From iatp@igc.apc.orgSat Oct 21 01:31:47 1995 Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 08:46:30 -0700 (PDT) From: IATP To: Recipients of conference Subject: NAFTA & Inter-Am Monitor 10-20-95 NAFTA & Inter-American Trade Monitor Produced by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy October 20, 1995 Volume 2, Number 27 ________________________________________________ Headlines: - UNEMPLOYMENT PUSHES WORKERS NORTH - CONFLICTING VISIONS OF ZEDILLO VISIT - SEWAGE KILLED BIRDS - HAZARDOUS WASTE DUMP PLANS ATTACKED - ANOTHER DOLE ENTERS BANANA WAR ________________________________________________ UNEMPLOYMENT PUSHES WORKERS NORTH California's fields were once harvested by Chinese and Japanese immigrants, then by Filipinos and Mexicans and refugees from the Depression-era Dust Bowl in the United States Midwest. Each group moved up to better jobs, leaving farm labor to its successors. According to Don Villarejo, a professor at the California Institute for Rural Studies in Davis, California farm owners "are reaching deeper and deeper into Central and South America to find people willing to do the work that people who are born here don't want to do." Now Mixtec and Zapotec Indians from Mexico join a dozen Mayan tribes from Guatemala as migrant farm workers in California. Though no accurate counts of the workers exist, a local health center survey taken two years ago found that 40 percent of the workers interviewed in 19 labor camps spoke 12 indigenous Indian languages rather than Spanish. Some estimate the number of Mixtec Indian farm workers as 50,000 of California's 800,000 farm laborers. Mixtec workers report that they are often in the fields from dawn to dusk during the short raisin grape harvest, taking home as little as $3 an hour. In the Mexican state of Oaxaca, many villages are supported by farm work in the United States. The total number of undocumented workers stopped at the United States-Mexico border has risen sharply in 1995, reflecting soaring unemployment in Mexico as the result of last December's peso devaluation. University of Texas professor Rudy de la Garza describes the alternatives for Mexican workers: "First, you can become a street vendor. Second, you can turn to crime. Or, third, you can leave. And the third alternative makes a lot of sense if you already have a network of people in the U.S., and those networks exist all over the U.S." While a million farm workers obtained amnesty under a 1986 law, Martin estimates that 25 percent of today's migrant workers are in the country without documentation, with the proportion of undocumented workers highest among the most recent arrivals. A recent survey by Philip Martin, professor of agricultural economics at the University of California at Davis, found that 82 percent of California's farm workers are Mexican-born. California farm owners insist that they need Mexican workers. They worry that threatened crackdowns on undocumented workers will reduce U.S. fruit and vegetable production. In addition to Mexicans, thousands of Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and Haitians in the United States now face deportation. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) says that Haitians, Salvadorans and Nicaraguans no longer need the special immigration status that they were granted in the past because the countries are now at peace under democratically-elected governments. >From a 10-foot-high welded steel wall near San Diego to "Operation Hold the Line" in El Paso, the U.S. Border Patrol uses increased funding, personnel and technology to keep out would-be immigrants. But they acknowledge that the border is like a balloon: when squeezed in one place, it bulges in another. Although the wall has decreased border crossings in the Imperial Beach section of the border, crossings and apprehensions further to the east in the San Diego sector have increased by 14 percent over 1994. Stepped-up border patrols by the United States supposedly match increased Mexican enforcement efforts by Grupo Beta, Mexico's U.S.- trained border police unit. In fact, many Grupo Beta police protect would-be migrants from criminals and coyotes, while turning a sympathetic blind eye to their border crossing forays. Anti-immigration legislation before the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives targets both legal and undocumented immigration, cutting hundreds of thousands of parents, children, brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens off waiting lists. Proposed legislation would also give broad police powers to the Department of Labor and double or triple employer fines for hiring undocumented workers. Seth Mydans, "A New Wave of Immigrants on Lowest Rung in Farming," NEW YORK TIMES, August 24, 1995; Diane Solis, "U.S. Stops More Mexicans at Border as Their Economic Opportunities Sink," WALL STREET JOURNAL, August 8, 1995; Andres Viglucci, "Exempt No More, Now Deported," MIAMI HERALD, August 30, 1995; "Crowded Asylum Process Favors Salvadorans," CENTROAMERICA, June, 1995; Yvette Collymore, "To Catch A Dishwasher," INTERPRESS SERVICE, October 4, 1995; Robert Collier, "At Border, Mexican Police Unit is the Migrants' Best Friend," SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, September 25, 1995; Seth Mydans, "Clampdown at Border Is Hailed as Success," NEW YORK TIMES, September 28, 1995; Louis Dubose, "El Paso's Desert Shield," TEXAS OBSERVER, September 29, 1995; Larry Waterfield, "Illegal Aliens Face Crackdown," THE PACKER, July 29, 1995. CONFLICTING VISIONS OF ZEDILLO VISIT Last-minute trade negotiations before Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo's visit to Washington resolved a long- standing dispute over labeling and inspection of tires made in Mexico by U.S. manufacturers. Two other disputes outlasted last-minute pressures for settlement: the long- standing United Parcel Service demand to use large trucks on Mexican roads and Mexico's refusal to speed up a reduction in wine tariffs. During his visit, President Zedillo pledged to continue his austerity program and to try an experimental program of "repatriating" undocumented workers from the United States to their hometowns, instead of letting them sit on the border to try another crossing. President Zedillo also agreed to accept more U.S. helicopters to be used in combating drug trafficking. Just before the visit, Zedillo's government had announced that Mexico soon would pay off $700 million of the $12.5 billion in emergency loans made by the United States to Mexico earlier this year. The ahead-of-schedule payment is intended to demonstrate Mexico's success in dealing with its economic crisis. Mexico will repay the loan by issuing debt bonds in German marks, demonstrating its renewed ability to access European bond markets. Mexico has already paid the U.S. Treasury roughly $470 million in interest. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that Mexico is meeting its economic and financial targets in February and will qualify for additional IMF credits in November. The Mexican Action Network for Free Trade and Equipo Pueblo, two Mexican non-governmental organizations, pledged to demonstrate in New York and Washington during the visit, saying that NAFTA has had hugely negative effects on jobs and people in Mexico. According to Mexico's Salvador Zubiran National Nutrition Institute, between 80 and 82 children under the age of one die each day because of malnutrition, and 16 percent of the country's children suffer from malnutrition. In late September, the Mexican Trade and Industry Secretariat (SECOFI) announced a 10 percent rise in the price of tortillas and a phase-out of price controls on tortillas over coming months. The price of tortillas has risen 47 percent since January. Diego Cevallos, "Zedillo's U.S. Visit - an Exercise in Image Polishing," INTERPRESS SERVICE, October 9, 1995; David E. Sanger, "Upbeat White House Visit for the President of Mexico," NEW YORK TIMES, October 11, 1995; Helen Thomas, "Mexico Starts to Pay Back Loan," UPI, October 5, 1995; Kevin G. Hall, "US, Mexico Settling Trade Rows," JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, October 6, 1995; "Mexico: Children Starve, Tortilla Prices Rise, IMF Approves," WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS, October 1, 1995; Sam Dillon, "U.S. is Drug Suitor; Plying Mexico With Copters," NEW YORK TIMES, September 23, 1995. SEWAGE KILLED BIRDS A NAFTA panel's investigation into the deaths of 40,000 migratory birds last winter found that botulism caused by raw human sewage, not industrial pollution, killed the birds. The reservoir waters were probably 100 percent raw sewage from November through January, when most of the birds died. The panel also found substantial exposure to heavy metals, discharged without treatment by 1,000 leather tanneries upstream from the reserve, but said this was not the main cause of death. The panel urged that the Silva Reservoir, 195 miles northwest of Mexico City, be kept drained and that the government spend $50 million on water treatment plants for the city of Lesn, which is upstream from the reservoir. Local farmers still depend on the reservoir for irrigation. According to Julia Carabmas Lillo, Mexico's environment minister, Mexico has only 660 water treatment plants for 92 million people, and many of those are non-functioning. In Ciudad Juarez, a canal collects the untreated sewage of 1.5 million people, distributing it in a network of irrigation channels to the region's cotton and alfalfa farms. A $50 million plan to build two sewage plants for the city could be funded by a loan from NADBank, the NAFTA agency set up to lend money for border environmental projects. Because of Mexico's economic crisis, Ciudad Juarez can't afford the loan. The economic crisis has also kept Nuevo Laredo from completing a new $40 million sewage treatment plant and stalled a $388 million treatment plant planned for Tijuana. Nor is the problem of water treatment limited to Mexico. Recent reports from Texas show that developers have built colonias along the Texas side of the border without providing water or sewer lines. The 1,400 colonias hold an estimated 340,000 residents, mostly legal immigrants. Colonia developers used their political connections to fend off attempts to regulate the developments until this year, when a new Texas law began to require developers to provide sewer and water connections and sometimes electricity, gas and paved roads. Sam Dillon, "Inquiry Finds Sewage Killed 40,000 Birds," NEW YORK TIMES, September 29, 1995; Allen R. Myerson, "Sewers and Clean Water a Must at Border Housing, Texas Says," NEW YORK TIMES, June 20, 1995; Robert Collier, "Cleanup Along the Border Still a Dream," SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, September 26, 1995. HAZARDOUS WASTE DUMP PLANS ATTACKED Greenpeace Mexico joined more than a hundred community, social and environmental organizations in an October demonstration against Metalclad's proposed toxic waste dump in Guadalcazar in the state of San Luis Potosi. Metalclad, a U.S. company, purchased the Mexican company Confinamiento Tecnico de Residuos Industriales (COTERIN) in 1993. COTERIN had run a clandestine hazardous waste dump in Guadalcazar since 1989, despite government citations and public opposition. Metalclad said it would clean up more than 20,000 tons of hazardous waste illegally stored at Guadalcazar at the time of its purchase of COTERIN only if it was granted a permit to reopen a dump on the same site. According to Metalclad executives, approval of the facility by Mexico's Secretariat of Environment, Natural Resources, and Fisheries is expected soon, based on company-conducted studies. Greenpeace charges that the company studies do not include geohydrological models of underground water patterns or epidemiological studies previously ordered by the Mexican Health Minister. The municipal government of Guadalcazar refused to issue the necessary permits, and criminal investigations of COTERIN and Mexican government officials are underway. U.S. Senator Paul Simon (D-IL) and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico James Jones have written to Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo on behalf of the Illinois-based Metalclad company demanding the immediate approval of the dump. Charlie Cray, "Greenpeace, Others Call on Senator Simon to Withdraw His Support for Toxic Dump in Mexico," GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASES, October 6,12, 1995; "Greenpeace Petitions Attorney-General to Investigate Waste Confinement Site Review," BUREAU OF NATIONAL AFFAIRS, October 2, 1995. ANOTHER DOLE ENTERS BANANA WAR U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole tried to slip sanctions against Colombia and Costa Rica through the Senate as a rider to his bill establishing a Senate oversight mechanism for United States involvement in the World Trade Organization. Dole tried to move the combined bill through the Senate by "unanimous consent," a parliamentary maneuver used for non-controversial legislation, but at least three other senators objected to Dole's attempt to impose trade sanctions on Colombia and Costa Rica in retaliation for their participation in the European Union's banana marketing plan. In late September, U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said he will challenge the European Union (EU) banana import restrictions before the World Trade Organization. Senior EU officials defend the two-year-old banana import regime, which favors African, Caribbean and Pacific members of the Lome Convention at the expense of Latin American bananas. The EU claims that its policy has not hurt the United States and that the five major multinational banana traders -- Chiquita, Dole, Del Monte, Fyffes and Geest -- actually increased their EU market share from 53 percent to 58 percent from 1991 to 1994. Overall EU banana consumption has also risen. Dole promised Carl Lindner, owner of Chiquita Brands International, to pressure the two Latin American countries in order to get them to pressure the European Union to allow Chiquita a greater market share. Dole has also tried to add the trade sanctions provision to the budget reconciliation bill. Lindner and his family contribute generously to political campaigns, including $140,000 given to a Republican Party fund last summer and $525,000 given to both Democratic and Republican candidates during 1994. John Maggs, "Back-Room Banana Bill Effort Slips in Senate," JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, October 13, 1995; John Maggs, "Dole May Use Budget Bill to Strip Colombia of Trade Benefits,: JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, October 5, 1995; Shada Islam, "Lome Banana Import Regime Has Not Hurt U.S., Says EU," INTERPRESS SERVICE, October 9, 1995. RESOURCES/EVENTS Democracy in Mexico: Peasant Rebellion and Political Reform by Dan La Botz, South End Press, Boston, MA: 1995. 275 pp. Order from South End Press, 116 Saint Botolph Street, Boston, MA 02113. Telephone 617/266-0639, fax 617/266-1595. $16. Situates Zapatista rebellion in the broader context of Mexican history and society, from Zapata to the Zapatistas with particular emphasis on the past 15 years. Broken Promises: Agrarian Reform and the Latin American Campesino by William C. Thiesenhusen, Westview Press, Boulder, CO: 1995. 226 pp. Order from Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, CO 80301-2847. Telephone 303/444- 3541, fax 303/449-3356. $59.95 hardcover, $19.95 paper. Historical and analytical review of agrarian reforms in Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvador shows that most campesinos got no land at all, and that those who did receive land still faced problems of getting needed inputs for efficient farming and of inflation and unfavorable terms of trade. Fighting for the Soul of Brazil edited by Kevin Danaher and Michael Shellenberger, Monthly Review Press, New York, NY: 1995. 272 pp. Order from Monthly Review Press, 122 West 127th Street, New York, NY 10001 or Global Exchange, 2017 Mission St., Room 303, San Francisco, CA 94110. Telephone 800/497-1994. $15 + $1.50 s&h. Collection of 38 essays ranges over economics, politics, ecology, street children, grassroots views, and the Workers Party. Sources of essays range from MARYKNOLL NEWSNOTES and MULTINATIONAL MONITOR to the NEW YORK TIMES. Governing Capital: International Finance and Mexican Politics by Sylvia Maxfield, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY: 1990. 198 pp. Order from Cornell University Press, 123 Roberts Place, Ithaca, NY 14850. Scholarly analysis of some effects of international financial integration on Mexican political economy includes look at financial regulation, monetary policy, and exchange rate policy. ____________________________________________ NAFTA & Inter-American Trade Monitor is produced by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and edited by Mary C. Turck. Electronic mail versions are available free of charge for subscribers. For information about fax subscriptions contact: IATP, 1313 Fifth Street SE, Suite 303, Minneapolis, MN 55414. 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