NotiSur - 03/15/02 - Argentina, Colombia, Peru Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [Reminder: This is a private reading copy for your personal use only. It may not be redistributed under the terms of our subscription with LADB. Thanks -- NY Transfer] ------------------------------------------------------------ L A T I N A M E R I C A D A T A B A S E NotiSur - South American Political & Economic Affairs ISSN 1060-4189 Volume 12, Number 10 March 15, 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 2002, Latin America Data Base (LADB), Latin American Institute, University of New Mexico Director: Rebecca Reynolds Bannister Editor: Patricia Hynds Staff writers: Carlos Navarro, Robert Sandels LADB ARCHIVES: Back issues are referenced to provide historical background relevant to the articles in this newsletter. These can be accessed with a subscription to the LADB searchable on-line archives at http://ladb.unm.edu/ by clicking on Search Archive. For subscription information, e-mail info@ladb.unm.edu or call 1-800-472-0888. In This Issue: ARGENTINA: GOVERNMENT STILL AWAITS I.M.F. FUNDS * Provinces agree to cuts * Government unveils other measures * IMF team arrives for talks * Duhalde's support shaky COLOMBIA: INDEPENDENTS WIN BIG IN CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS * What makes a free and fair election? * Resignations follow elections PERU: FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGISTS UNCOVERING TRUTH ABOUT FORCED DISAPPEARANCES ____________________________________________________________ ********************* ARGENTINA ********************* ARGENTINA: GOVERNMENT STILL AWAITS I.M.F. FUNDS When the Argentine Congress appointed Eduardo Duhalde president in early January, he had strong words about forging a new, less dependent relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). After two months, however, the economic and political reality has Duhalde in the difficult position of trying to appease the IMF and still contain the explosive public discontent (see NotiSur, 2002-01-11). Duhalde has let the peso float against the dollar, convinced the provinces to cut public spending, and cajoled Congress to pass an austere budget. Each time the government is convinced it has met the IMF's requirements, however, the lending agency raises the bar a little higher. Argentina is asking for the release of the remaining funds agreed to during the administration of former President Fernando de la Rua but frozen pending new negotiations. Most loans from other international agencies and foreign governments are subject to an agreement with the IMF. The Argentine government says it cannot carry out the economic changes the IMF is demanding unless it first receives fresh money from abroad, but the IMF says it will not advance any new money until it sees some results. "We need to break the cycle," Economy Minister Jorge Remes Lenicov said before going to Washington to talk with IMF officials in February. The IMF's terms--backed by the administration of US President George W. Bush--for releasing the desperately needed assistance include "a sustainable plan" for economic reactivation. The Duhalde administration has yet to find a plan that meets the IMF definition of sustainable. While Duhalde has downplayed the negotiations, he said economic recovery would be more painful without prompt help from the IMF. "If we resolve everything, if we vote on the budget, if we make progress on a new tax-sharing law, I think they will help us," Duhalde said in a Feb. 24 interview with La Nacion newspaper. "It would be very good for Argentina if they do so quickly. If they don't, Argentina will pull out of this anyway, with more sacrifice, but it will recover." And the sacrifices are mounting. On Feb. 25, the government announced that it could not pay the full month's salaries of more than half a million government employees because the worsening economic crisis had caused tax receipts to plummet 19% in January. "We don't have the money, so we can't pay," Duhalde said. "Payment depends on tax collections, and as everyone knows, we are having difficulties with revenues." The decision angered government employees, more so because it came just days after the president raised his own net salary and those of other top officials by 13% to the maximum permitted by law, US$1,500 a month. Meanwhile, Economy Minister Jorge Remes Lenicov has said that without foreign financial support not only would the economy collapse, but probably the government. He told a group of Brazilian business leaders that an accord with the IMF is "essential" and that "it must not be delayed too long." "Implicitly, they [IMF officials] tell us that a sustainable economic program requires political support," Lenicov said. "But where's the political support? Political support requires an economy that is moving forward, but the economy is not moving forward." The government must be aware of "the acceptability of the measures" it takes, Lenicov said. The political opposition is already calling for early elections. And Duhalde has admitted that even provincial governors from his Partido Justicialista--peronista (PJ) are "in a hurry" to set a date for elections. Provinces agree to cuts On Feb. 27, Duhalde signed a revenue-sharing agreement with provincial governors and the mayor of Buenos Aires. The agreement sets the amount of money the provinces receive at 56% of total tax revenues rather than a fixed sum and commits the governors to cutting provincial deficits by 60% in 2002. On March 6, Congress approved an austere 2002 budget. It included a 20% tax on oil exports, cuts in the value added tax (impuesto al valor agregado, IVA) on some household goods, and a credit line to help domestic production. Analysts said, however, that continuing weakness in the economy could undermine the projected US$1.5 billion deficit and its ability to collect taxes. They also said the government's figure of a 4.5% economic contraction this year is too optimistic and the 15% inflation estimate will likely be higher as money is printed to cover deficits. Economic think tank EcoLatina on March 13 forecast consumer prices could rise 29% to 35% by year end. Meanwhile, thousands of state workers marched on Congress, opposing the budget's proposed spending cuts in health, education, pensions, and public-sector wages. The head of the teachers' union, Marta Maffei, said many teachers are still waiting for several months' back wages, not to mention raises that were promised but never implemented. "Every day, another 1,700 workers are left without a job and enter the cycle of poverty," said Maffei. "And those of us who do not lose our jobs have to put up with salary cuts, unpaid wages, and restructuring in the midst of an inflationary process." Government unveils other measures The government also announced a new export tax designed to raise US$630 million and a plan to allow bank depositors, whose savings have been frozen since December, to exchange their deposits for tradeable bonds. The tax--10% on grain exports and 5% on processed goods such as vegetable oil--will offset some advantages exporters gained from the devaluation of the peso in January. Duhalde said revenue from the tax would finance social programs for the poor and the unemployed. But the export tax is not in line with the free market policies of the IMF and also goes against a pledge Duhalde made to industrial and agricultural producers when he took office in January. The government also plans to impose a one-time tax on corporations to fund poverty programs, Duhalde said on March 3. The tax aims to raise between US$1.14 billion and US$1.37 billion for unemployment insurance and for a program to supply the poorest households with US$68 per month. IMF team arrives for talks Some experts say the IMF's tough stance follows the lead of the Bush administration, which, when it saw that the Argentine crisis was not spreading throughout the region, withdrew support for a bailout. US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who has been reluctant to support new financial aid to Argentina, said Argentina was "the definition of a disorganized society." Speaking to the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, O'Neill said Argentina's problems were largely self-inflicted, born of borrowing too freely to finance consumption rather than investment. Though there have been steps in the right direction in recent weeks, he said, more must be done before new loans are warranted. An IMF mission headed by Anoop Singh, director for a newly created special operations department, arrived in Buenos Aires March 5 for a two-week stay. Singh was deputy director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific department during the Asian financial crises of 1997-1999, and he is known for his hard- line during negotiations with the Indonesian government. His new position clearly reflects dissatisfaction within the IMF regarding past handling of Argentina. "The process is not likely to be extremely rapid," IMF external relations director Thomas Dawson said in London. "It is not unreasonable to expect substantial measures would need to be in effect before international support is provided." On March 13, the IMF mission put up a new hurdle, calling for "substantial changes" in spending policies as a condition for aid and telling the country's cash-strapped provinces to stop printing their own scrip. There are now 14 provincial currencies used by local governments to pay wages. The IMF also revised its economic growth outlook, predicting the Argentine economy would contract by 8% this year--well beyond the 4.9% the government budgeted for. So the Duhalde administration went back to work, pledging to find more cuts in the 2002 budget. Duhalde appeared increasingly exasperated by the lack of an accord. "They [the IMF] do not have the urgency we have," he said, adding that he hoped an agreement could be reached by the end of April. Duhalde's support shaky Amid the worst economic, social, and political crises in decades, Duhalde's political backing is fragmented, street protests continue throughout the country and involve nearly all social sectors, and, with the economy in its fourth year of recession, poverty and unemployment are in a seemingly unending upward spiral. Frequent criticism is directed at Argentine's bloated and corrupt bureaucracy. When Duhalde first outlined his economic plan, he promised to "cut political spending" by nearly half and to reduce the number of elected offices by 25%. But the budget he submitted to legislators increased the congressional allotment by more than 5%. "In the short term, Duhalde cannot afford conflict with the political class because that is his most important base of support," said political analyst Rosendo Fraga. "But any project aimed at reducing spending on the political apparatus will have the support of the population, and the sooner it comes the better." Argentina has received strong support from its neighbors. At a meeting in late February, the six Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR) countries issued a statement calling on lending institutions to "understand Argentina's complex situation" and aid the country while it pursues "internal policies that will permit economic growth" rather than insist on more austerity, as the fund is demanding. "There is a better way to help Argentina," Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said at a news conference. "We don't believe it is fair to ask Argentina to get things accomplished first and then to get the aid." [Sources: Spanish news service EFE, 02/20/02; Clarin (Argentina), 02/22/02, 02/26/02, 02/27/02; The Washington Post, 03/01/02; The New York Times, 02/18/02, 02/22/02, 02/26/02, 03/04/02; The Financial Times (London), 03/05/02; Inter Press Service, 02/20/02, 02/27/02, 03/01/02, 03/06/02; Associated Press, 02/19/02, 02/21/02, 02/26/02, 02/27/02, 03/04/02, 03/10/02; Notimex, 02/26/02, 02/27/02, 03/10/02; Reuters, 02/24/02, 03/01/02, 03/03/02, 03/06/02, 03/10/02, 03/13/02] ********************* COLOMBIA ********************* COLOMBIA: INDEPENDENTS WIN BIG IN CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS About half of Colombia's 24 million eligible voters went to the polls on March 10 to elect a new legislature. More than 8,000 candidates were running for 102 Senate seats and 166 lower-house seats. Results were disappointing for the traditional parties and pointed to a possible first-round victory for independent right-wing candidate Alvaro Uribe in the May 26 presidential elections. Just over 40% of the country's 23 million registered voters went to the polls, down from 45% in the 1998 congressional elections. Despite threats of violence, one of the main reasons for the high abstention seemed to be voter apathy toward a Congress considered corrupt and inefficient. Corruption scandals, including one in early 2000 in which members of Congress were found to have signed bogus multimillion-dollar contracts, have turned off voters. Just before the elections, the government prosecutor's office reported that 100 of the 8,453 candidates have criminal records--which will automatically disqualify them for office if elected. The opposition Partido Liberal lost space in the 102-seat Senate, winning 29 seats, 19 less than it took in the 1998 elections. The governing Partido Conservador also lost ground, dropping from 15 to 13 seats. Nearly 60% of the upper house will be controlled by independent coalitions, movements, or small parties, with 21 more seats than they had in 1998. In the lower house, the Conservatives dropped from 43 to 21 seats, while the Liberals saw their numbers reduced from 84 to 53. The remaining 92 seats, 55.4% of the total, belong to independents, movements, or small parties. Independent candidates obtained the most votes in the election. Taking the most votes in the Senate race was Luis Ramos, who split from the governing Partido Conservador to form part of an independent coalition backing Uribe, a Partido Liberal defector. Second was former M-19 rebel Antonio Navarro Wolff, followed by Former Liberal German Vargas, who also backs Uribe. Another top vote-getter was Carlos Gaviria, a former member of the Constitutional Court and a leader of Movimiento Frente Social y Politico (FSP), whose presidential candidate is former trade unionist Luis Eduardo Garzon. Uribe allies are believed to now hold more than a quarter of the seats in both houses, a high total in Colombia where the Liberal and Conservative parties have long dominated politics. Uribe strongly opposes peace talks between the government of President Andres Pastrana and the two main rebel groups, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN). Uribe remains the heavy favorite to win in the first round of the presidential elections, followed by Partido Liberal candidate Horacio Serpa, with independent Noemi Sanin and Garzon far behind. "The elections definitely consolidated Uribe Velez's place. Horacio Serpa lost space and Noemi Sanin was defeated," said Fernando Giraldo, dean of political science at the Universidad Javeriana. Conservatives and Liberals still enjoy an advantage, said Luis Valencia of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, because of practices like "vote-buying and clientelism"--trading votes for public-sector jobs, scholarships in private universities, and personal favors. Senator-elect Navarro said, "Sunday's results show the need to think seriously about holding a referendum to implement in-depth political reforms, because the country cannot continue to have a Congress that is as clientelist as the one that was elected." While the results show a rejection of traditional party politics, they also show an electorate not as easily defined as previously thought. "People were worried that the electorate was far off to the right, advocating only law and order," said Alejo Vargas, Universidad Nacional political science professor. "But as much as law and order candidates did well, you could also say that center-left candidates made important strides. Tendencies are divided." What makes a free and fair election? President Pastrana called the election a "triumph of democracy over terrorism," and international observers characterized the vote, overseen by more than 100,000 troops, as largely free and fair. But the stepped-up war in recent weeks and targeted kidnappings of candidates affected the electoral process. While candidates in the major cities were able to campaign, large areas of the country plagued by violence were off-limits, forcing candidates to get their message out through television, radio, and newspaper ads. "They [candidates] were restricted from going certain places, not so much because we prohibited it, but for their own safety," said Interior Minister Armando Estrada. The 17,000-member FARC called for a nationwide boycott of the election and declared as "military targets" people who voted in eastern Arauca province. Authorities canceled voting in 15 of the 1,097 municipalities, mainly because rebels seized and burned the ballots, Estrada said. Just before the election, FSP presidential candidate Garzon said the elections are "marked by illegitimacy" because of the pressure from the various armed groups. He said that paramilitary Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) leader Salvatore Mancuso boasted that they would control 35% of the seats in Congress after the elections. The drug cartels "are financing many campaigns," Garzon said. "Even Bishop Isaias Duarte Cancino, one of the most important clerics in the country, said several days ago that this is happening." "With this panorama, it is almost impossible to talk about a democratic atmosphere," said Garzon in an interview with Notimex. The situation is even more serious "if you consider that, within the national territory, there are three states or parastates." He said one such parastate in the north is headed by AUC leader Carlos Castano, a southern sector by FARC leader Manuel "Tirofifo" Marulanda, and the center by Bogota mayor Antanas Mockus, who governs the most important city in the country. "So, in our nation, there is no pilot," he said. "The country is practically split, and the only entity that does not represent any state is the Pastrana government." Interior Minister Estrada also spoke of AUC influence in the election. "Some [candidates] have an agreement with the paramilitaries," he said. "Some are definitely their candidates and others simply support the kind of legislation that could be helpful to them." In a message on the Internet after the election, AUC commander Mancuso claimed his group had "greatly surpassed" its goal of placing sympathetic candidates in 35% of the seats in Congress. The paramilitary role in the elections is difficult to prove. Groups representing ranchers and banana growers can legally fund candidates who support policies the AUC favors. Many of those candidates also belong to traditional parties, masking their ties to the paramilitary forces. Resignations follow elections The day after the elections, the head of the Partido Conservador, Sen. Carlos Holguin Sardi, resigned because of the party's poor showing. On March 12, the party's presidential candidate Juan Camilo Restrepo left the race, further deepening the party's crisis. Some analysts said Restrepo's withdrawal was the death knell of the Partido Conservador as a political force. Restrepo, a former finance minister, was running far behind in the polls. He said his withdrawal would help purify and strengthen the party. "I will abstain from registering my candidacy as a contribution to the unity of the party and its future," said Restrepo, who left his post as ambassador to France to run for president. "The traditional parties have been weakened and the Partido Conservador is even worse off as a consequence of Pastrana's unpopular government," said Eduardo Barajas, dean of political science at the Universidad del Rosario. The next day, the Conservatives threw their support to Uribe. If elected president, Uribe would negotiate with the rebels, but only under terms the rebels are unlikely to accept. To counter the guerrillas' growing strength, he proposes arming civilians in the countryside, adding tens of thousands of soldiers to the army, and even bringing in foreign troops. [Sources: Inter Press Service, 02/26/02, 03/11/02; Reuters, 03/08/02, 03/10/02, 03/11/02; The Financial Times (London), The Washington Post, 03/11/02; Spanish news service EFE, 03/07/02, 03/11/02, 03/12/02; Notimex, 03/09/02, 03/11/02, 03/12/02; The Miami Herald, 03/09/02, 03/12/02, 03/13/02; Associated Press, 03/11/02, 03/13/02] ********************* PERU ********************* PERU: FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGISTS UNCOVERING TRUTH ABOUT FORCED DISAPPEARANCES [The following article by Barbara J. Fraser is reprinted with the permission of Noticias Aliadas in Lima, Peru. It appeared in the March 11, 2002, edition of Latinamerica Press.] Haiti, the Congo, Guatemala, Ruanda, Kosovo. Jose Pablo Baraybar has roamed the world, coaxing the dead to tell their stories. Now he has come home to Peru to tease from the bones of the disappeared the secrets of their deaths. "The most important thing is to know how to talk to death, so it will tell you something," Baraybar said. In Peru, the task is just beginning. The Comision de la Verdad, which began work in July 2001, is setting up offices throughout the country to gather testimony about human rights violations committed during the years of political violence that began in 1980, when Sendero Luminoso rebels set fire to ballot boxes in the village of Chuschi, in the highland department of Ayacucho, and ended in 1992 with the capture of most of the leaders of that group and the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA). During those years, more than 5,500 cases of forced disappearance or summary execution were reported to the Ministerio Publico, according to a new report by the Peruvian ombud's office (Defensoria del Pueblo). Baraybar says that the real figure is unknown, however, because little information is available from the central jungle and Huallaga Valley areas where confrontations are still taking place between the police or military and remnants of Sendero Luminoso. The office has received reports of about 150 clandestine graves. In a remote area of Ayacucho--the department in which nearly half of all disappearances were registered during the 1980s and early 1990s--there are unconfirmed reports of as many as 250 sites. The community that became the symbolic starting point of Peru's political violence was also the first to give up its dead. Although reports of clandestine graves in the central highlands have sporadically made headlines for more than a year, the first case handled by the Instituto Peruano de Antropologia Forense, which Baraybar heads, was of campesinos forcibly detained, executed, and buried near Chuschi in May 1983. After gathering detailed descriptions of the events and the victims from residents of Quispillacta, the community where the campesinos had lived, the team located the site on the basis of testimony from members of another community who had been forced to dig the grave. The remains were painstakingly excavated and taken to a makeshift morgue in the local school. "It's very important that people not feel that the remains are being taken away to Lima or the provincial capital," Baraybar said. Several graves found last year in other parts of the country were dug up by community members or judicial officials with no training in forensic anthropology, and the bones were sent to Lima, where it was impossible to reconstruct the skeletons, identify the victims or draw any conclusions about how they had died, he said. "The bones are rotting in Lima--it's a second disappearance." In Chuschi, all eight victims were identified, and the families prayed for and reburied their dead in an emotional ceremony. Along with its detailed report on disappearances, the office has published a book of wrenching accounts by families of the victims, telling of their fruitless searches for their loved ones, of threats and extortion by police and military officers, of poverty, discrimination, and the agony of never knowing what really happened. The Comision de la Verdad, in which the forensic anthropology team participates, is working against the clock to finish its task by February 2003. "In 18 months, the commission isn't going to be able to investigate everything," Baraybar said. "But it has a moral weight that can make the state assume its responsibility." He added that his team "isn't going to be able to recover 100% of the bodies and identify them all. It would be impossible. And we understand the frustration that this represents for the families." Like much of the political violence, forced disappearances affected poor Peruvians disproportionately. The Defensoria reported that 57.4% of the victims were campesinos. The largest number of disappearances, 42.7%, took place during the administration of President Alan Garcia (1985-1990), followed by the governments of President Fernando Belaunde (1980-1985), with 31.3%, and President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), with 26%. Of the summary executions reported by the Defensoria, 46.1% occurred during the Fujimori years, 39% under Garcia, and 14.9% under Belaunde. One of the most infamous cases was the execution of some 300 inmates in a Lima penitentiary in 1986, after a prison riot had been quelled. The Peruvian government recently agreed to pay damages of US$125,000 to the survivors of two victims, Nolberto Durand Ugarte and his uncle, Gabriel Pablo Ugarte Rivero. Reparations are also being made in other cases. In December, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ordered the government to pay more than US$2 million in damages to relatives of 15 people killed in November 1991 by a death squad during a barbecue in the Barrios Altos neighborhood of Lima. And the parents of Mariella Barreto, an army intelligence agent allegedly tortured to death by her colleagues after she leaked information about death-squad activities to the press, received a settlement of US$156,923 in December. Leonor La Rosa, another intelligence agent who was tortured with Barreto and left disabled, returned to the country from exile in Sweden. On Feb. 18, she received an official apology from President Alejandro Toledo, who praised her for being one of the first people to confront "from within the monster of the Servicio Nacional de Inteligencia (SIN)." La Rosa is now testifying before a congressional commission investigating the activities of former national security adviser Vladimiro Montesinos and his network of espionage and corruption during the Fujimori administration. Following a lead from an unidentified witness, committee members found a brick incinerator in a second basement in the military headquarters in Lima known as the "Pentagonito." Investigations are underway to determine whether it was used to incinerate human remains. Witnesses have reportedly told the congressional commission that there could be clandestine graves on the grounds of the Pentagonito. On March 5, Fujimori's former wife, Susana Higuchi, toured the SIN offices with congressional investigators. Congresswoman Anel Townsend, who heads the commission, said Higuchi recognized the rooms where she was allegedly beaten and tortured with electric shocks in 1992, shortly before her separation from the president. The US State Department's report on human rights in Peru in 2001, released in early March, said that although Peru has made progress in democracy, human rights abuses persist. The report cited 36 cases of torture by security forces and seven extrajudicial killings. Defensor del Pueblo Walter Alban said that his office had no record of the extrajudicial executions, most of which, according to the report, involved people arrested for ordinary crimes who died after being beaten by police or prison guards. Alban said that his office would investigate. Meanwhile, Baraybar's team continues to dig away at the past, investigating cases reported by communities throughout the country. It also assisted with autopsies of 14 members of the MRTA who held 70 people hostage for four months in the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima. Last year, a Japanese diplomat claimed that some of the rebels were summarily executed after military troops stormed the building and freed the hostages in April 1997. While the team's report was confidential, a version leaked to the press in August indicated that at least eight of the bodies showed signs of having been summarily executed with a gunshot to the base of the skull. Baraybar said that his goal is not just to exhume the remains of the disappeared, but to bring the perpetrators to justice, "to say to them, 'I'm going to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that you did this, and these people whom you have silenced--I'm going to make them speak.'" ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= pvtsa-03.15.02-10:01:03-14048