People Before Profit blog

Harken v. Costa Rica: U.S. companies employ blackmail in free trade with Central America

Fri, 28 May 2004 04:21:00 +0000

When most people think of Costa Rica, they don’t imagine oil rigs stationed off the pristine beaches. Nor do they envision pit mines cutting into the cloud-forested mountains.

But, despite the country’s noteworthy conservation efforts, its scenic vistas and extraordinary biodiversity face ongoing threats from extractive industries – and from international trade deals.

Nearly two years ago, Costa Rican nationals and admirers thought they’d been given reason to rest easy. In May 2002, responding to a large-scale mobilization of the country’s environmentalists, President Abel Pacheco announced a moratorium on oil exploration and open-pit mining in Costa Rica.

Legislators are currently working to give congressional backing to the executive order and repeal laws that expose the country to extractive industries.

At least one multinational interest isn’t happy about the developments, however, and its model of corporate discontent may soon end the prospects of an activist siesta.

Harken Energy, a Texas-based oil company with close ties to U.S. President George W. Bush, had previously obtained rights to search for crude in Costa Rica. Before failing an environmental impact review in February 2002, it had planned to drill offshore.

Now Harken is demanding that the Costa Rican government pay upwards of $12 million in reparations for its aborted exploits.

On March 11, Costa Rica announced that it would not accept a proposed out-of-court resolution to the dispute, delivering another blow to the bitter oil interest.

But that’s not the last word on the subject. Even as the company contemplates sending the case back into international courts, the Bush administration is brokering a treaty that threatens to make the Harken suit into something more than an obscure legal grudge match. That treaty is the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

With the U.S. and five Central American countries working to ratify CAFTA, it’s not just local environmentalists and Texas oil barons closely watching ongoing developments in the Harken dispute. International observers say the case is shaping up as the latest cautionary tale of how “free trade” agreements give corporations the power to trump local environmental laws.

In 1994, the Costa Rican legislative assembly passed a hydrocarbons law as part of a series of measures designed to comply with a Structural Adjustment Program sponsored by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The law opened the way for foreign corporations to win concessions on oil exploration.

Subsequently, a little-known Louisiana-based company named MKJ Xploration successfully bid to prospect in several blocks on the nation’s Caribbean coast. The company later sold its Costa Rican interests to Harken Energy.

Area residents, fishers, indigenous groups, and environmentalists learned of the deal by reading about it in the newspapers. They quickly realized that lack of local consultation was only the first of the plan’s many problems.

Offshore drilling, they argued, would damage coral reefs and mangrove swamps and threaten endangered sea life. They waged a prolonged battle against the deal, and a national board came to take their side.

It ruled that Harken’s plan was not permissible under the country’s environmental impact laws.

Shortly thereafter, in denying Harken’s appeal, the board cited more than 50 reasons why the company’s impact statement did not make the grade.

Harken was furious. Arguing that it had already invested more than $12 million in the deal, it turned to international investment treaties to sue Costa Rica – for $57 billion.

That’s no misprint. Harken wanted $57 billion, a figure it said represented the total projected profits of the scuttled deal. Costa Rica’s annual GDP is around $17 billion, and the government’s entire annual budget around $5 billion.

In late September 2003, soon after the World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes notified the Costa Rican government of Harken’s claim against it, Pacheco announced that his country would not submit to international arbitration.

He refused to acknowledge any decision made by the bank’s body, insisting instead that Costa Rica’s national court system was the legitimate venue for the dispute. A few days later, Harken withdrew its claim and pursued plans to reach an out-of-court agreement.

In January 2004, former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) traveled to San Jose to negotiate on behalf of Harken. At the time, the Costa Rican government appeared grateful to be eliminating the specter of a costly international lawsuit. Environmental groups, however, greeted Torricelli with protests outside the Environment Ministry.

They argued that the negotiations were a form of “oil extortion” – that Harken was punishing the country for enforcing its environmental laws.

Whether the protests worked or, more likely, Costa Rica and Harken were unable to agree on a settlement amount, it now appears that the talks have failed.

On March 11, the government announced its position that Harken did not have legal grounds to demand compensation and that Costa Rica is not obliged to pay anything. The dispute, freshly reignited, is on course to return to international arbitration in the near future.

As the Harken case has moved forward, so has CAFTA. In December, the U.S. finished negotiations with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua on the regional free trade agreement. Costa Rica, which had held back over concerns about privatizing public industries, was brought into the accord in January. Now, each country must ratify the treaty if it is to become law.

For opponents of CAFTA, the Harken case is a paradigmatic example of how corporations use international agreements to bully countries into dropping environmental protections.

CAFTA’s investor protections, which are similar to NAFTA’s notorious Chapter 11, allow companies to bring complaints directly to international tribunals.

Under the new agreement, Costa Rica would not be able to rebuff efforts to bypass its national courts. Instead, it would have to allow deliberations about Harken’s astronomical $57 billion “compensation claim” to move forward on the international level.

Regardless of whether such corporate claims are upheld, the threat of a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit is enough to persuade many developing countries to back down on enforcing their environmental laws. The example of NAFTA shows that even powerful countries are susceptible to what activists dub environmental “blackmail.” In one famous 1998 case, the Ethyl Corporation sued Canada over its public health ban on MMT, a fuel additive. Canada chose to overturn its environmental provision and pay $13 million to Ethyl rather than risk $251 million in damages.

With such cases on record, Australia refused to include a provision in its trade agreement with the U.S. that would let investors bypass national courts and take disputes to international bodies. But that’s something poorer nations, who feel they cannot afford to risk losing access to U.S. markets, do not have the power to do.

U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick claims that CAFTA contains strong environmental protections. Likewise, Costa Rica’s minister of energy and environment, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, argues that CAFTA “presents an opportunity for [Costa Rica] to seriously apply its environmental legislation.”

It is true that the agreement includes provisions for citizens to submit charges regarding violations of environmental laws. However, while there are clear consequences for violating the agreement’s investor provisions, there is no clear enforcement mechanism to ensure action on public complaints.

Moreover, CAFTA will affect legislative efforts to solidify Pacheco’s extractive industries ban.

Groups such as the Costa Rican Federation for Environmental Conservation have warned that CAFTA could complicate if not thwart efforts by the assembly in San Jose to reverse the 1994 hydrocarbons law.

“Costa Rica of course can repeal its hydrocarbons law. But under the final CAFTA text, the oil companies would be empowered to sue for lost profits,” says Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch at Public Citizen. “Plus, governments could claim that a repeal would infringe on their rights to market access in the service sector.”

It remains to be seen if the Costa Rican legislature will continue with existing plans to reverse the law. But it is clear that CAFTA bodes ill for environmental protection in the participating countries. Should a subsequent administration make the decision to go oil-rig-free two or three years from now, it may be nearly impossible to implement.

Of course, that’s only if CAFTA gains ratification. In the U.S., the deal faces a bruising battle in Congress if the Bush administration tries to push it through in an election year.

Back in Costa Rica, legislators committed to extending the country’s conservationist tradition may yet prove hesitant to subject their environmental laws to the threat of corporate attack – a threat that the ongoing dispute with Harken has made all too vivid.

Mark Engler is a commentator for Foreign Policy in Focus. He can be reached via DemocracyUprising.com. Nadia Martinez is a research associate with the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. This article is reprinted with permission from Grist Magazine, March 26, 2004. *(See related stories below)

We can still stop CAFTA!

Our representatives and senators will be in their home districts through May 31. We need to hold our elected officials responsible and call on them to vote against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

The United States Trade Representative and the trade ministers of the five Central American countries officially signed the CAFTA May 28. President Bush had officially notified Congress under the Trade Promotion Authority law (“Fast Track”) on Feb. 20 of the administration’s intention to sign the agreement.

This process could lead to a vote in the House and Senate before Congress’ summer recess July 23. But the momentum is on our side. Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill in recent weeks have acknowledged that right now they do not have the votes to pass CAFTA in the House.

It is important to impress upon members of Congress the importance of speaking up against CAFTA now, if they are opposed to the trade agreement. It is possible that, if enough opposition is shown, the Bush administration will not introduce the enabling legislation before the November elections.

– Campaign for Labor Rights

Bush, a Harken insider

George W. Bush’s connections to Harken Energy are of the insider type that for lesser mortals like Martha Stewart resulted in jail sentences.

Bush long aspired to own an oil company. A hefty investment in Texas-based Harken seemed just the ticket. “By 1989, Harken was booking big losses but Daddy was president,” writes Molly Ivins in her best-seller, “Bushwhacked.” Harken used every kind of deceit to hide its losses while releasing reports to its investors that all was well.

Bush, on Harken’s board of directors, was named to a “fairness committee” and he told investors that Harken’s bottom line was “the interests and preservation of value for the small shareholders of the company,” Ivins writes. “A month later Bush left the small shareholders holding the bag; he dumped $848,560 of the stock without disclosing the sale” to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The purpose of the SEC’s disclosure rule “is precisely to inform all shareholders that something may be wrong, by letting them know when someone with insider information sells a large block of stock.”

In September 1989, Harken secured a juicy plum, exclusive drilling rights in the waters off the Emirate of Bahrain. It was considered remarkable that Harken could obtain such a promising contract in the Persian Gulf, where half the world’s oil reserves are buried. But Bahrain was chummy with the first President Bush, whose son was then on the board of Harken Energy. A war was coming and many millions if not billions of dollars in profits could be reaped.

Who could tell then that the son would steal his way into the White House 11 years later and unleash another war for oil in the Persian Gulf?

– Tim Wheeler

International notes

Fri, 21 May 2004 03:00:00 +0000

Haiti: Marines arrest woman leader on Mother’s Day

U.S. Marines invaded the home of renowned entertainer and community leader Annette Auguste after midnight May 9, arresting and detaining everyone present including four great-grandchildren, TransAfrica said, citing reports from Haiti.

While the others were later released, Ms. Auguste, known as So Ann, was interrogated throughout the night without counsel or anyone present except herself and the Marines. She was then transferred to the Haitian National Police where she was still detained late last week.

The Marines breached her gate with explosives, shot and killed the household dogs and ransacked the home, searching for non-existent weapons.

TransAfrica said it believes Ms. Auguste was arrested because “she is a prominent leader of Haitians who understand and object that the right-wing elite has returned to Haiti behind the guns of convicted criminals and death squad thugs, with the blessing of their right-wing allies here in the United States.”

China: Massive treatment program for HIV/AIDS

China plans to provide treatment for 100,000 HIV/AIDS patients by the end of next year, as part of a global initiative to treat the killer disease, the World Health Organization said in a report released May 11.

China has the embraced the WHO’s “3 by 5” initiative to make effective antiretroviral therapy available to 3 million people worldwide by the end of 2005.

It is estimated that over 800,000 people in China are living with HIV-AIDS.

The WHO says tackling HIV/AIDS is regarded as the world’s most urgent public health challenge and the disease is now the leading cause of death for young adults worldwide.

Iraq: WFTU condemns torture

In a May 11 statement the World Federation of Trade Unions expressed its “great sorrow, concern and indignation” at the revelations of tortures and inhuman repression unleashed by U.S. and British occupation forces at Iraqi prisons.

The WFTU expressed “its indignation and surprise that these acts were committed by two Great Powers who claimed that their illegal aggression on Iraq was to defend liberty, democracy and human rights.”

It warned that “the continuation of this ugly behavior and the occupation itself will only increase the hatred and revenge” and worsen the security situation faced by the Iraqi people.

The WFTU demanded the “immediate restoration of sovereignty to the Iraqi people, to enable them to govern themselves and to build their national parliamentary and administrative institutions, to defend security and national sovereignty.”

Chad/Sudan: Militias ‘out of control’

Militias fighting alongside the Sudanese government against rebels in Sudan’s western Darfur Province are being blamed for repeated ceasefire violations within Darfur and have also started terrorizing villages across the border in eastern Chad, the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks said last week.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is urging Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to disarm the militias, whose attacks on civilians in Darfur have caused over 800,000 people to flee their villages – many of them crossing the border into Chad.

Speaking to journalists earlier this month, Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan characterized the situation in the area as “a reign of terror ... a scorched earth policy ... repeated war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The Sudanese government has provided the Arabic-speaking Janjawid militias with modern weapons. It has been accused by international human rights organizations of using the militias for ethnic cleansing against non-Arabic-speaking Black Muslim communities in Darfur.

Greece: Former military officers speak for peace

As part of the World Peace Council Assembly held in Athens earlier this month, eight former high-ranking military officers from Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Russia, Germany and Bulgaria spoke at a May 7 public meeting sponsored by the Greek Committee for International Peace and Detente.

The meeting highlighted issues including new aggressive doctrines and tasks of armed forces including preemptive war, mercenary armies, and rapid deployment forces as well as the role and responsibilities of military personnel and retired officers in the struggle for peace and democratic rights. It launched the initiative, “Former Military Officers Speak,” with publication of an appeal with nearly 400 initial signers.

The Appeal expresses “concern and disagreement” with the “wars being unleashed by the leaderships of the USA and its allies on peoples and states that refuse subservience and the exploitation of their countries’ wealth and their own labor by foreigners,” and with the violations of human rights and liberties in the countries whose governments are perpetrating the wars.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (mbechtel@pww.org).

S. Korean president restored to office

Fri, 21 May 2004 02:55:00 +0000

Peace, labor, reunification, and democratic forces on both sides of the 38th parallel celebrated a victory on May 14 when the South Korean Constitutional Court rejected the March 12 impeachment of President Roh Moo-Hyun. He returned to office immediately.

According to the Yonhap News Agency, “the central thoroughfare [of Seoul] was a sea of yellow, the color of the pro-Roh Uri Party, as many of the revelers donned yellow jackets and yellow ribbons.”

Roh’s impeachment, orchestrated by the right-wing Grand National Party (GNP) – a party with close ties to the U.S.-backed military dictatorship that ruled until the 1980s – was opposed by up to 70 percent of the population, according to opinion polls.

At a critical point in the impeachment proceedings, Roh’s supporters in parliament were physically barred from the chamber by their GNP counterparts. Many Koreans perceived the action as a power grab or coup d’etat against Roh, whom the right wing sought to paint as “too pro-labor” and as “too soft” toward North Korea (DPRK).

The formal reasons given for Roh’s impeachment – minor electioneering infractions – were considered trivial by both the Korean people and the Constitutional Court. Allegations that some of Roh’s cabinet members had taken bribes were also discounted, particularly after Roh offered to resign if it could be shown that illegal contributions to his team equaled even one-tenth of those given to elected officials of the GNP.

After Roh’s impeachment, thousands – and sometimes millions – of people protested in the streets in a series of mass demonstrations. The April 15 general elections brought about an astonishing electoral turnaround – for the first time since the end of the dictatorship, the GNP became a minority party, as Roh’s Uri Party won an absolute majority in parliament. A smaller, labor-based party, the Democratic Labor Party, also won 10 seats in the 299-seat legislature.

A statement from the North Korean-based Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said, “Together with the results of the recent general election, the recent decision to dismiss the impeachment reflects the basic trend of the South Korea’s situation, which aspires for independence and democracy.”

The reinstatement of President Roh brings full cycle the recent change in South Korean politics, which favors peaceful negotiations with the DPRK rather than confrontation, a move towards less U.S. domination over Korean affairs, and a friendlier attitude towards labor. In a speech on May 15, Roh continued to push forward the reforms, but said he intends to let the newly elected legislature take the lead.

The author can be reached at dmargolis@cpusa.org.

Indian voters oust right wing

Fri, 21 May 2004 02:04:00 +0000

NEW DELHI – Indian voters threw the right-wing, Hindu nationalist forces out of power in the recent national elections. A surprise rebellion of workers, farmers, women, youth, academics, poor, religious and national minorities took place against the policies of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee. The political earthquake swept the Indian National Congress party and its democratic and secular allies into power.

Congress won 145 seats in the 545-member lower house of Parliament, called the Lok Sabha. The left, including the two largest Communist parties – the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India – bagged 62 seats, the largest number since 1952. The left parties promised to support the Congress-led government but not to formally join it. With the other parties in the secular alliance, Congress will more than cross the threshold of 272 needed for a majority.

At the election’s core were issues that struck at the very heart and soul of Indian democracy: a secular government vs. a hard-line, Hindu fundamentalist government; economic policies benefiting the workers and poor vs. policies that benefit the corporations and the super-rich; and an independent foreign policy vs. a policy aligned with U.S. imperialism.

Tens of millions in this country of just over 1 billion were further impoverished and marginalized during the period of right-wing rule, completely left out of the “India Shining” portrait painted by the BJP. Hunger is rampant, even as warehouses sit idle with food, because the BJP all but destroyed the government’s distribution system. Millions of young people are jobless. Privatization has increased poverty and suffering.

An example of the rebellion from below happened in the southern Indian state of Andra Pradesh (AP). In provincial elections there, the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP), a key ally of the BJP, was trounced. AP’s Chief Minister Naidu was the darling of Wall Street and Indian CEOs for ushering in the so-called high-tech economy. Yet the people’s needs – from water to electricity to education – suffered under Naidu’s regime. At least 3,000 farmers in AP alone committed suicide over their desperate conditions.

Over the last eight years, the BJP-led government pushed and implemented policies that fanned the flames of religious fanaticism leading to brutal attacks on Muslims and Christians.

“People have rejected the communal-fascist policies pursued by the BJP-NDA and upheld the secular-democratic character of the country,” the Communist Party of India said in a statement thanking the voters of India. “[The voters] have rejected economic policies pursued so far, which were attacks against workers, against the livelihood of the masses, against the poor in general and only served the interest of foreign multinationals and domestic monopolists.”

“This scale of anger was not expected by us. The question before us now is to bring together all the forces that worked against the BJP,” Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet said.

Shortly after the Congress victory, Sonia Gandhi, the party’s Italian-born leader, unexpectedly declined the post of prime minister, pulling the rug out from the BJP who promised a bitter campaign against her. The Congress party elected Manmohan Singh as prime minister. A Sikh, Singh will be India’s first non-Hindu prime minister.

While Congress started the “neoliberal” economic programs in 1991 – opening India up to more foreign investment and privatizing public-sector entities (with Singh as its architect) – the left’s influence on the new government will be a key factor. The new Congress-led government is expected to slow divestment of the public sector, pledging it would not privatize profitable “public sector units.”

“The market cannot solve all the world’s problems,” Eduardo Faleiro, a senior Congress party member said. “You need some state structure for purposes of education, for health, for alleviating unemployment. A safety net has to be there.”

The left has also indicated it is not against economic reforms. In a recent interview, CPI General Secretary A.B. Bardhan said, “We are against reforms that lack a human face. We are against reforms that lead people to lose their jobs. We want reforms to end poverty, illiteracy and improve the health conditions of millions of people.”

The left will also help influence India’s foreign policy towards a more non-aligned path. A senior official in the Ministry of External Affairs told the World that the excessive tilt towards U.S. interests, evident in India’s foreign policy under BJP rule, can be expected to be corrected.

The authors can be reached at pww@pww.org.

International notes

Fri, 14 May 2004 07:32:00 +0000

Uzbekistan: U.S. base worries neighbors

In fall 2001 Uzbekistan let the Pentagon use a former Soviet airbase at Karshi-Khanabad – K2 for short – the first U.S. deployment in the former USSR. Since then the U.S. has doubled the parking space for planes and built new barracks to accommodate 1,750 U.S. military and civilian personnel, the Associated Press said after a rare visit to the tightly secured base.

The base, 90 miles from the Afghan border, earlier was home to U.S. special operations forces and combat aircraft. It is still a key support point for military personnel, and for civilian contractors working for Halliburton-subsidiary KBR. Uzbek President Islam Karimov said the U.S. would remain only while operations continue in Afghanistan. But lately other Uzbek officials have opened the door to a longer stay.

Russia, China and Iran are reportedly uneasy about K-2 and its sister U.S. regional base near Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, just 175 miles from China.

Sudan: Peace closer in south, west continues to suffer

The Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army are near agreement on issues of power-sharing and the legal status of the capital, Khartoum, the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) said May 7. A Sudanese diplomat told IRIN that remaining differences were expected to be worked out “within the next few days.”

At the same time, IRIN said, in western Sudan one of the world’s worst and most neglected humanitarian crises continues despite an April 8 cease-fire agreement between the government and two rebel groups.

IRIN said the conflict has displaced over a million people, while another 110,000 have fled to Chad. Pamela Delargy of the UN Population Fund emphasized the conflict’s devastating effect on women and girls. “As in many other recent conflicts, rape has become a weapon of war in western Sudan, with disastrous consequences for women and girls,” she said.

Gaza: Israel builds new fence

Israeli military officials confirmed last week that a four-and-a-half mile fence is to be built on a “settlers-only” road leading to Gush Katif Jewish settlement in Gaza, following the killing of an Israeli settler and her four daughters in the area, the Palestinian organization MIFTAH reported. According to Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the fence is a temporary measure until Israel pulls out of Gaza.

Though Olmert pledged a complete pullout, Israel’s defense and foreign ministers said a limited withdrawal is needed to silence the settlers’ protests. Press reports indicated Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would present an alternative plan for removal of just three settlements from Gaza instead of 21, and two settlements instead of four from the West Bank.

“These are measures to prolong the occupation and deepen it,” said Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat.

Haiti: Caricom asks OAS investigation

The 15-member Caribbean Community last week called on the Organization of American States (OAS) to investigate the forced removal from office of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Trinidad’s Foreign Affairs Minister Knowlson Gift said opposition by Washington and Paris makes a UN investigation unlikely. Although Caricom has promised to provide personnel for the UN mission in Haiti, to date it has not recognized the U.S.-installed interim government.

Meanwhile, the Let Haiti Live coalition on April 30 issued the first in a series of reports on the human rights situation in Haiti, describing many murders and assaults by armed gang members against ordinary people including Aristide supporters, as well as killings of Haitians by the U.S.-led occupation force. The report is also highly critical of some U.S.-funded “human rights organizations” active in Haiti. The report is available on www.americas.org, under the “countries” listing for Haiti.

Cambodia: Hotels fire hundreds

Luxury hotels in Cambodia responded to a peaceful one-week strike last month by firing hundreds of hotel workers, the IUF (International Union of Food, Agricultural and Other Workers) said. Union members at six hotels walked off the job April 5 when employers unilaterally rejected government arbitration rulings telling the hotels to distribute 100 percent of hotel service charges to employees on a regular monthly basis.

When the Cambodian Arbitration Council requested a return to work and negotiations under its auspices, hotel owners fired the workers, members of the IUF-affiliated Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers’ Federation.

“At issue is the employers’ determination to unilaterally reject the collective bargaining process and impose on employees a massive loss of income in one of the world’s poorest countries,” the IUF said. The Singapore-based Raffles Hotel Group, with hotels in Phnom Penh and Siem Riep, is leading the union-busting drive.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (mbechtel@pww.org).

Lawyer for Cuban 5 seeks world support

Fri, 14 May 2004 07:24:00 +0000

BERLIN – In a whirlwind visit, U.S. civil rights lawyer Leonard Weinglass spoke to several audiences here about the case of the Cuban Five. The five men – Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, René González, Fernando González and Ramon Labañino – were convicted in a Miami courtroom in 2001 for alleged “conspiracy to commit espionage,” and have been in U.S. prisons ever since. Weinglass is one of the attorneys who argued their case in a new appeal hearing, March 10, in Miami.

He explained that the five, who were sentenced to long terms – in three cases life sentences and in one case a double-life sentence – could not be legitimately convicted for espionage, because they had not passed on to the Cuban government a single classified document. They also could not get a fair trial in Miami, a city with extreme right-wing, anti-Cuba prejudices.

The task of the five, as they all admitted, was to infiltrate the anti-Cuban terrorist organizations in Miami so as to warn Cuba about the continuing provocations and attacks by sea and air against the island nation. The decision to do this involved the right of self-defense, something practiced by the United States in countless countries before and especially after 9/11. But this time it was Cuba taking precautions against potential terrorist attacks.

Weinglass said Cuba had sent numerous requests to the U.S. government to end support for the armed attacks and threats, but these warnings were ignored. Only then did Cuba ask the five in Miami to find out more details about what the terrorist groups were planning. In one case, anti-Cuba terrorists planned to use two unmanned planes to drop bombs on a big rally with Fidel Castro at the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana.

Weinglass told how the appeal of the verdict and sentences – and the demand for a change of venue for a new trial to any city except Miami – was now in the hands of three judges, whose written opinion is due within a month or two. The judges can throw out the whole verdict or any parts of it, reduce the sentences, or leave things as they are, in which case the lawyers will consider appealing to a higher court.

While Weinglass did not overestimate the chances of the five getting a fair hearing in the present U.S. political atmosphere, he stressed that any and all assistance from people of other countries would improve the men’s chances.

His talk clearly moved many of the people in his audience. At a large meeting at Humboldt University, for example, the audience was particularly disturbed to hear that two of the five have been prevented from seeing their wives and children in these five years, and that for one very bitter month – despite their good conduct as prisoners – they had been kept in total isolation: tiny cells, no windows, lights on 24 hours a day, no reading material, and not a single human voice. Only a mass campaign by their supporters, which reached the floors of Congress, put an end to this cruel government policy, although the five remain in widely-separated prisons across the country to this day.

Groups and individuals who heard Weinglass decided to start a petition and letter-writing campaign on behalf of the Cuban Five. After three busy days, Weinglass and his wife (also a lawyer) went on to Brussels to further widen the campaign for a new, fair trial or for dismissal of the charges.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

International notes

Fri, 07 May 2004 04:03:00 +0000

Palestine: IDF bars unionists from Workers Memorial Day

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) issued a strong protest last week over the harassment of officials from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) who were trying to participate in a commemoration of workers killed on the job.

While workers around the world gathered April 28 on Workers Memorial Day, the ICFTU said Israeli Defense Forces soldiers prevented senior Palestinian union officials, including General Secretary Shaher Sae’d, from reaching a ceremony in the West Bank city of Hebron. The Palestinian unionists were slated to address the gathering honoring 14 women workers killed in a gas factory in the city in 1999.

The ICFTU wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, calling the soldiers’ actions “petty and unnecessary harassment,” and demanding the Israeli government uphold the right of Palestinian trade unionists to carry out legitimate trade union activities.

Canada: Hate crime law protects gays

On April 28 the Canadian Senate passed Bill C-250 to extend hate-crime protection to gays and lesbians. After senators voted 59-11 to pass the measure, applause broke out in the ornate red chamber. The bill, proposed by former New Democratic Party member of Parliament Svend Robinson, was passed by Parliament last September and then sent to the Senate for approval. Bill C-250 adds the term “sexual orientation” to the Hate Propaganda Law under Canada’s Criminal Code. Until recently, the law only banned incitement of hatred against identifiable groups distinguished by color, race, religion and ethnic origin.

Botswana: May Day highlights workers’ plight

Tebogo Makhale, head of the Botswana Federation of Trade Unions, said in a pre-May Day interview last week that celebrations of the workers’ holiday this year would highlight the plight of domestic and agricultural workers. In an interview with The Reporter newspaper, published in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, Makhale said, “This group of workers is still employed under conditions of servitude and slavery. They are still not paid a minimum wage and instead are paid in kind.” He added, “Often, they are punished through the use of corporal punishment.”

The trade union leader also called for a campaign for legal recognition of the International Labor Organization’s Convention 183 on maternity rights, saying, “The current situation in which working women are paid 25 percent of their salaries on maternity leave is not acceptable.”

Makhale warned that unemployment is rising because workers lack skills needed by the labor market – a situation for which “the capital intensive mineral-led economy is partly responsible.”

Italy: Protest proposed airline layoffs

Airline workers virtually halted Italy’s international and domestic air traffic late last week as they protested Alitalia’s plans to stem persistent financial losses by shedding 3,200 of the airline’s 21,000 jobs through layoffs and contracting out. Workers say it is unfair for them to pay the price of years of mismanagement.

Though flights were reported “back to normal” May 3, union members were said to be poised to resume their job action if necessary.

Workers are demanding the government aid the airline, in which it holds 62 percent ownership. However, the European Union warned that any government subsidies would violate EU rules about competition.

Over 700 flights were cancelled April 30, with smaller numbers cancelled May 1 and 2.

Talks between the country’s three main union federations, airline management and the far-right government of Prime Minister Sergio Berlusconi began April 29, and were slated to resume this week after a break.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (mbechtel@pww.org). Tim Pelzer and Julia Lutsky contributed to this week’s notes.