ustxtxb_obs_1986_04_04_50_00009-00000_000.pdf

however, the UPD was calling for human rights and labor reforms and a peaceful resolution of the military conflict. This resulted in the signing of a “social pact” with the Christian Democratic party. In return, the UPD promised support of Duarte in the 1984 presidential elections. UPD leaders reported receiving between $500,000 and $800,000 for the campaign. After Duarte’s election, however, the UPD began to grow restive. In August the union leaders drafted a statement critical of U.S. military aid and of Duarte’s failure to live up to the social pact, especially the provisions for a peace process. The AIFLD then threatened to remove support for the labor federations. \(It provided 80 percent of the budgets of four of the five UPD persisted, the AIFLD made good on its threat and tried to establish yet another, rival labor federation loyal to the Duarte regime. The rights and desires of Salvadoran labor are clearly, then, not a priority of the AIFLD. On July 25, 1985, AFLCIO Department of International Affairs chief Irving Brown issued a report by an AIFLD delegation to Central America which ignored recent arrests of Salvadoran trade unionists while noting a “shift away from violent repressions” in that country and reporting on a consensus that the human rights situation in El Salvador “has greatly improved during the last year and a half.” In September, the national AFL-CIO denounced an Oregon AFL-CIO state convention resolution against intervention in Nicaragua and provided its own resolution endorsing the Kissinger Commission on Central America, denouncing the Sandinistas, and recommending continued military and economic aid to Duarte in El Salvador. “There has been a community of interest between the Reagan administration and the leadership of the AFL-CIO on foreign policy issues,” said Textile Workers Union Vice President Ed Clark \(who opposes the AFL-CIO foreign tral America.” PRODEMCA THIS “COMMUNITY of interest” has led the AFL-CIO leadership not only to use AIFLD and other similar organizations as agents of U.S. foreign policy but also to set up organizations in the United States to influence public opinion in ways favorable to Reagan foreign policy. One such organization is PRODEMCA. To most followers of the debate on Nicaragua, PRODEMCA \(Friends of the Democratic Center in Central Amerthat has sponsored two full-page ads in the New York Times advocating support for the contras. The first ad, appearing June 2, 1985, and entitled “Democracy Is the Issue in Nicaragua,” asks readers to “help us build a movement of support throughoUt the United States for those in Nicaragua who, at great risk, are standing up for democracy.” It names contra leaders Arturo Cruz, Adolfo Calero, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, and Alfonso Robelo as leaders who “proved their dedication to democracy.” Signers of the ad include Zbigniew Brzezinski; William C. Doherty, Jr., of AIFLD; Frank Drozak, president of the Seafarers Union and of the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department; Sidney Hook of the Hoover Institution; John T. Joyce, president of the bricklayers union; Jeane J. Kirkpatrick; Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute; Denise O’Leary, former director of the International Division of the Democratic Na In 1985, AFL-CIO foreign institutes received $38 million from U.S. AID, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the U.S. Information Agency. tional Committee; Martin Peretz of The New Republic; Norman Podhoretz of Commentary; Edmund W. Robb, Jr., of the Institute on Religion and Democracy \(described in The Nation as a “neoconservative think tank dedicated to exposing the unholy alliance between Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers; John Silber, president of Boston University; former Treasury Secretary William Simon; and Ben Wattenberg and a number of others identified with the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. A second PRODEMCA ad appeared in the March 16, 1986, New York Times, calling for support for “military assistance to the Nicaraguans fighting for democracy,” that is, support for Reagan’s contra military aid proposal. This ad was followed by a list of signers, including Brzezinski, Sol Chaikin of the Garment Workers Union; Frank Drozak; J. Peter Grace; John Joyce; Penn Kemble of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority; Novak; Peretz; Robb; William Simon; Wattenberg and more Coalition for a Democratic Majority board members. In both ads PRODEMCA describes itself as “a non partisan citizens’ organization working to build public support for solving problems of conflict and development in Central America by strengthening the processes of democracy. . . .” What the ad does not say is that PRODEMCA was founded by AFLCIO leaders, including William Doherty of AIFLD, and has brought contra leaders Alfonso Robelo and Arturo Cruz to this country to speak. PRODEMCA’s first director, Mary Temple, had been hired by AIFLD to work with Roy Prosterman in El Salvador, implementing the AIFLD-sponsored “land-reform” program. Working with PRODEMCA is Penn Kemble, chairman of the Executive Committee of the conservative Coalition for a Democratic Majority and brother of Eugenia Kemble, former head of the AFL-CIO’s Free Trade Union Institute and current director of the National Endowment for The Labor Report on Latin America, the NED used PRODEMCA to funnel $100,000 to La Prensa, the opposition newspaper in Nicaragua. Thirteen years earlier, similar AFL-CIO connected organizations funneled government money into Chile as part of the effort leading to the overthrow of Salvador Allende. And, according to a story in the November 4, 1985, Business Week, PRODEMCA is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the AFL-CIO’s incestuous relationship with Reagan foreign policy. Business Week reports that, through several AFL-CIO institutes, the international affairs department of the federation spends $43 million a year in 83 countries, compared to the federation’s $45 million U.S. budget. \(In a letter to the February 1986 Progressive, a spokesperson for the federation denies the $43 million figure, offering no supporting data or alterna$43 million comes from member union dues, $38 million comes from the U.S. government through the U.S. Agency the National Endowment for Democracy, and the U.S. Information Agency In 1985, AIFLD, operating ‘in 22 Latin American countries, received $13.5 million from AID, $4.8 million from NED, and $900,000 from the AFL-CIO. The African-American Labor Center, operating in 25 African countries including South Africa, received $6 million from AID, $2.1 million from NED, and $500,000 from the AFLLCIO. The Asian-American Free Labor Institute, working in 31 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 9