Honduras This Week Central America

LATIN AMERICA

Don't cry for them, Argentina

Col. Mario Davico, Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri and Gen. Roberto Viola are among hundreds of Argentine military cadres trained by the U.S. Army School of the Americas. Synonymous with the "dirty war," their names continue to evoke memories of tyranny and persecution.

Davico, a military intelligence officer and one of several advisors to Honduras' death squad Battalion 3-16, taught Honduran soldiers the "Argentine Method" of extreme repression. Techniques included kidnapping, arbitrary detention, torture, extra-judicial execution and methods of disposing of the victim's bodies.

Galtieri, a military dictator (1981-82) and an ardent champion of Honduras' Battalion 3-16, achieved power by means of a violent coup, ousting Viola. Galtieri was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison for leading Argentina into the disastrous war with Britain for control of the Malvinas (Falkland Islands). He was pardoned, along with 280 other notorious human rights abusers, by President Carlos Menem in 1989.

Viola, a military dictator (1981) was convicted of murder, kidnapping and torture in 1985.

Other names prominently featured in a list of human rights violators gleaned from testimony given to the National Commission of the Disappeared (CONADEP) include the following Argentine SOA graduates: Juan Flores; Ricardo Garcia; Hector Gonzalez; Miguel Angel Gonzalez; Osvaldo Guarnaccia; Albertio Martinez; and Joaquin M. Urruty Formiguni. All were cited for committing atrocities against dissidents and activists.

Both the U.S. and Argentina continue to block efforts by SOA Watch and other human rights groups to obtain further information.

The deadly claw: Operation Condor

Operation Condor is the code name for the secret collection, storage and exchange of information on suspected political dissidents and activists. Agents also take part in joint operations against targets in member countries.

Chile is the center for Operation Condor. Members include Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. Brazil has tentatively agreed to participate. The intelligence services of several Central American states are known to be offering logistical support.

A third and highly covert role of Operation Condor consists of deploying teams from member countries anywhere in the world to identify and monitor suspected radical political activists and their supporters. When targets have been located, a second crew is dispatched to carry out abductions or assassinations. Operatives are issued counterfeit credentials and travel documents.

Orlando Letelier, a high‑ranking Chilean official in Salvador Allende's embryonic and short-lived government, and Ronnie Moffit, an American, were assassinated in broad daylight on Sept. 21, 1976 in a daring car bomb ambush in Washington, DC. The FBI has identified Augusto Pinochet's secret police, DINA, and Condor operatives, as the authors of the crime.

The CIA, which will not discuss the case, is widely suspected of having had prior knowledge of -- if not a hand in -- the murder. Pinochet will have a hard time disassociating himself from DINA and its chief, Col. Manuel Contreras.

In 1995, under U.S. pressure, Contreras was tried and convicted in Chile where he now serves a seven-year sentence. In an affidavit filed with the Chilean Supreme Court in 1997, Contreras stated that no major DINA mission was undertaken without Pinochet's approval.

Albright pledges U.S. will come clean on "dirty war"

Human rights activists fear a whitewash

By W. E. GUTMAN

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright pledged to help declassify U.S. government documents that could shed light on the kidnapping of hundreds of children from dissidents captured by the Argentine military during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

"This is a matter of conscience," she said at a recent news conference in Buenos Aires.

Albright, who was on a five-day tour of five South American nations, invited representatives of Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo to a meeting at the U.S. ambassador's villa.

According to sources at the New York Times, Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a rights group trying to locate children believed to have been stolen from their imprisoned mothers, has urged the Clinton administration to open CIA files that could help them in their search. The group also urged Albright to release documents related to Operation Condor, a plan conceived by several Latin American military dictatorships to arrest and dispose of dissidents in each-other's countries.

"I said I would do my best to see what kind of papers there were," Albright told reporters. But in a veiled reference to the CIA, she added, "as you know the State Department is not the keeper of all the papers."

Foreign Minister Adalberto Rodriguez Giavarini said he welcomed Albright's commitment, adding, "the government of Argentina thinks any effort to clarify the past will be helpful."

But human rights activists expressed skepticism.

"We do not believe [her]," said Hebe de Bonafini, president of the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. "It is hypocritical of Albright to claim she will probe into matters that her own government is largely responsible for."

Delegates of the group told Albright that they held the United States responsible for training Argentine officers at the School of the Americas (SOA) then located in Panama. Relations between the United States and Argentina were at an all‑time low during the Carter administration, especially after the junta sold wheat to the Soviet Union in defiance of the embargo imposed by Washington in retaliation of Moscow's invasion of Afghanistan. During the Malvinas (Falklands) conflict, the Reagan administration supported Britain.

Nevertheless, the CIA is known to have led intense intelligence operations in Argentina at the time. About 30,000 people disappeared or were executed during the "dirty war." Many of those killed were students, union organizers and dissidents, among them journalists and teachers.

A Clinton administration official said that there were far fewer documents in government files that shed light on Argentina than exist on Chile. Historians of the period speculate that Washington's ties to the Argentine military junta were not as close as they were to Gen. Augusto Pinochet's men in Chile. Nevertheless, the CIA continues to resist calls for the declassification and release of thousands of documents relating to the war..

Forecasters predict relatively normal hurricane season in the Americas

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A slightly higher-than-average number of hurricanes is expected this year in the tropical zone of the Americas, affecting regions along the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Brian Jarvinen, a hurricane forecaster at the center, said 11 named weather systems are expected to arrive during the hurricane season lasting until Nov. 30, seven of which will become hurricanes, with two turning into major hurricanes. A normal season would consist of 10 named systems, six hurricanes, and two major hurricanes -- so this hurricane season will be a little more intense than average, Jarvinen said. That prediction, he said, contrasts with reports from media outlets in the region that have been "hyping a little too much" the potential for an unusually active hurricane season.

The weather system named "Debby" that has threatened Miami and the Caribbean during the week of Aug. 20 has been classified as both a tropical storm and a Category 1 hurricane on a scale of 5, which he said does not qualify as a major hurricane. Category 1 is a hurricane with winds of 74‑95 miles per hour, with a storm surge generally 4‑5 feet above normal. No real damage to building structures occurs, but there is damage to unanchored mobile homes, shrubbery and trees, as well as damage to poorly constructed signs. There is also some coastal road flooding and minor pier damage.

A Category 5 major hurricane, such as 1998's Hurricane Mitch in Central America, has winds greater than 155 mph, with a storm surge generally greater than 18 feet above normal. This hurricane leaves massive destruction in its wake.

Jarvinen said that the National Hurricane Center maintains cooperative agreements through the Geneva‑based United Nations World Meteorological Organization, which allow it to supply hurricane forecasts to any country in the region's tropical cyclone belt, while those countries share their weather data with the United States. Some countries, he said, do their own hurricane forecasting, although others rely on the United States since they can't afford to buy the type of "supercomputer mega‑global" model that are available to U.S. forecasters.

Regarding the naming of hurricanes, Jarvinen said the decision is made by the 185‑member meteorological organization in Geneva, which keeps a list of names on hand. The names on the list are repeated every six years, unless doing so would bring back particularly bad memories. He cited Hurricane Andrew, which caused widespread damage in South Florida, as an example. In such cases, the name is permanently retired. Already this season, hurricane storms have been named Alberto, Beryl and Chris, with the storm following Debby to be named Ernesto. If the weather predictions are accurate, the region should also become acquainted with Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce and Keith.

As far as Ernesto is concerned, Jarvinen said the region's population shouldn't worry about it ‑‑ yet. He said that there are "some candidates" for major storms in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean where hurricanes are spawned, but none of them have shown any sign of developing. "So I think we ought to wait until the end of Debby before we [expect to] see another storm system," Jarvinen said.

U.S. disaster response team takes position in Eastern Caribbean

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator J. Brady Anderson announced on Monday (Aug. 21) the positioning of a USAID disaster response team on the eastern Caribbean island of Barbados. Capable of deploying to breaking disasters around the Caribbean at a moment's notice, the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) led team is the first called into action in the event of a hurricane.

"When a hurricane strikes, USAID is prepared to respond," said Administrator J. Brady Anderson, the President's Special Coordinator for International Disaster Assistance. "Our disaster response teams are specially trained and equipped for speedy and effective response."

The first of six teams scheduled to be stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Barbados, the 3-person disaster response teams are composed of USAID‑OFDA disaster specialists and personnel from Florida's Miami‑Dade Urban Search and Rescue. Two‑week rotations began Wednesday, Aug. 15 and will continue through Nov. 7 ‑‑ the height of hurricane season.

While stationed in Barbados, the USAID disaster response teams work with local and regional disaster relief organizations to facilitate coordinated and immediate disaster response assistance to affected countries. USAID teams coordinate their response to disasters with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), Eastern Caribbean Donor Group, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Central Relief Organization (CERO), and the Regional Security System (RSS). In the event of a hurricane, the USAID team will conduct an initial rapid reconnaissance of the affected islands by airplane. Assessments made by the disaster response team may then be used to activate additional USAID hurricane response and relief mechanisms. Depending on the magnitude of the disaster, a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) may be deployed and may include a Ground Operation (GO) Team advance component. Stockpiles of relief supplies -- plastic sheeting, blankets and water jugs -- in Antigua, Miami, and San Jose, Costa Rica may also be utilized.

USAID is the U.S. government agency responsible for implementing America's foreign humanitarian and development assistance programs.

IDB to host meeting on export development in Americas

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The recent trade performance of Latin American and Caribbean countries will be on the agenda at a Sept. 18‑19 conference in Washington on regional export development hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The conference will also include discussion of the comparative and competitive advantages of Latin America and the Caribbean in the globalized economy, a session on "Asian Markets: An Untapped

Opportunity," and sessions on multilateral rules on export promotion, direct foreign investment and trade promotion, and the role of development banks in promoting regional trade.

Speakers at the event will include IDB President Enrique Iglesias, Chile's Minister of Finance Raul Saez, and the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean Jose Antonio Ocampo.

Meanwhile, 140 presidents and leaders of Jewish communities in the Americas met recently at a conference in Uruguay, where they called for a public- and private-sector alliance to help reduce poverty in Latin America.

Participants at the July 20-21 forum on "The Struggle Against Poverty: Projects and Alternatives," held under the auspices of the IDB and the Latin American Jewish Congress, said a "new poverty" in the hemisphere is producing unemployed youths and professionals, laid-off employees in the public and private sectors, shut‑downs of small businesses and industries, and pensioners with meager incomes. This new poverty is seen as adding a new layer of difficulties to a region already beset by severe income inequalities and serious privations in such areas as health care, education, potable water, and housing.

The meeting, said to be among the first of its kind in the region, included representatives of the U.S. Jewish community, along with experts from the Organization of American States, the World Bank, and United Nations agencies.

The IDB's Iglesias said at the conference that "Latin America does not deserve the intolerable indices of poverty and inequality that it now has." Poverty, he said, has taken many forms in the region, adding: "It has hit the middle classes hard, creating the so‑called new poverty ‑‑ which has had a strong impact on the Jewish communities, among other sectors."

Iglesias said the IDB is supporting the efforts of Latin American civil society to deal with the region's social problems. In this context, he said, the IDB has established a dialogue with Catholic and Protestant churches, as well as with the Jewish community, in the fight against poverty.

U.N. praises Dominican Republic on economic performance

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The economic performance of the Dominican Republic has been praised as "outstanding" and "encouraging" by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

In a new study presented August 4, ECLAC said the Dominican Republic shows the highest growth rate in the region. The country's gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average of eight percent from 1996-1999, after shrinking to negative figures earlier in the decade. Similarly, the country has reached agreements that balance socio-political demands with economic liberalization, ECLAC said. The agency described this process as "well adapted to the specific circumstances of the society and its productive apparatus." However, ECLAC warned that "it is essential to ensure the continuity of growth and achieve more equitable and sustainable development."

The study, called the "Dominican Republic's Economic and Social Development: The Last 20 Years and Perspectives for the 21st Century," said macroeconomic stability and structural reform of productive sectors in the country created the conditions for a "boom that has now lasted a decade." Except in 1994, inflation fell to single digit levels, the exchange rate stabilized, and the government advanced significantly in terms of fiscal policy, ECLAC said. In addition, the growing trade deficit has been offset by surpluses produced by duty‑free industrial areas, tourism, and private transfers, which have kept the current account deficit at a reasonable percentage of GDP, the agency said.

The nation's duty-free zones were said to enjoy explosive growth. The number of duty-free companies rose from two in 1970 to more than 330 in 1990, while industrial parks rose from one to 25, and employment in these sectors rose from 126 to over 130,000 in the same period, ECLAC said.

The hotel industry has also enjoyed a boom. The number of rooms rose from 5,000 in the early 1980s to over 45,000 by 1998, ECLAC said.

However, ECLAC cautioned that some reforms in the country are "incomplete" while others remain to be undertaken, mainly those involving social and institutional improvement where "numerous challenges remain."

The study found that a number of companies are characterized by low levels of competitiveness, limited access to credit, and technological "backwardness." In manufacturing, the agency said there are many small companies making traditional goods that suffer from competition with imports. In the farming and livestock sectors, the main traditional exports have lost ground in generating foreign currency income.

ECLAC said the country's challenge for the near future is to ensure the "continuity of growth and [to] achieve more equitable development." The number of poor households and indigent people has decreased, the study said, but poverty levels are still far too high.

The ECLAC study includes public policy recommendations on how to continue to improve the Dominican Republic's economic growth, create jobs, and stimulate both competitiveness and social development.

Symposium on migration in the Americas to be held in Costa Rica

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A symposium on international migration in the Americas, to which the United States is contributing a majority portion of the event's operational budget, will be held Sept. 4-6 in San Jose, Costa Rica, the State Department announced.

One of the symposium's objectives will be to "help frame or crystalize migration issues" for discussion at the next Summit of the Americas, to be held in Quebec City in April 2001, said a State Department official. The United States was the "responsible coordinator" for implementing the migrant workers initiative at the previous Summit of the Americas in Santiago in 1998, the official said, and as such is "very supportive" of the upcoming San Jose symposium, "because we see this activity as quite complementary to our purposes."

Primary organizers for the symposium are the International Organization for Migration, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

In describing the objectives for the symposium, ECLAC said the gathering will provide an opportunity for policymakers, experts, international agencies, non-governmental and other civil society organizations to meet and discuss regional migration issues. Special attention will be given to possible scenarios for international action in the future.

ECLAC said international migration has emerged as one of the key issues for the 21st century. In the Americas, ECLAC said that since the 1960s, an increasing number of people have been migrating, both within Latin America and the Caribbean, and to the United States. Thus, another major objective for this symposium, ECLAC said, is to analyze the economic, social and political effects of migration on the countries migrants leave, as well as the countries to which they migrate.

Julia Taft, assistant secretary for the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), said at a migration conference in March that one of the United States' highest migration priorities is combating the growth of extra-regional migrant trafficking in the hemisphere. Increasingly sophisticated alien smugglers, many from Asia, are targeting countries in the region more than ever before, either as final destinations or transit locations to other countries in the hemisphere, she said. Taft's bureau has primary responsibility within the U.S. government for formulating policies on population, refugees, and migration, and for administering U.S. refugee assistance and admissions programs.

Representing the United States at the San Jose symposium will be PRM's Deputy Assistant Secretary Marguerite Rivera Houze and Allan Jury, director of PRM's Office of Policy and Resource Planning.

The State Department says current information on regional migration issues can be accessed on the Internet at the Regional Conference on Migration (RCM) Virtual Secretariat's web site at http://www.crmsv.org (in Spanish) and http://www.crmsv.org/english (in English). The United States provided funding for the purchase of computer hardware and software, and training, enabling member states of the RCM to participate more actively in the Virtual Secretariat. RCM member states are Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and the United States.

Regional officials meet on coordinating disaster preparedness

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Officials from the White House, the U.S. Southern Command, and emergency preparedness representatives from Central America and the Caribbean met recently in Miami to discuss how to better coordinate their efforts to prevent death and destruction caused by hurricanes and natural disasters.

The issue is timely, given that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) says that the Caribbean and Central America are expected to face a particularly active hurricane season. Memories are still fresh of 1998's Hurricane Mitch, which resulted in the deaths of at least 9,000 people in Central America, and of Hurricane Georges that same year, which caused $1,500 million in damage to the Caribbean.

Participants at the July 24 meeting held at Florida International University discussed the possibility of establishing a training academy that could coordinate the efforts of agencies throughout the region that work to reduce the death and destruction caused by natural disasters, said one of the event's co-hosts, Eric Matos, deputy director for the Center for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa.

However, Matos discounted press reports suggesting that plans for the academy are already under way. Much more study is required on the feasibility of creating such an academy before a location can discussed, he said. The idea for an academy, Matos said, grew out of a Central American Disaster Relief Conference held in Honduras last December, where representatives from Panama suggested that the facility could be located in their country. Matos said a "white paper" discussing the issues involved in creating an academy is scheduled to be released by Oct. 15.

Matos said disaster relief specialists are now at the stage of trying to better coordinate the efforts of agencies from different countries that carry out the parallel work of warning people of impending disasters, rescuing victims and providing relief to disaster survivors.

An official from the White House Office of the Special Envoy to the Americas, who attended the Miami meeting, said that disaster preparedness ties in with the Clinton Administration's objectives to promote hemispheric integration, trade, and economic development throughout the region.

"Disasters and displacement of populations are obstacles to our overarching goals," said the official. "To that extent, efforts to promote prevention and disaster preparedness become quite central to what we're trying to accomplish."

This official also said that reports of a possible location for the training academy are "premature," so "it's hard to support [a location] that hasn't even been presented yet." He added: "But we certainly believe that disaster management within the Americas is a critical issue."

The USF's Matos said about 15 people participated in the Miami meeting, which included representatives from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, the Pan American Health Organization, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Relief Agency which represents 16 Caribbean Community nations, and the Central American Regional Disaster Relief Organization.

Matos' Center for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance was founded in 1998 as a partnership between the USF and Tulane University in New Orleans. The Center says that each year many millions of dollars are spent in disaster mitigation, response, and rehabilitation in Latin America and the Caribbean, with the United States traditionally providing a significant share of these resources. Most recently, USAID announced in June the creation of "Go Teams," which stand ready within 24-36 hours of a disaster to airlift assistance to countries of the Americas.

U.S. Senate expected to pass Inter-American treaty on sea turtles

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A Clinton Administration-backed treaty to protect sea turtles in the Americas is expected to pass the U.S. Senate when that body returns from recess in September, according to a State Department official.

The Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles was approved July 26 by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is likely to pass the treaty on to the full Senate after it reconvenes Sept. 5.

The staff of the Foreign Relations Committee was said to be preparing an executive report on the convention. The Senate will then vote on the measure sometime before its tentative adjournment date of Oct. 6.

The convention should easily pass the Senate, the official said, adding: "I'm not aware that there's any opposition to the treaty whatsoever." Once the Senate gives its "advice and consent," the treaty would next be sent to the president for his approval.

The major hurdle to treaties such as this one on turtles is getting the congressional committee to hold a hearing on the issue, as was done July 20.

At that July hearing, David Sandalow, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, said all species of sea turtles found in the Western Hemisphere are threatened or endangered, "some critically so." This convention, he said, "is the first multilateral treaty that actually sets standards to protect and conserve sea turtles and their habitats."

Sandalow noted that for many years, the United States has been a leader in the conservation of endangered and threatened sea turtles. This convention, he said, "is in many respects an outgrowth of that leadership." By ratifying the convention, he argued, "the United States can preserve its leadership role in the effort to conserve and protect sea turtles in a comprehensive manner."