1974-06-06

You are listening to Latin American Press Review, a weekly summary of events in Latin America, with special emphasis on translation from the Latin American press. This program is produced by the Latin American Policy Alternatives Group of Austin, Texas. 

Our program this week includes a short report on a new Chilean official, a survey of countries in the Organization of American States regarding the admission of Cuba to that organization, and an account of Brazil's program of development in the Amazon and its effect on Indians in the area. 

Prensa Latina of Cuba reports that Walter Rauff has been named head of the Chilean junta's Department to Investigate Communist activities. In World War II, says Prensa Latina, Rauff was a Nazi colonel who helped to kill 90,000 Jews. A former friend and colleague of Adolf Eichmann, Rauff headed a Gestapo organization in charge of gas chambers and special poison gas vans.

He also organized the evacuation of Jews from Kyiv to places where they were thrown into the Nazi gas chambers. Rauff was closely associated with Rudolph Hadrick, head of the Nazi Security Service who was executed by Czechoslovakian Patriots in 1942. The Chilean Junta's department investigating Communist activities was set up after the September coup and is staffed with extreme reactionary ex-Nazi and anti-Semitic elements. This from the Cuban news agency, Prensa Latina. 

The Puerto Rican weekly, Claridad, reports that Cuba's long political and economic exclusion from the Latin American family of nations may be coming to an end. An associated press sampling has found that a majority of the members of the organization of American States might welcome the Communist Island nation back into the organization. Cuba was expelled from the organization in 1962, and a series of economic and political sanctions were applied against Fidel Castro's government, then in power for three years. Other leaders no longer afraid of Cuban backed guerrillas or possible retaliation from the United States are voicing similar feelings. 

For years, Castro branded the OAS an American puppet and expressed no interest in rejoining the group. But recently, reports Claridad, Cuba has increased its bilateral ties with Latin American nations. Argentina pressed an intensive trade campaign with Cuba extending a $1.2 billion credit and then selling Ford, Chrysler and General Motors cars produced in Argentina to Cuba. There is still considerable opposition, especially for military backed anti-communist governments to removing the political and economic sanctions against Cuba. But the AP survey showed that thirteen countries were inclined to review the sanction policy. Nine opposed a review, but for considerably differing reasons. 

Favoring the review, Mexico for example, has always held open a dialogue with Havana and has politely disregarded suggestions that it shouldn't. Argentina and Peru are ardent champions of a new look at Castro. English speaking Caribbean nations are hoping to open new trade lanes. All these governments, with the exception of Peru, have freely elected regimes. 

The strongest opponents of lifting the political and economic blockade are the right wing military controlled regimes. Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay are reluctant to forget Castro's attempts to foment revolution in South America. Bolivia still recalls how the late Argentinian Cuban Che Guevara attempted to topple its government in 1967. It took months of jungle fighting to stop him. 

Chile now furnished in its opposition to Cuba claims Castro sent some 2000 Cubans to Chile during the regime headed by Marxist President Salvador Allende. This report from Claridad of San Juan, Puerto Rico. 

From Opinião of Brazil with the coming of the dry season last July, large earth moving machines began work on the first section of yet another Amazonian highway. This one 2500 miles long. This highway will link up with others, which are part of the Brazilian government's program to develop Amazonia. Estimated costs for the road building alone are $10 million per year.

Some of the largest construction firms in Brazil are contracted to build the highway. Sebastião Camargo, owner of the largest Brazilian construction company is also a large ranch owner in the area. He is ecstatic about the new highway. "The Amazon region," he said, "is a blank space in the world." What is happening there now reveals completely unforeseen possibilities. 

The human factor that lies behind Brazil's national integration plan is that the Amazon region is the aboriginal homeland of hundreds of independent Indian nations. The Christian Science Monitor reports that a long smoldering conflict over land claims is threatening to explode into open warfare between Indians and white ranchers in the vast frontier region of central Brazil. The Xavante Indians have sent an ultimatum to the Brazilian officials.

They want the National Indian Foundation to reaffirm the reservation boundary lines or face the prospect of war. The Xavante nation grows year by year, but its lands are shrinking. Their chief, Apoena, told them more than 300 warriors, "The people are hungry. These are lands of our forefathers. If the ranchers do not want to leave peacefully, we will push them out."

Chief Apoena said he doesn't understand why Xavantes must exist on such little land. "The rancher alone wants to own the forest, the world", he said, "this is wrong." The poor must also receive something. Government Indian experts pacified the Xavante in the mid 1940s. Soon after the Land Department began selling tracks in the Xavante area and granting ownership titles. The tribe roamed Central Brazil, 300 to 400 miles northwest of Brasilia, the nation's ultramodern capital.

Gradually the Xavantes were weakened and decimated. Intertribal wars killed some. Farmers and ranchers also have been accused of organizing expeditions to wipe out Indian villages in surprise attacks with modern arms. The Xavantes fled their ancestral lands about 1957. The exodus ended when they settled peacefully near the Salesian Mission at São Marcos in 1958. The tribe slowly recovered and their numbers increased. 

From 1960, the Xavantes press for the return of their lands, most of it now taken over by immense ranches. In 1969, the interior minister visited São Marcos. He solemnly promised Chief Apoena the problem would be resolved quickly that the tribe would not lose their lands. The minister received a magnificent feathered headdress symbol of Xavante friendship and trust. The decree expanding the Xavante reserve came in September, 1972. The high point of Xavante confidence in the government. The confidence declined as the ranchers continued on the land, and then the interior minister made headlines saying, "no one is going to stop development of the Amazon because of the Indians."

Chief Apoena now tells his warriors to expect nothing of the white man's promises and to prepare for war. "We will show the whites that Xavantes are not domesticated animals. Our war will give the enemy no rest. It will be bloody and spare no one."

The fabulous wealth of the Amazon is a longstanding Brazilian myth. Ever since the Portuguese explorers first set eyes in the opulent jungle, Amazonia has been thought of as the land of the future through construction of the Trans-Amazonian highway and colonization programs. The Brazilian government, since the military takeover in 1964, has sought to develop the area. Recent studies published in the Brazilian weekly Opinião however, caution that the Amazon is probably not as wealthy as has been thought. 

Part of the rationale for building the Trans-Amazonian Highway is to open the land to colonists. A recent report has found, however, that along a 550 mile stretch of the highway, the land is too sterile to grow such crops as rice and beans, the mainstay of most colonists. In 1972, the same group found that another stretch of 800 miles of the highway bartered infertile land. Those fertile areas which have been located are small and far from the roads and colonial settlements. 

The colonization program, which has moved more than a hundred thousand people to Amazonia, has been met with serious setbacks. Subsistence crops are always below expectation and do not provide much earnings. The attempt to introduce cash crops has been hurt by the colonist's lack of technical experience and the high price and scarcity of fertilizer. The major problem, however, is ecological. Despite the abundant lavish jungle growth, the soil is actually poor. Plants live off of themselves.

They're nourished by the leaves that fall to the jungle floor and decompose into humus. When the trees are cleared to make way for agricultural land, there is nothing to prevent the rain from washing the humus away, leaving only the sterile soil. As a result, states the report published by Opinião, crops prosper their first year, but returns diminish the second and third years. By the fourth year, the land often does not support the colonist any longer. 

Another report on the Amazon published by Opinião is a study by an expert who lives in the north. It was solicited by Brazil's leader, General Geisel. In it, the expert states that even though Amazonia has received some of the most grandiose public works from the past three governments and is continually referred to as an important element in national plans, the region is more fragmented and dependent than before. While attempting to integrate Amazonia into the rest of the country, the three governments followed mistaken policies, concludes the report. Government investments have not been sufficient to correct the deformities and deficiencies in Amazonia that require development. 

The integration of Amazonia into the rest of the country through an extensive road network, has not brought economic interdependence, which is the goal of the program. On the contrary, states the report, the new transportation avenues have solidified the dependent relationship and have provoked a series of crises such as the population drain of Belém, capital of the state of Pará. Three forms of dependency have been brought by the national integration system.

First, new roads have wiped out the invisible tariff barriers, which permitted Amazonian products competitive advantage. Second, the Amazon has been culturally tied to Brazil South through the extension of the National Television network, which shows programs set almost exclusively in Rio or São Paulo. Thirdly, the region has become administratively dependent on the central government. Regional authorities and local officials have little say in directing their own destiny. 

The report in Opinião concludes that the goal should be less to increase the colonization program than to save the existing population. Injecting new populations into the region would be to submit a larger number of people to the same process of blood and exhaustion says the report 21 diseases potentially fatal to humans have been isolated in Amazonia. Increased colonization has caused a greater incidence of disease. There has also been growing crime, prostitution, and disruption of the villages of the area's original inhabitants. "Wouldn't it be more rational?," asks the report, "to use the resources and people already in the region to develop the Amazon." This report from the Brazilian weekly Opinião. 

You have been listening to Latin American Press Review, a weekly summary of events in Latin America with special emphasis on translations from the Latin American press. This program is produced by the Latin American Policy Alternatives Group. Comments may be sent to the group at 2434 Guadalupe Street, Austin, Texas. That's 2434 Guadalupe Street, Austin, Texas. Latin American Press Review is distributed by Communication Center, the University of Texas at Austin.

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