Getting Tough in Gangland

WE MAFIA MAVENS try not to miss The Godfather when, every few years, that movie is shown on television. This summer was no exception, once again, the story unfolded about a small group of ruthless criminals who used cunning, blackmail, brutality and cold-blooded murder to seize and hold onto a vast empire of wealth and power.

Sort of the way America keeps tabs on the Third World.

In The Godfather, you will recall, Don Corleone's crime organization was run at the day-to-day level by caporegimes in charge of certain geographic areas. Anyone foolish enough to interfere with Corleone's operations--gambling, bootlegging, extortion, loan-sharking and racketeering--would be either warmed or simply rubbed out by these gangsters. In real life, Third World dictatorships--such as those of Haiti, the Philippines and Chile--act as caporegimes--protectors of the interests of United States government.

The arrangement is as follows: U.S. policymakers justify acts of aggression under the banner of what they call "U.S. interests," which take precedence over concepts such as international law, conventional morality, democracy and so on. Most important among these interests is that American banks and businesses be allowed to enjoy the "favorable economic climate" of U.S.-backed dictatorships, which keep wages and taxes low while providing cheap natural resources. Meanwhile the U.S. must constantly take care lest revolutionaries--fed up with the poverty, illiteracy and political terrorism under U.S.-sponsored military governments--lure these countries out of the Free World.

Haiti for example, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, is under the iron heel of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier Despite the accounts of torture from refugees, religious groups. Amnesty International and others, the U.S. has stepped up arms sales to Duvalier. Thousands have fled Duvalier's reign of terror, hoping to return to a free country some day. Duvalier, with American guns and dollars, has shown he will commit the most brazen crimes to prevent that day from coming.

Just last Wednesday, the editor of an anti-Duvalier weekly newspaper was assassinated outside his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., after ignoring repeated warnings to stop criticizing Duvalier. According to the New York Times, Firming Joseph, editor of the Tribune D'Haiti, was in the middle of publishing a series called "157 Days in Haitian Jails" when someone identifying himself on the phone as a Haitian diplomat started warning Mr. Joseph to stop printing the series.

The series went on, and on Wednesday night Joseph was approached from behind by two men. According to an eyewitness, they called Joseph's name, gunned him down when he turned to answer, and fled. Noting that the killers never touched the money in Joseph's pocket, the New York police are now investigating the possibility of "political assassination."

THE HIT IN BROOKLYN has some chilling parallels to the far more publicized murder of Benigno Aquino Jr. as he arrived in the Philippines last month. Aquino, the most powerful and popular opponent of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, got a bullet in the head for defying Marcos' orders to remain in exile. The assassin was himself shot dead on the spot by Marcos troops, ensuring that no direct evidence about the source of the murder will ever come to light. The current anti-Marcos riots in the Philippines show that the ploy didn't work: it only increased suspicion that Marcos may have ordered the assassination.

Our final destination on this mini-tour of the political underworld is fittingly, Washington D.C., where the military government of Chile murdered one of its exiled opponents with a car bomb in 1976. Chile's democratically elected government was brutally overthrown in 1973, when the U.S. engineered a coup that put General Augusto Pinochet in power.

Foreign minister Orlando Letelier fled the Pinochet regime and began to criticize the general from America, where he imagined himself safe from attack. When Letelier and an assistant. Ronni Moffit, were blown up, the U.S. discovered that three senior Chilean intelligence officers were probably connected to the killings. Despite repeated requests, the men (who have been indicted by American courts) haven't been extradited. President Carter imposed mild trade sanctions on Chile for not returning the suspected murderers: Reagan ended even that minor form of protest.

AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS and weapons continue to flow to Duvalier, Marcos, and Pinochet in the name of protecting "U.S. interests." Opponents of these madmen who seek refuge in the U.S. seem unfortunately to forget that it was American troops who put the tyrants in power and that it is American business that benefits from the cheap labor and natural resources in Haiti, the Philippines and Chile. Above all, they seem to forget that certain countries can and do kill with impunity, even within the borders of the United States, so long as overall "U.S. interests are safeguarded."

Not a peep has been heard from Washington about the murder of Firmin Joseph. President Reagan still plans to visit Marcos in November, and presumably will praise him as a staunch upholder of democratic principles. Lame requests for the men who murdered Orlando Letelier continue, along with new rounds of economic and military aid. In Manila, in Brooklyn and in Washington, everything is under control. Don Corleone would be green with envy.