Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/reports/venezuela.telecom.strike

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Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1993 03:20:19 -0600
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Special Report: Telecom Strife in Venezuela


This special report was passed along to the Digest by Dale Wharton who
found it on the Progressive Economist's Network. Please see my notes
at the end of the file regards a special bulletin received today from
Venezuela, where two executives of AT&T have been arrested and are
being detained, and two executives of GTE are being sought (but have
apparently fled jurisdiction) in the matter of an explosion which
killed fifty persons during rush hour near Caracas.

PAT


Resent-Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 10:53:15 est
Resent-From: Dale Wharton <[e-mail]>
Resent-To: "Patrick A Townson, TELECOM Moderator" <[e-mail]>
Original-Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 10:55:59 PST
Reply-To: Progressive Economists Network <[e-mail]>
Sender: Progressive Economists Network <[e-mail]>
From: [e-mail]
Subject: The Situation in Colombia


WORKING PAPER
Vol. 1 No. 6 August 1993
ILSA Instituto Latinoamericano de
     Servicios Legales Alternativos
P. O. Box: 077844
Bogota, Colombia
Telephones (571) 2455995 - 2884437- 2884772
                -2883678 - 2880961- 2880416
Fax [phone]

ANTI-TERRORIST LEGISLATION: THE HIDDEN AGENDA OF THE JUDICIAL WAR
AGAINST DRUGS

  On February 24, 1993, a "faceless" Colombian judge issued
preliminary charges of terrorism against 11 union members from the
state telephone company, Telecom. According to the enditement, the
labor leaders were responsible for upsetting public order by leading a
strike in April 1992 that left Colombia without long distance
telecommunications services for seven days.1 The judge, a member of a
special corps of judicial officials primarily responsible for dealing
with crimes committed by drug traffickers and left-wing guerrillas,
has claimed the union leaders sabotaged company equipment with talcum
powder and removed microchips from computers to paralyze
telecommunications service.2

  The strike was called to force the Colombian government into
reconsidering the privatization of Telecom, one of the state's most
profitable enterprises, worth US$5.5 billion.  Government officials
were forced to renege on privatization plans as a direct result of the
work stoppage, say union and Telecom officials.

  "The strike had a lot of impact on the government's decision not to
privatize Telecom", said Juan Castillo, Telecom's press officer. "And
by accusing the leaders of terrorism, the government is sending a
message to the workers of other state companies like USO, the oil
company union, or the Banco Central Hipotecario, saying, look, this
can happen to you, too."3

  Union leaders, human rights activists and labor analysts say the
Telecom case is a dangerous example of how the Colombian government
can use ironhanded judicial powers, enacted primarily for the war on
drugs, to repress grassroots and union movements that oppose
neo-liberal economic policies. The case raises important questions
about the hidden agenda behind reforms made in Colombia's judicial
system, increasingly with U.S. advisory and judicial support, with the
alleged intent of fighting the war on drugs.

  In short, the Telecom case reveals how, under anti-terrorist
legislation, the judicial system can equate union members waging a
social struggle for more equitable economic policies with individuals
like drug ring hitmen who set off car bombs, killing dozens of
innocent children, women and men.

  "The government has set up political and legal mechanisms to assure
that it can apply its model of economic liberalization", said Ricardo
Diaz, the Secretary for State Affairs for Colombia's majority United
Workers Central (CUT). "The government is aware of the social impact
these policies will have, and it has a plan to make sure that
organized sectors of society cannot channel their discontent
effectively in the form of social, political and electoral protest."4

  Oddly enough, the Fiscalia, the all-powerful judicial division which
was created under the 1991 Constitution, has announced no
investigative results and has arrested no suspects for the murder of a
Telecom engineer killed during the 1992 strike. The charred body of
Joaquin Maria Caicedo was discovered on the outskirts of Bogota.
Caicedo was the highest ranking technical professional to participate
in the strike, waged by the company's ground-breaking union which
united top level professionals with janitors in a common cause.5

  The government and the mainstream press claimed Caicedo committed
suicide, setting himself on fire.6

  But human rights lawyer Eduardo Uma$a, the defense attorney for the
arrested union members, said a technical analysis of Caicedo's autopsy
revealed that suicide was a "total impossibility."7

  Two Telecom workers said they were told the police had visited
Caicedo's house three times before he disappeared and was burned to
death.8 The Fiscalia is investigating the case, but has produced no
results, in spite of the speed with which judges were able to accuse
the union members.

  The Telecom case is the most dramatic example of the use of
anti-terrorist legislation against union and grassroots leaders.
Similar charges have been brought against union activists from the
state oil company Ecopetrol, public utility companies in Medellin, the
Northern Santander Liquor company and Fecode, the powerful teachers'
union.

  "The Judiciary is being used to repress the workers' struggles,
disregarding our rights and union freedoms subscribed in the
conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the
Colombian Constitution", wrote CUT leaders in a March 2, 1993 press
communique. "If this situation continues, all of the leaders of
Colombian unions and popular organizations will end up in jail,
charged having committed terrorist acts, and the right to protest, to
mobilize and to work for collective freedoms will be eliminated."9

  A crackdown on Telecom could bring substantial benefits to the U.S.
multinational AT&T, especially if the Fiscalia's hardline stance
speeds up the privatization process.  According to an official from
the Colombian Ministry of Communications, AT&T's rate of expansion
within the United States is reaching its limits, and the company is
hungrily seeking new market investments.10  Currently, the telecommun-
ications market in Latin America is growing 10% each year, compared
to 5% in other parts of the world.11

  With privatization policies opening up the market, A&T's Latin
American division is booming: "We should double sales again in three
years, and by 1997 we expect to have sales of $1 billion. You have to
remember that before 1990, we had no product sales at all in Latin
America", Don Smith, the director of AT&T Latin America told the
International Business Chronicle.12 Smith said growth is limited in
countries where privatization is lagging behind. And he hailed how
sales are `exploding' in Central America "since [former Nicaraguan
president Daniel] Ortega and [deposed Panamanian strongman Manuel]
Noriega have gone."13

  Direct intervention from the United States -- the CIA's funding of
the Contras and the 1989 invasion of Panama -- helped create the
favorable investment climate AT & T's Smith mentioned. Indirect U.S.
influence on judicial reforms may eventually bring about similar
results in Colombia.

Anti-terrorist legislation:

  The implementation of anti-terrorist legislation in Colombia began
under the administration of President Virgilio Barco Vargas
(1986-1990). In early 1987, paramilitary assassins, apparently linked
to security forces, and drug traffickers murdered university professor
and human rights advocate Hector Abad G"mez, his successor as
president of the Permanent Committee for Human Rights in Medellin,
Leonardo Betancur Taborda and left-wing Patriotic Union party (UP)
Senator Luis Felipe Vlez.14

  Such was the public outcry in response to the murders and to rampant
impunity in hundreds of other similar political killings committed in
`dirty war' style in 1986 and 1987, that President Barco was prompted
to create a special team of `Public Order' judges. These officials
were put in charge of trying crimes "whose action appears to be
directed at persecuting or intimidating persons for their political
beliefs and opinions, of a party nature or not."15

  In January 1988, as political and drug-related violence continued,
and following the assassination, allegedly by drug traffickers, of
Prosecutor General Carlos Mauro Hoyos, Barco expanded the power of
these judges to deal with `terrorism', and then he issued the Statute
for the Defense of Democracy, which augmented sentences for so-called
terrorist acts.

  Under these new definitions, terrorist crimes were broadened from
the 1987 `public order' description. They were described as `crimes
against the Constitutional regime', and these new decrees had little
to say about drug trafficking or persecution for political motives.16
The Statute for the Defense of Democracy, commonly called the
anti-terrorist statute, established that a terrorist is someone who
"provokes or maintains the population or a sector of it in a state of
anxiety or terror through acts which put in danger the life, physical
integrity or freedom of a person, buildings, media, transportation,
etc."17 Granted, within this definition, kidnappers and assassins
entered the ranks of terrorists; but so did shantytown dwellers who
might peacefully occupy a public works office to protest poor utility
services. At the time, the government claimed this legislation would
not be directed against unions and social movements, but human rights
organizations warned that the decrees could easily be used to rein in
political and social protest.18

  Inheriting a situation of violence from drug traffickers,
paramilitary groups and left-wing guerrillas when he took office in
1990, President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo augmented sentences for
terrorist acts and created the special corps of `faceless judges',
called so because their identities are kept confidential for security
reasons. As part of Constitutional reforms enacted in July 1991,
Gaviria laid the groundwork for the organization of the Fiscalia, a
very powerful judicial body, not unlike the federal prosecutor in the
United States. The Fiscalia was created through a Criminal Code, which
granted the Fiscal General widespread powers to arrest and to carry
out searches and seizures. The Fiscal may delegate responsibilities to
anyone, even to military officers.19

  Faceless judges may use secret witnesses to testify against a
suspect. Human rights organizations have criticized this mechanism as
compromising defendants' rights.20

  While Colombia's Supreme Court elects the Fiscal General from a list
of individuals proposed by Colombia's president.  Critics say this
system compromises the autonomy of the judiciary who operate under the
Fiscalia, leaving the institution wide open to political influences.21

  The Fiscalia controls a network of technical investigative units,
known as the Policia Judicial. Included in this technical corps are
members of police intelligence, the military and the national security
agency or DAS, institutions whose members systematically violate
citizens' human rights. Human rights organizations like the Andean
Commission of Jurists have consistently advocated the
`demilitarization' of these investigative units through the creation
of a corps of civilian judicial technicians. The widespread presence
of individuals who are ostensibly from independant divisions but in
fact form part of the military hierarchy (for example, Colombia's
police force answers to the Defense Ministry) could prove especially
dangerous in judicial investigations where citizens have been involved
in social or political protest, as in the case of Telecom. The
ideological training of the police and military could seriously
influence objectivity during these investigations: Members of unions,
community and grassroots organizations are commonly considered
`subversives' by the armed forces.

  Colombia's anti-terrorist legislation and the Fiscalia will probably
work efficiently in the case of the Telecom union leaders. Lawyer
Uma$a said that if they are found guilty, the labor activists will
most likely receive sentences of 10 to 15 years for `terrorist' acts
committed during the strike.22 Long distance service, however, was
restored in Colombia within days after the work stoppage ended.

  In the case of drug traffickers and narco-terrorists, the gears of
the Fiscalia appear to turn at a different rhythm.  Ivan Urdinola, who
was convicted for drug trafficking in 1992 by a faceless judge, got
off the hook with a four and a half-year sentence which could be
further reduced for work and good behavior. Urdinola has been
connected by intelligence sources to a series of macabre killings in
the north of Colombia's Valle department where he operated for years.
Urdinola's ruthless influence allegedly helped turn the area into a
`valley of death' during 1990 and 1991.23 He reportedly propped up a
network of paramilitary killers who, with the complicity of the
security forces in the area, disappeared and slaughtered hundreds of
people in the northern Valle region, dumping the mutilated bodies into
the Cauca River.24

  The number two leader of the Medellin drug ring, Jorge Luis Ochoa,
meanwhile, received an eight year, four month sentence for drug
trafficking from a faceless judge in June 1993. Ochoa also negotiated
a reduction in his sentence with the Fiscalia under plea bargaining
legislation.

U.S. influence on judicial reforms:

  Colombia's anti-terrorist legislation and the creation of the office
of the Fiscalia were not solely President Gaviria's inventions. Ghost
writers from the U.S. Agency of International Development's (AID)
`Administration of Justice' (AOJ) program were influencing the
Colombian architects of the judicial reforms throughout the entire
process.

  AOJ programs in Latin America aim to strengthen democratic processes
in nations receiving judicial aid.25 In the case of Colombia, however,
AOJ funds and advisory assistance have helped prop up a system of
anti-terrorist legislation and the creation of judicial offices that
are being used to repress legitimate social protest.

  Yale law student Chris Jochnick conducted a series of interviews in
Colombia in July and August 1991 as part of a university practicum on
human rights. He drafted an analysis of U.S. judicial and military
aid, human rights and the war on drugs in Colombia for the Colombian
branch of the Andean Commission of Jurists.

  Informal interviews Jochnick held with Jim Smith, at the time the
U.S. Embassy's AID representative and coordinator of the AOJ program,
revealed the magnitude of influence exercised by U.S. advisors in the
process of designing Colombia's new judicial strategies.

  Smith told Jochnick that AID committed US$36 million to the
Colombian judiciary for a four year period beginning in 1991, making
the program the biggest of its kind run by the United States in the
world.26

  The AOJ aid represents a huge increase in the U.S.  government's
commitment to financially prop up the Colombian judiciary. The rise in
aid paralleled the intensification of the repressive nature of
Colombian anti-terrorist legislation. From an average of U.S.$ 750,000
per year in the last half of the 1980s, U.S. aid jumped to U.S.$36
million for the four year period between 1991 and 1994 -an average of
U.S.$9 million per year or an increase of 1100 percent.27

  AID's Smith admitted to Jochnick that the United States had
substantially influenced the reforms. He said joint planning between
AID-AOJ and high ranking members of the judiciary had been going on
for four years.28

  During the time of the drafting of the constitution, Smith said
while specific conditions were not placed on judicial aid, the AOJ
program had to assure that the executive branch would have sufficient
authority to carry out programs backed by U.S. funds. He said the
design of the public order courts was influenced through U.S. funds
that supported an investigative group which set up plans for these
tribunals.29

  According to records of Jochnick's conversation with Smith, the
objectives of the AOJ program are the following:

1)     Limit the functions of the Justice Ministry and
  reduce bureaucracy. Turn the Ministry into a policy-
  making institution, leaving other tasks to Criminal
  Instruction and forensic scientists. Strengthen the
  planning office.

2)     Criminal justice system: Support the establishment
  of the Fiscal. Move public order judges to the Fiscalia,
  move the institutions of investigation to the Fiscalia
  and turn DAS (national security agency) and the National
  Police into units more oriented towards judicial
  investigation and less general intelligence gathering.
  Finance the People's Ombudsman and the Prosecutor
  General's office.

3)     Judicial Branch: Continue and increase efforts to
  improve the operations of the judicial branch, including
  training, administration and decongesting case loads
  through computer systems. Create a more united and
  autonomous administration of justice.

4)     Educate and raise the public consciousness.30

  AID advisor Ana Maria Salazar, who according to Jochnick also worked
with the Constitutional Assembly, claimed the United States had `no
influence' on the judicial reforms.  She said Colombians are
`sophisticated', and that only AID advisor Smith had extensive
knowledge of the Colombian judicial system.31

  The specifics of just how much influence was exercised and the exact
stipulations of the `conditions' placed on the aid have not been made
public, according to Matt Kaplan, a U.S. Embassy political attach who
also spoke with Jochnick.  Kaplan claimed U.S. officials met
informally with Colombians to introduce aspects of the U.S. system.
Kaplan said the U.S. officials made suggestions of how to implement a
stricter system, but no formal agenda was set up. He added that AID
worked closely with the leaders of the programs planning the judicial
reforms.32

  Colombian People's Ombudsman, Jaime Cordoba, stated: "I don't think
there is pressure, so to say, but the (U.S.  officials) do have
influence because they show us things and teach us."33

  Experts on free trade say such reforms and `teaching' are not
incidental, nor are they simply a Colombian response to the problem of
drug trafficking and drug-related violence.  The judicial reforms were
put in place apparently to combat the scourge of drug trafficking. But
they represent a double-edged sword that is being wielded against
sectors of society struggling for economic justice.

  "This legislation was originally directed at a specific sector, but
it is slowly being expanded and applied to all areas of society. It is
now being used against the social, grassroots and democratic
movements", the CUT's Diaz said.

  Analysts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and of
the Initiative for the Americas claim this tendency is generalized to
many other countries in Latin America.

  "As the negative social, environmental and economic consequences of
structural adjustment programs build in the Americas, political
instability has also increased. Although the Bush administration
(asserted) that these programs, and the proposed free-trade
agreements, strengthen democracy, they, in fact have the opposite
effect. Social unrest, riots and coup attempts have increased as
people have begun to lose their stake in the stability of these
economic systems.  In response, governments have cracked down on
dissident groups, using emergency powers and abusing human rights",
analysts claim.34

  In Peru, emergency powers and `anti-terrorist' legislation enacted
by decree following President Alberto Fujimori's executive coup of
April 1991 represent how far governments can go with special powers.
Along with the presidential coup came an intensification of
neo-liberal economic measures adopted by Fujimori shortly after he
assumed the presidency. Since these economic polices took effect,
Peru's 8 million poor have swelled to 12 million.  With his
self-imposed legislative powers, Fujimori has accelerated structural
adjustment programs and privatization plans. He also made dramatic
cuts in social programs which provided support to the country's poor.
Because he disbanded Congress, there are no legislative checks and
balances to regulate the imposition of the neo-liberal economic model.

  In addition to dissolving Congress, Fujimori also suspended the
judiciary and the Constitution. Ruling by decree, Fujimori imposed
hardline measures that severely compromise all civil liberties.
According to Americas Watch: "The practical effects of the elimination
or weakening of institutional restraints on the power of the executive
are evident... Among the decrees emitted in the absence of a
legislature has been a series of anti-terrorism measures which
virtually do away with due process rights for those accused of
terrorism and treason, crimes whose definitions have been broadened to
encompass peaceful dissent, human rights defense, and investigative
reporting.35

  In Peru, the repressive scenario feared by Colombia's CUT union
leaders has become a reality. According to Americas Watch, the
judiciary "has become a tool not just for locking up terrorists, but
also for silencing dissent."36 Hundreds of innocent people
representing a wide spectrum of Peruvian society have been imprisoned
and accused of terrorism.  According to human rights groups in Peru,
arrests have been averaging about 800 per month since anti-terrorist
police arrested Abimael Guzman, the leader and strategist of Peru's
fundamentalist revolutionary guerrilla group, Shining Path.37

  "Among the victims of unfair terrorism and treason prosecutions have
been journalists, human rights monitors, environmentalists, academics,
peasant organizers, doctors, lawyers, and political opponents of the
government, as well as individuals who have had contact with
guerrillas, or who provided some small collaboration under threat",
asserted Americas Watch.38

  In one highly publicized case, 11 peasants from San Ignacio,
Cajamarca were arrested in June 1992. They were held until March 1993
under charges of terrorism because they had protested logging activity
in the Chaupe national forest. Charges were dropped after ten months,
but judicial officials originally planned to issue 30 year
sentences.39

  Coletta Youngers, a Senior Associate at the Washington Office on
Latin America and an expert on Peru and U.S.  policy, said she saw no
direct links between U.S. AOJ assistance to Peru and the
implementation of terrorist legislation or public order tribunals.
Influence may, however, be coming through covert channels. The Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) has close links to Fujimori's most
influential advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos, who runs the National
Intelligence Service (SIN).

  According to sources close to the military in Peru, Montesinos' CIA
contacts date back to the mid-1970s, when this young officer
apparently provided information to the United States about the
purchase of Soviet arms by Peru's socialist military government.40

  "Although no public information is available, President Fujimori has
stated that the SIN... has received significant levels of CIA
support," affirmed WOLA's Youngers during a March 1993 testimony
before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Western
Hemisphere Affairs Committee on Foreign Affairs.41

  As Fujimori's right-hand man, Montesinos is said to have
a powerful impact on government decision making in Peru.

  He could be providing an effective channel for the CIA to influence
the implementation of policies such as the repressive anti-terrorist
measures.

                  ------ Footnotes ------

1. "Union members charged with terrorism," Latinamerica
  Press, March 25, 1993, Lima.
2. Leslie Wirpsa, "Colombia Cellular Market Spurs Interest,"
  International Business Chronicle, Miami, April 12- April
  25, p.9.
3. Personal interview, April 1993.
4. Personal interview, February 1993.
5. "Union Members Charged . . . . op cit.
6. El Tiempo, May 2, 1992, p. 9A and El Espectador, May 2,
  1992, p. 2D, Bogota.
7. Interview with Eduardo Uma$a, Bogota, April 1993.
8. Personal interview with Telecom workers.
9. "Las Centrales Obreras se Entrevistan con el Fiscal
  General de la Nacion," press release, Central Unitaria de
  Trabajadores de Colombia (CUT), March 2, 1993.
10. Personal interview, April 1993, Bogota.
11. Dominick Infante, "AT & T: Latin Revenues Up,"
  International Business Chronicle, Miami, April 12-April
  25, 1993, p.10.
12. ibid.
13. ibid.
14. Colombia Besieged: Political Violence and State
  Responsibility, Washington Office on Latin America
  (WOLA), Nov. 1989, p.93.
15. Presidential Law Decree 1631 of 1987, Article 1.
16. Presidential Law Decrees 180-182.
17. Law Decree 180 of 1988.
18. Colombia Besieged. . . . pp. 94-95
19. Political Murder and Reform in Colombia: The Violence
  Continues, Americas Watch, April 1992, p.77.
20. Political Murder and Reform . . . op cit, p. 76.
21. Gabriel Arias, "La cara oculta de la Fiscalia," Colombia
  Hoy Informa, No.109, February 1993, Bogota, p. 18.
22. Personal interview, April 1993.
23. Douglas Farah, "In Colombia, a River of Death," Boston
  Globe, September 28, 1991 and "Colombian Chain-Saw Gang
  Pushes Heroin, Prospers," the Washington Post, July 27,
  1992.
24. ibid. See also "Counterinsurgency and Paramilitary
  Violence in Colombia: Valle and Middle Magdalena," Human
  Rights Working Paper, Instituto Latinoamericano de
  Servicios Legales Alternativos (ILSA), Vol. 1, No. 5,
  November 1992.
25.  Justicia Inasequible, Report on the Workshop backed by
  the American University School of International Service
  and the Washinton Office on Latin America, May 1990, pg.
  17 (Spanish Edition).
26. Jochnick, Chris, "Administracion de Justicia (EE.UU),"
  draft paper of comments on interview with Jim Smith,
  mimeograph, Summer 1991, Bogota, p.1.
27. Colombia Besieged . . . p.116 and The Colombian National
  Police, Human Rights and U.S. Drug Policy, Washington
  Office on Latin America (WOLA), May 1993, p.6.
28. "Administracion de Justicia (EE.UU.). . . op cit,
  Jochnick, p.2.
29. ibid.
30. ibid.
31."Administracion de Justicia," Jochnick, op cit, p.3.
32. ibid.
33. "Administracion de Justicia . . " Jochnick, op cit, p. 3-
  4.
34. U.S. Citizens' Analysis of the North American Free Trade
  Agreement, Dec. 1992, the Development GAP, Washington
  D.C.
35. Human Rights in Peru One Year After Fujimori's Coup,
  Americas Watch report, April 1993, p.2.
36. Human Rights in Peru. . . op cit, page 1.
37. Personal interviews, Lima, May 1993.
38. Human Rights in Peru. . . op cit, p.2.
39. Human Rights in Peru. . . op cit, p.26.
40. Personal interviews, Lima, May 1993.
41. "Prepared Statement of Coletta Youngers," Senior
  Associate, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA),
  before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs
  Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of
  Representatives, Washington D.C., March 10, 1993.


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[Telecom Moderator's Note: Telecom news from Venezuala brings news of
two executives of GTE being sought in connection with an explosion
which killed fifty commuters during rush hour near Caracas. Bruce
Haddad and Vito Raskauskas, president and vice president of Compania
Anonima Nacional de Telefonos de Venezuela SA (Venezuela's national
telephone company, and a subsidiary of GTE) have fled jurisdiction
according to the notes I have recieved. GTE states the whereabouts
of the two executives is known, but the company refuses to state where
the men are hiding.

In connection with the same explosion, two executives of American
Telephone and Telegraph (part of the GTE consortium which operates
telco in Venezuela) have been arrested and are being detained. In
total, some 19 persons have been arrested or are being sought by
Venezuelan authorities in the matter. The names of the AT&T executives
who were arrested has not been made available to me.  I'll have a
detailed report on this in an issue of the Digest over the weekend.
My thanks to Dale Wharton for sending the report from Colombia.  PAT]