LAWG HAY CAMINO
HISTORY PROJECT
Opening of the LAWG Collection in the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC)
This was an exciting occasion when CERLAC hosted a two-pronged celebration at their Resource Centre on the 6th Floor of the Kaneff Building on February 16, 2017.
TLN Telelatino Essay Prize Ceremony and Latin American Working Group (LAWG) Collection Opening
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Liisa North, Caese Levo & Reg McQuaid celebrating the dedication of a Room to the LAWG Collection at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean at York University
The Invitation
Thursday, February 16, 2017
CERLAC Resource Centre – Kanef Tower 6th Floor
2:00 pm – 4:00pm
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All are welcome! (RSVP by February 10, 2017)
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CERLAC invites you to an event celebrating and commemorating Canada-Latin America connections. The TLN Telelatino Award for papers on the Latin American experience in Canada will be given to three York undergraduates: Susan Veliz (first place), and Yurico Matayoshi Franco and Thomas Stratan (second place tie). The prize was established in 2009 thanks to a generous donation from TLN, and the awards will be presented by Marisa Ciarlitto, TLN’s VP Marketing.
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We also inaugurate an important new collection that CERLAC is making available to students and researchers thanks to the efforts of Liisa North and Caese Levo: the library of the Latin American Working Group, a Toronto-based organization that worked on Latin American solidarity research and action for more than thirty years. The inauguration will feature a talk by historian Luis van Isschot, from the University of Toronto.
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February 16 Gathering
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The Opening was a long time coming, but in the intervening years, Caese Levo, the Latin American Working Group’s former librarian and Liisa North, Political Science Professor at York University, have taken very good care of the collection as it moved between several locations on the campus until finding a perfect home in a separate room in the Resource Centre.
Before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, presentations about the Collection and its significance were made by Liisa North, York University, Luis van Isschot, University of Toronto, and Caese Levo, LAWG’s former Librarian. Betsy Anderson shared information about the ways the Collection is being enhanced as the result of a current LAWG History Project being carried out by some former members of the LAWG Collective. Personal papers of former LAWG members are being gathered to house with the LAWG Collection, as well as digital and transcribed oral history interviews with former LAWG members.
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Students and researchers who attended the opening were excited to hear about the LAWG History Project and many attested to the significance of the existing collection.
A smaller but complementary Collection related to the ICCSASW Sugar Project was also highlighted by Reg McQuaid.
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Caese Levo
February 16, 2017
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To begin I have to thank CERLAC and especially Liisa for recognizing the importance of the LAWG Library and providing it with such a good home. Liisa has worked with me over the past 20 years to save the collection, moving it a number of times and now making sure the collection is better known & used.
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Now before I talk about the LAWG Library I have to talk about LAWG the organization – because without LAWG there would be no LAWG Library.
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The Latin American Working Group was an independent research/solidarity organization that was formed by a small group of young Canadians in 1966 as a response to the US invasion of the Dominican Republic. They felt it was important that Canadians learn about what was really happening in the region. They focused their research and publishing on Canada’s role – on Canadian foreign aid, foreign investment and the activities of Canadian corporations like INCO and Falconbridge.
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Caese Levo at the CERLAC Opening of the LAWG Collection
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Over the years LAWG members worked in the region and made connections with other organizations. They set up exchanges of publications and brought materials back from their travels. They subscribed to key journals like the Latin America Weekly Report, the Central America Report from Guatemala and the ISLA clipping service from Berkeley. The periodicals from the LAWG Library have been integrated into the CERLAC country and subject sections. The church, trade union and human rights sections have especially grown as a result.
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Two new sections have been created from the LAWG materials – one for Canadian solidarity with the different countries and the other for materials produced by Latin Americans in exile. Following military coups in the region Latinos often found themselves in many different countries and they created their own publications.
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The LAWG Library reflects the focus of LAWG’s research and solidarity work over the years so that you will find more material for example on the DR, Chile and Central America. LAWG worked closely with the Canadian churches, trade unions and NGOs. The collection is unique because it has gathered together publications and ephemera from these sectors and preserved them.
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The richness of these materials is found in the country and subject files which are well organized here. When you look in this room you will see rows of boxes – but when you open those boxes you will hear the voices of those who worked for social justice in Latin America and also the stories of the Canadians who supported their struggles.
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As an example of what you will find I have here an article from the UofT Varsity newspaper from what was likely one of the first public events following the coup in Chile in Sept. 1973. Here we see Liisa and John Foster from LAWG which goes to show how long LAWG and CERLAC have been working together on these issues.
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John is one of the LAWG members here today along with Betsy Anderson and Nick Keresztesi. Betsy is going to tell us a bit about LAWG’s latest initiative – the LAWG History Project.
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Caese Levo, LAWG Librarian
Presentation about the LAWG History Project at CERLAC Celebration
February 16, 2017 at CERLAC, York University
Betsy Anderson
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Thank you for this opportunity to say a little bit about the Latin American Working Group History Project – Si Hay Camino, in which a number of former members of the Latin American Working Group, LAWG, have been engaged over the last few years. John Foster, who is also here, is a living incarnation of this history, having been involved from the beginning in 1965.
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LAWG was originally a “working group” or sub-committee of a United Church youth and student organization – Kairos. When Canadians were challenged by Latin American students and youth at international conferences to understand the connections between Canadian foreign policy, aid and corporate interests and their political and economic impacts in Latin America, they came home and set up a “working group” to study and learn.
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The 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic and 1964 coup and repression in Brazil were galvanizing events for LAWG and Canada’s corporate and foreign policy complicity with US imperialism were a focus of research and publication. Chile vs the Corporations, The Brascan File, Falconbridge were early publications along with the LAWG Newsletter.
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LAWG’s focus on research, monitoring publications and critical analysis of imperialism involved the collection of excellent resources from and about Latin America as well as Canada’s relationship with Latin America. Caese Levo, LAWG’s volunteer and then paid librarian has already referred to this unique and valuable collection and the excellent home it has received here at CERLAC. Thank you.
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LAWG’s research, publishing and solidarity work has always been rooted in Canada, but informed by Latin Americans. Many LAWG members worked in Latin America over the years of its existence and in the pre-internet days, the relationships forged through personal connections made in travel, exchanges, tours and long-term partnerships were essential to LAWG’s effective work.
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In the early 1970s a part-time staff was employed by LAWG and after the coup in Chile, the people resources were expanded through mostly volunteer labour, till eventually with funding from churches, and NGOs LAWG established an office, resource centre and a growing staff. LAWG worked as a collective which met weekly on Monday nights. It developed a “partnership” definition of solidarity – building links between social movements in Canada and Latin America, recognizing that each had their own historical projects and that reciprocity was important. LAWG took a non-sectarian stand in its relationships with Latin American organizations and worked hard on deepening connections with and understanding between Canadian and Latin American trade union and church communities and organizations as well as community and civil society movements and NGOs.
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LAWG was Toronto-based but partnered with many local and regional organizations across Canada and had important ties with groups like NACLA and others doing similar work in the United States. LAWG members worked in, and helped create, other organizations in response to the changing Latin American context. LAWG was just one of a myriad number of organizations and leaders who worked in the area of Canada-Latin America solidarity over these three decades.
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LAWG wound up its work in 1997 and thanks to Liisa North, Caese Levo and others, the concrete legacy of those 30 years of committed solidarity and social mobilization has found a home here at CERLAC. LAWG’s organizational records are also here in the Archives. Since the time of its closure, LAWG members have had a sense that the story needed to be told. A small fund remained and with some modest support from a few church and community organizations, we finally launched the History Project in 2014 with Janice Acton as our part-time coordinator and a small Advisory Committee that has met regularly via skype.
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The focus has been on oral history interviews of former members. A gathering in June 2015 of 20 former LAWG members, gathered more of the history and tested some of the analysis and interpretation flowing from those interviews. What are the top 10 takeaways from LAWG’s work that could be useful to current activists was one question we explored. The point form answers were:
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Sustained collective commitment;
Trusting relationships in LAWG and with others;
Action-oriented research;
Experiential learning;
Support to movement-building;
Conjunctural analysis;
Multilateral, collaborative, convoking style.
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A consistent question is what is the value of this history? How does it serve the continuing solidarity and social justice struggles in Canada and Latin America? Preservation has been the main goal. In the midst of Prime Minister Harper’s efforts to re-write and expunge the progressive elements of Canadian history, it seemed important to provide this witness of the story of Canadians active in lobbying government, corporations and other Canadian institutions to influence policy and actions toward justice and celebrate the many successes achieved along the way.
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The active stage of this history project is winding down. The interviews or excerpts and other resources can be accessed through the History Project’s Website www.lawghaycaminohistoryproject.wordpress.com. The hard copies of all the interviews and other materials gathered will join the other LAWG documents in the York Archives. We hope to also tell the LAWG story at some conferences and academic events and post that writing on the Website. We are encouraged that the materials are being used by other researchers and LAWG’s history has already been included in academic presentations about this period.
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We have noted that we are not alone in our efforts to preserve this period of Canadian history and are energized by the efforts of NGOs, the women’s movement, gay liberation movements and others to document and retain these important stories and records. Profound thanks are due to Liisa, CERLAC, York and especially Caese for making the physical preservation of this small piece of a larger story possible and ensuring its accessibility into the future.
Betsy Anderson & Reg McQuaid
Reg McQuaid’s remarks on ICCSASW Collection
LAWG Collection Opening at CERLAC:
Notes for Reg McQuaid’s remarks on ICCSASW collection, February 16, 2017.
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(The International Commission for Coordination of Solidarity among Sugar Workers - ICCSASW and LAWG worked closed together and the ICCSASW Collection is also housed at CERLAC)
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In the 1960’s and 70’s there was a widespread focus on trade as the path towards “Third World” development, as typified by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). As Cuban representative, Che Guevara was an important voice at UNCTAD’s founding conference in 1964.
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International commodity agreements, which sought to achieve fair prices for Third World commodity exports, such as sugar, coffee, cocoa, rubber, tin, etc., were seen as a major tool for economic development. The five major Canadian churches[1], acted ecumenically in their efforts to alleviate Third World poverty, and followed UNCTAD’s commodity efforts closely.
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Following the Third UNCTAD Conference in Santiago, Chile in 1972, the Canadian churches established a research, action and education project, GATT-Fly, which was described as “an inter-church initiative for an alternative trade policy.” LAWG collective member John Foster, a United Church national staff person, was a founding member on GATT-Fly’s board, and the LAWG and GATT-Fly collaborated on various issues whenever possible.
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The first major international conference after Santiago was the International Sugar Conference in Geneva in May 1973. Canada relies almost completely on imported raw cane sugar for its needs, and as such was an important player at the Geneva conference. GATT-Fly accordingly presented a brief to the government on what it felt should be Canada’s goals at the conference, and used its research capacity on sugar to monitor subsequent events closely. The two main issues were market access, or export quotas, and price levels. GATT-Fly wanted poor sugar-exporting countries to receive increased access to developed country markets at remunerative prices.
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Suffice it to say that Canadian government actions continued to reflect the commercial interests of domestic sugar refining companies, which had significant multinational ownership, and the churches’ recommendations were effectively ignored. Seeing this, GATT-Fly took its research and analysis to the trade unions in the sugar industry, particularly in the Third World cane sector. Their first major event was an International Sugar Workers Conference held in Trinidad in 1977.
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Meanwhile GATT-Fly continued with major research, analysis, education and action on a number of other economic justice issues, such as the world food crisis, the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, textiles, etc. At a follow-up International Sugar Workers Conference in Toronto in 1983, GATT-Fly’s sugar work was set up as a separate overseas development project, the International Commission for Coordination of Solidarity Among Sugar Workers (ICCSASW), with a 10-member international trade union steering committee. Canadian and European churches’ overseas development agencies continued to be the major source of funds, with the secretariat located in Toronto.
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Attempts were made to find a suitable Third World location for the secretariat, with the necessary communications infrastructure and freedom from political interference, but these were unsuccessful. It was always assumed that the First World trade union movement would eventually take over the funding role from the churches, but this did not happen. After 15 years, church funding had declined to the point that ICCSASW came to an end in 1998. A portion of the work continued under the International Union of Food Workers (IUF), which is based in Geneva.
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Over a period of 25 years (1973-1998) the GATT-Fly/ICCSASW sugar project organized four international sugar workers’ conferences and 20 regional and national seminars, involving a total of 1,500 participants from 40 sugar-producing countries. In addition, dozens of solidarity campaigns were carried out in support of sugar workers’ struggles in these countries. Regular newsletters in both English and Spanish were published over a 20-year period, and also in French and Portuguese for shorter periods. Ongoing research into economic and social conditions was carried out, resulting in occasional publications on these topics. This work program involved staff travel to most of the countries within the ICCSASW network.[2]
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The ICCSASW Archives, consisting of correspondence, organizational files, photos, etc. are lodged in the special collections section of the Clara Thomas Archives in the Scott Library building at York University. In support of its work program ICCSASW maintained a documentation centre (Sugar Workers & industry Education Resource Library – SWIERL) on various aspects of the sugar industry, the bulk of which is now a separate shelf in the CERLAC collection Though most of the materials are in English, there is also a lot in Spanish, with lesser quantities in Portuguese and French.
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It is important to note that this documentation is a by-product of ICCSASW’s solidarity work, which was primarily action-oriented. Therefore the coverage of topics varies. Some of it is in-depth and comprehensive, other parts are more superficial. All of it was helpful in empowering sugar workers’ unions to understand their industry better, and to improve the livelihood of their members.
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The Cuban revolution and its aftermath was an inspiration for many sugar workers in the region during the period of ICCSASW activity. Prior to 1959 Cuba was effectively an American sugar plantation. The American trade publication “Gilmour Sugar Manual: Cuba – 1960” gives a comprehensive and detailed description of each of the island’s 160 sugar mills on the eve of the Revolution, comprising ownership, names of managers, machinery specifications, production capacity and history, etc. This was the last such book published, and is a precise record of the starting point of Cuban sugar production during the period of the Revolution. ICCSASW was able to get a copy of this rare book at a sidewalk sale in Havana in 1997, and add it to its collection.
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What else you will find in the ICCSASW collection:
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1) Books:
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– An almost complete collection of the London-based International Sugar Organization’s statistical yearbooks from 1947 to 2005. These contain detailed sugar production, consumption, export and import figures for all countries. Also various ISO documents and reports (1951-1997)
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– Various statistical and other publications (1974-2005) from Germany-based F.O. Licht, which was for many decades the authoritative source of ongoing information on all aspects of the international sugar industry.
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– Bartens’ (Germany) “Sugar and Sweetener Economy” yearbook of the sugar industry. (1994-2011)
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– A small number of miscellaneous books on various aspects of the sugar industry.
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2) Periodicals:
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– Sugar y Azucar (U.S.-based) periodical on U.S. and Latin American sugar industry (1976-91).
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– GEPLACEA (Group of Latin American and Caribbean
Sugar Exporting Countries) monthly reports (1986-93), plus occasional publications.
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– U.S. Department of Agriculture – Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS) periodic reports on the sugar industries of key producing countries (1995-1997).
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– Complete set of the Dyergram sugar newsletter from 1987 to 2005 (from U.S. sugar brokers B.W. Dyer & Co.)
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3) Various publications and reports from the European Economic Community (EEC) regarding Atlantic-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) former colonies. Various commodity reports from London-based research firm LMC (1986-96).
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4) United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) – various sugar-related documents.
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5) A complete set of GATT-Fly sugar-related and ICCSASW publications (1973-1998). These include the newsletters Sugar World, Mundo Azucarero, Le Monde du Sucre and Mundo Acucareiro. The first two were published regularly, usually monthly, for 20 years. The last two were published less frequently over a 4-5 year period in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The ICCSASW Report, focusing on the North America sugar industry, was published monthly for several years in the 1990s. Other publications report on conferences and seminars, or deal with specific topics related to the sugar workers’ struggle.
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6) Files:
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– An extensive collection of vertical file boxes arranged alphabetically, containing documents and files on the principal sugar-producing countries.
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– Vertical files boxes on bananas, pesticides, etc.
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– Seven bankers’ boxes containing country files unsuited for vertical boxes.
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– Two bankers’ boxes on Canadian sugar-related topics.
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– Two bankers’ boxes on miscellaneous topics related to the sugar industry.
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– One bankers’ box of labour files by country, region or topic.
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– One bankers’ box of files on sweetener companies.
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N.B. These 13 bankers’ boxes are placed on the lowest shelves to facilitate handling, as they are heavy and should be lifted carefully to avoid back injury.
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7) Various U.S. sugar publications and reports (USDA, re Sugar Act 1934, Louisiana, etc.)
8) Proceedings of Canadian Tariff Board hearings into sugar (1971, 1986); proceedings of Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) on anti-dumping, etc.
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[1] Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic and United.
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[2] Staff consisted mainly of an executive secretary, joint executive secretary (Spanish), and office manager. During certain periods there was also a women’s program director, a documentalist, and various student interns. Several trade unionists from sugar-producing countries also spent periods of up to four months as visiting staff.