the very day of the takeover, and his account of what took place, I'm just getting translated now and intend to turn it over to the Kennedy Committee, but this kind of document is hard to come by, especially from people who are still in Chile.

Those that have left are somewhat reluctant to compromise themselves because of friends and relatives that they might have there, but I can certainly say that, generally, the image projected by the press is correct.

From your experience, what is the political and economic direction being taken by the junta now? 

Well, I would say that it's following, and this has been pointed out by a number of reporters, that it's following the model of Spain. They are drafting a totally new constitution, and there are every indication that the constitution will be based on the so-called gremio or guild organizations, by professions rather than on any system of what we would consider electoral parliament.

And this new constitution is being drafted by three lawyers. It's on a corporatist model, and elections will definitely not take the form they have in the past. So it will be an elimination of a representative democracy, which is the former government Chile has had.

And such other measures as have been taken with regard, for example, to education, we can judge a little of the tendencies. Obviously, the most obvious one is the suppression or elimination of all Marxist literature. And then decrees have been passed, revising the curriculum of high school education, eliminating anything having to do with political doctrine, discussion of social reactions to the Industrial Revolution and things like that. So I guess, very simply, yes. If you want to call the government of Spain fascist, then the government is following very deliberately that model.

What else can you say about the situation in Chilean educational institutions now in terms of curriculum reform, overall educational reform?

Well, essentially, the situation in the universities of Chile is that they are all being intervened. The exact format that the revised university is going to take is somewhat clouded because there hasn't been a new statute governing university education, but it's fairly clear that they will definitely suppress social science training at the upper levels that would have to do with any independent investigation of political ideologies in their relationship to class structure or class organization. These matters will certainly not be permitted. 

And by and large, I think you could say that the reaction to the junta is fairly clear in its persecution of the international schools that have been based in Santiago. The School of Social Sciences is going to have to move, and the other organizations such as the Center for Demography, which is a UN organization, and even the Economic Commission for Latin America are beginning to wonder whether they should or even will be allowed to continue. The very fact that they've been able to intimidate, that the junta has been able to intimidate these international social science organizations, I think gives you a pretty good reading as to the kind of suppression of what we would consider to be normal social science training and research. Prospects are fairly grim. 

What kinds of efforts are being made in other countries, in particular in the United States, to help university professors and students who've been dismissed by the junta? 

Well, in the United States, there's a nationwide group organized which counts with the participation of practically every stateside university, which is setting up a network of offers for people who possibly need jobs or graduate fellowships. This is operating out of New York as a small funding grant from the Ford Foundation and operates in connection with a Latin American social science center based in Buenos Aires, which has been very active in trying to rehabilitate the already sizable number of Chilean and other Latin American academic refugees, you might say, in other countries of Latin America, so that the United States effort is integrated with the Latin American effort and is aimed primarily at avoiding, if possible, a brain drain, locating Chilean social science in South America, if possible, or Latin America in general, prior to opting for providing them jobs up here.

However, I think the effort is very worthwhile, and I'm sure, despite the efforts to accommodate social sciences in Latin America, social scientists in Latin America, a number of them will be coming to the States and also to European centers. Europe has also indicated an interest in rescuing Chilean social science.

Thank you, Dr. Schaedel. We've been talking today with Dr. Richard Schaedel of the Anthropology Department at the University of Texas at Austin, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission in Chile to investigate the situation of the social sciences after the September coup. 

You have been listening to the Latin American Press Review, a weekly selection and analysis of news and events in Latin America, as seen by leading world news sources, with special emphasis on the Latin American press. This program is produced by the Latin American Policy Alternatives Group. Comments and suggestions are welcome and may be sent to the group at 2205 San Antonio Street, Austin, Texas.

This program is distributed by Communication Center, the University of Texas at Austin. The views expressed are solely those of the Latin American Policy Alternatives Group and its sources, and should not be considered as being endorsed by UT Austin or this station.