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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 1982)
PORTLAND OBSERVER February 25, 1982 Volume XII, Number 20 Section III Caribbean policy; Bullets and bootstraps Ducks briny Spring back to the Willamette Valley. (Photo: Richard J. Brown) PDC offers jobs program One o f the action plans in the P o rtla n d Developm ent C o m m is sion's proposal for economic devel opment o f the Inner Northeast T ar get Area is a jobs program. U n em p lo ym en t in the area is twice that o f the city as a whole and unemployment o f youth is estimated to be three times that o f the city. The program outlines four areas: •O utreach: This program would id entify area em ployers, jo b cate gories and needs for employees. •Centralized I inployment Clear ing House: Il would provide services to prospective employees and to em ployers to assure targe, area resi dents knowledge o f and easy access to job opportunities. •F irs t Source Agreem ents: The city has used this program to require employers who receive certain types o f city financial assistance to hire city residents. This concept could be extended to require em ploym ent o f neighbor hood residents. Jobs created or identified through Outreach would be accessible to area residents on a similar basis. •C oordination o f job training ef forts o f the City and Portland Com munity College. The college is devel oping plans to upgrade its Northeast facilities and improve vocational o f ferings. Jimmy Brown, who designed the jobs program for P IK ', sees the pro- grarn as crucial for Northeast resi dents. “ One o f the main problems is that the people who need jobs don’, know where to find them. There arc entry level jobs that require little skill and no tra in in g — the type a person can learn in a few days or a week— but the unemployed people in Northeast don’, know where they are.” T he C e n tra liz e d Em ploym ent C learin g House w ould provide a place where residents could find ac cess to jobs. It also would provide em ployers a ready lab or force. " C E T A can offer support services — such as screening prospective em ployees. This would cu, down the time and money the employer uses to find employees— so it would be a service to h im . But it would also provide an opportunity for neigh borhood persons to ge, those jobs.” Brown believes this service should extend to employers outside the tar get area. “ Most people don't work in the neighborhood where they live. They w ork all over to w n .” Since many o f the businesses in the targe, area are sm all and hire few em ployees, the option is necessary. The developm ent o f jobs for in n er-c ity residents has been the area o f concern most expressed by community residents. The potential for the other elements o f the P D C proposal— M inority Business devel- o p m en t, recru itm en t o f business and commercial enterprises, and site d evelo pm en t— are all seen in the lig h t o f em ploym ent: H o w much com m itm ent w ill the C ity have to econom ic developm ent that w ill produce jobs? The new C arib b e an p olicy the world has waited for these past few weeks offers little to the suffering underdeveloped nations o f the C ar ibbean— just bootstraps, bullets and the opportunity to open their gates to more investm ent by the U .S .- based multi-national corporations. Financial assistance will be lim ited. A $350 m illion appropriation will be “ concentrated in the private sector” — and to business interests, not to governments. This aid will go primarily to El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Jam aica, the D o m in i can Republic and Belize. •T a x incentives to U .S . corpora tions to encourage them to invest in the area. •Assistance in investment promo tion, export marketing and technol ogy. •F re e trade w ith o u t ta riffs fo r certain goods im p o rted fro m the area; 87 per cent o f the products are already duty-free. •U n s p e c ifie d help fo r P uerto Rico, which is hard hit by cuts in U S. federal social progams, and the Virgin Islands. Prior to his announcement o f the program to the O rg a n iz a tio n o f A m erican States, Reagan had re peatedly expressed his adherence to the “ bootstrap” philosophy— that these nations should not receive di rect U .S . aid but should im p ro ve their own economies through coop eration with U .S. corporations. The Caribbean nations have been deeply hurt by the current economic crisis in the industrialized nations. Although the prices they receive for a g ric u ltu ra l products and other goods have not risen— or are even depressed— they must pay high costs fo r m an ufactu red goods and aid from abroad. The recent increase o f 5« on the U .S. sugar ta riff has devastated the sugar industries o f m any o f these same nations. The increase actually meant a decrease in the price they receive for sugar— from 13« to 9«, as compared to the subsidized price paid to U .S. sugar products o f 19«. Unfortunately multi-national cor porate investment has not been an answer to the economic problems o f these nations since m ore is taken Reagan prom ised a d d itio n a l m il ita ry expenditures. W ith angry words at Cuba and other nations o f the area that are labeled "leftist” by the U .S. press— Grenada and Nica ra g u a -R e ag a n designated the C ar ibbean area as being in a state o f cri sis. “ The d ark fu tu re is foresh ad owed by the poverty and repression o f C a s tro ’ s C u ba, the tig h ten in g grip o f the totalitarian left in Gren ada and Nicaragua, and the expan sion o f Soviet-backed, Cuban-m an aged support for violent revolution in Central Am erica.” Foreign observers consider this continuing threat to do “ whatever is prudent and necessary to insure peace” as a rationalization o f the re fusal o f the Reagan Administration to face up to the social factors that PRESIDENT REAGAN from the countries in profits than is invested. A long w ith his economic “ a id ” are fo rcin g the L a tin A m erican people to seek liberation from their oppressive governments. The new Caribbean program will do nothing to lessen the revolution ary movements taking place in the United States’ “ backvard.” U.S. investment in Latin America grows U .S . c o rp o rate involvem ent in L a tin A m erica goes back a long way, but has been heightened in the past few years. In 1854 Grace Company, dealing in chemicals and food, moved into Peru. G eneral Electric opened its first Latin American branch in Mex ico in 1896. Until W orld W ar I American cor po ratio n s w ith branches in L atin America were few and, except for a few o il and m in in g firm s , were small. In 1914, 50 per cent o f the foreign investment in Latin America came fro m E n g la n d , 26 per cent fro m the U .S ., 14 per cent from France and 10 per cent from G e r many. Because contact between the U.S. and E urope was cut o f f during W orld W ar I, U .S . firms increased trade with Latin America. The U.S. profited greatly and became the fi nancial, commercial and industrial center o f the developed nations. Be fore the war the U .S . owed $4 b il lion and when it was over Europe owed the U.S. $10 billion. By 1925 U .S . cap ital had dis placed German and French capital in Latin America and was about to displace E n g la n d . By 1930 there were 30 U .S. companies with offices in Latin America. The fastest growth in U .S. trans nationals took place a fter W o rld W ar II when the radical changes in the nature o f the productive forces led to a substantial increase in the internationalization o f production in the capitalist world. The result was a great increase in the number o f U .S. corporations in Latin America and in the magnitude o f their operations. By 1950 U .S . companies had a total o f 225 branch offices in L a tin A m e ric a , but by 1977 the figure was nearly 1500. The strategy o f operation has also changed. The key is more central ized control by the home o ffic e , a common strategy for all branches, and maximum integration between the home office and branches. This means no matter how important the branch is to the econom y o f the country in which they operate, they serve only their own interests. A few months ago the U .S . D e partm en t o f Com m erce reported that 77 per cent o f all U .S. direct in vestments in the T h ird W o rld are concentrated in Latin Am erica and that nearly 70 per cent o f the branch offices o f U .S. companies in the un derdeveloped w orld are in L a tin America. Economists have estimated that investments by U .S . transnationals in L a tin A m erica m ake up 14 per cent o f the Gross National Product o f the region whereas the figure for the European Econom ic C o m m u nity countries (where U .S . m onop olies are essentially active) is only 2.5 per cent. These figures demon strate the Latin American countries’ high level o f dependence on the in ternationals. There are many reasons why the U .S . corporations are interested in Latin America: The region contains one-third o f the w o rld ’s copper re serves, m ore than a th ird o f the bauxite reserves, a fifth o f the iron ore, 40 per cent o f the niobium and 98 per cent o f the nitrates. There are huge o il and gas reserves. The po te n tia l fo r hyd ro electric power is twice that o f the U .S . and Canada put tog eth er. T h ere are vast ex panses o f arable land; there is a wide variety o f c lim ate and soil. One quarter o f the w orld’ s forests are in Latin America. The interest o f the multinationals in L atin A m erica also explains the interest o f the U .S . government in El S a lv ad o r, G u a te m a la , N ic a ragua, and the remainder o f Latin America. Salvadoran editor in exile: Washington controls the the throttle of terror in El Salvador by Jorge Pinto Pacific News Service Jorge P in to ‘s fam ily has been in the newspaper business in El Salva dor fo r nearly ltd) years. Pinto was editor o f the independent daily El Independiente until January. 1981, when government troops destroyed the paper‘s equipment and arrested his staff. Though he supported President Duarte editorially in the elections o f ¡972, Pinto is now forced to Uve in exile in Mexico City. M EXICO C IT Y —J oday. as in decades past, it is the W hite House — acting through its ambassador in San S alvador — that controls the throttle o f government violence in my country. In 1944 G eneral M ax im ilian o Hernandez M artinez, a dictator re sponsible for the death o f 3 0,(MX) peasants who rose in rebellion, was on the verge o f s trikin g v io len tly again during a general strike o f day laborers. But just at that moment, a Salvadoran policeman killed a young A m erican named Joseph W right. Reprimanded by the then- U.S. Ambassador Walter Thurston, H e m tn d e z M artin ez abdicated his o ffic e. The workers were saved from another massacre. I o ffe r this account to illustrate what a “ re p rim a n d ” once meant, t oday, however, to reign in the mil itary in a country that has more U.S. arms per square mile than any nation in the world, words must be follow ed by stronger dem onstra tions o f W ashington's will to sub due government violence. I personally can testify to the power signals from the White House still com m and. In January 1981, days after President Reagan made his first pronouncements in support o f the Salvadoran junta, the govern ment parked a tank outside my house and sent troops to destroy my newspaper plant— though the news paper had supported neither the government nor any opposition group. Here in exile is where one feels more impotent: but it is very prob able that from here things can be seen more clearly. Each individual in El Salvador is faced with the option now o f siding with the army o f insurgents, which represents some hope, or w ith the government arm y, which has mas sacred for 50 years and threatens continued killin g for another h alf century. T h at is not a political op tio n . It is a con stitu tio n al option, guaranteed by El Salvador’s consti tutio n when people confront op pression as severe as that which ex ists today. President Duarte himself lost his p opular appeal when he chose to align himself with this same army even after opposing it during the 1972 elections. I believe that we have come to a crossroads, as the insurgents claim: E ith er we are going to have the country for all or the country for nobody. One simply has to decide which is more m oral: the insur gency, which eventually could de stroy the entire infrastructure o f the country, but which attempts to re flect the human aspirations o f the Salvadoran people; or the current regime, armed by the U .S ., which leaves intact the infrastructure but destroys human beings. These thoughts come to me when I read in the newspapers that the United States will send m ilitary as sistance, for hundreds o f millions of dollars more, to the damaged Salva doran army. The Salvadoran arm y is now an army o f intervention. The govern ment o f the most powerful nation o f the world is crushing the people o f the smallest nation o f the hem i- [Please turn to page 4 column I)
