The video shows an April 24 roundtable discussion of Miami's strategy to win the permanent secretariat of the FTAA. Panelist Jerry Haar, director of the University of Miami's inter-American business and labor program, advocates offering scholarships to UM or Florida International University to the children of influential officials or season tickets to UM football games.
That suggestion, says Eric Rubin, state coordinator of the Tampa-based Florida Fair Trade Coalition, smacks of the unethical tactics used by Salt Lake City officials in 1995. Rubin, who made and sent the tape to The Herald, recalled that the Salt Lake Olympic Committee gave college scholarships, cash and luxury gifts to members of the International Olympic Committee in an ultimately successful bid to land the 2002 Winter Olympics.
''Perhaps that should be investigated a little deeper,'' Rubin said, referring to Haar's comments. ``He clearly articulates some views of the [Florida] FTAA. The rest of the group is smiling on the tape.''
The taped Haar can be heard saying: 'Let me be very crass and direct, as a former lobbyist, by telling you that if you know Minister X can deliver a bloc of three or four neighboring countries' votes, find out if Minister X -- this may get me in trouble -- find out if Minister X has two high school kids who would love to go to UM or FIU on full scholarship. Make that happen. That's the way it's done. That's the reality. Season tickets to the Hurricanes? Done.''
Last week, after the transcript of his remarks was read back to him, Haar acknowledged that his words could be construed negatively.
''That came out wrong,'' he said. ``I absolutely retract what I said. I said that off the top of my head and used an inappropriate example. I was trying to be funny and amusing. I wanted to be irreverent, have shock value. Looking back, it was stupid and irresponsible.''
The release of the video is but a foretaste of the antiglobalization protest expected during November's meeting of the hemisphere's 34 trade ministers. Anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 free-trade fighters are expected to descend on the city, and the prospect of protests has been one reason cited for the cancellation of a related event, the Americas Business Forum.
Hosting a smoothly run ministerial is viewed as critical to Miami's bid to land the FTAA headquarters, which would generate thousands of jobs and international limelight. The city, which has formed the nonprofit group Florida FTAA to spearhead its lobbying efforts, is pitted against Atlanta, Panama's Panama City, Trinidad's Port of Spain and Mexico's Puebla.
Haar and other Florida FTAA officials contend that the Fair Trade Coalition is simply reading too deeply into Haar's roundtable comments and blowing them out of proportion.
''I didn't interpret any of his remarks as buying the votes,'' said J. Antonio Villamil, vice chairman of the Florida FTAA and a member of the April 24 panel. ``I think what he was saying was that we should use our assets.''
Frank Nero, president and chief executive of the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade's economic-development arm, also attended the discussion and also said he did not take Haar's comments at face value.
''Sometimes panelists have a tendency to be too cute and flippant in their remarks,'' Nero said. ``I don't think anyone took him seriously.''
Haar said what he meant was that Miami should offer incentives to help win the FTAA headquarters.
''I do believe in offering discounted tuition for all children of the secretariat employees,'' said Haar, who worked as a Washington, D.C., lobbyist for the Council of the Americas in the early 1980s during passage of the Caribbean Basin Initiative preferential trade program. ``But do not offer it to one person; offer it to all.''
A UM spokeswoman said that the university's scholarships are offered solely on merit and that no one from Florida FTAA had approached anyone there about sports tickets.
Florida FTAA Chairman Chuck Cobb, meanwhile, said that lobbying key officials and offering incentive packages was indeed part of the group's marketing plan but that in no way was the group lavishing perks on officials similar to what happened in Salt Lake City. Two Salt Lake City officials were later indicted, but a judge, finding their actions more unethical than illegal, dismissed the indictment.
''Some of the things [Haar] is suggesting is good salesmanship,'' Cobb said. ``Everything we do is going to be legal and appropriate.''
Among the sweeteners under consideration by Florida FTAA, Cobb said, are special rates on private-school tuition for children of secretariat employees, expedited immigration and Customs procedures at Miami International Airport and diplomatic exemption from property taxes to employees.
The organization is compiling a dossier on the representatives from the governments involved in the headquarter-selection process, he added.
''We're being sensitive marketeers, like in any political campaign,'' Cobb said. ``We're going to lobby, and you have to know who's who when you meet them.''
He noted that Miami was by no means a shoo-in. Many Latin American countries prefer Panama City since the United States is already home to such regional institutions as the Organization of American States and the Interamerican Development Bank, in addition to many multilateral organizations.
''We have real competition with Panama,'' Cobb said. ``There are a lot of countries who would rather this not be in the U.S. A high percentage have Miami as their second choice.''
Panama City is offering similar incentives, such as extending Secretariat employees diplomatic status and an airport express lane, Panama Foreign Relations Vice Minister Nydia Rosana Castrellón said in a telephone interview.
And Trinidad and Tobago already has 15 of the 34 votes sewn up from other English-speaking Caribbean nations.
Port of Spain ''is the energy and financial capital of the Caribbean and houses the Association of Caribbean States,'' said Anthony Bryan, director of Caribbean studies at UM and a native of Trinidad. ``It only needs three more votes.''
The twin islands' government has ponied up $3 million for a promotional effort that includes distribution to foreign officials of a CD-ROM touting the country's merits. Land in Port of Spain is already being cleared for a potential Secretariat building, Bryan said.
Atlanta and Puebla appear long shots, though Atlanta has formed a nonprofit lobbying group, dubbed Hemisphere, with $2 million from public and private officials, according to Kevin Langston, spokesman for the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism. With an executive director appointed just last week, the group is about to start lobbying in earnest, Langston said.
The Fair Trade Coalition's Rubin said portions of the panel discussion, sponsored by Miami Today and attended by about 50 people, had aired on Tampa's public-access television.
But not the ''controversial part,'' he said, That, he explained, he had been saving ``for the time and place to present it.''