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Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 01:03:37 -0400 (EDT)
To: "David L. Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: Weekly News Update <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Weekly News Update #550, 8/13/00
WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #550, AUGUST 13, 2000
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012
(212) 674-9499 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
1. Puerto Rico: 1966 Nuclear Incident in Vieques?
2. Puerto Rico: More Bombs, More Protests
3. Ecuadoran Congress Splits
4. Ecuador: Privatization Law Held Up by Congress Tiff?
5. Ecuador: AIDS Patients Threaten Suicide
6. Chile: Supreme Court Strips Pinochet Immunity
7. Chile: 13-Year Old Disappearance Victim Identified
8. CIA Hedges on Chile Declassification
9. Italy to Extradite Argentine Ex-Officer?
10. Colombia: More Paramilitary Massacres, Army Complicity?
11. Colombia: Paramilitary Leader Says US Sought His Help
12. Colombia: U'wa at Los Angeles Convention Protests
13. Paraguay Holds Vice Presidential Elections
14. Brazil: Landless Workers, Rural Women March in Capital
15. Central America: Closed for Transport Strikes
16. Venezuela: Chavez Takes OPEC Tour
17. Mexico: Police Now Control Disputed Chiapas Community
18. Mexico: Tourism Secretary Vanishes
19. In Other News: Argentina, IMF/Pope
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*1. PUERTO RICO: 1966 NUCLEAR INCIDENT IN VIEQUES?
On Aug. 11 the Committee for the Rescue and Development of
Vieques (CPRDV) called for an "immediate and thorough
investigation" into a June 30, 1966 incident in which the US Navy
lost an explosive artefact at sea near its proving grounds on the
Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The incident was the subject of a
three-part special report aired Aug. 9-11 on the television news
program "Noticentro 4" on WAPA-TV. The report was based on
recently declassified information, including an Aug. 29, 1966
letter Capt. F. Costagliola, then a top US Defense Department
official, sent to Rep. John T. Conway, then the chair of the
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy of the US Congress.
According to the television report, a non-conventional explosive
device fell into the sea because of mechanical problems during an
attempt to drop it on a test site. The Navy then spent two months
trying to find the device, using a total of 13 surface ships and
two underwater vessels, along with dozens of divers from the
military and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), joined by
dolphins from a then-secret program to train dolphins for
military purposes. The device was finally located and pulled out
of the water on Aug. 20. Its main components were sent to the
Roosevelt Roads base in Puerto Rico, and then to the Sandia base
in New Mexico, the Defense Department's main nuclear laboratory.
Navy spokesperson Capt. Mike Brady, based in Norfolk, Virginia,
calls the "allegation concerning a nuclear weapon" "completely
false. It is an obvious lie intent on discrediting the Navy. What
was dropped and recovered in 1966 was a training device which
contained no nuclear material." WAPA-TV had first aired a report
in 1995 indicating that the Navy had lost a bomb, possibly
nuclear, in 1966. The Navy denied the 1995 story and filed a
complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in an
unsuccessful effort to have the station's license revoked. [CPRDV
press release 8/11/00; transcript of Noticentro 4 8/9/00-8/11/00]
*2. PUERTO RICO: MORE BOMBS, MORE PROTESTS
US Navy jets from the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier began
dropping inert bombs on Vieques on Aug. 3 as part of an Aug. 3-24
training exercise that is expected to include shelling of the
proving grounds later in the month. [Associated Press 8/6/00]
Some 200 protesters were arrested during the previous military
exercise, which took place June 25-28 [see Update 544]. The first
to be arrested during the new exercise were legislators from the
Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), Rep. Victor Garcia San
Inocencio and Sen. Manuel Rodriguez Orellana, along with PIP
candidate for mayor of Trujillo Alto Jaime Negron and
Presbyterian minister Luis Acevedo of Mayaguez. All were charged
with illegally entering the testing grounds in an effort to stop
the bombings. The two legislators are being held at the Guaynabo
federal detention center because they refuse to pay their bail,
set at $1,000. [AP 8/11/00]
Other protests followed quickly. Some 5,000 demonstrators marched
to the gates of Fort Buchanan, an army base in suburban San Juan,
on Aug. 6. The emergency demonstration, called three days
earlier, was joined by a delegation of South Koreans protesting
the use of a Korean island for target practice by US troops. Navy
spokesperson Lt. Jeff Gordon called the rally "part of a
multimillion dollar smear campaign" directed by groups who want
independence for Puerto Rico. "Most of these people have a
political affiliation, and their cause has nothing to do with
Vieques," he said. [AP 8/6/00; El Vocero (San Juan) 8/7/00]
A group of 11 Vieques residents led a delegation of 32 women who
entered the restricted zone on the night of Aug. 6 and were
arrested on the morning of Aug. 7. Some 80 other protesters
jumped in their cars and chased the Navy bus in which the
detained women were being transported from the camp, according to
police Sgt. Jose Velardo. "We had 20 to 25 cars following this
bus," Velardo said. "Things were very tense." Protesters charged
that riot police agents threw Luz Legillu, a retired
schoolteacher and the wife of a former Vieques mayor, to the
ground and pointed weapons at her. [Women in Civil Disobedience
for Peace in Vieques 8/7/00; AP 8/7/00]
On Aug. 8 a group of 11 university students and young
professionals entered the restricted area--"making a mockery of
the incompetent watchfulness of the camp's personnel," according
to a press release from United Vieques Youth. Judge Justo Arenas
set their bail at $10,000 when the protesters refused to give
their names. A spokesperson for the youths called the unusually
high bail "an unprecedented act of repression" and urged
activists to protest to Judge Arenas (787-772-3191). [Juventud
Viequense Unida press release 8/8/00; Vieques Libre urgent action
posted 8/9/00; El Nuevo Dia (San Juan) 8/9/00]
*3. ECUADORAN CONGRESS SPLITS
Ecuador's Congress has split into two competing sessions
following disputed Aug. 1 elections for Congress president.
Independent deputy Susana Gonzalez Munoz, formerly of the
rightwing Social Christian Party (PSC), won the election with 66
votes out of a total 123, thanks to a new majority made up of
center-left deputies from Popular Democracy (DP), the indigenous
Pachakutik party, Democratic Left (ID) and the Ecuadoran
Roldosista Party (PRE, the party of exiled populist ex-president
Abdala Bucaram). The DP's Jose Cordero Acosta was elected as
first vice president of the Congress with 75 votes, and Antonio
Posso Salgado of Pachakutik became second vice president with 69
votes.
The PSC says Gonzalez' election was invalid, since by law the
presidency of the current session should have been held by a PSC
deputy. Judge Luis Mora Armijos ruled the election invalid on
Aug. 7, but Gonzalez backers have appealed the ruling to the
Constitutional Court, which may take as long as six weeks to make
a decision. In the meantime, PSC deputies are holding their
ground, literally: they are camped out in the main chamber of
Congress where they continue to hold sessions. Gonzalez and her
backers have moved upstairs and are holding separate sessions in
the cramped offices of the Congress presidency.
President Gustavo Noboa Bejarano announced on Aug. 8 that he
would not acknowledge any of the proceedings taking place in
either of the competing congressional sessions until the
Constitutional Court makes its final ruling. [El Telegrafo
(Guayaquil) 8/10/00; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 8/8/00 &8/10/00
from EFE, 8/11/00 &8/12/00 from AP; La Republica (Lima) 8/9/00
from AFP]
*4. ECUADOR: PRIVATIZATION LAW HELD UP BY CONGRESS TIFF?
The conflict in Congress has its origins in disagreements over
the controversial "Law for the Promotion of Investments and
Citizen Participation," better known as "Trolley II" (Trole II),
a proposed economic law favored by the PSC camp and opposed by
most of the center-left deputies. Trolley II is the sequel to the
first "Trolleybus" law, which swept in several unpopular economic
measures--including the dollarization of Ecuador's economy--when
it was passed amid widespread protests on Feb. 29 of this year by
a congressional majority that included the PSC and the DP [see
Updates #525, 526, 527]. Among other measures, Trolley II would
open the way for private investment in the state hydroelectric
power company Hidropaute, state oil projects and the mining and
shrimp sectors, as well as port facilities, airports, railroads,
and public services including drinking water, irrigation,
sanitation, electricity, telecommunications, the postal service
and roadways. An article in the Quito daily La Hora suggested
that some of the deputies favoring Trolley II are setting
themselves up to benefit financially from specific privatization
projects. The Trolley laws are part of a broad structural
adjustment program required under the terms of a loan agreement
with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). [LH 8/9/00; Miami
Herald 7/14/00 from Bloomberg News; Agencia Informativa Pulsar
8/11/00]
Noboa introduced Trolley II on July 13, and Congress is required
to make a decision on the bill within 30 days. If not passed by
Aug. 13, the law could enter into effect as a decree, since it
has been designated an "urgent economic" measure. (Another
version gives the deadline as Aug. 17, 30 days after Noboa made
final revisions to his proposal.) Protesters from Ecuador's large
grassroots movement are demanding that the bill be rejected, and
the center-left congressional majority has formally asked Noboa
to withdraw it before the deadline. Noboa is reportedly
considering withdrawing the proposal, fearing that its approval
as a decree could set off further protests from the grassroots
sector. More protests against the government's neoliberal
economic program are planned for Aug. 15. [ED-LP 8/8/00 from EFE,
8/12/00 from AP; LH 8/8/00, 8/9/00; ET 8/11/00; Pulsar 8/11/00]
On Aug. 9, all of Noboa's cabinet members presented their
resignations en masse, reportedly in order to leave the president
free to take measures to deal with the crisis. The cabinet
members made the move on the date marking the end of their six
months in office. The Guayaquil daily El Telegrafo suggested that
Noboa might accept the resignations of the Agriculture, Housing
and Governance ministers, and use the positions as bargaining
chips in an effort to split the DP away from the center-left
majority, which as of Aug. 9 consisted of as many as 75 deputies.
[CNN en Espanol 8/9/00 with info from AP; Pulsar 8/11/00; ET
8/11/00]
*5. ECUADOR: AIDS PATIENTS THREATEN SUICIDE
A group of seven Ecuadorans with AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome) have been on hunger strike since July 17, together with
several of their family members, demanding that the government
provide them with financial assistance to buy the drugs and food
they need to survive. The hunger strikers announced on Aug. 8
that if the government does not meet their demands, they will
begin to commit suicide, one by one, beginning on Aug. 14. The
seven are survivors of a group of 20 people, including two
children, who were infected with the AIDS virus between 1995 and
1996 at a private clinic where they were sent by the Ecuadoran
Social Security Institute (IESS) to receive hemodialysis
treatment. The protesters are also demanding the criminal
prosecution of those responsible for their illness. [La Hora
(Quito) 8/9/00]
*6. CHILE: SUPREME COURT STRIPS PINOCHET IMMUNITY
On Aug. 8, Chile's Supreme Court announced that it had voted 14
to 6 to uphold a lower court ruling stripping former dictator
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte of the immunity from prosecution which he
enjoyed as a senator-for-life [see Updates #547-549]. The
announcement had been widely expected; the only surprise was the
vote count, which earlier reports had suggested would be closer.
The ruling was greeted with cheers by hundreds of demonstrators,
who waved photographs of their family members killed or
disappeared by security forces during Pinochet's regime (1973-
1990). The demonstrators then staged a march to the tomb of
former socialist president Salvador Allende Gossens, killed
during the September 1973 coup in which Pinochet seized power.
The Court's decision allows Pinochet to face trial for the
disappearances of dissidents under his rule. Judge Juan Guzman
Tapia, the prosecutor who has been charged with looking into a
rapidly growing number of criminal claims filed against Pinochet-
-as many as 162 at last count--will now begin a formal criminal
investigation. Guzman will start by questioning the former
dictator on charges relating to the October 1973 "Caravan of
Death," in which Pinochet's security forces killed or disappeared
74 political prisoners soon after the coup. Nineteen of the
bodies remain missing. Before Pinochet can be formally indicted,
a dispute must be resolved over whether he must be examined for
mental fitness to stand trial, as required for all suspects over
70 years old. [New York Times 8/9/00; Financial Times (UK)
8/9/00; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 8/12/00 from AFP]
The removal of Pinochet's immunity means that he will be stripped
of his Senate seat, and the ruling Concertation coalition will
for the first time have a majority in the Senate --by one vote.
[El Diario-La Prensa 8/10/00 from AP]
The Court's ruling may pave the way for other military officers
to face prosecution, since it ratified the principle that
disappearances constitute an ongoing crime until the body is
found, and therefore the perpetrators cannot be covered by an
amnesty. [NYT 8/9/00]
Both Pinochet and Gen. Ricardo Izurieta, who replaced Pinochet as
commander in chief of the armed forces in early 1998, reacted
defiantly to the Supreme Court's announcement. [NYT 8/9/00; Hoy
(NY) 8/10/00 from EFE] But opinion poll results released on Aug.
11 by Fundacion Futuro--a firm headed by rightwing former
congressperson Sebastian Pinera--showed that 50.7% of respondents
support the Court's decision, while 37.3% oppose it; 9% said they
were "indifferent" and 3% did not respond. The results are
matched by a previous poll by the Cerc agency, taken before the
decision was announced, in which 52% of respondents said they
approved of revoking Pinochet's immunity and 35% were against it.
[ENH 8/12/00 from AFP]
*7. CHILE: 13-YEAR OLD DISAPPEARANCE VICTIM IDENTIFIED
On Aug. 10, two days after Chile's Supreme Court announced its
decision on Pinochet's immunity, the remains of his regime's
youngest documented disappearance victim were identified. Workers
had found the remains on July 30 near the Santiago airport;
through DNA testing they were identified on Aug. 10 as those of
Carlos Patricio Farina Oyarce, who was 13 years old when he was
detained and disappeared in Santiago in October 1973. The
victim's brother, Ivan Farina, viewed the remains on Aug. 12 and
confirmed that he will present a criminal case against Pinochet
for the murder. Chile's amnesty law does not apply to the
homicide or torture of minors, even after the body is found and
the case can no longer be considered an ongoing crime. As he left
the Santiago morgue, Ivan Farina told reporters that his
brother's body showed numerous bullet wounds, all fired from
behind; the back of his skull had been collapsed by the bullets,
and one of his ribs was also broken. "Someone who shoots a boy in
the back is not a man, and shouldn't wear a uniform," said
Farina. [El Nuevo Herald 8/13/00 from AFP; Clarin (Buenos Aires)
8/12/00]
*8. CIA HEDGES ON CHILE DECLASSIFICATION
Three days after the Supreme Court announced its decision on the
Pinochet case, the Washington Post reported that US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet had decided
against declassifying hundreds of documents from the agency's
Directorate of Operations about covert CIA operations in Chile.
CIA spokesperson Bill Harlow said that hundreds of other CIA
documents will be released as scheduled on Sept. 14, including
some pertaining to covert operations in 1970 aimed at preventing
Allende from taking power. But Harlow said that hundreds of
others cannot be released because they would reveal too much
about the agency's intelligence sources and operational methods.
[WP 8/11/00]
*9. ITALY TO EXTRADITE ARGENTINE EX-OFFICER?
On Aug. 11, the French government formally asked Italy to
extradite retired Argentine army major Jorge Olivera to face
trial for the October 1976 abduction, torture and disappearance
of French citizen Marianne Erize. Olivera was arrested at a Rome
airport on Aug. 6 as he prepared to board a flight for Argentina.
France issued an international arrest order against Olivera at
the end of July, after Erize's sister brought a claim against him
in a French court. Olivera appeared in a court in Rome on Aug. 10
and said he would fight any attempt to extradite him. Olivera was
tried in 1987 in an Argentine court for the disappearance of a
young man, but was later covered by a sweeping amnesty law. More
than 9,000 people were killed or disappeared by officials of
Argentina's 1976-1983 military regime, according to figures from
an independent investigative commission. [Clarin 8/10/00,
8/11/00, 8/12/00; CNN en Espanol 8/11/00 with info from AP; Hoy
(NY) 8/9/00 from AP]
*10. COLOMBIA: MORE PARAMILITARY MASSACRES, ARMY COMPLICITY?
Paramilitaries murdered eight people, one of them a 17-year old
girl, on Aug. 7 in a rural area of Sardinata, Norte de Santander
department. [Hoy (NY) 8/8/00 from AP, EFE] At least nine more
people were found murdered and four others disappeared by
paramilitaries on Aug. 8 in the municipalities of Villanueva,
near Cartagena in Bolivar department; and San Diego, Cesar
department. In San Diego, the four massacre victims were
apparently killed with machetes, and had been decapitated and
skinned. Villanueva mayor Marco Mendoza said the killers left the
letters "AUC"--the acronym for the paramilitary organization
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia--painted around the farm
where the bodies were found. [El Pais (Cali) 8/9/00 from EFE,
Colprensa; Hoy 8/9/00 from AP, EFE] Another six people were
massacred by paramilitaries in Los Brasiles, on Colombia's
Atlantic coast. [Hoy 8/10/00 from AP]
An international humanitarian observer mission has released a
report detailing the alleged collaboration of the Colombian
military in AUC massacres that left 20 people dead on June 20 and
23 in the village of Sabaletas and other areas of Buenaventura
and Dagua municipalities, Valle del Cauca department. The report
was signed by 140 nongovernmental organizations. "How can it be
explained," the report asks, "with the main points of access to
Sabaletas guarded by the Army and members of the Second Marine
Infantry Brigade, that more than 80 armed men wearing uniforms
designated for the exclusive use by the Military Forces could
have entered in four vehicles, and no one saw anything?" [EP
8/10/00] Both the AUC and the leftist rebel Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) say that businesspeople in the Pacific
port city of Buenaventura are financing an AUC unit there known
as the "Pacific Bloc." [EP 8/11/00]
Meanwhile, 83 members of the US Special Forces have begun
training soliders from a Colombian "anti-drug" battalion at
Larandia military base in the Amazon jungle in southeastern
Colombia, as part of the $1.3 billion US aid package approved by
the US Congress in late June and signed by US president Bill
Clinton on July 13 [see Update #546]. [Washington Post 8/9/00]
Representatives of human rights organizations including Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch met with officials from the
US State Department during the week of Aug. 7 to discuss the
"certification" process provided for in the aid bill, which
allows some aid to be suspended if certain human rights
conditions are not met in Colombia. [El Tiempo (Bogota) 8/10/00]
*11. COLOMBIA: PARAMILITARY LEADER SAYS US SOUGHT HIS HELP
In a two-hour interview with RCN television on Aug. 9, AUC leader
Carlos Castano claimed to have received a message from US anti-
drug agents, via one of his collaborators, requesting his help in
wiping out the drug trade by forcing Colombian drug traffickers
to surrender to US justice. Castano rejected suggestions that US
officials had offered him money or weapons in exchange for his
help. US authorities including the DEA have accused Castano's
paramilitary forces of smuggling cocaine and heroin and using the
proceeds to fund their operations. Castano has admitted receiving
contributions from drug lords but insisted he is "an enemy of
drugs."
The Castano interview coincided with a visit to Colombia's
Caribbean coast resort of Cartagena by a high-level US delegation
including US Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering and the
director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy,
retired general Barry McCaffrey. Clinton is due to make a one-day
visit to Cartagena on Aug. 30, the first visit to Colombia by a
US president since George Bush went there in 1990. [Reuters
8/10/00]
*12. COLOMBIA: U'WA AT LOS ANGELES CONVENTION PROTESTS
A group of elders from the indigenous U'wa tribe of Colombia will
lead an Aug. 14 march to protest the US Democratic National
Convention (DNC) in Los Angeles, California. The U'wa have been
fighting the efforts of Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum
(Oxy) to drill on their traditional lands. Al Gore, whose father
was a vice president and board member of Occidental, owns at
least $500,000 in the company's stock. Environmentalists have
lobbied Gore to divest or to pressure Occidental to abandon the
project. Instead, as the left-liberal journal The Nation reports,
the Clinton administration "has been quietly helping the company-
-a generous donor to the Democrats in recent years--to win
support in Colombia for its drilling plans." [San Francisco Bay
Guardian 8/9/00]
As of Aug. 9, Occidental officially suspended crude oil
production at its Cano Limon field in eastern Colombia because of
attacks by Colombian leftist rebel groups on the Cano Limon-
Covenas pipeline. Oxy announced that it couldn't meet oil
delivery contracts, invoking a contract clause that allows it to
renege on commitments due to circumstances beyond its control.
Production was halted on July 23 following a series of attacks by
the National Liberation Army (ELN). The previous time Oxy invoked
the contract clause was in June 1998. [Miami Herald 8/10/00 from
Bloomberg News; El Colombiano (Medellin) 8/10/00 from Colprensa]
*13. PARAGUAY HOLDS VICE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
More than two million Paraguayans are eligible to vote on Aug. 13
in elections for a new vice president, to fill the post left
vacant by the March 1999 murder of Vice President Luis Maria
Argana. The main candidates are Argana's son, Felix Argana of the
ruling Colorado Party, and Julio Cesar "Yoyito" Franco of the
Authentic Liberal Radical Party (PLRA) [see Update #549]. [Clarin
8/13/00]
Both candidates are promising changes in the government, and have
distanced themselves from President Luis Gonzalez Macchi, whose
popularity has dropped from above 80% to around 11% in the year
since he took office following the Argana assassination and the
resignation of President Raul Cubas. [CNN en Espanol 8/13/00 with
info from Reuters]
On Aug. 9 the Paraguayan government ordered the temporary closure
of its embassy in Buenos Aires due to what it called "serious
threats" of an imminent attack. The embassy is to be reopened on
Aug. 15. [Clarin 8/10/00]
*14. BRAZIL: LANDLESS WORKERS, RURAL WOMEN MARCH IN CAPITAL
Nearly 11,000 members of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers
(MST) arrived in the Brazilian capital on Aug. 7 to take part in
the MST's weeklong 4th national congress. On Aug. 11 the MST
members staged a march against corruption and government land
policies; they stopped in front of the US embassy to burn a huge
US flag, painted with the letters of the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), which they accuse of dictating Brazil's economic
policy. [Agencia Informativa Pulsar 8/11/00; News from Brazil
supplied by Servico Brasileiro de Justica e Paz (SEJUP) #412,
8/9/00, from Friends of the MST; El Nuevo Herald 8/12/00 from
AFP]
The MST congress coincided with an Aug. 10 march in Brasilia
organized by the Commission of Rural Women Workers to protest
poverty and gender discrimination. Thousands of women from across
Brazil took part in the "March of the Margaritas," named in honor
of Margarita Moreira Alvez, a union leader murdered in the
struggle for land rights. [Pulsar 8/8/00, 8/11/00]
*15. CENTRAL AMERICA: CLOSED FOR TRANSPORT STRIKES
Costa Rican taxi drivers blocked roads at 17 different points
around the country for some seven hours on Aug. 9 to protest the
government's apparent inability to stop unlicensed taxis. One
roadblock, near the Juan Santamaria International Airport, was
broken up by police around noon. The others were lifted later in
the day after government official Leonel Fonseca said the
government would declare that associations and companies of
"pirate" taxis are illegal and would fine drivers. [La Nacion
(Costa Rica) 8/10/00]
The Inter-Union Transport Association (AIT), representing about
90% of the bus collectives in El Salvador, agreed on Aug. 10 to
suspend a strike it began on the day before to demand a higher
government subsidy for diesel fuel, preferential lines of credit
and an adjustment in transport fares. The decision to end the
strike came after Salvadoran Vice President Carlos Quintanilla
offered to begin talks on Aug. 11. Quintanilla said he would
participate as a "witness of honor" if the collectives asked him
to. The Economy Ministry estimated that the strike had cost the
country $11 million in lost productivity. Earlier in the day the
police seized 55 buses and arrested their drivers for blocking
roads in the capital. [La Nacion (Costa Rica) 8/11/00 from AFP,
8/12/00 from AP; El Diario de Hoy (San Salvador) 8/10/00; La
Prensa Grafica (San Salvador) 8/10/00, 8/12/00; El Diario-La
Prensa 8/11/00 from AFP]
On Aug. 7 the owners of major Guatemala City bus lines began an
open-ended strike to demand an increase in their government
subsidies. The strike affected about 50% of the city's 3,200
buses, and forced the Education Ministry to suspend classes.
Guatemala City mayor Fritz Garcia-Gallont charged that some 800
buses were sabotaged on Aug. 6; he ordered the arrest of five
transport company owners. According to a story from Associated
Press, on August 6 some 1,500 buses were driven outside the city
by their owners, who then removed parts to make them unusable.
Garcia-Gallont said that as an emergency measure 125-150 large
trucks and pickup trucks would be made available from the General
Office of Highways, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Army.
[Prensa Libre (Guatemala City) 8/8/00; La Nacion 8/8/00 from AP;
ED-LP 8/11/00 from AFP]
*16. VENEZUELA: CHAVEZ TAKES OPEC TOUR
On Aug. 6 Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias began a 10-day
trip that is to include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United
Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Libya, Nigeria and Algeria.
The tour is part of an effort to rally the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) around Chavez' plan for
keeping oil prices within a band, automatically increasing
production if prices rise above the band and lowering production
if they fall below. Chavez' goal is to maintain a price of around
$25. The trip's ostensible mission was to invite OPEC heads of
state personally to a planned Sept. 27 OPEC meeting in Caracas,
the first such meeting since 1975. Venezuela, OPEC's only South
American member, is the world's third largest petroleum exporter.
[New York Times 8/7/00 from AP; MSNBC 8/10/00 from AP]
The most controversial part of the tour came on Aug. 10 when
Chavez entered Iraq from Iran by limousine, becoming the first
head of state to visit Iraqi president Saddam Hussein since the
Gulf War of 1991 and defying US efforts to isolate the Iraqi
government. [MSNBC 8/10/00 from AP] While meeting with Indonesian
president Abdurrahman Wahid in Jakarta on Aug. 12, Chavez
denounced the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United
Nations (UN) over the past decade. "Who has the right to make an
innocent child die there?" Chavez asked, referring to reports by
UNICEF, the UN's children's fund, that the mortality rate for
Iraqi children has doubled during the period that the sanctions
have been in effect. "May God have pity on the souls of the
people who act this way. I believe the time has come for this to
end." President Wahid said that he planned to visit Baghdad
himself in the coming months. "I share President Chavez's
sentiments about the Iraqi people," he said. "For this reason,
Indonesia would wish for the blockade of Iraq to be lifted
quickly." [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 8/13/00 from AP]
US State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher criticized
Chavez's visit to Saddam Hussein, but said it would not affect US
trade relations with Venezuela. Venezuela is not the only Latin
American country seeking commercial ties to Baghdad: Argentina, a
close US ally, sent a trade mission there last year. Analysts say
that despite his confrontational rhetoric, Chavez has followed a
cautious oil policy, using part of oil revenues--which have
increased dramatically due to the rise in oil prices since 1998--
to build up hard currency reserves. The conservative British
magazine The Economist remarks that few people consider Chavez a
second Fidel Castro. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 8/11/00]
*17. MEXICO: POLICE NOW CONTROL DISPUTED CHIAPAS COMMUNITY
Several hundred Mexican federal troops took control of the Tierra
y Libertad community in Yajalon municipality in the southeastern
state of Chiapas on Aug. 9, but as of Aug. 11 some 90 residents
were still in hiding following their Aug. 3 expulsion from the
community by rightwing paramilitaries [see Update #549]. The
paramilitaries, members of a group called "Development, Peace and
Justice," left the community after the federal troops arrived,
but their civilian supporters are continuing to live in the
community. [Chiapas Hoy (CIACH) #821, 8/9/00; communique from
displaced of Tierra y Libertad 8/11/00]
The dispute goes back to 1997, when an agreement was negotiated
for the transfer of the Paraiso ranch from the original owners,
Estela Guadalupe Dominguez Pinto and Rodolfo Dominguez Gutierrez,
to the 92 members of the Emiliano Zapata (Yajalon) ejido (farming
cooperative). But former employees of the ranch--described as
supporters of the leftist rebel Zapatista National Liberation
Army (EZLN) or the moderately leftist Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD)--occupied the land, basing their right to it on
the 25 years they had worked there and their unpaid back wages.
Both sides in the dispute are indigenous campesinos.
Negotiations between the pro-government ejido members and the
former employees continued for three years, but the dispute
erupted again recently when the local labor board ordered the
former ranch owners to pay their former employees $45,000 in back
wages. On Aug. 3 some 30 uniformed paramilitaries accompanied by
about 40 civilians entered Tierra y Libertad (a new community
combining Paraiso with another community, Progreso), fired shots
over the heads of leftist residents and shot one in the hand, and
burned six houses [not 27-30 as reported in Update #549]. Some 90
residents fled to the surrounding hills, where they are now said
to be hiding. In an unprecedented move, the usually secretive
paramilitaries allowed reporters into the community on Aug. 5;
three uniformed paramilitaries were carrying rifles that only the
military and the police can use legally. [La Jornada (Mexico)
8/6/00; Enlace Civil urgent action 8/7/00]
On Aug. 7 an unnamed source said to be close to the state
government claimed that photographs of the paramilitaries
indicated that they were former members of a police group called
the Maya Group, organized in 1995 by the state police and the
then-commander of the federal army's Military Region 7, Gen.
Mario Renan Castillo Fernandez. [LJ 8/8/00] [Gen. Castillo, who
received training from the US military at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina, was also a witness to a 1997 agreement in which the
state promised Development, Peace and Justice a grant of
$575,000; see Updates #413, 414.]
On Aug. 12 pro-EZLN campesinos claiming they owned the land drove
120 government supporters from their homes in the mostly
indigenous village of Nuevo Pavoreal, Chiapas, according to
Miguel Angel Yanes, assistant district attorney for the area.
Yanes said that several residents were injured and forced to take
refuge in a nearby coffee warehouse. [Associated Press 8/12/00]
*18. MEXICO: TOURISM SECRETARY VANISHES
On Aug. 7 Mexican tourism secretary Oscar Espinosa Villarreal
formally requested an indefinite leave of absence from his post
so that he could concentrate on his legal defense. Last March,
Federal District (DF, Mexico City) attorney general Samuel del
Villar Kretchmar filed charges against Espinosa for the
unauthorized use of about $42 million in public funds during his
1994-97 term as appointed mayor of the capital [see Updates #532,
543].
Espinosa charged that the case is a politically motivated "chain
of lies and manipulation of the laws" by Del Villar and the
capital's government, which the PRD won in 1997 elections, the
first ever for the DF. Espinosa is a member of the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI), which dominated the federal government
from 1929 until Vicente Fox Quesada of the rightwing National
Action Party (PAN) won this July's presidential elections.
Espinosa failed to appear at the Public Ministry on Aug. 10 to
make a scheduled declaration, and Del Villar's office said it
might seek an arrest warrant for the missing former mayor.
Espinosa's former chief of staff, Manuel Merino Garcia, is
already a fugitive from justice. [LJ 8/8/00, 8/11/00]
*19. IN OTHER NEWS...
After walking more than 380 kilometers over 15 days, some 200
Argentine workers ended their Great March for Jobs on Aug. 9 when
they reached the Congress building in Buenos Aires. The marchers
was organized by the leftist Confederation of Argentine Workers
(CTA) to demand unemployment insurance for jobless heads of
households. The march began on July 26 in the city of Rosario; it
was led by CTA president Victor de Gennaro. [Hoy (NY) 8/10/00]...
The Vatican announced on Aug. 7 that Michel Camdessus, who
retired in February as head of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), has been appointed to the Pontifical Council for Justice
and Peace, a group which has been active in the international
campaign to have the IMF and the World Bank cancel the debts of
the poorest nations. Seth Amgott, a spokesperson for the
development charity Oxfam International, explained that "[d]uring
his last few months at the fund, Mr. Camdessus began to speak the
same language as the Pope about debt relief." [Financial Times
(London) 8/8/00]
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