Shades of Red

The chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Crowe, opposes sanctions against companies that operate in marxist-ruled Angola because, he says, they would endanger U.S. national security.

In a letter dated September 2, 1986, Crowe appealed to Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to oppose a provision in the House Defense Authorization bill prohibiting the Defense Department from contracting with companies that buy Angolan petroleum products.

"If the Angola sanctions become law," Crowe wrote, .we will concede far more to the Soviets in reduced operational readiness than they could ever gain through a marxist regime in Angola."

The measure, warned Crowe, "drastically curtails our military capability to maintain our operational readiness worldwide... Our capability to accomplish specific short-notice missions in critical areas... [like] the vicinity of Libya, would be reduced to an unacceptable level."

Since last February when the Reagan administration began providing anti-government rebels in Angola with "covert" military assistance, including the sophisticated anti-aircraft "Stinger" missile, Reagan officials have emphasized the threat posed by Angola's Soviet and Cuban-backed Jose Eduardo Dos Santos government.

Although the Reagan administration has claimed that U.S. military intervention is necessary to combat Soviet expansionism in the strategic southern African region, it has shied away from interfering with the five U.S. companies that do a lucrative business in Angolan oil, the hard-pressed Luanda government's main foreign exchange earner.

The administration's unwillingness to force U.S. businesses out of Angola has enraged conservatives in the House, who for the last year have waged a steady campaign to cripple Dos Santos and bolster his main rival, the South African-backed rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. Election year pressures to appear 'tough on communism" have prompted many Democrats to join the fight: 229 House lawmakers voted September 17 not to cut off "covert" aid to the rebels.

These lawmakers argue that the oil companies now in Angola would divest if continued operations there made them ineligible for U.S. Defense contracts.

Admiral Crowe, however, doesn't seem so sure. Blacklisting companies that do business with Angola, he wrote, would cut the Department of Defense off from five of its major suppliers-Chevron, Texaco, Conoco, Caltex, and Shell-that provide 17 percent of its fuel requirements world-wide.

The loss would mean greatly increased fuel prices and shortages of fuel, as well as reduced U.S. military strength, wrote Crowe.

Striking Meatpackers Sign Contract

Striking meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota, have signed a contract with Geo. A. Hormel and Company, ending a two-year battle between the company, Local P-9, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW).

The UFCW, which had long opposed the strike, put its maverick Austin local under trusteeship earlier in the summer after the local refused to call off its strike and sued the International for $13 million. The local charged that in its attempts to undermine the strike, the union had caused it "irreparable damage."

Local P-9 had bitterly fought the UFCW's policy of wage and benefit concessions and the retrenchments in the meat packing industry. (See Multinational Monitor, April 15, 1986.)

After the local was placed in trusteeship, dissident local members formed a new union, the North American Meatpackers Union (NAMPU), and petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for certification.

Austin workers, however, voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new contract with the company earlier this month. Wages under the new contract will be raised to $10.70 by 1988, up from the current rate of $10.00 over a period of three years.

The Calcium Myth

A study soon to be released by the Mayo Clinic contradicts earlier findings from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) linking a higher calcium intake to the prevention of osteoporosis, a bone disease which afflicts elderly men and women.

Doctors from the Mayo Clinic are now saying that excess amounts of calcium may in fact be unsafe; too much calcium can lead to kidney stones and can block vitamin D which helps prevent bone deterioration.

"What the study means is that, contrary to advertising by companies selling calcium supplements, increases in calcium will not necessarily stop osteoporosis," said B. Lawrence Riggs, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic who headed the study. Riggs does not recommend calcium supplements to his adult patients but instead suggests 1000 milligrams a day from calcium rich foods.

NIH findings that at least half of elderly women and one quarter of the elderly men in the United States suffer from this debilitating bone disease caused panic when they were released in 1984. In response to these findings, an NIH consensus panel recommended that post-menopausal women take estrogen supplements to prevent the accelerated bone loss which occurs when the body stops making estrogen but continues to consume 1500 milligrams of calcium a day. As an extra precaution. NIH also suggested that both men and pre-menopausal women consume 1000 milligrams of calcium dailv.

Although Dr. William Peck, chairman of the NIH consensus panel, qualified the recommendations saying that 'the evidence that calcium reduces bone loss and fracture frequency is unclear," dozens of articles soon appeared advising women of the need for greater doses of calcium in their daily diets. Sales of calcium supplements and other products containing calcium soared.

In 1985, calcium sales jumped 40 percent over the previous year. Companies seeking to take advantage of the huge new market fueled the osteoporosis hysteria with advertisements showing young women quickly becoming debilitated by the disease and warning all women to increase calcium intake before it became too late. Existing products such as Norcliff Thayer's antacid, Turns, emphasized their calcium content.

Even Coca-Cola USA's president Bryan Dyson announced in February that it would be test marketing a version of their diet soft drink Tab containing 10 percent of the U.S. recommended daily allowance of calcium.

Although new studies are analyzing the effectiveness of calcium on osteoporosis, until they are completed Riggs of the Mayo Clinic is encouraging women to avoid smoking and drinking alcohol to stave off osteoporosis. "Our study means more research must be done before we promote dietary calcium as an answer to osteoporosis," Riggs said.

Cooperatives Combat Hunger in Chile

SANTIAGO, Chile-Rampant hunger and malnutrition in the Santiago "barriadas," or shantytowns, have forced residents to develop innovative and effective grasssroots survival strategies.

By organizing collectives, slumdwellers in the western Santiago district of Mapocho have been able to purchase food at lower prices despite a food crisis.

One study conducted by the Program on Labor Economics (PET) found that a family of five in a Santiago slum last year lived on a monthly food budget of nine dollars.

"Basic foods have disappeared from the family diet, and many are only present now in tiny amounts," said PET economist Mariana Schkolknik. The average family member in Jose Maria Caro lives on a weekly ration of 1.5 eggs, one quart of milk, one orange, one apple, and seven rolls, she said.

Food collectives first appeared in Chile in 1979-1980 and were soon affiliated with the Catholic Church or Ecumenical centers that lent facilities and aid through a humanitarian program called Caritas-Chile.

Initially, the collectives developed as support groups for securing daily rations on little or no money.

"We got together to buy sugar at first, and later, when we had a little more money, we were able to begin buying other things, like rice and soap for washing," said one collective member.

Approximately 30 families, with an average of six members each, participate in each group. The composition of the groups is fairly constant, with women making up 78 percent of the members, and occupying most of the leadership positions.

In addition to buying inexpensive food, the collectives set up and maintain an accounting system, train members in nutrition and crafts production, and organize social activities.

"What we try to do most is make people understand the need for participating and to get them to be interested in taking responsibility and leadership roles," one member said.

The number of collectives nearly quadrupled between 1982 and 1985, and now make up the majority of the 1,103 grassroots economic support groups operating in Santiago.

- Interpress Service