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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Borzou Daragahi who wrote (19007)	12/13/1998 4:12:00 PM
From: Les H	Respond to of 67261

Letter to the President Dear President Clinton, During the eighties the United States sent some $4.5 billion to foster "democracy" in Central America, bolstering repressive governments and fomenting fratricidal wars. A week after Mitch, the most devastating hurricane in two centuries, ravaged the same countries, you announced a mere $2 million in relief aid for the whole region. This was about what the US government was giving daily to El Salvador at the height of the war there. Over a week went by before you increased the aid to $70 million. During this critical time many lives could have been saved. As the mid-term elections loomed, you increased the aid offered every few days to its current nearly $200 million--which is still less than the amount that went to fund the contra war. It is also only a fraction of what is needed to relieve the suffering and rebuild the infrastructure of these already impoverished countries. Nicaragua, Honduras and nearby countries were the poorest in the Western Hemisphere; their infrastructure was already weak and has now been largely destroyed. In Nicaragua, which had only five helicopters, seventy bridges have been damaged, of which forty have been washed away. Close to 4,000 people have died, thousands are still missing and nearly half a million are homeless. On November 5 the INS suspended deportation of illegal Guatemalan and Honduran immigrants for five days, until November 10; on November 6 they added Salvadorans and Nicaraguans, and they extended the suspension for all four until November 23. Then it was extended to after New Year's. Why not, Mr. President, give them Temporary Protected Status, which will allow them to work in order to remit money to their families and allow them to obtain parole to visit them? Ordinary Americans have been very generous. On November 11 I returned to my homeland, Nicaragua, with Save the Children. I had organized a relief plane donated by a charter company, Star Air. Our mission was to transport 60,000 pounds of food and medicine collected in New York. Before I left, the Nicaraguan government announced that Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo had been appointed coordinator of the relief effort. When I arrived in Managua, I discovered that this was not true. Indeed, he is not even on the government's emergency relief committee. At the same time I spoke to countless victims in regions away from the capital who had not received any help from the government. It would be a good idea to monitor carefully the Nicaraguan government's distribution of aid and whenever possible use reputable NGOs that will not misappropriate the aid or use it to settle political scores. Mr. President, I hope that this human tragedy, of such devastating proportions, will impel you to secure the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on global emissions. After all, Hurricane Mitch is not just a natural disaster but very likely a symptom of global warming and unstable weather--and it would have taken only a small change of course for it to have hit Florida and Texas. Since the end of the conflicts in Central America, governments in the region have granted indiscriminate logging concessions to multinational timber exporters in areas previously inaccessible because of the fighting. The resulting deforestation caused the soil erosion that made the consequences of the flooding so catastrophic. Unscrupulous politicians invoked the need for foreign currency and employment for this giveaway of irreplaceable natural resources. Until now, Nicaragua has had to spend 40 percent of its export earnings on debt servicing, and Honduras, 30 percent. France, Cuba and Austria have already forgiven the bilateral debts of these countries. The IMF's chief has joined calls for writing off 80 percent of the debt repayment. Mr. President, why is it so easy for Washington to find immediately billions of dollars for military action and so laborious and drawn out a process to find money to alleviate the suffering of millions of people? On November 17 the First Lady announced a two-year moratorium on interest on debts to the United States. Please do better and completely forgive the bilateral debts, if you want Central America to recover and stand on its own feet anytime soon. President Reagan said Central America was in your backyard, a day's drive from the border down the Pan-American Highway. Now that we are stricken with disaster, are we no longer neighbors, but faraway countries? Latin American immigrants, including members of my family, were those who, along with other minorities, turned out in unprecedented numbers to vote down your opponents in the recent midterm elections. Mr. President, wouldn't it make sense to invest in our homelands, and to send aid on a scale that the magnitude of the devastation merits? Yours truly, Bianca Jagger thenation.com

To: Borzou Daragahi who wrote (19007)	12/14/1998 10:28:00 AM
From: John Lacelle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Borzou, Woodward and Bernstein brought down Nixon with their investigative reports published by the Washington Post. My point was that their main source is a still un-named figure they called "Deep Throat". Woodward claims that when Deep Throat dies, he will name him. Furthermore, Woodward and Bernstein used to go to the homes of Grand Jury members and ask them questions. If Ken Starr had done this, he would have been thrown in prison. Funny how the bar is always higher for Republicans. Funny how people claim the Starr Report was all lies and 1/2 truth and supposition. Every bit of the Starr Report was either Grand Jury testimony (under oath), or forensic evidence produced by the FBI. Compare that evidence to "Deep Throat". -John