From tank!ncar!mailrus!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!ccnysci!unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org Tue Sep 26 23:10:56 CDT 1989 Article 451 of misc.headlines.unitex: Path: tank!ncar!mailrus!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!ccnysci!unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org >From: unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) Newsgroups: misc.headlines.unitex Subject: Senate Lifts Restrictions from Aid to El Salvador Message-ID: <3199@ccnysci.UUCP> Date: 24 Sep 89 13:57:06 GMT Sender: patth@ccnysci.UUCP Lines: 118 Approved: patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu Senate Lifts Restrictions from Aid to El Salvador Posting Date: 09/24/89 Source: UNITEX Network, Hoboken, NJ, USA Host: (201) 795-0733 ISSN: 1043-7932 (Associated Press, September 20, 767 words, DATELINE: Washington) Heeding pleas to give El Salvador's new president "a chance to succeed," the Senate voted Wednesday to boost his country's aid to $$90 million for the coming year and remove restrictions on the money. On a vote of 67-33, the lawmakers stripped from a $$14.4 billion foreign aid bill a provision that would have cut the aid into three slices to be sent at four-month intervals and would have given Congress what amounted to veto power over the final installment. Minutes later, they approved a substitute that would increase the military aid from $$85 million to $$90 million and offered rhetorical praise for peace talks now taking place between the Salvadoran government and the leftist FMLN guerillas. That vote was 82-18. To have attached strings to the aid would have been an unfair gesture of no confidence in Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani at a time when there is a chance to end a decade of civil war in his country, opponents of the restrictions argued. Cristiani was sworn in June 1 as the winning candidate of the rightist Arena party. "It will be a blow to him politically, at the very moment - the very hour - when we ought to be encouraging him to go forward," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who joined in a rare alliance with conservatives, including Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., to oppose the restrictions. "He is doing exactly what we've been trying to accomplish over the last 10 years. We ought to give President Cristiani a chance to succeed." Proponents of the restrictions, led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., argued that Cristiani's party has been linked to death-squad activity in the past and has still not completely eliminated human rights violations. The Senate still has to complete work on the overall aid measure, then work out differences with the House before sending the bill to Bush for his signature. The annual foreign aid money bill pays for a wide variety of programs aimed at bolstering the military power of friendly countries, supporting economic development and giving direct infusions to foreign governments. In the first concrete gesture of congressional disenchantment with Bush's response to Eastern Europe, the bill contained $$45 million for economic aid to Poland, substantially bettering the administration's $$10 million request for next year. Poland has for the first time in more than four decades elected a non-communist-dominated government, making it an irresistible target for rewards by lawmakers. As they worked through a series of other controversial issues in the bill, the lawmakers voted 52-48 to reverse a four-year-old policy and resume U.S. aid to the United Nations Population Fund, over objections that the fund supports Chinese forced-abortion policies. Lawmakers backed a provision in the bill providing $$15 million to the United Nations population control agency, which last received U.S. money in 1985. The Reagan administration shut off aid then in light of charges that China has a one-child-per-family policy enforced through compulsory sterilization and abortions. President Bush has continued that policy. "The People's Republic of China continues to engage ... in ethically heinous, grievous violations of the human rights of parents" and of unborn children, argued Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., an abortion opponent. But the sponsor of the policy change, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said even the State Department's Agency for International Development has found that while the UN agency operates in China, it does not engage in or support such objectionable policies. She included in her provision a stipulation that all U.S. money be kept in a separate account and that none of it go to pay for operations in China. As usual, the largest recipients of aid in the bill are Israel and Egypt, a reward for their participation in the Camp David peace process. Israel would get $$1.8 billion in military aid and $$1.2 billion in economic assistance, and Egypt would get $$1.3 billion in military and $$815 million in economic aid. Another large benefit would go to the Philippines, which would get at least $$160 million toward the U.S. share in a multinational economic development program led by Japan. That amount was $$40 million less than Bush asked for. Other money was earmarked for: Pakistan, $$230 million each in military and economic aid; $$565 million in development aid for Africa; $$500 million in military aid for Turkey; $$350 million in military aid for Greece; $$115 million for the war on drugs; $$615 million for the Export-Import Bank and $$370 million for refugee programs. * Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501) --- Patt Haring | United Nations | FAX: 212-787-1726 patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information | BBS: 201-795-0733 patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange | (3/12/24/9600 Baud) -=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-