FALL 2001

In December 2000, Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota becamethe first member of the United States Senate to set foot inBarrancabermeja, Colombia, a place that has been described as the

“deadliest town in the Americas.” Perhaps this firsthand experience accounts for the unusual perspective he has brought to discussions on PlanColombia. As the U.S. Congress debated its increased involvement in theAndean country through the $1.3 billion aid package, Wellstone said hevisited the city in December 2000 to show his solidarity with local humanrights workers.

Wellstone AddressesU.S. Policy on Colombia

UNIVERS ITY OF CAL IFORNIA , BERKELEY

Latin American StudiesCenter for

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Senator Paul Wellstone in Washington

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Inside CLAS

Interview with Senator Wellstone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Challenges to the Fox Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Postcard from Timbauba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Unwelcome Haitian Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Free Trade and Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Judging Pinochet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Showcasing Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Brazil Minister of Culture Visits Berkeley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Migrations: Photographs by Sebastião Salgado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Tinker Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

In Memory: September 11, 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

A s we go to press with this newsletter,New York Times columnist BobHerbert writes that “the World Trade

Center, the skyline’s most distinctive feature, isa mixture of dust and memories.” The shadowof September 11 is still very much with us: thegrief, the incalculable personal loss, the eco-nomic damage, and the sharp shift in politicalpriorities in the United States.

President Vicente Fox presented a bold newimmigration plan to a joint session of Congressin Washington only days before the planescareened into their targets. What happens toU.S.-Latin America issues in this dramatic newenvironment? The issues addressed in thesepages from conflict in Colombia to economiccontraction in Mexico remain as pivotal as ever;attention in the short run is understandablyelsewhere. The coming weeks and months willsee the ways in which priorities are set and thesequestions are addressed both in the U.S. andthroughout the Americas.

We lead in this issue with an original inter-view with Senator Paul Wellstone on the con-tinuing traumas in Colombia. In the interview,

done at the beginning of September, SenatorWellstone talks about his experiences in Colom-bia, human rights, and the role for the U.S.

We have extensive coverage of Brazil beginningwith “Postcard from Timbauba,” a report on theresearch and active engagement of Professor NancyScheper-Hughes with human rights and deathsquads in Northeast Brazil. CLAS was also pleasedto host the visits of many Brazilians includingMinister of Culture Francisco Correa Weffort andnovelist Márcio Souza. In the spring we are look-ing forward to the visit of photographer SebastiãoSalgado to the campus and the exhibit of his workat the University Art Museum.

This issue also features a report on the springvisit to the campus of Judge Juan Guzmán, theChilean judge in the case against General Pinochet.Finally, Jorge Arrate, the Chilean Ambassador toArgentina and a former Minister of Labor, com-ments on the current contentious debate over tradeand labor issues.

We look forward to reporting on our currentseries on “The U.S. and Mexico: Redefining theRelationship” in our next issue.

- Harley Shaiken

ChairHarley Shaiken

Vice ChairTeresa Stojkov

EditorsAngelina Snodgrass Godoy

Roselyn Y. Hsueh

Design and LayoutMira Hahn

Hugh D’Andrade

PhotographyAP/Wide World Photos

Caridad Araujo

Vincent Carelli

Vince Heptig

D. Michael Hughes

Mary Beth Kaufman

Margaret Lamb

Megan Lardner

Viviane Moos

Sebastião Salgado

Nancy Scheper-Hughes

Sarah Shoellkopf

Adolfo Ventura

Contributing WritersJorge Arrate

Enrique Dussel Peters

Laurel Fletcher

Alexandra Huneeus

Jennifer Lenga

Constance Lewallen

Marcelo Pellegrini

Steve Seid

Nancy Scheper-Hughes

Harley Shaiken

Nora Varela

The Center for Latin American

Studies Newsletter is published

three times a year

by the Center for Latin

American Studies, The

University of California,

2334 Bowditch Street,

Berkeley, CA

94720-2312

^

Letter from the Chair

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by Enrique Dussel Peters

V icente Fox’s clear victory inthe July 2, 2000 elections reflectedMexican civil society’s thirst for

change. Yet Mexico’s transition remains at acrossroads: it has neither dismantled oldinstitutions nor built significant new ones.After seven decades of PRI rule — whichbegan to erode at the end of the 1960’s,and to crack with the campaign ofCuauhtémoc Cárdenas in 1988 — thevictory of the National Action Party (PAN)showed that sí se puede (it is possible).The authoritarian system designed by the PRIhad seemed omnipresent and adaptable as re-cently as a few years ago. The “new breed” ofpost-Salinas government officials and techno-crats — including many current high-level of-ficials, such as Guillermo Ortíz, President ofBanco de México; Francisco Gil Díaz, Secre-tary of Finance, and Santiago Levi, Director ofthe Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social (IMSS)— were expected to “resuscitate” PRI’s ideo-logical and socioeconomic debacle but theyvisibly failed, both within the PRI and beforeMexican society as a whole.

As Fox completes his first year in office,the main features of the current transitionstand out. The period has been free ofscandals and major stumbles within theadministration and with the inherited insti-tutions, an important achievement given theinexperience of the new administration andthe uncertainty this provoked. The conti-nuity of economic policy in general has beenstriking, further reducing inflation rates andattracting foreign investments. Three otherthemes, however, cause concern:

1. There has been too muchcontinuity and too little change.

With the exception of the fiscal reformattempt and the Indigenous Law, the newadministration has shown an inability topresent a bold new strategy regarding social,economic, or political topics. This contentvacuum dates back to 1997, when Fox’s inner circle chose to market their candidateas “product x” — their term for Fox — de-spite the fact that “product x” did not haveany specific content. In contrast, the transi-

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Challenges to the Fox Administration

tion groups (equipos de transición), which Foxcreated after the election in several areas suchas social, business, fiscal and regional policies,presented very specific policies and generatedan initial consensus among different socialgroups. These results, however, were discardedsince the PAN and other influential interestgroups negotiated with Fox to place people notinvolved in the transition groups in importantposts.

2. Is a recession or even aneconomic crisis coming up?

External economic conditions have beenunfavorable for Mexico in 2001, particu-larly in response to the global economicslowdown and the uncertainty of oilprices. There were few expectations thatthese conditions would improve, evenin the United States, and after Septem-ber 11 the situation has gotten markedlyworse. Moreover, the profound struc-tural problems that plagued Mexico’seconomy throughout the 1990’s remainunsolved in 2001. As a result, the ex-

port-oriented sector, the only motor ofgrowth, has stalled for the first time in morethan 12 years: the maquiladora sector lostmore than 90,000 jobs and, in May 2001,posted the worst annual growth rate since1982. In this context, the economically ac-tive population will grow by around 1.2 mil-lion in 2001, whereas the economy will lose800,000 jobs, totaling an employmentgeneration deficit of 2 million. These trendsare far from the promised 1.2 million jobs to

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be created annually. Added to these disturb-ing trends, manufacturing shrunk 3.4% for thesecond quarter of 2001, the worst results sincethe crisis of 1995. And unlike prior economiccalamities, this time around the internationaleconomy will not be able to jump-start thedomestic market through exports.

3. The Mexican economy has beensuffering from structural limitationsat least since the 1995 crisis, and theyhave yet to be discussed by the cur-rent administration.

In the last 12 years the domestic markethas not recovered. Only a small group ofhouseholds, firms, branches, sectors andregions have benefited from export-orien-tation, underscoring severe polariza-tion. Adjusted for inflation, the minimumwage this year has hovered at 30% and themanufacturing wage at 60% of their 1980levels. The financial sector in Mexico, aftera massive bailout that cost more than 20%of GDP as a result of the crisis of 1995, isstill anemic. Added to high real interest rates,the exchange rate has been highly overval-ued, as much as it was before the 1995 crisis,and up to 30% according to some analysts.This is a hard hit for exports and a magnetfor imports. Finally, only a small segmentof firms, branches and regions have beenhighly dynamic in terms of GDP and pro-ductivity. This segment is extensively inte-grated with the U.S. economy throughexports and intraindustrial trade, but hasfew linkages to the rest of the Mexicaneconomy, which has not recovered through-out the 1990’s — particularly micro, smalland medium firms.

From this perspective, the Fox administra-tion faces substantial challenges in the shortrun, many of which are likely to last through-out the sexenio. To begin with, the adminis-tration needs to develop a workable politicalstrategy. It needs to deepen contacts andnegotiations with the PAN itself, since substan-tial opposition to Fox’s initiatives comes fromhis own party. Fox must also reach out to the

opposition parties,since the experiencesof the Indigenous Lawand the fiscal reformproposals underscorethe limits of the execu-tive branch seeking to“market” the “prod-ucts” directly to thepopulation. Second,the Fox administra-tion has to start ana-lyzing the main priori-ties of its sexenio: be-yond the success ofbeating the PRI, whatare the main socio-economic targets of the respective policies?On which objectives does the Fox Adminis-tration want to be evaluated in 2006? So far,the recently presented Plan Nacional deDesarrollo (National Development Plan)does not provide guidelines to understandthis process. Third, regarding economicpolicy, fiscal reform is pivotal for the policyoptions and potential during the sexenio.Based on the outcome of fiscal reform, theFox administration will be able to prioritizeeither poverty; financing; micro, small, andmedium firms; education; and/or aregionalization process, among other issuesthat have yet to be defined.

At the beginning of the 21st century,Mexico and the Fox administration have theunique opportunity to achieve a socio-economic integration of its households,firms, branches and regions, after a profoundprocess of polarization since the end of the1980’s. Yet many challenges remain ahead:although the election victory of Fox showedthat “sí se puede” (it is possible), the voters,the same night of the election, remindedhim: “no nos falle” (don’t fail us). ■

A former visiting scholar at CLAS, Enrique DusselPeters is a professor at the Graduate School ofEconomics of the Universidad Nacional Autónomade México (UNAM).

Above:Enrique Dussel Peters at CLAS

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Postcards from Timbauba:Human Rights vs. Death Squads in Northeast Brazil

by Nancy Scheper-Hughes

U ntil last year, no one in Timbauba — a sprawling market town on the border between northern

Pernambuco and Paraiba, a place where80% of the population live in deep poverty— knew exactly where the local governmentbegan and where the death squads (gruposde exterminio) ended. During the 1990’sTimbauba had become a transit point forthe burgeoning traffic in drugs, small arms,and children for international adoption.And as an outgrowth of this illicit commerce,the town and its rural surroundings fell intothe hands of a sadistic band of hired killers.Led by Abidoral Gomes Queiroz, the son ofan itinerant hammock salesman andpistoleiro, and his large band of accomplices,the grupo de exterminio eventually came toassume the roles of police, local government,and judiciary. But a year ago things changed

abruptly when a small group of local activ-ists, constitutionally empowered as humanrights and child rights advocates, joinedforces with a newly appointed judge and atough, fair-minded district attorney in abattle to wrest the city away from the deathsquads. Armed with no more than the Bra-zilian Constitution and their passion for hu-man rights, the movement succeeded despitepersistent death threats and a local popu-lace either too complicit or too frightenedto take action.

Death squads are nothing new in Brazil.During the military dictatorship (1964-1985), the existence — real or merelyrumored — of paramilitary death squadswith ties to local police was sufficient toterrorize rural workers and the urban poorinto political passivity, coerced complicity,

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Left:At a July 19, 2001 marchagainst death squad violence inTimbauba, street childrencarried crosses emblazonedwith the names of the victims

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and silence. Yet following democratization,despite the adoption of a progressive Con-stitution and the implementation of newmunicipal structures to safeguard the rightsof vulnerable groups, the attacks not onlyfailed to cease, they expanded. In the 1990’sthe targets of these summary executionswere not politically engaged “trouble-makers,” but ordinary people, most ofthem poor, illiterate, and socially marginal.And these attacks occurred in the absenceof public outrage.

Between 1995-2000 Abidoral’s deathsquad operated openly and flamboyantly inTimbauba, with the support of high-profilecitizens, especially business people andlandowners. Some 200 petty thieves, drugsellers, and street kids were executed in thismunicipio of just 58,000. The vigilantescollected tribute and bounty money fromlocal businessmen looking to “clean thestreets” of local riff-raff and for protectionagainst highway bandits; names of thosewho refused to accept this “protection” wereinscribed on the death squad’s hit list.Things veered so out of control that in 2000,the annual “Seite de Setembro” parade ce-lebrating the national holiday was led by adozen armed vigilantes wearing jackets bear-ing their insignia, “Anjos de Guarda” (“TheGuardian Angels”). Some hired gunmen wereeven on the municipal payroll, protected bythe mayor.

The population of Timbauba was mixedin its views about the death squads. Manyhad grown accustomed to the protectionthat the “Guardian Angels” gave to the work-ing and middle classes, and they referred tothe outlaws not as terrorists or vigilantes butas “justiceiros,” representatives of popularjustice. But for those residing on the hill-side shantytown of Alto do Cruzeiro,Abidoral and his band of outlaws had turnedthem into shut-ins, living under self-im-posed curfews. Many recalled with horror anight in 1999 when six people were mur-dered on the Rua do Cruzeiro, the principal

road of the hill. “During this time,” said“Black” Irene, “we all went underground.The streets were deserted, and we kept ourdoors and wooden shutters closed tight. Onenever knew when the ‘exterminators’ might ap-pear or why someone else had been ‘fingered’.”Irene knew well enough, having lost two sonsand her husband during an earlier phase ofdeath squad activity in Timbauba.

Biu, my comadre and key informant ofmany years, was among the last to lose aloved one to Abidoral’s band. Emaciated,her face drawn, and her skin stretched tightas a drum over her high cheekbones, 57-year-old Biu explained how her 24-year-oldson had met his untimely end. “He was com-ing home from a late-night holiday partyalong the main road leading up to Alto doCruzeiro. Neighbors heard the shots andscreams, but they were too frightened to leavetheir homes.” The next morning Gilvam’s old-er sister, Pelzinha, discovered what was leftof his body, sprawled over a large mound of

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L ast spring, students from the Inter-national Human Rights Law Clinicat UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall packed

their bags and traveled to the Dominican Re-public and Haiti in search of numbers —numbers that would make vivid a trail ofhuman suffering, and in so doing possiblychange its course. In October 1999, the Do-minican Republic initiated mass expulsionsof Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian de-scent. In less than four weeks, governmentagents rounded up thousands of individu-als suspected of being undocumented Hai-tian migrants and pushed them across theborder into Haiti. What triggered this treat-ment? A few days earlier, the Inter-Ameri-can Commission for Human Rights, the hu-man rights arm of the Organization ofAmerican States, had released its report criti-cal of the government’s treatment of Hai-tians and Dominicans of Haitian ancestry.In response, the government initiated massexpulsions as a brutal display of its sovereignright to control its borders.

Supported by a CLAS grant, Boaltstudents went to the region to challenge

the legality of the operation under in-ternational law.

The expulsions began virtually withoutwarning as agents raided the poor commu-nities of Haitians and Dominicans ofHaitian ancestry, seizing anyone black (Hai-tians are dark skinned, predominantlyCreole-speaking descents of African slaves,and Dominicans, whose Spanish ancestorscolonized the eastern side of the island, speakSpanish and are lighter skinned). This wasthe fourth time in the last decade that thegovernment had expelled thousands in thespan of a few weeks. As in past episodes,there was no pretense of “due process” —individuals were arrested on their way homefrom the fields or the market, forced ontomilitary trucks, and taken to Haiti.

For decades, Haitians have migrated to themore prosperous Dominican Republic insearch of work. The majority of Haitianswho live in the Dominican Republic workin the fields of sugar cane plantations orin other agricultural sectors like coco, orperform manual labor in the construction

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industry. Most live in extreme poverty inshantytown communities. Even many indi-viduals of Haitian descent who are born inthe Dominican Republic are unable toobtain Dominican citizenship and the rightsthat go with it, including the right tovote, and thus have little ability to protecttheir rights.

Clinic students Angela Perry and Jenni-fer Lenga spoke with one of the victims, atwenty-year-old woman of Haitian descentwho was caught up in the 1999 expulsions.She had been arrested while walking to workat a laundry in Santo Domingo carrying her16-month-old baby. Dominican officialsforced her onto a bus with about 50 othersand drove her and her child to Haiti. Shewas never given the opportunity to explainor prove that she was born in the Domini-can Republic and thus legally entitled toDominican citizenship. She was not allowedto contact her husband, children, or any ofher extended family. She was dumped at theborder in Haiti with no money, no food, andno contacts. Having lived in the DominicanRepublic her entire life, she did not speakCreole and had no friends or known familymembers in Haiti. She became entirelydependent on the aid of a non-governmen-tal organization for food, shelter, and assimi-lation into a society she did not know. Asfar as her family knew, she and her child hadsimply vanished.

To the human rights community in theDominican Republic, the government’s ac-tion was woefully familiar: a display ofstrength in answer to the challenge from theinternational community to adhere to therule of law. Yet groups on the ground felt itimportant to continue to press the govern-ment to live up to its international legalobligations. Yet civil society in the countryis vulnerable. In the popular press, govern-ment officials vilify leaders of groups work-ing with Haitians; and memory of the 1937massacre of an estimated 30,000 Haitians,

ordered by President Trujillo to rid thecountry of “dark” influences, constantlyreminds community leaders of the lethalunderside of official policy. Human rightsadvocates in the country welcomed interna-tional attention as a means to provide pol-itical support and protection from physicalthreats. Thus, with guidance from theMovimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitianas(MUDHA) and other groups working withthe affected communities, the Clinic initi-ated a new action before the Inter-Ameri-can Commission for Human Rights to pres-sure the government to stop the collectiveexpulsions.

Within days, the government announcedthat it was suspending expulsions because ithad reached a new agreement on migrationwith the Haitian government. Relieved thatthe expulsions had ceased, the Clinic con-tinued to press for an international rulingthat the government had engaged in a pat-tern and practice of illegal, collective expul-sions. In the absence of such a decision, thegovernment would be able to resume massexpulsions with political impunity, butcondemnation from an international tribunalmight make the government hesitate beforedoing so.

The Commission requested an emergencyorder from the Inter-American Court for

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Free Trade and Labor

T he development of social rightsin the 20th Century was based onthe notion of establishing mandatory

mechanisms to compensate the substantialimbalance between capital and labor. To facecapital’s power a set of regulations were de-signed—multilateral and bilateral interna-tional treaties as well as regional social chartsand national laws and regulations—with thegoal of endowing organized labor enoughpower to enable employers and workers tonegotiate a wide range of subjects in a bal-anced framework.

In the last 25 years the world has seen anunprecedented worldwide expansion of themarket as the main economic mechanism. Atthe same time, democracy has become theplanet’s predominant political system. Techno-logical changes and a new open economy haveendowed capital with extraordinary volatility.Deregulation has allowed freedoms that com-panies have never before experienced. Becauseof this, the former imbalance that earlier sociallegislation helped to alleviate, has again becomea characteristic of capital-labor relations.

It is clear that the expansion of free trade hascreated previously unknown possibilities forspecialization, exchange and economic growth.It is desirable that these new opportunities, aneffect of more open relations between nationaleconomies, could help to overcome the pov-erty that affects hundreds of millions of theworld’s inhabitants, many of whom are in LatinAmerica. To insure that free trade reaches itsfull value as a catalyst for development, the newwealth must be distributed fairly among andwithin countries. Moreover, it would be desir-able to recognize a preference in this fair distri-bution for those sectors generally excluded fromsocial progress such as unemployed and un-deremployed low productivity workers, who arenot in a position to adequately negotiate work-ing conditions and salaries.

However, an acceptable distribution oflarger free trade benefits is not easy toachieve as long as a sharp imbalance betweencapital and labor persists. While this unequalrelationship may not impede economicgrowth, it makes it impossible to translateits benefits into greater social justice.

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Because of this, even in the global economyof the 21st Century, regulatory instrumentsdesigned to insure that free trade translatesinto social equity, are relevant. The conven-tions of the International Labor Organization(ILO), in particular those known as “basicagreements” (on trade unions, collective bar-gaining, discrimination, forced labor and childlabor) and the concept of “decent work”, pro-moted nowadays by the ILO, are sound instru-ments. In the Americas the efforts of the Work-ing Group on Labor of MERCOSUR, thecomplementary NAFTA labor agreement, thelabor agreement complementary to the freetrade treaty between Canada and Chile, andother similar instruments, are interesting ex-periences that should be evaluated to con-solidate and promote those aspects that havebeen successful.

It is also important that national laborlaws consider the need for flexibility for em-ployers while protecting worker’s rights.These laws should establish basic rules andaccept areas of possible negotiation betweensocial parties. Among different possibilities,those based on the willingness of corpora-tions and business groups to self regulatecould open new avenues for action. It’s alsoworth considering proposals in which em-

ployers make transparent their undertakingswith labor and social issues and agree to keepthe public informed. This transparency isnecessary to stimulate better practices andto progressively improve social and laborconditions.

The proposals to dismantle protective na-tional labor legislation that we sometimeshear in Latin America, are not acceptable de-mands and do not express a real and soundcondition to develop free trade. There canbe no doubt that it is also inadequate to lookto the past to find norms now surpassed bycurrent economic reality. Sooner or laterthese will hinder development. But worth-while are those efforts, performed with mod-ern and dynamic mentality, that achieve anequation capable of making free trade an in-strument of greater equality instead of amechanism that concentrates its benefits onthe rich. In the case of Latin America -be-cause of its cultural and social economicprofile- these efforts could have unexpectedsuccess.

There are those who fear that consider-ations of this type will only give ammuni-tion to the adversaries of free trade or tothose powerful states that can use laborquestions as a pretext for practicing protec-tive policies and close their markets to coun-tries relatively less developed. An action ofthis type obviously annuls any legitimatecompetitive advantage and creates a viciouscircle of poverty that has as one of its ele-ments the unfair treatment of workers. It isobvious that bad faith in agreements ornorms on basic labor questions will beprejudicial to less developed countries thatneed the consumer markets of more devel-oped economies.

But the inverse is also true: the line that de-fends free trade and refuses to consider the laborquestion could be a way of masking the lackof specific public policies oriented to dimin-

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Wellstone Addresses U.S. Policy in Colombia

One of the few U.S. Senators to opposePlan Colombia, Wellstone has urged that anyassistance to the country be conditioned oncompliance with human rights norms, andexpressed deep reservations about the po-tential effectiveness of a counternarcoticsprogram that does not address the domes-tic demand for drugs. His views spring di-rectly from his on-the ground experiencesin Colombia, as he explained during a spring2001 visit to CLAS.

On April 16, in a presentation to some 200students, faculty, and community members,Wellstone described his visit toBarrancabermeja, where hundreds of resi-dents were slain in politically-motivated vio-lence in 2000. In Barrancabermeja,Wellstone saw contemporary Colombia inall its complexity: grinding poverty and alack of economic alternatives for peasants; apopulation besieged by warring governmentand guerrilla forces, and terrorized by para-

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Above:Senator Wellstone in Colombia

military violence; government officials toocomplicit, or cowed, to confront the perpe-trators. Despite it all, human rights defend-ers, like Jesuit priest Francisco De Roux, werestruggling for justice amidst the devastaion.In early September, Senator Wellstoneshared his reflections on Plan Colombia,Barrancabermeja, and the “War on Drugs”in an exclusive interview with CLAS Chair,Prof. Harley Shaiken. Selections from this in-terview are reproduced below.

Harley Shaiken: Plan Colombia was ap-proved by an overwhelming margin of theU.S. Senate. What do you think led to thisoverwhelming approval and in what ways doyou sense that opinion might have changedon it?

Senator Wellstone: On the Senate side, itwas really clear to me that the Clinton ad-ministration was able to cut the issue thisway. I think it was deceptive, but they werebasically able to say that a vote on Plan

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Colombia is really a vote on whether or notyou as a senator are willing to step forwardand protect American children from beingkilled by drugs from Colombia. That’s re-ally the way they cut the issue: “are you will-ing to keep these drugs away from our chil-dren?” So I think a lot of people in the Sen-ate were very worried about being accusedof being “soft on drugs.” I think that was the“why” of the overwhelmingly strong vote forPlan Colombia.

There were plenty of questions tobe raised about whether this wascounternarcotics or counterinsurgency.There were plenty of questions to be raisedabout the extent to which the Colombiangovernment was willing to crack down onall the violence against civil society people,whether it be from the FARC (Fuerzas Ar-madas Revolucionarias de Colombia, thecountry’s main guerrilla group), ELN(Ejército de Liberación Nacional, the secondlargest guerrila group), or the paramilitaries.There were questions to be raised about col-lusion between the military and the para-militaries, the para-militaries being respon-sible for most of the ex-trajudicial killings in thecountry. But I thinkoverall, the real reasonit passed was that the ad-ministration was able to. . . cast this as a vote asto whether or not Sena-tors were willing to pro-tect the American chil-dren from drugs comingover from Colombia.That’s what I think.

I had one amend-ment that I think nowwould get more support,much more support —it didn’t say there would

be no Plan Colombia, but it said that at leasta portion of this money would go to drugtreatment programs in our country. The ar-gument being that as long as the UnitedStates [has] a market for 300 metric tons ofcocaine a year from Colombia or wherever,then it’s going to be grown. I mean, you canspray one place and production would shiftsomewhere else in Colombia, or to Ecuador,or to Peru, or to Brazil, or whatever! But you[aren’t] going to stop it unless you stop thedemand.

. . . This time around, we’ll see what hap-pens not just with Plan Colombia but withthe whole Andean Initiative, which wouldbe $730 million for Colombia, Bolivia, Ec-uador, you name it. And . . . this timearound, I think an amendment that says,“Look, some of that money ought to go todrug treatment programs [to address] thedemand for drugs in our own country,”is going to get much more support. Inter-estingly enough, I think the movie Trafficactually has helped. . . . I think there is much

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Continued from page 13Wellstone Addresses U.S. Policy in Colombia

more discussion about this. And the otherthing is, I think we’re going to be able tohammer away much more at the humanrights abuses and the failure on the part ofthe military to extricate itself from some ofthe human rights abuses, ranging from tor-ture to actual murder of people by theparamilitaries. At the brigade level there areentirely too many ties between the militaryand the paramilitaries.

H.S.: You’ve been to Colombia several timesin the last year. What do you see as the keyissues on the ground, the things affectingordinary people’s lives in this process?

Senator Wellstone: I would mention three.First of all, in the southern part, inPutumayo, where a lot of the spraying is tak-ing place, there was supposed to also bemoney for social development and eco-nomic development, so there [would be] al-ternatives for campesinos. And it has notcome. So on the ground it’s a disaster, be-cause the only thing people have seen is the

herbicide spraying which has wiped out theirlivelihood, and there’s been none of themoney that was supposed to be there. I’veraised questions over and over again withthe administration on this, for social andeconomic development there on the ground.That’s just a prescription for disaster.

. . . I think the second thing that I wouldmention, which is I think is extremely im-portant, having been to Barrancabermejaseveral times — in some ways the Sarajevoof Colombia. Unfortunately the para-militaries have taken over a good part ofthe city now. Literally [they] have takenpeoples phones, cut the wires, taken people’scell phones away, moved into people’shomes. I’ve spent a lot of time working withFrancisco De Roux, and his Programa deDesarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio (Pro-gram of Development and Peace of theMagdalena Medio) and seen how this hashappened to a lot of the civil society people,the defenders of human rights. But thesepeople are not part of the FARC, they’re not

Right:Senator Wellstone in theMorrison Room, Doe LibraryUC Berkeley

15

part of the ELN; they command great re-spect. Francisco de Roux did some of thebest economic development work in thecountry, yet in the last 35 or 40 days two ofhis workers have been brutally murdered.And his plea — which I think is the plea formany in Colombia — is to the government:“Look, we want to see the military, we wantto see the police, but we want to see themdefending us! Where are they?” I have beenin touch with General Carreno who is incommand in the Barrancabermeja area,and at several meetings with him . . . I’vesaid, “Look, here’s where the AUC(Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, the um-brella organization of paramilitary groups)or paramilitary headquarters are. Here’s alist of a couple really bad guys. We knowwhat they do. We know they’ve been in-volved in atrocities, so go get them. And wejust don’t see that happen. So a lot of thecivil society people that are doing the verybest economic development work, the de-fenders of human rights, are murdered withimpunity, and the government does not pro-vide them with protection. That is for methe most compelling issue of all.

As long as we’re talking about on theground, I’ll mention two other things. Ithink the campesino people in the country-side have every reason to be skeptical aboutclaims that the herbicide spraying doesn’taffect their health or the health of their chil-dren. There have been lots of reports of diz-ziness and nausea and skin rashes and ill-ness, and I think people feel like, “We’veheard this all before: ‘there’s no problem,’ butwe’re sick. What is it doing to us?” Andthen the final point I would make, which Ihave made many times over in debatesabout Plan Colombia, is to ask if this wastruly counternarcotics as opposed tocounterinsurgency. What exactly are we in-volved in? The government and the military[should] make at least an equal effort to goafter the paramilitary and the AUC, [but]

we see none of that. Because [theparamilitaries] are involved in narco-trafficking up to their eyeballs, just as theFARC and the ELN have been. Everybodyagrees that the paramilitaries and the AUC,the FARC, the ELN, they’re allnarcotraffickers. I have nothing good to sayabout the FARC or the ELN. But the pointis, if this was all about counternarcotics, youwould expect to see bold, all-out militarycampaigns against the paramilitaries too.You don’t see any of that! So, one wonders,to what extent is this really counternarcotics,or is it basically counterinsurgency? Whatexactly is the United States getting involvedin? That’s another question.

H.S.: What role do you think the U.S. couldplay in the peace process?

Senator Wellstone: I think the role that wecan play is, when it comes to negotiationsand whether or not the FARC will be able tomaintain this safe haven, I think we need tobe tough with the [Colombian] government,and the government needs to be tough andsay the kidnappings and the violence haveto stop. We should be clear about that, andthe Colombian government needs to be clearabout that. There can’t be any agreementotherwise. We’ve said we’re for continuingnegotiations, but we’ve taken a very passivestand. I think we should just be much moreassertive. There’s no question in my mindabout that. And at the same time, returningto the city Barrancabermeja, it’s a cause ofgreat concern. This is not an insignificantcity. It’s a major port city, in a major part ofthe country, the oil-producing part of Co-lombia, and when you see the AUC basicallytaking over the city and everybody prettymuch isolated almost all the opposition [hasbeen] eliminated, many of them having beenmurdered and many others just afraid tospeak up. Why is our government not beingmuch more assertive and demanding thatthe Colombian government abide by basic

Continued on page 22

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by Alexandra Huneeus

D espite one indict-ment, two arrests,three years of

litigation, and 259 criminalclaims against him, it ap-pears that Augusto Pinochetwill, in the end, elude theChilean courts as he didSpain’s Judge Garzón. TheChilean Supreme Court is

expected to uphold a lower court’s rulingthat a series of strokes have left the aginggeneral unable to stand trial. But while suchan outcome may disappoint many, it shouldnot be construed simply as a failure of jus-tice. Not only has the general’s drawn-outlegal saga shaped international human rightslaw, it has reshaped the way Chilean societyconfronts its divisive past. As Judge JuanGuzmán, the magistrate in the case againstGen. Pinochet in Chile, explained in his visitto CLAS last April, Pinochet’s court battleshave provided Chileans with a bridge fromforgetting to contested remembrance, evenas they strained the link between interna-tional and local justice. They have also partlyredeemed the Chilean judiciary, catapultingthe thoughtful Judge Guzmán from obscu-rity to human rights hero status. As we awaitthe final Supreme Court ruling, it seemstimely to reflect on the significance of thesechanges.

The most important effects of thePinochet court battles are not legal but so-cial. Although the Truth and ReconciliationCommission published in 1991 a report onthe atrocities committed during the militaryregime (1973-1990), its effects were muted:in the midst of an economic boom and afragile transition to democracy, most Chil-eans preferred not to dwell on decades-old

crimes. To look back was to imperil the fu-ture. As an acquaintance who worked on theCommission told me, even friends and fam-ily did not want to hear what he had learnedduring the closed hearings. He paid a coun-selor to listen to the heart-rending stories.

But with Pinochet’s 1998 London arrest,denial gave way to debate and discomfort.Suddenly, even the right-leaning newspaperswere giving full coverage to the once-tabootopic of human rights. Reporters began fol-lowing Judge Guzmán and other judges asthey oversaw exhumations in cemeteries,abandoned mines, and forgotten hillsides.Judges around the country dusted off oldcase files and began questioning retiredmembers of the armed forces. Suddenly,copies of documents that incriminatedPinochet appeared on the Internet. Peoplestepped forward to accuse their torturers,and the media actually reported it. Even tele-vision talk shows put human rights crimesat center stage now and then. The nation, itseemed, had begun to openly reconsider thePinochet regime’s rights violations — if notto truly consider them for the first time.

The attention Chile is paying to the pastshould not be overstated. Gen. Pinochet nolonger makes the headlines each day, andPresident Lagos gingerly sidestepped theseissues so as to focus on trade in a recent tripto England. But even if the crimes of the pastdisappear from the headlines and newshours, they have at last been openly aired,and they continue to be treated by academ-ics, poets, sculptors, and novelists. It is notthat Chile rewrote its past and can now moveon; rather, this past at last became a site forongoing debate and national self-understand-ing. Through such a debate those who sufferedmost can perhaps begin to feel lessmarginalized.

Above:Judge Guzmán at CLAS

Judging Pinochet

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At the level of international relations, thePinochet cases complicate the relation be-tween international and local justice. Forperhaps the most ironic part of Pinochet’sdetention in London, the most surprisingtwist of the whole transnational saga, wasthe Chilean government’s reaction. Anyonewho thought Europe was helping the Chil-ean government, made up of those whorisked their lives in opposing the regime,must have been baffled by its indignation.Chile did not embrace its European saviorsfor relieving them of a world-class criminal.Rather, it clamored for the dictator’s return,even well after it became clear that Pinochet’sabsence did not threaten the transition —indeed, even after it was clear that his ab-sence had helped spark a long belated na-tional debate about the regime’s crimes. Thismost open-marketed of developing nationsflat-out rejected the notion of universal ju-risdiction.

The human rights community, on theother hand, scoffed at Chile’s claim thatPinochet must first face trial at home. Afterall, local courts had let a quarter-century slipby without pursuing cases against Pinochet.Many of the judges that served under thedictatorship — when courts denied over99% of all habeas corpus claims — were stillon the bench. It seemed that Chile’s judi-ciary would be even more anxious than itspoliticians to keep past evils quiet.

In retrospect, it is hard to know who wasright. While it may be true that the localprosecution was prompted by Pinochet’s de-tention in London, it is also true that, hadSpanish Judge Garzón succeeded in extra-diting him, local courts would have beenunable to try the general at home. His in-dictment and loss of senatorial immunitywere crucial symbols for the rule of law inChile. But those who think it better thatPinochet was tried at home must admit that,as predicted, the judges unduly twisted the lawin his favor, excusing Pinochet by relying on

reforms that were not yet in effect in theSantiago jurisdiction.

Whether or not the Pinochet cases ac-tually bolstered the rule of law in Chile,they did boost the judiciary’s moral stand-ing. In the 1991 Report of the Truth andReconciliation Commission, the courtswere singled out for having failed to pro-tect rights during the regime. JudgeGuzmán, himself a member of the judi-ciary under Pinochet, struggled to explainto his CLAS audience how regular, well-meaning people such as his colleaguescould have participated in evil. Peer pres-sure, cowardice, and lack of independenceshaped the judiciary’s stance toward theregime’s abuses, with only a few excep-tions.

Thus it was a breakthrough to have thelittle-known Judge Guzmán surprise theworld by actually investigating the case thatchance landed on his docket in 1998. Only ayear earlier Judge Guzmán had banned TheLast Temptation of Christ from showing inChilean movie theatres — not exactly a lib-eral move. Now he faced an excruciatingchallenge: how to walk the line between law

Above:Judge Guzmán and ProfessorHarley Shaiken at CLAS

Continued on page 25

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Continued from page 7

Postcard from Timbauba

uncollected garbage. Acrowd of black, greasywinged vultures had gottento him first, and Pelzinhacould barely recognize herbrother.

Well seasoned by a life-time of traumatic events,Biu was stoic, elliptical,and ambivalent about themurder of her son.“Gilvam was no angel. Myown family had turnedagainst him, saying he wasno good, a brawler, adrinker, and a thief who was always gettinginto trouble. But when they say that Gilvamhad to be killed, I feel dead inside. He wasstill my son! But I can’t tell anyone, exceptyou, how much I miss that boy. My ownniece said, ‘Be grateful, Tia, for the little bitof tranquility that Gilvan’s death has broughtinto your life.’ What does she understand?”

In March 2001, I received a startling faxfrom the new judge, Dra. Marisa Borges, anddistrict attorney, Dr. Humberto da SilvaGraca, of Timbauba. It was a summons toplease come help them in the research fortheir legal proceedings against Abidoral andhis “extermination group,” 14 of whom (in-cluding Abidoral) had been arrested and

were in various stages of hearings and trials.They had used parts of my book, Death with-out Weeping, to understand the physical andpsychological terror used by local deathsquads and their effects on the general popu-lace. Despite facing many death threats, theysaid they were determined to reinstall basiccivil rights guarantees to the population. Butthey needed help in identifying many still-unknown victims and survivors ofAbidoral’s gang. Many were afraid to testify,and dozens of deaths were still unaccountedfor, the victims’ bodies having been depos-ited in clandestine graves.

During the summer of 2001 my work be-gan in the cartorio civil of Timbauba, whereI reviewed all officially registered deaths (in-cluding homicides) from 1994-2000. Theserepresented only a fraction of the actual kill-ings, most of which were concealed as traf-fic or train accidents or as suicides. None-theless, my husband and I were able to iden-tify 31 homicides that could be traced, atleast hypothetically, to death squad opera-tions. The average victim was a young blackmale in his twenties, unemployed or casu-ally employed, and the resident of an ex-tremely poor and marginal community. Inthe earlier years the death squads had beenengaged in a project of limpeza (socialhygiene), targeting the town’s dispropor-

Below:Children carrying crosses withnames of victims

Right:Professor Scheper-Hughescarries a cross with the nameof Biu’s murdered son

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tionately large population of older streetkids. Toward the end of the decade, how-ever, the suspicious homicides included anolder population of young men who couldbest be described as social misfits ormarginals.

It was decided that our visible presence andinvolvement in the investigations could worktoward a broader-based recognition of the“abnormality of the normal” that themunicipio had been living under for the pastseveral years. Working closely with child ad-vocates and human rights activists inTimbauba, we organized a “day of peace” anda march against death squad violence. It washeld on July 19, 2001, exactly one year afterthe capture of Abidoral and several of hismen. While most residents were still too fear-ful of, or complicit with, the death squads,and many of their accomplices were still atlarge, the march was led by street children andfollowed by public school children and theirteachers. At the vanguard, the street kids weredressed in white, each carrying a woodencross with the name of a young person ex-ecuted by the local squad. This marked the

Below:Street child sleeping

first time that a “backlands city had taken apublic stand against vigilante violence.

In the midst of this dramatic manifesta-tion of public resistance, and without fore-warning, the judge arranged for heavilyarmed police cars to arrive, exposing theshackled figure of Abidoral Queiroz to theyoung marchers and forcing the convictedkiller to view the spectacle of raised crossesbearing the names of the men and boys hehad murdered on consignment. At the CityHall, spontaneous speeches were given bythe mayor and town councilors, to whom Ipresented a brass plaque memorializing theend of this most recent reign of terrorin Timbauba. It will be placed on the wall ofa public square to be re-named the “Praçade Paz.” It reads: “The Gratitude of thePeople for Those who Fought AgainstViolence and for Human Rights. Com-memorating One Year of Peace in Timbauba.July 19, 2001.”■

Nancy Scheper-Hughes is professor of Anthropologyat UC Berkeley.

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On April 17, 2001, Nicaraguan poetErnesto Cardenal visited Berkeley toshare his greatest passions: poetry,

politics, and God. In a public reading anddiscussion at the Faculty Club, Cardenal sharedhis work with an enthusiastic audience of overone hundred students, faculty, and communitymembers. While Father Cardenal is known forhis opposition to U.S. involvement in CentralAmerica, he told the audience that his love forliterature drew him to New York asa young man. Although most Latin Americanpoetry traces its literary influences to France,Cardenal explained that the U.S. influence hasalways been strong in Nicaraguan poetry.Inspired by Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg,Marianne Moore, Robert Frost, Robinson Jeffers(whom he described as “a skeptical Whitman”)and William Carlos Williams, Cardenal enrolledat Columbia University. These great NorthAmerican authors, he explained, wrote a directpoetry without adornment, close to the dailylanguage of people and thus engaged with theaverage individual, an approach Cardenal soughtto cultivate in his own work.

At Columbia, Cardenal first read the work ofTrappist monk Thomas Merton. Shortly there-after, he felt the call of God and went to the Ken-tucky monastery of Getsemany. There he met

Merton, who was director ofnovices, and a great friendshipwas born — as well as a reli-gious calling that has lastedever since. He described hisencounter with God as a mys-tical experience dominated bysilence and seclusion, the char-acteristics of the Trappist or-der. His trip to the monasterywas “full of God,” Cardenal ex-plained, and he fell in love; thetrip, for him, was the equiva-lent of a honeymoon.

When Cardenal returnedto his country, he founded the community ofSolentiname on an island in Lake Nicaragua.Solentiname was a poetic, religious, and politicalutopia, and served as preparation for the workthat Cardenal would later undertake as Ministerof Culture under the Sandinista government. Inthe revolution, Cardenal saw his long-desiredutopia realized. At the same time, he noted,working in political affairs meant entering the“tumult of the world,” something that wasdifficult for a person with a calling to silence andwithdrawal.

After this brief recounting of his pastexperiences, the poet read some of his morewell-known Epigrams; fragments of hisautobiography entitled Lost Life, which in itsfinal version will consist of three volumes; andparts of what he considers his greatest poeticproject, Cosmic Canticle. The latter is a poem ofmore than 500 pages in which he tells the storyof the universe using linguistic resources fromthe natural and physical sciences. The poem isalso a dialogue with divinity, a characteristic thathas been constant in Cardenal’s work. ■

Translated from Spanish by Adam Lifshey

Marcelo Pellegrini is a graduate student in theDepartment of Spanish and Portuguese.

Right:Father Cardenalduring his talk at theFaculty Club,UC Berkeley

Ernesto Cardenalby Marcelo Pellegrini

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Human Rights to suspend collective expulsionof Haitians and individuals of Haitian descent.To assist the tribunal, the Clinic and volunteermembers of UC Berkeley’s demography de-partment are preparing a study of migrationpatterns during the expulsion period in ques-tion. Combined with the interviews studentsconducted with victims, Haitian governmentofficials, and NGOs, this study will providequalitative and quantitative data to answer thequestion of whether the state could have up-held the expelled people’s rights to due pro-cess. The use of statistical analysis is innova-tive in human rights reporting, and the Clinichopes it will have an impact on the Court’sdecision.

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of thecase, the study already has made a difference.One of the goals of the Clinic is to providelaw students with hands-on human rightsexperience, teaching students about humanrights lawyering by being a human rightsadvocate. The fieldwork complementstraditional legal coursework and prepares anew generation of human rights lawyers.

Furthermore, there have been hopefulsigns that international scrutiny of theDominican government is yielding positiveresults. There have been no mass expulsionssince November of 1999, and an armygeneral recently expressed the desire to havesoldiers receive human rights training.Progress is slow, but international humanrights advocacy has become an effectivetool in the fight against discriminationfor Haitians in the Dominican Republic.As Sonia Pierre, MUDHA’s leader, remarked:“The Inter-American System has helped usimmensely. We have achieved more in thelast three years than in the prior seventy. Inever thought it possible.” Bolstered by suchoptimism, the Clinic and its studentscontinue to press the Court to declare theDominican expulsion practices illegal. ■

Laurel Fletcher is the associate director of theInternational Human Rights Law Clinic at Boalt Hall,UC Berkeley.

Jennifer Lenga is an intern in the InternationalHuman Rights Law Clinic and a third year student atBoalt Hall.

Continued from page 9

ish the abysmal difference between the rich andthe poor that burden many nations includingthose in Latin America.

It is critical to stop discussions on suspicionsthat will make a viable solution impossible. Theinability to sort out these difficulties creativelycould set undue limits to expanding free trade.They also signal an obstacle that all of LatinAmerica must avoid so that the elimination of pov-erty can move from words and speeches to fact.

Free Trade and LaborContinued from page 11 It is impossible to forget that the relation-

ship between democracy and the market is notmade virtuous by some automatic mechanismalready in place. It must be built. And it shouldbe precisely constructed to harness the virtuesof each institution while bringing both to-gether. An essential part of this architecture isthe existence of labor relations that insure ba-sic rights. ■

Jorge Arrate is the Chilean Ambassador to Argentina.He was the Minister of Labor from 1994 to 1998; andserved as the President of the Governing Board of theInternational Labor Organization (ILO) from 1995 to1996. He was a visiting scholar at CLAS in Spring of1999.

Unwelcome Haitian Labor

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human rights standards, since our money isbeing used? Along with the Blackhawkhelicopters should come major humanrights standards that have to be met. Presi-dent Pastrana should be in a position to beable to say to his military based upon thepressure that he gets from us, “Look, whetheryou like it or not, with the Blackhawk heli-copters and with other financial aid comethe human rights conditions, and if we don’tmeet them we don’t get the money.”

Now, let me just say one final thingif I could Mark Grossman, who isUndersecretary of State for Political Affairs,just led this high level trip to Colombia. Italked to Mark Grossman. In particular Iraised these questions about human rights,and I raised the questions about why wearen’t seeing more of an effort to go afterthe AUC. He was in agreement in our con-versation, and he made a very good faith ef-fort. He called Father Francisco de Roux. Itold him about Father de Roux’s plea, what’shappening to his own organization. We needsome protection for them. He called them,and tried to meet with him, and he invitedhim to come to Washington DC. So I wantto give some credit to the State Department.

Wellstone Addresses U.S. Policy in ColombiaContinued from page 15

I think they are at least willing to really takea serious look at some of the questions thatI raised in this interview. I don’t want to beoverly optimistic, but on the other handI want to give them credit for the discussion,and for following through on some commit-ments during their trip. . . . I’m going towork with the State Department [on this],and I’d like to get their support on some ofthese amendments that we’re going to in-troduce in the Senate. The final thing I wantto mention is that we’re trying to organizewith a lot of the human rights community,a lot of labor. The steel workers with the In-ternational Labor Rights Fund have now is-sued a lawsuit against Coca-Cola Company,basically saying “You’re in collusion with theparamilitary and some of our labor orga-nizers are being murdered.” I think betweenlabor and human rights, and a lot of peoplein our own country who are concerned, wewant to try to put some amendments on thisAndean package [and to focus] on someof the concerns that I’ve raised with you inthis interview. We’ll see what happens. Icertainly think we’re going to get muchbetter votes than we did before. I hope wecan even win! ■

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T he Center for Latin AmericanStudies’ program for 2001-2002 isbrimming with Brazil-related events

and activities. In October, a special focus onthe Amazon aims to expand and reinforcetwo related courses this semester: a gradu-ate seminar on “Rain Forests, Wilderness andJungle” offered by Prof. Candace Slater ofthe Department of Spanish and Portuguese,and an undergraduate survey course taughtby historian, video maker and poet VictorLeonardi. A professor at the Federal Univer-sity of Brasília, Prof. Leonardi is also co-or-ganizer of the commemorative HumboldtExpedition which took place last year.

On October 15, CLAS and the TownsendCenter for the Humanities will sponsor a con-versation on contemporary writing about theAmazon. “Writing the Amazon” will featureMárcio Souza, president of the BrazilianFoundation for the Arts (FUNARTE) and awell-known novelist whose work has beentranslated into various languages, includingEnglish. Souza will be joined by Prof.Nicomedes Suárez-Araúz, a professor of LatinAmerican literature at Smith College andeditor of the Amazonian Literary Review,which publishes writing about the nine Ama-zonian countries. Prof. Lucía Regina de Sá, ofStanford University’s Spanish and Portuguesedepartment, will serve as commentator.

The following week, Brazilian anthropologistAlcida Ramos will visit Berkeley. Well-known forher work on the Yanomami Indians, Prof. Ramoswill speak on images of the Amazon and theirpolitical import, revisiting the Tierney affair(“Darkness at El Dorado”) a year later. Her talk“Old Ethics Die Hard: The Yanomami and Sci-entific Writing” will be followed by responsesfrom Profs. Nancy Scheper-Hughes of the De-partment of Anthropology and Candace Slaterof Spanish and Portuguese.

Brazilian ethnographer and filmmakerVincent Carelli will also develop a number ofthe themes highlighted by Prof. Ramos.

Founder of the“Video in the Vil-lages” project in-tended to bring anunderstanding ofmedia technology toindigenous peoplesstruggling for theirrights, Carelli willspend ten days in residence at the Pacific FilmArchive. The events that will comprise the series“Electronic Indians: The Activist Ethnographyof Vincent Carelli” include screenings of a half-dozen of his videos (“Jungle Secrets,” “AmazonTrilogy”, etc.) as well as two meetings with Ber-keley students.

Yet not all of the Brazil-related events thissemester are related to the Amazon. AdéliaPrado, one of Brazil’s best-known poets, willbe spending the month on campus as our Dis-tinguished Brazilian Writer in Residence. OnOctober 8, Prado and her American transla-tor, Ellen Watson, director of Smith College’sPoetry Center, will offer a reading with accom-panying discussion open to the campus com-munity. The event, which will be part of theHolloway Poetry Series, is co-sponsored by thedepartment of English and the Townsend Cen-ter for the Humanities.

In the spring semester, the Avenali Lecturerwill be celebrated Brazilian photographerSebastião Salgado, whose work will be featuredat the University Art Museum from January 16-March 24. There will also be a public lecture bynoted literary critic Benedito Nunes, who willbe teaching two courses in Berkeley’s Depart-ment of Spanish and Portuguese. And lastly, inApril Susanna Hecht, professor of urban plan-ning at UCLA, will return to Berkeley. A special-ist on development and deforestation, she willturn her attention to the great turn-of-the-cen-tury essayist Euclides da Cunha’s Amazonian es-says, and their potential policy dimensions. ■

Above:José Lindgren Alves ,Consul General of Braziland Brazilian writerMárcio SouzaSpring 2001

Showcasing Brazil:Special Offerings in 2001-2002

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B y definition culture is particularto a society: it is a form ofidentification, what differen-

tiates“us” from“them.” Yet identity and cul-ture are never absolute; they shift and growconstantly, becoming ever more complexwith the passage of time. At the same time,as Brazilian Minister of Culture FranciscoCorrea Weffort explained during a recentvisit to CLAS, the creation of a relatively uni-form sense of national identity constitutesa crucial part of nation building. On April18, Minister Weffort shared a brief histori-cal report of the politicization of culture inBrazil, providing insight on how theMinistry of Culture and other governmentinstitutions play a role in the propagationof Brazilian culture today.

Though the Ministry of Culture inBrazil was not created until 1985, the role ofgovernment in vulcanizing a “Brazilian”culture has a much longer history. MinisterWeffort argued that various political lead-ers had different visions of what shoulddefine Brazil, and therefore very different

policies for pro-moting culture.

In particular, hementioned threekey Brazilian lead-ers who moldedtheir visions intopolicies with thehopes of creating amodern externalimage of Brazil anda common Brazil-ian identity. In theEuropean tradi-tion, Pedro II(1831-89) madeculture a central fo-

cus of his reign. Getúlio Vargas (1930-45,1950-54), on the other hand, was obsessedwith bringing Brazil into the modern era,but aimed not to import culture but to giveBrazilians pride in their past. He foundedthe Instituto de Patrimonio Histórico (the In-stitute of Historic Patrimony) in 1937 to re-store and preserve the foundations of Bra-zilian identity. Lastly, Minister Weffortexplained, the modernist vision espoused byJuscelino Kubitschek (1955) is embodied inthe city of Brasilia. Completed in 1960,BrasÌlia was not only an effort to project animage of a modern Brazil to the world, butalso an effort to unify the nation by placingthe capital in the center of the country, ratherthan the very prosperous and dominantsoutheast.

For Minister Weffort, the politics of cul-ture can be a strategy for the building of tra-dition. Tradition needs to be based oncommon ground. It needs to build a nationalidentity, which in Brazil is a challenge.Minister Weffort compared Brazilian cultureto a cornucopia filled with a great diversity

Above:Minister Weffort speaksat Berkeley

^

Brazil’s Minister of Culture Visits Berkeleyby Nora Varela

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of views, traditions, and histories. The pri-ority of the government is to make sure thatthe cornucopia — the container itself — issolid; this is why image-based issues con-tinue to be a priority. Weffort explains thatthe Ministry of Culture places great empha-sis on the renovation of historical centersand libraries because such projects createa sense of shared history and nationalpatrimony. While artistic ventures such asfilm, music, dance, and theater can alsoturn to the Brazilian Foundation for theArts (FUNARTE) and private capital forfunding, the government is uniquely posi-tioned to support the preservation ofhistoric sites.

The importance of building a nationalidentity is clear, and history is very impor-

and politics when perhaps the country’s verystability hung in the balance. It is a dilemmathat changed his life. On his visit to Berkeleylast April, Guzmán explained how he im-mersed himself in events of a quarter-centuryago, and in the pain of the victims andwitnesses. He braved death threats, public in-sults, political pressures (as in “friendly” phonecalls from politicians) and even the disdain ofcolleagues in the judiciary. Like many of thejudges in Chile who have investigated humanrights cases, Guzmán acted bravely, and withbalance. Significantly, he has not given up onthe over 250 human rights claims on hisdocket, for even if Pinochet is excused, hisaccomplices are not.

In the end, regardless of the SupremeCourt’s final decision, the Pinochet caseshave taken us places we would not haveotherwise gone. Following the arrest inLondon, there were days when it seemedto some that justice was finally at hand:the prime culprit, and not some middling

Judging PinochetContinued from page 17

bureaucrat or henchman, was to be judgedunder international law. There were othertimes — such as the day Pinochet returnedto Santiago and suddenly stood up fromhis wheelchair to greet supporters —when he seemed invincible. But now weare left with an ambiguous, almostSolomonic result. There have been gainsfor the left: Pinochet has been stripped ofsenatorial immunity, indicted, and re-duced to a minor political player of ques-tionable repute. And there have been gainsfor the right: Pinochet will probably notreceive a criminal sentence or face legalpunishment. But there have also beengains which cross partisan lines: the coun-try has taken one more step towards a fulldemocracy. ■

Alexandra Huneeus received her J.D. from Boalt HallSchool of Law last May and is currently a doctoralstudent in the Program for Jurisprudence and SocialPolicy. Her dissertation research focuses on humanrights trials in Chile and Argentina.

tant to the creation of this sense of tradi-tion, but at one point someone will have todecide which history to tell. If Brazil is trulya cornucopia of cultures that together makea “Brazilian” culture, then theoretically allprojects are worthy of funding and support.However, in reality funds are not availableto support all projects. A stamp of approvalon a project proposal is simply a symbolicpat on the back and not much more. If thegovernment relies on the private venture tosupport the myriad of cultural projects thatthey can’t, such a move can, and does,threaten the survival of smaller and lesspopular (in the larger sense of the word)folkloric ventures. ■

Nora Varela is a student in the Department ofSpanish and Portuguese.

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by Constance Lewallen

R enowned Brazilian-born photo-journalist Sebastião Salgado hasbeen crisscrossing the Third World

for many years, producing images to docu-ment the changing face of humanity. In anew book of over 300 unforgettable black-and-white photographs and an exhibitopening at the UC Berkeley Art Museum inJanuary, Salgado explores migrations, exam-ining why people leave their communities,what happens to them en route, and wherethey end up.

Salgado spent six years traveling in fortycountries to create this compelling project.Powerful images from Afghanistan,Kurdistan, Rwanda, Congo, Angola,Mozambique, and the Balkans show victims

of war and repression, and the plight ofwhole societies set adrift from their home-lands. Other photographs document theplight of the rural peasants of LatinAmerica and Asia who are forced to relo-cate to overcrowded cities and there to ekeout a living in the shadow of thriving fi-nancial centers like Shanghai and MexicoCity. Overall, his photographs are testa-ment to what he calls “a revolution in theway we live, produce, communicate, andtravel,” often summarized by the catch-word “globalization.” As Salgado writes inhis introduction to Migrations, “We are allaffected by the widening gap between richand poor, by the availability of information,by population growth in the Third World, bythe mechanization of agriculture, by destruc-tion of the environment, by nationalistic, eth-nic, and religious bigotry.”

Above:With the men away inthe cities, the womencarry their goods to themarket of Chimbote.Region of Chimborazo,Ecuador, 1998Photo bySebastião Salgadofrom Migrations:Humanity in Transition,Aperture, 2000

Migrations:Photographs by Sebastião Salgado

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Migrations: Photographs by SebastiãoSalgado was organized by the ApertureFoundation for Photography and the VisualArts. The Berkeley exhibition is cosponsoredby the UC Berkeley Art Museum and the UCBerkeley Graduate School of Journalism,and is funded by the LEF Foundation and

Ofoto, A Kodak Company. Additional sup-port is provided by Joan Roebuck, and bythe Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Hu-manities and the Center for Latin AmericanStudies at UC Berkeley.■

Constance Lewallen is Senior Curator for Exhibitionsat the UC Berkeley Art Museum.

Above left:From Portraits: Devotedto Refugee ChildrenAround the WorldAbove Right: The Beachof Vung Tau, Vietnam,1995

Bottom:Bombay, India, 1995Photos by SebastãoSalgadofrom Migrations:Humanity in Transition,Aperture, 2000

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transfers for education, health and nutrition,she visited villages in Michoacán andHidalgo, conducting household surveys andinterviews with local leaders. In mostvillages, Araujo was able to meet with thelocal authority (known as the presidente dela localidad) and the local representative forProgresa (the village promotora). Throughher interviews she found that neighboringvillages had different patterns ofemployment despite facing similareconomic environments. Her findings haveled her to hypothesize about the variousfactors that affect individual occupationalchoice.

A student in the Department of Spanishand Portuguese, Sarah Shoellkopf visitedArgentina to study the two competingMadres de la Plaza de Mayo groups. WhileLas Madres began as a group of womenlooking for their “disappeared” loved ones,in 1986 divergent views on how the groupshould interact with the government causeda small group of founding Madres to splitfrom the main organization. Today, twogroups remain: the Línea Fundadora and themore radical Asociación. Shoellkopf ’sresearch explores the differences betweenthe groups and the prospects of each forongoing success in the contentious cli-mate of contemporary Argentine politics.She found that for many Argentines, thecountry’s fragile economy overshadowedthe factions within the human rightsmovement. ■

A complete list of Summer 2001 reports appears

on the CLAS Web site at: www.clas.berkeley.edu/clas

T hrough its summer travel grantprogram, CLAS provides fundingfor graduate students to carry out

field research in Latin America and the Car-ibbean with the generous support of theTinker Foundation. This year, 29 grants wereawarded to students from a range of depart-ments and professional schools. Highlightsfrom 3 projects are provided below.

Mary Beth Kaufman, a law student atBoalt Hall, visited Ecuador as part of herproject researching efforts to hold Texacolegally responsible for dumping toxic wastein the Amazon in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In1993, a group of Ecuadorians filed a classaction lawsuit against Texaco in FederalCourt in New York. Seven years after thelawsuit was initially filed, the case remainsundecided and the situation continues tobe grave for affected communities. Bydocumenting the stories of those involvedin the suit, Kaufman aims to examine thedifficulties of holding multinationalcorporations legally responsible for theiractivities.

While in Ecuador, Kaufman visited LagoAgrio, a site of Texaco’s former operations,and joined environmental group AcciónEcológica on a research mission to some ofthe communities that will be affected by thenew oil pipeline proposed by thegovernment.

Caridad Araujo of the Department ofAgricultural and Resource Economicsstudied off-farm employment in ruralMexico. With the support of Progresa, agovernment agency that provides cash

Tinker ResearchField Research by Graduate Students

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Left:Human Rights marchin Buenos Aries, 2001Photo bySarah SchoelkopfArgentina

Left:The results of 30 years of oilextraction in EcuadorPhoto by Mary Beth KaufmanEcuador

Right: A local authorityof El Tecomate, Michoacánwith his daughter andmembers of the ProgresastaffPhoto by Caridad AraujoMexico

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Top:Vincent Carelli in the field

Bottom:An image from a VincentCarelli video

T he ability to shape theway one’s culture isviewed — to determine

which images are rendered andwhich are withheld — servesas a form of power, or at least asthe beginnings of self-determination. It was a keenawareness of precisely this powerthat inspired Brazilian VincentCarelli, then a photographer andindigenous rights activist, to jointhe São Paulo-based groupCentro de Trabalho Indigenista.There, Carelli founded Video inthe Villages, a project to bring anunderstanding of media

technology to indigenous peoples struggling topreserve their way of life. Now an esteemedethnographer, Carelli will spend ten days inOctober in residence at UC Berkeley’s PacificFilm Archive and on campus, screening hisworks and meeting with students interested inexploring his challenging style of visualanthropology. The residency is supported by ThePew Charitable Trusts, and by a Consortium forthe Arts grant to promote interdisciplinary

engagement of the arts on the UC Berkeleycampus.

Video in the Villages grew directly out of theWaiãpi Indians’ experiences with ethnographerswho were documenting their culture. It becameapparent that self-styled, indigenous media-making was essential as a remedy for thedistorted images of their culture brought to theworld through outsiders’ lenses. Countless vis-its to Amazonian villages to conduct workshopsresulted in the creation of video images captur-ing indigenous culture as an act of (self-)preser-vation. These works, which began with theWaiãpi and Kayapó but now include other tribalgroups such as the Zo’é, Xavante, Enauwene-Nawe, and Parakatêjê, have had a profound ef-fect on native image, intertribal relations, andnegotiations with government institutions inBrazil. Video in the Villages’ work has affectedcontemporary political discourse on such top-ics as indigenous autonomy, land rights, andcultural practice.

At Berkeley, Vincent Carelli will screen hisown subtly activist, beautifully crafteddocumentaries, as well as works made byindigenous people who are pursuingmediamaking as a self-initiating vocation.Together these videoworks form aconstellation illustrating the diverse uses ofmedia, from aesthetic representation tocultural tool. In addition to the publicscreenings, PFA is offering two seminar-likegatherings, in which Vincent Carelli willdiscuss his work. The seminars promise tobe a rare opportunity for students to meeta committed mediamaker, view tapes, anddiscuss the intricacies, both technical andphilosophical, of an unusual culturalpractice. ■

Steve Seid is Video Curator at UC Berkeley’s PacificFilm Archive.

by Steve Seid

The Activist Ethnography of VincentCarelli, PFA Artist in Residence

Vin

ce H

eptig

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Crossing

AN EXHIBIT OF PAINTINGS BY HECTOR VILLAROELat CLAS

August 23 - December 20, 2001

In September 2000, I traveled to the high desert of Utah, where I began to painta group of works I later titled "Crossing." As my travels led me on to the SanFrancisco Bay Area for three months and to New York City for the winter, Icontinued to develop these works. By springtime, I had returned to Brussels,Belgium, and gone on to Salamanca, Madrid, and Barcelona, Spain. I paintedin each place, often beginning a work in one city and completing it in another.Finally I decided to conclude the voyage and opus in my homeland in Santiago,Chile during the summer (winter in the southern hemisphere).

Hector Villaroel

www.clas.berkeley.edu/clas

I N M E M O R YS E P T E M B E R 1 1 , 2 0 0 1

Center for Latin American StudiesUniversity of California2334 Bowditch St., #2312Berkeley, CA 94720-2312Tel: (510) 642-2088Fax: (510) 642-3260Email: clas@uclink4.berkeley.edu

"Noon Garden," New York 2001Hector Villarroel