Chase Manhattan ignores *Chase Report* (from AP) (fwd)

Wed, 15 Feb 1995 21:14:37 -0500 (EST)
Christoph Chase-Dunn (chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)

Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 11:34:33 -0500
From:JCAMPOS@fair1.fairfield.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list <lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu>
Subject: Chase Manhattan ignores *Chase Report* (from AP)

**In relation with posting *Chase Manhattan Report (original)*
here another information about the "public diassociation
with the document", according Chase Manhattan Bank.

Cordially,

**Javier Campos
Modern Languages & Literatures,
Latin American & Caribbean Studies
Fairfield University
Connecticut, EE.UU.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Source:

Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican

=================================================================

The circulation of the internal Chase Bank report calling for the
elimination of the Zapatistas has so disturbed the Bank that it has
issued a public diassociation from the document and its author --a Chase
employee. The following story was filed on the AP wire yesterday. So far
I have not seen it in print. Although Chase "disavows" the statement, its
spokesperson also admits that the report was one Chase provided to
its "capital markets clients." Now, how can a business in the service
sector that "provided" this report to its clients as an integral part of
its services to them "disavow" something which was clearly its own
product?? This is twisting and turning to avoid corporate responsibility,
scapegoating the worker whose report it was circulating. Highly amusing
at one level. Pathetic at another. (By the way, the fact that Roett is
the Director of Latin American Studies at Johns Hopkins, when he is not
prostituting his brain and mouth to Chase, raises interesting questions
about the nature of such "Area Studies" centers and the role they have
played in setting the stage for current Mexican government actions.)

----begin AP story----

Chase Bank Denies Urging Elimination of Mexican Rebels
By Donald M. Rothberg
AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Chase Manhattan assessment of political and
economic turmoil in Mexico said last month that the government would need
"to elminate the Zapatistas" to restore stability. The bank disavowed
the statement Monday as the work of an independent scholar.

The assessment for Chase's Emerging Markets' Group w3as written by
Riordan Roett, who is on leave as director of Latin American Studies at
Johns Hopkins University.

Reached at Chase Manhattan, Roett declined to comment.

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo ordered troops into the Chiapas state
last week to hunt down leaders of the rebel Zapatista movement. In a
letter released Monday, Subcommandante Marcos, the rebel leader, accused
the government of taking the offensive to repay those who helped ease
Mexico's financial crisis.

Roett's assessment, dated Jan. 13, said "while Chiapas, in our opinion,
does not pose a fundamental threat to Mexican political stability, it is
perceived to be so by many in the investment community."

"The government will need to eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate
their effective control of the national territory and of security
policy," Roett wrote.

After Roett's comments became known, the bank issued a statement saying
his opinions "represent his personal views as a scholar. They were not
meant to nor do they represent the views of Chase Manhattan."

The brief statement said Roett "has written commentaries that Chase
Manhattan's Emerging Markets Group has distributed to its capital markets
clients."

Spokesman John Anderson said the Emerging Markets Group is the "area of
the bank that specializes in trading, issuing and underwriting emerging
market debt."

Anderson refused to comment when asked the extent of Chase Manhattan's
investments in Mexico.

"The greatest threat to political stability in Mexico today, we believe,
is the current monetary crisis," wrote Roett. "Until the administration
of President Ernesto Zedillo identifies the appropriate policies to
stabilize the peso and avoid uncontrolled inflation, it will be almost
impossible to address issues such as Chiapas and judicial and electoral
reform."

After Congress rebuffed President Clinton's effort to provide Mexico with
$40 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to help stabilize the peso, Clinton
unilaterally came up with $20 billion in support from a Treasury
Department fund created to defend the value of the dollar. Congressional
approval was not required to use that fund.

Clinton asked Congress to act the day before Roett wrote his memo. He
took unilateral action 18 days later.

----end of AP story----

======================================
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173
USA

Phone Numbers: (hm) (512) 442-5036
(off) (512) 471-3211
Fax: (512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave@mundo.eco.utexas.edu
======================================