----- Original Message -----
From: Pakito Arriaran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 2:03 PM
Subject: [MLL] Weekly News Update #551, 8/20/00
WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #551, AUGUST 20, 2000
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012
(212) 674-9499 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*2. COLOMBIAN ARMY MASSACRES SCHOOLCHILDREN
Six children were killed and five others wounded on Aug. 15 when
Colombian soldiers fired at a group of 30 elementary school
students who were on a class hiking trip in the countryside of
Pueblo Rico municipality, in the south of Antioquia department.
The children who died were all between the ages of six and 11;
the oldest of the wounded was a 15-year old girl who was
accompanying the trip. The military blamed rebels of the National
Liberation Army (ELN) for the killings; army chief Gen. Jorge
Mora said the children were caught in the crossfire during a
battle when rebels tried to use them as human shields. "The
rebels mixed in with the children, and the soldiers did not see
them [the children] when the exchange of gunfire began," said
Mora.
But witnesses confirmed that the army troops opened fire on the
children without provocation, and local residents said no rebels
were present and no combat was taking place anywhere near the
area. Local council member Hernando Higuita was accompanying the
children with his wife, teacher Lucy Velez, when the killings
occurred. He says that after they fired, the soldiers shouted
that there were rebel infiltrators in the school group. "What
infiltrators?" Higuita said he shouted back. "Show them to me.
Can't you see they are only children?" A 10-year old witness said
that one of the soldiers cried after the shooting, and shouted at
a fellow soldier: "We killed children." Human rights groups are
demanding that the lives of the witnesses be protected. [CNN en
Espanol 8/18/00 with info from AP; Miami Herald 8/16/00 from AP;
El Mundo (Spain) 8/18/00; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 8/17/00 from
EFE; El Tiempo (Bogota) 8/16/00; Vientos del Sur Interactivo
8/16/00, some from Caracol, EFE]
Some 2,000 people attended the funeral of the young victims on
Aug. 16. The next day, military troops were still flying over the
zone in helicopters, looking for rebels. [El Nuevo Herald 8/18/00
from AP]
On Aug. 18, a military court relieved five noncommissioned
officers of their command and barred 36 soldiers from carrying
out military operations until investigations are completed. The
attorney general's office, the prosecutor's office and the office
of the defender of the people are all carrying out investigations
into the incident. The military is also carrying out its own
investigation into the Army's 4th Brigade, whose commander, Gen.
Eduardo Herrera, had said that his troops clashed with ELN rebels
who were using the children as "human shields." [CNN en Espanol
8/18/00 with info from AP]
*3. COLOMBIA: "EMBARRASSMENT" OVER PUEBLO RICO AND U'WA
The New York Times noted that the killing of the school children
by Colombian forces "came at a particularly embarrassing moment
for [Colombian president Andres Pastrana Arango], who is
preparing for [US president Bill] Clinton's six-hour visit on
Aug. 30." US secretary of state Madeleine Albright is currently
preparing to certify whether Colombia has met human rights
conditions required by the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia package
which Clinton signed last month [see Update #545]. If Albright
fails to certify Colombia, Clinton is expected issue a national
security waiver for the package, which consists mostly of
military aid. [NYT 8/20/00] The US-based Colombia Support Network
has called for US supporters to contact their congressional
representatives, Secretary of State Albright and President
Clinton and urge them not to issue a waiver of the human rights
conditions. [CSN Statement on Pueblo Rico 8/17/00]
A multi-issue week of demonstrations at the US Democratic Party's
national convention in Los Angeles opened on Aug. 14 with a focus
on US vice president Al Gore's connections to the Los Angeles-
based Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), which plans to drill for oil on
traditional lands of the indigenous U'wa tribe of Colombia.
Organizers reported that 3,000 people participated in a colorful
march and rally targeting Gore, the Democratic Party's candidate
in the November presidential elections. The action featured a
puppet of Berito Kuwar'Uwa--the U'wa leader who won a Goldman
Environmental Award--and an "Oxymoron" puppet, representing the
oil company with a small Al Gore tucked into its pocket. Ten
activists were arrested after staging a nonviolent sit-in around
a mock oil derrick set up in the intersection of Sixth and Flower
Streets, outside the Gore campaign headquarters.
A group of U'wa leaders were expected to lead the march [see
Update #551], but they were denied visas by the US embassy in
Bogota. Protest organizers said that U'wa leaders have traveled
to the US frequently over the last several years, and that this
was the first time any were denied entry. But the Medellin daily
El Colombiano reported that a U'wa leader was interviewed on US
television, accompanied by Julie Freitas, the mother of US
activist Terry Freitas, who worked with the U'wa until he was
murdered in 1999 by members of Colombia's largest rebel group,
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) [see Update
#476]. "[T]he situation is expected to be complicated for Gore,"
El Colombiano wrote, "given that the majority of the
demonstrators are environmentalists, unionists or human rights
activists, groups that traditionally work with the Democrats on
their issues." [Amazon Watch press release 8/14/00; EC 8/15/00]
*4. ALBRIGHT TOURS SOUTH AMERICA
In an effort to build South American support for Plan Colombia,
US secretary of state Madeleine Albright went on an Aug. 15-19
tour that took her to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and
Ecuador. All the governments except Brazil's offered moral
support. Ecuadoran foreign minister Heinz Moeller told Albright:
"We support the courageous efforts of President Pastrana. We
don't want the cancerous tumor in Colombia to metastasize in
Ecuador." Albright indicated that $15 million of the US
contribution to Plan Colombia is allocated to Ecuador to cover
costs from an expected flood of refugees from neighboring
Colombia. Bolivia will receive $110 million as part of Plan
Colombia.
Argentine Foreign Minister Adalberto Rodriguez Giavarini offered
technical assistance for crop substitution, while Chilean foreign
minister Soledad Alvear said her government was "eager and ready
to collaborate in the social area of the plan." Both countries
are governed by center-left coalition governments. [El Diario-La
Prensa 8/20/00 from AFP]
Only Brazil refused to back the policy. Foreign Minister Luiz
Felipe Lampreia emphasized Brazil's "autonomy." "We are concerned
about Plan Colombia's possible effect on Brazil, in terms of the
military and in terms of drug trafficking," Lamperia said during
Albright's Aug. 15 visit. "We have no intention of participating
in any common international action." Despite their differences on
Colombia, Lampreia said Brazil and the US were putting "old
wounds behind" them; Albright agreed that relations were the best
they had been in 50 years. [Washington Post 8/16/00]
Albright also tried to improve relations with at least some South
American human rights organizations. On Aug. 16 she met with the
Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and one faction of the Mothers
of the Plaza de Mayo in the US ambassador's residence in Buenos
Aires. The groups formed to protest the "dirty war" carried out
against leftists and suspected leftists during the 1976-1983
military regime. Albright told the Grandmothers of the Plaza de
Mayo that she would "do her best" to get US documents
declassified that might help them find children that were taken
from their imprisoned or murdered mothers and given up for
adoption, often to military officers. US intelligence has close
ties to the Argentine military. [New York Times 8/17/00; La Hora
(Quito) 8/18/00]
But Albright's promises were met with skepticism, resulting in
part from the Washington Post's Aug. 11 report that the US
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was holding back hundreds of
documents on CIA covert operations in Chile [see Update #550].
"Washington is trying to make it seem as if it is crusading for
human rights in Latin America, but the facts show differently,"
said Hebe Bonafini, president of the Mothers of the Plaza de
Mayo. "Their attempts to help us discover the truth of a very
ugly time for both South America and the United States have been
totally superficial and meant to garner good press." Bonafini, a
member of the more leftist faction of her group, was not invited
to the meeting with Albright. [WP 8/17/00]
On the evening of Aug. 17, the day before Albright's arrival in
Ecuador, a group of 30 musicians and artists gave a "sovereign
serenade for Madeleine" near the US embassy in Quito. Alexis
Ponce, spokesperson for the Permanent Human Rights Association of
Ecuador, said the event was a "symbolic protest of the lack of
information" about the implications of Plan Colombia for Ecuador.
[LH 8/18/00 from EFE]
=======================================================================
Weekly News Update on the Americas * Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY
339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 * 212-674-9499 fax: 212-674-9139
http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html * [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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