Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #952, June 29, 2008
1. Cuba: Is CANF Smuggling Migrants?
2. Mexico: Congress OKs "Plan Mexico"
3. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Cuba: Is CANF Smuggling Migrants?
On June 23 the Mexican daily La Jornada reported that according to "judicial sources" the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) has information that the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) has maintained ties for at least three years with the "Gulf Cartel" drug trafficking operation and "Los Zetas"--a gang of hired assassins working for the cartels--to help in the smuggling of Cuban and Central American immigrants through Mexican territory to the US. CANF, an influential organization of rightwing Cuban Americans in Florida, has friendly relations with US politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties.
Reporter Alfredo Méndez wrote that the allegations came from an ongoing investigation of two Cuban Americans, Nairobi Claro and Noriel Veloz, who were arrested in the eastern state of Quintana Roo on June 8 for allegedly transporting 33 Cubans to Mexico illegally. The 33 Cubans were later "snatched" from Mexican authorities by armed men, along with four Central Americans; at least 18 of the immigrants were later found in Texas [see Update #951]. Claro and Veloz reportedly told investigators in Cancún, Quintana Roo, that they were CANF members and that they used payments from the immigrants to bribe Mexican officials, get forged immigration documents and contract Zetas for the immigrant smuggling operation. According to the sources, Claro and Veloz turned down an offer for release on bail, saying they would be executed if they went out on the streets. (LJ 6/23/08)
CANF president Francisco "Pepe" Hernandez strongly denied the allegations on June 24 and told The Miami Herald that the story was probably "disinformation" planted by the Cuban government to discredit his organization. He said Claro and Veloz had never had any connection with CANF. The two men are both listed in public records as living in Miami's Little Havana area. (Trading Markets 6/25/08 from the Miami Herald) The PGR also denied the story in a letter to La Jornada published on June 26. Reporter Méndez responded that his sources had access to the proceedings in the Fourth District Court in Cancún, adding that Cuban ambassador Manuel Aguilera had confirmed to him in an interview in Mexico City on June 24 that the Cuban government possessed intelligence indicating that CANF is "who's behind all this." Aguilera said Cuba had shared this information with the Mexican government. (LJ 6/26/08)
The smuggling of Cubans through Mexico has grown dramatically since 2002, when just 195 Cuban immigrants were detained in Quintana Roo; by 2005 the number had jumped to 2,504, although it has fallen since then. The smugglers frequently dress the Cubans as tourists, in Bermuda shorts, and transport them in yachts. The US has a "wet foot, dry foot" policy for Cubans; if they are apprehended at sea, they are returned to Cuba, but if they manage to enter the US, they are allowed to stay. (Univision 6/24/08 from AFP)
*2. Mexico: Congress OKs "Plan Mexico"
On June 26 the US Senate passed a supplemental appropriations bill which included funding for President George W. Bush's Mérida Initiative, a project ostensibly aiding the fight against drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America. The House of Representatives passed the same bill on June 19, and President Bush is expected to sign it, completing the legislative process.
The legislation provides $65 million for Central American countries and $400 million for Mexico in the first year of the project; Mexico's share includes $215.5 million for Mexico's anti-trafficking programs, $116.5 million for "military cooperation" between Mexico and the US, and $20 million for building institutions and supporting human rights organizations. The Senate and the House passed different versions of the Mérida Initiative in May, but Mexican officials objected to conditions the Senate imposed requiring the monitoring of human rights violations by Mexican security forces. The two houses then worked out a compromise that reduces these conditions to a consultative process between Mexico and the US.
Under pressure from US human rights and labor activists--who called the initiative "Plan Mexico" in reference to a similar package that has funded military operations in Colombia--Congress expressed concern about specific allegations of human rights abuses in San Salvador Atenco, México state, and in Oaxaca in 2006. The legislation also notes the Mexican government's failure to resolve the shooting death of independent US journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca in October 2006 [see Updates #849, 872].
The Mérida Initiative is a small part of the overall appropriations bill, which provides $162 billion for the occupation of Iraq, enough to pay for the war until Bush's term ends in January 2009. (La Jornada 6/27/08)
Clarification: In Update #950 we reported on an authorization that the House of Representatives passed on June 10 for the Mérida Initiative. We said the authorization would go to the Senate for approval. In fact, Congressional authorizations are not necessary for the allocation of funds, and Congress decided to bypass the authorization and simply fund the initiative through the supplemental appropriations bill. (Center for International Policy "Plan Colombia and Beyond" blog, 6/13/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Amazon Tribes Fight to Keep the Xingu Alive
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5322
Bolivia: Uncertain Political Future in Wake of Autonomy Votes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1347/68/
Colombia: Indigenous Self Defense in Times of War
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1351/1/
U.S. Military Looks to Colombia to Replace Base in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1349/1/
Colombia's Sen. Piedad Córdoba interrogated by US immigration
http://ww4report.com/node/5714
Colombia: Uribe seeks to consolidate "dictatorship"
http://ww4report.com/node/5713
Iran, Venezuela to launch joint development bank
http://ww4report.com/node/5680
Venezuelan charges "mud-slinging" over Hezbollah accusations
http://ww4report.com/node/5679
Nicaragua: cyber-savvy youth protest Ortega
http://ww4report.com/node/5707
Goldcorp: Occupation and Resistance in Guatemala (and Beyond)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1345/68/
US Senate approves "Plan Mexico"; narcos keep up pressure
http://ww4report.com/node/5709
Mexico compensates indigenous men for forced sterilizations
http://ww4report.com/node/5708
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5329
Bush Administration Accused of Withholding "Lifesaving" Aid to Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1348/1/
Obama and the School of the Americas
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1352/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
WNU #951: No Prime Minister in Haiti, Missing Cubans in Texas
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #951, June 22, 2008
1. Haiti: Still No Prime Minister
2. Mexico: Maquila Union Threatened
3. Cuba: "Missing" Emigrés Found in US
4. Latin America: Anger at EU Immigration Measure
5. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Central America, El Salvador
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Haiti: Still No Prime Minister
On June 12 Haiti's Chamber of Deputies voted 57-22 with six abstentions to reject President René Garcia Préval's latest nominee for prime minister, Robert Manuel. A commission assigned to study Manuel's qualifications found that he failed to meet two requirements in the 1987 Constitution: he didn't own property in Haiti and he hadn't lived in the country for the last five years consecutively. Manuel is a longtime friend of Préval and was the security chief during Préval's first term as president (1996-2001). The Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide pushed for Manuel's removal in 1999 [see Update #506], and he left the country, returning near the end of 2005.
Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis had to resign on Apr. 12 following militant protests triggered by the rising cost of food [see Update #943]. But he has continued to head a caretaker government while Parliament and Préval try to settle on a replacement. Parliament rejected an earlier nominee, Ericq Pierre. (Haiti Support Group News 6/12/08 from Reuters; AlterPresse 6/12/08)
Also on June 12, some 30 nongovernmental organizations from the Group of Eight (G8) industrial countries and other European countries issued a letter calling on G8 governments to respond to the food crisis by cancelling Haiti's external debt or at least declaring a moratorium on debt service, which will be $58.2 million for 2008. Haiti's total external debt as of 2006 was $1.3 billion. Of this about $1 billion was owed to international credit institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. (AlterPresse 6/12/08)
*2. Mexico: Maquila Union Threatened
Workers at the Mexmode garment factory in Atlixco municipality in the central Mexican state of Puebla report that the state and local governments are maneuvering to destroy the Independent Union of Mexmode Company Workers (SITEMEX), one of the few independent unions in Mexico's maquiladoras (tax-exempt assembly plants producing for export). The workers say Antorcha Campesina ("Campesino Torch")--an organization linked to the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governs the state--has taken hold in the factory and is threatening and intimidating the union leadership. Atlixco director of culture Maritoña Espejel has been photographed distributing fliers outside the plant; she reportedly called on workers to lynch a group of observers during a work stoppage.
On June 18 state labor officials announced they would call a meeting of workers to hold an election between current SITEMEX president Josefina Hernández and someone from Antorcha Campesina's union. Workers say this action is illegal under Mexican law, which establishes union autonomy and prohibits the government from interfering in the internal affairs of unions. The Chicago-based labor solidarity group USLEAP is calling for letters to the Puebla government protesting this situation; to send a letter, go to http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1618/t/3757/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24705
(Campaign for Labor Rights alert 6/18/08)
[Workers at Mexmode, formerly the Korean-owned Kukdong Internacional SA de CV, formed SITEMEX after a nine-month struggle, which was supported by student and labor groups in Canada, Korea and the US; see Updates #572, 574, 578, 609.]
*3. Cuba: "Missing" Emigrés Found in US
A group of undocumented Cuban immigrants who were supposedly "snatched" from Mexican immigration authorities by an armed commando on June 11 in the southeastern state of Chiapas have been located in Hidalgo, Texas, Mexican authorities said on June 18. The Mexican Attorney General's Office (PRG) will investigate nine employees of the National Migration Institute (INM) in connection with the incident, according to officials.
The Mexican navy detained 33 Cubans on June 8 in the eastern state of Quintana Roo. On June 10 the INM decided to move the Cubans and four Central American immigrants to a detention facility in Tapachula, Chiapas, claiming that the facilities in Quintana Roo were full. A group of six to nine heavily armed men in masks "kidnapped" the 37 immigrants in Chiapas on June 11 while they were being transported to Tapachula by seven unarmed INM agents and two bus drivers. The immigrants were then reportedly taken to Palenque, Chiapas, and through Tabasco and Veracruz to Reynosa, Tamaulipas, where they crossed the international bridge to Hidalgo. Apparently they had been supplied with false documents and had no trouble with either Mexican or US authorities. According to the Mexican daily La Jornada, 23 Cubans were found in Texas, while the Associated Press put the number at 18. The location of the other Cubans and the four Central Americans was unknown.
The immigrants' route took them through areas where the so-called "Gulf Cartel" operates; the group has been linked to people smuggling as well as drug trafficking. Chiapas justice secretary Amador Rodríguez Lozano charged that the "Miami mafia"--rightwing Cuban Americans living in Florida--financed the operation. Cuba's ambassador to Mexico, Manuel Aguilera had made a similar suggestion the weekend of June 13. (La Jornada 6/19/08; El Diario-La Prensa 6/20/08 from AP (print edition only))
*4. Latin America: Anger at EU Immigration Measure
On June 18 the European Union (EU) Parliament passed guidelines that would allow member countries to hold immigrants in special detention centers for up to 18 months before being deported. The guidelines are meant to standardize the way EU members treat undocumented immigrants; currently France limits detention to 32 days, while seven countries, including the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, allow indefinite detention.
Bolivian president Evo Morales met with European ambassadors in La Paz to discuss the issue and propose alternatives. He told foreign correspondents that his government would lead a campaign against the new guidelines, and that he would bring the campaign up at a meeting of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) at Tucumán, Argentina, at the end of June. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez went further, saying on June 19: "Our oil shouldn't go to those countries" that adopt the guidelines. Venezuela is a minor supplier of oil to Europe, but some European companies, including France's Total and Norway's Statoil, operate in Venezuela. He warned that European companies could come under scrutiny if their countries locked up South Americans. "We aren't going to take anyone prisoner, but the company would have to take its investments back there," he said. (San Francisco Chronicle 6/19/08 from AP; Prensa Latina 6/21/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Return to Putis: EPAF Resumes Exhumations of Mass Graves
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1336/68/
Chinese mining interest to relocate Peruvian peasants
http://www.ww4report.com/node/5669
Peru: Tambogrande Mine Returns Amidst Two Other Conflicts
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1337/1/
Unburying the Evidence of Peru's Biggest "Dirty War" Massacre http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1333/1/
Ecuador says no to ALBA --for now
http://www.ww4report.com/node/5656
Colombia: "shock" rise in coca production
http://www.ww4report.com/node/5657
Colombia: riot police attack indigenous land occupation
http://www.ww4report.com/node/5650
Paramilitaries Threaten Canadian Embassy in Bogotá
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1332/1/
Colombia: No Reduction in Assassinations and Death Threats http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1339/68/
U.S. Has Central America's Northern Triangle in Its Sights http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1340/1/
What the Census Didn't Count: Water Rights and Privatization in El Salvador http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1338/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #951, June 22, 2008
1. Haiti: Still No Prime Minister
2. Mexico: Maquila Union Threatened
3. Cuba: "Missing" Emigrés Found in US
4. Latin America: Anger at EU Immigration Measure
5. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Central America, El Salvador
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Haiti: Still No Prime Minister
On June 12 Haiti's Chamber of Deputies voted 57-22 with six abstentions to reject President René Garcia Préval's latest nominee for prime minister, Robert Manuel. A commission assigned to study Manuel's qualifications found that he failed to meet two requirements in the 1987 Constitution: he didn't own property in Haiti and he hadn't lived in the country for the last five years consecutively. Manuel is a longtime friend of Préval and was the security chief during Préval's first term as president (1996-2001). The Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide pushed for Manuel's removal in 1999 [see Update #506], and he left the country, returning near the end of 2005.
Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis had to resign on Apr. 12 following militant protests triggered by the rising cost of food [see Update #943]. But he has continued to head a caretaker government while Parliament and Préval try to settle on a replacement. Parliament rejected an earlier nominee, Ericq Pierre. (Haiti Support Group News 6/12/08 from Reuters; AlterPresse 6/12/08)
Also on June 12, some 30 nongovernmental organizations from the Group of Eight (G8) industrial countries and other European countries issued a letter calling on G8 governments to respond to the food crisis by cancelling Haiti's external debt or at least declaring a moratorium on debt service, which will be $58.2 million for 2008. Haiti's total external debt as of 2006 was $1.3 billion. Of this about $1 billion was owed to international credit institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. (AlterPresse 6/12/08)
*2. Mexico: Maquila Union Threatened
Workers at the Mexmode garment factory in Atlixco municipality in the central Mexican state of Puebla report that the state and local governments are maneuvering to destroy the Independent Union of Mexmode Company Workers (SITEMEX), one of the few independent unions in Mexico's maquiladoras (tax-exempt assembly plants producing for export). The workers say Antorcha Campesina ("Campesino Torch")--an organization linked to the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governs the state--has taken hold in the factory and is threatening and intimidating the union leadership. Atlixco director of culture Maritoña Espejel has been photographed distributing fliers outside the plant; she reportedly called on workers to lynch a group of observers during a work stoppage.
On June 18 state labor officials announced they would call a meeting of workers to hold an election between current SITEMEX president Josefina Hernández and someone from Antorcha Campesina's union. Workers say this action is illegal under Mexican law, which establishes union autonomy and prohibits the government from interfering in the internal affairs of unions. The Chicago-based labor solidarity group USLEAP is calling for letters to the Puebla government protesting this situation; to send a letter, go to http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1618/t/3757/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24705
(Campaign for Labor Rights alert 6/18/08)
[Workers at Mexmode, formerly the Korean-owned Kukdong Internacional SA de CV, formed SITEMEX after a nine-month struggle, which was supported by student and labor groups in Canada, Korea and the US; see Updates #572, 574, 578, 609.]
*3. Cuba: "Missing" Emigrés Found in US
A group of undocumented Cuban immigrants who were supposedly "snatched" from Mexican immigration authorities by an armed commando on June 11 in the southeastern state of Chiapas have been located in Hidalgo, Texas, Mexican authorities said on June 18. The Mexican Attorney General's Office (PRG) will investigate nine employees of the National Migration Institute (INM) in connection with the incident, according to officials.
The Mexican navy detained 33 Cubans on June 8 in the eastern state of Quintana Roo. On June 10 the INM decided to move the Cubans and four Central American immigrants to a detention facility in Tapachula, Chiapas, claiming that the facilities in Quintana Roo were full. A group of six to nine heavily armed men in masks "kidnapped" the 37 immigrants in Chiapas on June 11 while they were being transported to Tapachula by seven unarmed INM agents and two bus drivers. The immigrants were then reportedly taken to Palenque, Chiapas, and through Tabasco and Veracruz to Reynosa, Tamaulipas, where they crossed the international bridge to Hidalgo. Apparently they had been supplied with false documents and had no trouble with either Mexican or US authorities. According to the Mexican daily La Jornada, 23 Cubans were found in Texas, while the Associated Press put the number at 18. The location of the other Cubans and the four Central Americans was unknown.
The immigrants' route took them through areas where the so-called "Gulf Cartel" operates; the group has been linked to people smuggling as well as drug trafficking. Chiapas justice secretary Amador Rodríguez Lozano charged that the "Miami mafia"--rightwing Cuban Americans living in Florida--financed the operation. Cuba's ambassador to Mexico, Manuel Aguilera had made a similar suggestion the weekend of June 13. (La Jornada 6/19/08; El Diario-La Prensa 6/20/08 from AP (print edition only))
*4. Latin America: Anger at EU Immigration Measure
On June 18 the European Union (EU) Parliament passed guidelines that would allow member countries to hold immigrants in special detention centers for up to 18 months before being deported. The guidelines are meant to standardize the way EU members treat undocumented immigrants; currently France limits detention to 32 days, while seven countries, including the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, allow indefinite detention.
Bolivian president Evo Morales met with European ambassadors in La Paz to discuss the issue and propose alternatives. He told foreign correspondents that his government would lead a campaign against the new guidelines, and that he would bring the campaign up at a meeting of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) at Tucumán, Argentina, at the end of June. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez went further, saying on June 19: "Our oil shouldn't go to those countries" that adopt the guidelines. Venezuela is a minor supplier of oil to Europe, but some European companies, including France's Total and Norway's Statoil, operate in Venezuela. He warned that European companies could come under scrutiny if their countries locked up South Americans. "We aren't going to take anyone prisoner, but the company would have to take its investments back there," he said. (San Francisco Chronicle 6/19/08 from AP; Prensa Latina 6/21/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Return to Putis: EPAF Resumes Exhumations of Mass Graves
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1336/68/
Chinese mining interest to relocate Peruvian peasants
http://www.ww4report.com/node/5669
Peru: Tambogrande Mine Returns Amidst Two Other Conflicts
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1337/1/
Unburying the Evidence of Peru's Biggest "Dirty War" Massacre http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1333/1/
Ecuador says no to ALBA --for now
http://www.ww4report.com/node/5656
Colombia: "shock" rise in coca production
http://www.ww4report.com/node/5657
Colombia: riot police attack indigenous land occupation
http://www.ww4report.com/node/5650
Paramilitaries Threaten Canadian Embassy in Bogotá
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1332/1/
Colombia: No Reduction in Assassinations and Death Threats http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1339/68/
U.S. Has Central America's Northern Triangle in Its Sights http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1340/1/
What the Census Didn't Count: Water Rights and Privatization in El Salvador http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1338/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
WNU #950: Brazilian Protesters Take on Agribusiness
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #950, June 15, 2008
1. Brazil: Protesters Take on Agribusiness
2. Argentina: 19 Arrests in Farmers Strike
3. Mexico: "Plan Mexico" Hits Snags
4. Puerto Rico: US and UN Investigate
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Brazil: Protesters Take on Agribusiness
From June 10 to June 12 thousands of Brazilians demonstrated in 13 states to protest the power of transnational corporations and the growth of the agribusiness model in the country. Rallies, marches and sit-ins organized by two groups--Vía Campesina (Campesino Way) and the urban-based Popular Assembly--called for a new economic model and a strengthening of the campesino economy in order to produce food cheaply for the population. The two groups issued a document entitled: "Why are we demonstrating? We want to produce food."
Police violently repressed two demonstrations on June 11 in Porto Alegre, capital of the southern state of Río Grande do Sul. Marchers protesting the high cost of food and incentives that the state is offering to transnationals tried to approach the state government's main building, the Palacio Piratini. Police agents and soldiers attacked the march, leaving 25 people injured. Police agents also used violence against protesters occupying the street where a Wal-Mart superstore is located; seven people were injured and 12 were detained.
On June 12 some 1,200 members of Vía Campesina and the Popular Assembly took over the railroad belonging to the Vale transnational mining company, some 12km from Governador Valadares municipality in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, to demand that the company negotiate with the 500 families of Pedra Corrida who were dislocated to make way for the Baguari dam.
Protests during the three-day mobilization included a sit-in at the Sao Paulo headquarters of the Votorantim company to protest the construction of the Tijuco Alto dam in Río Poza de Iguape near the border with the Paraná; the Military Police invaded the building using pepper spray bombs and arrested five protesters. More than 1,000 people occupied the Port of Pecém in Son Gonçalo do Amarante in the state of Ceará to protest the high cost of food and various construction projects they said would cause environmental and social damage. In Alagoas state about 1,000 people from different organizations protested the Xingó hydroelectric facility. Vía Campesina members in Bahía state protested irrigation projects that they said only benefited big agribusiness farms.
In Paraíba state some 200 Vía Campesina members occupied the Nuestra Señora de Lourdes estate, whose 1,100 hectares are dedicated to growing sugar cane, the main crop used for ethanol in Brazil. Another 200 Vía Campesina members occupied the Sugar Cane Experimental Station (EECAC) in Carpina municipality, Pernambuco state, to protest the spread of single-crop sugar cane farming in the region, which they said exacerbates Brazil's food crisis. (Servicio Informativo "alai amlatina" 6/12/08)
*2. Argentina: 19 Arrests in Farmers Strike
On June 14 Argentine police in Entre Ríos province removed a group of farmers and truckers who were blocking Route 14, an important link with Uruguay. Agents arrested 19 protesters, including Alfredo de Angeli, head of the provincial branch of the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA); he was released after four hours. The blockade was part of a new round of strikes and actions in a national protest agricultural producers have carried out in phases since March to protest increased taxes on soy [see Update #941]. The new actions have included farmers not associated with the main farmer groups--the FAA and the rightwing Argentine Rural Society--and some truckers who previously had opposed the strikes. The latest actions threatened to bring shortages to major cities; they also created major transportation problems for leftists trying to reach Rosario, in Santa Fé province, the birthplace of Argentine-Cuban revolutionary hero Ernesto ("Che") Guevara, for celebrations of his 80th birth anniversary on June 14. (La Jornada (Mexico) 6/15/08 from correspondent)
On June 11 Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo warned that in the new actions "there are sectors that are ready for anything." He referred to an incident in Victoria, Entre Ríos, when a van belonging to Jorge Bussi was involved in an attack on a convoy of trucks carrying fuel. Bussi's uncle is former general Domingo Antonio Bussi, an official during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship [see Updates #702, 718]. (LJ 6/12/08)
*3. Mexico: "Plan Mexico" Hits Snags
The US House of Representatives voted 311-106 on June 10 to authorize $1.6 billion over three years for the Mérida Initiative, a project ostensibly aiding the fight against drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America. The measure won't be finalized until the Senate passes its own version and the two chambers work out their differences and send the authorization on to President George W. Bush, who is expected to sign it. The House version authorizes spending $1.1 billion for Mexico, $405 million for Central America and $74 million for efforts by the US government to slow down the flow of illegal weapons from the US to Mexico. Mexico's share breaks down into $780 million for enforcement, including helicopters and new technology, and $330 million for programs to improve the rule of law and the Mexican judicial system. (La Jornada 6/11/08 from correspondent)
Many US unionists and human rights activists oppose the initiative, which they call "Plan Mexico" to point out its similarities to Plan Colombia, through which the US has heavily funded the Colombian military. Human rights advocates say the program will enrich US defense contractors--through the purchase of Bell helicopters, CASA maritime patrol planes and surveillance software--while endangering Mexican civilians, especially political dissidents. The project allocates no money for drug treatment and rehabilitation, which advocates say are necessary to address the root causes of drug use in the US. (Truthout (US) 6/13/08) [Activists from the group Friends of Brad Will protested the measure at a congressional hearing in February; Brad Will was a New York-based independent killed while covering protests in Oaxaca, Mexico--see Update #934.]
The New York Times also objects to the plan, but principally because the "timid assistance package proposed by the Bush administration and pared down by Congress" is "too small." "Both governments need to work, urgently, to salvage the aid package," an editorial warned. (NYT 6/4/08)
Mexican Congress members have raised objections to the Mérida Initiative because of conditions the US Senate wants to impose requiring monitoring of human rights violations by Mexican security forces. At the 47th Mexico-US Inter-Parliamentary Meeting, which ended on June 8 in Monterrey in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León, legislators from the ruling center-right National Action Party (PAN) and the formerly ruling centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) expressed concern that these conditions violated Mexican sovereignty. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) had a letter from Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee's State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, suggesting that the final version will be modified to address these concerns. (LJ 6/9/08)
Mexican activists also oppose the Mérida Initiative, which was negotiated by the administrations of Bush and Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa of the PAN. The Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC) called the opposition in the Mexican Congress "an excellent signal that authoritarian initiatives between the executives of the two countries are in their death agony." Retired general José Francisco Gallardo, who served eight years in prison for criticizing the Mexican army [see Updates #431, 465], said the Mérida Initiative was part of a "covert maneuver by the US so that through the militarization of the political and economic structures and the annexation of the army, it can appropriate the country's energy resources." (LJ 6/9/08)
*4. Puerto Rico: US and UN Investigate
The US government is continuing its efforts to have Puerto Ricans testify before a federal grand jury on the independence movement. A summons was served on Tania Frontera, a graphic artist living in New York City, to appear before a New York grand jury on June 13, along with an unidentified man who lives in Puerto Rico. Frontera had been scheduled to appear before the grand jury on at least two times earlier this year, but the sessions were postponed [see Update #930]. She has said she will refuse to testify.
The daughter of an active member of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), Frontera says she doesn't belong to any organization and hadn't expect to be questioned by the government, although she has participated in public political activities. She said Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents came to her place of employment and asked for her without identifying themselves. When she learned who they were, she told them: "All right, I don't have time for you," and escorted them to the door. (Adital 6/13/08; Claridad (Puerto Rico) 5/21/08) [As of June 15 there appeared to be no published reports on the June 13 grand jury session.]
On June 3 Doudou Diéne, United Nations (UN) rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, inspected the farmhouse in the western Puerto Rican city of Hormigueros where US federal agents killed Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Machetero leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos during a raid on Sept. 23, 2005 [see Updates #817, 818]. Diéne is expected to issue a report on the situation in Puerto Rico in three months. During his two-day visit he also heard testimony at the Guerrero de Aguadilla prison on dozens of inmates who died while in drug detoxification, and he was scheduled to speak with residents of Mayagüez who say that members of poor communities are subjected to human rights violations and false criminal charges. (Primera Hora (Guaynabo, Puerto Rico) 6/4/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Argentine truckers block highways
http://ww4report.com/node/5636
Truth and Justice in Uruguay, Two Decades Delayed
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1328/1/
Nationwide Teachers Strike Keeps Chile Students Protesting
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1322/1/
Thousands Protest US Asylum for Sanchez Berzaín as Resentment Continues Over "Black October" http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1321/1/
Ecuador arrests Colombians in plot on President Correa
http://ww4report.com/node/5637
Colombia: Indigenous Self Defense in Times of War
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5278
Chávez to FARC: chill out; FARC to Chávez: watch out
http://ww4report.com/node/5621
Chavez Reiterates Call on Colombian Rebels to Release All Hostages http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1326/68/
Guatemala: Five Sentenced to 780 Years for Río Negro Massacre http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1327/1/
WOLA, LAWG Voice Concern Over Rights Violations in Guerrero, Mexico http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1330/68/
Mexico: Murder of Indigenous Reporters Fuels Hatred, Division http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1329/68/
Mexico: detained migrants vanish in Chiapas bus attack
http://ww4report.com/node/5640
No Rest for the Working Poor
http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2008/06/no-rest-for-working-poor.html
When More Is Less: The Limited Impact of Foreign Investment in the Americas
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5290
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #950, June 15, 2008
1. Brazil: Protesters Take on Agribusiness
2. Argentina: 19 Arrests in Farmers Strike
3. Mexico: "Plan Mexico" Hits Snags
4. Puerto Rico: US and UN Investigate
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Brazil: Protesters Take on Agribusiness
From June 10 to June 12 thousands of Brazilians demonstrated in 13 states to protest the power of transnational corporations and the growth of the agribusiness model in the country. Rallies, marches and sit-ins organized by two groups--Vía Campesina (Campesino Way) and the urban-based Popular Assembly--called for a new economic model and a strengthening of the campesino economy in order to produce food cheaply for the population. The two groups issued a document entitled: "Why are we demonstrating? We want to produce food."
Police violently repressed two demonstrations on June 11 in Porto Alegre, capital of the southern state of Río Grande do Sul. Marchers protesting the high cost of food and incentives that the state is offering to transnationals tried to approach the state government's main building, the Palacio Piratini. Police agents and soldiers attacked the march, leaving 25 people injured. Police agents also used violence against protesters occupying the street where a Wal-Mart superstore is located; seven people were injured and 12 were detained.
On June 12 some 1,200 members of Vía Campesina and the Popular Assembly took over the railroad belonging to the Vale transnational mining company, some 12km from Governador Valadares municipality in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, to demand that the company negotiate with the 500 families of Pedra Corrida who were dislocated to make way for the Baguari dam.
Protests during the three-day mobilization included a sit-in at the Sao Paulo headquarters of the Votorantim company to protest the construction of the Tijuco Alto dam in Río Poza de Iguape near the border with the Paraná; the Military Police invaded the building using pepper spray bombs and arrested five protesters. More than 1,000 people occupied the Port of Pecém in Son Gonçalo do Amarante in the state of Ceará to protest the high cost of food and various construction projects they said would cause environmental and social damage. In Alagoas state about 1,000 people from different organizations protested the Xingó hydroelectric facility. Vía Campesina members in Bahía state protested irrigation projects that they said only benefited big agribusiness farms.
In Paraíba state some 200 Vía Campesina members occupied the Nuestra Señora de Lourdes estate, whose 1,100 hectares are dedicated to growing sugar cane, the main crop used for ethanol in Brazil. Another 200 Vía Campesina members occupied the Sugar Cane Experimental Station (EECAC) in Carpina municipality, Pernambuco state, to protest the spread of single-crop sugar cane farming in the region, which they said exacerbates Brazil's food crisis. (Servicio Informativo "alai amlatina" 6/12/08)
*2. Argentina: 19 Arrests in Farmers Strike
On June 14 Argentine police in Entre Ríos province removed a group of farmers and truckers who were blocking Route 14, an important link with Uruguay. Agents arrested 19 protesters, including Alfredo de Angeli, head of the provincial branch of the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA); he was released after four hours. The blockade was part of a new round of strikes and actions in a national protest agricultural producers have carried out in phases since March to protest increased taxes on soy [see Update #941]. The new actions have included farmers not associated with the main farmer groups--the FAA and the rightwing Argentine Rural Society--and some truckers who previously had opposed the strikes. The latest actions threatened to bring shortages to major cities; they also created major transportation problems for leftists trying to reach Rosario, in Santa Fé province, the birthplace of Argentine-Cuban revolutionary hero Ernesto ("Che") Guevara, for celebrations of his 80th birth anniversary on June 14. (La Jornada (Mexico) 6/15/08 from correspondent)
On June 11 Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo warned that in the new actions "there are sectors that are ready for anything." He referred to an incident in Victoria, Entre Ríos, when a van belonging to Jorge Bussi was involved in an attack on a convoy of trucks carrying fuel. Bussi's uncle is former general Domingo Antonio Bussi, an official during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship [see Updates #702, 718]. (LJ 6/12/08)
*3. Mexico: "Plan Mexico" Hits Snags
The US House of Representatives voted 311-106 on June 10 to authorize $1.6 billion over three years for the Mérida Initiative, a project ostensibly aiding the fight against drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America. The measure won't be finalized until the Senate passes its own version and the two chambers work out their differences and send the authorization on to President George W. Bush, who is expected to sign it. The House version authorizes spending $1.1 billion for Mexico, $405 million for Central America and $74 million for efforts by the US government to slow down the flow of illegal weapons from the US to Mexico. Mexico's share breaks down into $780 million for enforcement, including helicopters and new technology, and $330 million for programs to improve the rule of law and the Mexican judicial system. (La Jornada 6/11/08 from correspondent)
Many US unionists and human rights activists oppose the initiative, which they call "Plan Mexico" to point out its similarities to Plan Colombia, through which the US has heavily funded the Colombian military. Human rights advocates say the program will enrich US defense contractors--through the purchase of Bell helicopters, CASA maritime patrol planes and surveillance software--while endangering Mexican civilians, especially political dissidents. The project allocates no money for drug treatment and rehabilitation, which advocates say are necessary to address the root causes of drug use in the US. (Truthout (US) 6/13/08) [Activists from the group Friends of Brad Will protested the measure at a congressional hearing in February; Brad Will was a New York-based independent killed while covering protests in Oaxaca, Mexico--see Update #934.]
The New York Times also objects to the plan, but principally because the "timid assistance package proposed by the Bush administration and pared down by Congress" is "too small." "Both governments need to work, urgently, to salvage the aid package," an editorial warned. (NYT 6/4/08)
Mexican Congress members have raised objections to the Mérida Initiative because of conditions the US Senate wants to impose requiring monitoring of human rights violations by Mexican security forces. At the 47th Mexico-US Inter-Parliamentary Meeting, which ended on June 8 in Monterrey in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León, legislators from the ruling center-right National Action Party (PAN) and the formerly ruling centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) expressed concern that these conditions violated Mexican sovereignty. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) had a letter from Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee's State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, suggesting that the final version will be modified to address these concerns. (LJ 6/9/08)
Mexican activists also oppose the Mérida Initiative, which was negotiated by the administrations of Bush and Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa of the PAN. The Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC) called the opposition in the Mexican Congress "an excellent signal that authoritarian initiatives between the executives of the two countries are in their death agony." Retired general José Francisco Gallardo, who served eight years in prison for criticizing the Mexican army [see Updates #431, 465], said the Mérida Initiative was part of a "covert maneuver by the US so that through the militarization of the political and economic structures and the annexation of the army, it can appropriate the country's energy resources." (LJ 6/9/08)
*4. Puerto Rico: US and UN Investigate
The US government is continuing its efforts to have Puerto Ricans testify before a federal grand jury on the independence movement. A summons was served on Tania Frontera, a graphic artist living in New York City, to appear before a New York grand jury on June 13, along with an unidentified man who lives in Puerto Rico. Frontera had been scheduled to appear before the grand jury on at least two times earlier this year, but the sessions were postponed [see Update #930]. She has said she will refuse to testify.
The daughter of an active member of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), Frontera says she doesn't belong to any organization and hadn't expect to be questioned by the government, although she has participated in public political activities. She said Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents came to her place of employment and asked for her without identifying themselves. When she learned who they were, she told them: "All right, I don't have time for you," and escorted them to the door. (Adital 6/13/08; Claridad (Puerto Rico) 5/21/08) [As of June 15 there appeared to be no published reports on the June 13 grand jury session.]
On June 3 Doudou Diéne, United Nations (UN) rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, inspected the farmhouse in the western Puerto Rican city of Hormigueros where US federal agents killed Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Machetero leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos during a raid on Sept. 23, 2005 [see Updates #817, 818]. Diéne is expected to issue a report on the situation in Puerto Rico in three months. During his two-day visit he also heard testimony at the Guerrero de Aguadilla prison on dozens of inmates who died while in drug detoxification, and he was scheduled to speak with residents of Mayagüez who say that members of poor communities are subjected to human rights violations and false criminal charges. (Primera Hora (Guaynabo, Puerto Rico) 6/4/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Argentine truckers block highways
http://ww4report.com/node/5636
Truth and Justice in Uruguay, Two Decades Delayed
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1328/1/
Nationwide Teachers Strike Keeps Chile Students Protesting
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1322/1/
Thousands Protest US Asylum for Sanchez Berzaín as Resentment Continues Over "Black October" http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1321/1/
Ecuador arrests Colombians in plot on President Correa
http://ww4report.com/node/5637
Colombia: Indigenous Self Defense in Times of War
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5278
Chávez to FARC: chill out; FARC to Chávez: watch out
http://ww4report.com/node/5621
Chavez Reiterates Call on Colombian Rebels to Release All Hostages http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1326/68/
Guatemala: Five Sentenced to 780 Years for Río Negro Massacre http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1327/1/
WOLA, LAWG Voice Concern Over Rights Violations in Guerrero, Mexico http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1330/68/
Mexico: Murder of Indigenous Reporters Fuels Hatred, Division http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1329/68/
Mexico: detained migrants vanish in Chiapas bus attack
http://ww4report.com/node/5640
No Rest for the Working Poor
http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2008/06/no-rest-for-working-poor.html
When More Is Less: The Limited Impact of Foreign Investment in the Americas
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5290
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Links but no Update for June 8, 2008
[Due to other commitments, we are unable to send out an Update this week. We'll be back next week. Below are links to stories from other sources.]
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Brazil: Landowning-Military Front Against Indigenous Policy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1312/68/
Temporary Relief from Mining Conflicts in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1320/1/
Colombia: paramilitaries threaten pacifists
http://ww4report.com/node/5607
U.S. Military Looks to Colombia to Replace Base in Ecuador
http://nacla.org/node/4736
Venezuelan foreign minister disses "criminal" Negroponte
http://ww4report.com/node/5610
Will the Bolivarian Revolution End Coal Mining in Venezuela? http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1311/68/
The Remittance Industry: El Salvador's Post-War Struggle
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1319/1/
UDW Sits Down with the FMLN's Mauricio Funes from El Salvador (Part II)http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1314/1/
Mexican lawmakers oppose Mérida Initiative rights conditions
http://ww4report.com/node/5609
Chiapas: army occupies Zapatista communities in "anti-drug" ops
http://ww4report.com/node/5608
Anti-Ulises: A Day In the Life of a Simmering City
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1315/1/
An Open Letter on US Policy for Cuba
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/cockcroft010608.html
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Brazil: Landowning-Military Front Against Indigenous Policy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1312/68/
Temporary Relief from Mining Conflicts in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1320/1/
Colombia: paramilitaries threaten pacifists
http://ww4report.com/node/5607
U.S. Military Looks to Colombia to Replace Base in Ecuador
http://nacla.org/node/4736
Venezuelan foreign minister disses "criminal" Negroponte
http://ww4report.com/node/5610
Will the Bolivarian Revolution End Coal Mining in Venezuela? http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1311/68/
The Remittance Industry: El Salvador's Post-War Struggle
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1319/1/
UDW Sits Down with the FMLN's Mauricio Funes from El Salvador (Part II)http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1314/1/
Mexican lawmakers oppose Mérida Initiative rights conditions
http://ww4report.com/node/5609
Chiapas: army occupies Zapatista communities in "anti-drug" ops
http://ww4report.com/node/5608
Anti-Ulises: A Day In the Life of a Simmering City
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1315/1/
An Open Letter on US Policy for Cuba
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/cockcroft010608.html
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
Monday, June 2, 2008
WNU #949: Lula Visits Haiti, Protests Banned
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #949, June 1, 2008
1. Haiti: Lula Visits, Protests Banned
2. Colombia: Paras' Laptops Go Missing
3. Chile: Colombo Suspects to Be Tried
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Haiti: Lula Visits, Protests Banned
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made a brief official visit to Haiti to May 28. During the few hours before he headed off for a tour of Central America, Lula had a private conversation with Haitian president René Garcia Préval, took part in a signing ceremony for six agreements (including accords on agriculture, education and women's rights), and visited the headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member military force headed by Brazil.
"We have told President Lula to send more police instead of military," Préval said as the two leaders made statements at the National Palace after their meeting. Lula too played down the military occupation, expressing his "certainty that social, institutional and economic recovery is the only way to avoid new crises in Haiti." Lula was accompanied by representatives of various Brazilian corporations, including the Odebrecht construction company, the Andrade Gutierrez S.A. industrial group and the Camargo Corrêa holding company. An unnamed Brazilian company has already received $80 million from the European Development Bank for the first phase of the rebuilding of Haiti's highways.
The police refused to give the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye ("Workers' Struggle") a permit to hold a protest at the gates of the National Palace during Lula's visit. The police also turned down the group's counter-offer for protests in the nearby Champ de Mars plaza, at the Foreign Ministry or at the Brazilian embassy. Batay Ouvriye says MINUSTAH's real purpose is to guarantee a "project of exploitation" planned by "the imperialists along with the [local] bourgeoisie." (AlterPresse 5/28/08; Haiti Support Group News Briefs 5/28/08 from Reuters; Campaña Continental Contra el ALCA 5/30/08 from Servicio Informativo "alai-amlatina"; Batay Ouvriye press release 5/27/08, English by email, Creole from AlterPresse 5/28/08)
On May 28 a group of 73 Brazilian social organizations--including Jubilee South, the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), the Brazilian section of Vía Campesina (Campesino Way), unions and student and church groups--issued a "manifesto against the military occupation of Haiti by MINUSTAH." "The unassisted and oppressed people of Haiti don't need troops or soldiers, military intervention or policing," the manifesto said, "but to be unburdened from an illegal and illegitimate external indebtedness maintained only for the benefit of the system of international financial speculation." (AlterPresse 5/29/08)
Various groups called for a "continental day of action" against the occupation throughout South America on June 1, the fourth anniversary of the day that MINUSTAH troops officially started taking over from the Canadian, French and US troops that occupied Haiti after the removal of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004 [see Update #748]. (Adital 5/30/08)
On May 27, one day before Lula's visit, Save the Children UK issued a report concluding that "children living in conflict-affected countries fear to report sexual exploitation and abuse by [United Nations] peacekeeping troops and humanitarian aid workers." The report details the abuse of children as young as six by United Nations troops and international aid workers in Ivory Coast, Southern Sudan and Haiti. The abuse includes "trading food for sex, rape, child prostitution, pornography, indecent sexual assault and trafficking of children for sex" [see Update #926]. (Save the Children UK report and press release, 5/27/08; CaribWorldNews.Com (New York) 5/27/08)
*2. Colombia: Paras' Laptops Go Missing
Colombian prison authorities waited more than 48 hours before securing laptop computers and cell phones belonging to 14 rightwing paramilitary leaders who were suddenly extradited to the US on May 13 [see "Colombia extradites paramilitary commanders," World War 4 Report 5/15/08]. Eventually the prison authorities turned 10 laptops over to prosecutors, along with seven cell phones, one Blackberry wireless messaging device, six or more USB memory sticks, and 72 CDs belonging to Diego Fernando Murillo ("Don Berna"); the CDs were said to be "labeled with [mass] graves by region." Paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso's laptop was sent to a repair shop on May 10, two days before the extradition, and hadn't been recovered as of May 27. SIM memory cards from cell phones belonging to Mancuso, Ramiro Vanoy and Juan Carlos Sierra were also missing.
Prisons director Eduardo Morales said he never got an order from superiors to preserve evidence in the prison cells after the inmates' surprise removal. Journalists have speculated that someone could have removed data incriminating politicians and business people during the time before the equipment was secured; 33 members of Congress have gone to jail in connection with their association with paramilitary leaders. Independent analyst Claudia Lopez said it was "outrageous" that "the computers of the paramilitaries can't survive an inspection by [prison authorities] in a maximum-security prison" when computers belonging to Raúl Reyes, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), were supposedly found intact after the Colombian military bombed a FARC camp in Ecuador on Mar. 1, "in a foreign country in the middle of the night" [see Updates #937, 949]. (International Herald Tribune 5/28/08 from AP)
*3. Chile: Colombo Suspects to Be Tried
On May 26 Chilean judge Víctor Montiglio ordered 98 former police agents and military people to face trial for their involvement in the 1975 "Operation Colombo," in which 119 opponents of dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet were kidnapped and murdered. This was the largest number of people tried to date in Chile for human rights violations committed under the 1973-1990 military regime, which executed or disappeared more than 3,000 people. The trial specifically cites the "permanent kidnapping" of 42 victims whose bodies have never been recovered
.
Operation Colombo was coordinated with other South American military regimes through the clandestine "Operation Condor" program. To cover up the murders, two one-issue periodicals were put out in July 1975--one in Argentina and one in Brazil--with articles claiming that "60 Chilean extremists" had been killed in in Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Panama and France "by their own comrades in struggle."
Also on May 26, Joan Jara, widow of the Chilean musician Víctor Jara, petitioned the Supreme Court to reopen the case of her husband's 1973 murder. On May 15 Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes Belmar found retired colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo guilty of the murder and closed the case; the family contends that several others were also involved and should be tried [see Update #948]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 5/27/08)
Correction: In Update #948 we reported that Cuban American real estate magnate Santiago Alvarez is serving a 46-month prison sentence for illegally stockpiling weapons. US District Judge James Cohn has reduced Alvarez's sentence to 30 months. Alvarez was also sentenced to 10 months in prison for refusing to testify against Cuban-born rightwinger Luis Posada Carriles. (Miami Herald 5/19/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Damming Patagonia's Rivers: A Dirty Energy Business
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5248
Amazon: "uncontacted" tribe train arrows on government aircraft
http://ww4report.com/node/5572
Stalemate in Bolivia?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1308/1/
Bolivia: Right-wing mob humiliates indigenous leaders in Sucre
http://ww4report.com/node/5577
Peru: Indigenous Organizations Aim for the Presidency
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1309/1/
Retired Colombian General with Ties to the CIA Arrested Over "Forced Disappearances" http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1310/68/
Open Letter to the U.S. Department of Justice concerning CISPES http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1303/1/
Guatemala: Ambush-Protest at Mejia VictoresÆ Home
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1300/1/
Guatemala: convictions in Río Negro massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/5578
Guatemala: Threats Against People Dealing with Crimes of the Past http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1305/68/
Mexico: campesinos occupy Chihuahua gold mine
http://ww4report.com/node/5570
Legal Victory Leads to Historic Recovery for Massacre Survivors in Haiti http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1302/68/
Back to the Future: Limits of Economic Growth in Latin America
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5247
Behind Latin America's Food Crisis
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5204
South American Nations Form New Regional Grouping
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1304/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #949, June 1, 2008
1. Haiti: Lula Visits, Protests Banned
2. Colombia: Paras' Laptops Go Missing
3. Chile: Colombo Suspects to Be Tried
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Haiti: Lula Visits, Protests Banned
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made a brief official visit to Haiti to May 28. During the few hours before he headed off for a tour of Central America, Lula had a private conversation with Haitian president René Garcia Préval, took part in a signing ceremony for six agreements (including accords on agriculture, education and women's rights), and visited the headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member military force headed by Brazil.
"We have told President Lula to send more police instead of military," Préval said as the two leaders made statements at the National Palace after their meeting. Lula too played down the military occupation, expressing his "certainty that social, institutional and economic recovery is the only way to avoid new crises in Haiti." Lula was accompanied by representatives of various Brazilian corporations, including the Odebrecht construction company, the Andrade Gutierrez S.A. industrial group and the Camargo Corrêa holding company. An unnamed Brazilian company has already received $80 million from the European Development Bank for the first phase of the rebuilding of Haiti's highways.
The police refused to give the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye ("Workers' Struggle") a permit to hold a protest at the gates of the National Palace during Lula's visit. The police also turned down the group's counter-offer for protests in the nearby Champ de Mars plaza, at the Foreign Ministry or at the Brazilian embassy. Batay Ouvriye says MINUSTAH's real purpose is to guarantee a "project of exploitation" planned by "the imperialists along with the [local] bourgeoisie." (AlterPresse 5/28/08; Haiti Support Group News Briefs 5/28/08 from Reuters; Campaña Continental Contra el ALCA 5/30/08 from Servicio Informativo "alai-amlatina"; Batay Ouvriye press release 5/27/08, English by email, Creole from AlterPresse 5/28/08)
On May 28 a group of 73 Brazilian social organizations--including Jubilee South, the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), the Brazilian section of Vía Campesina (Campesino Way), unions and student and church groups--issued a "manifesto against the military occupation of Haiti by MINUSTAH." "The unassisted and oppressed people of Haiti don't need troops or soldiers, military intervention or policing," the manifesto said, "but to be unburdened from an illegal and illegitimate external indebtedness maintained only for the benefit of the system of international financial speculation." (AlterPresse 5/29/08)
Various groups called for a "continental day of action" against the occupation throughout South America on June 1, the fourth anniversary of the day that MINUSTAH troops officially started taking over from the Canadian, French and US troops that occupied Haiti after the removal of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004 [see Update #748]. (Adital 5/30/08)
On May 27, one day before Lula's visit, Save the Children UK issued a report concluding that "children living in conflict-affected countries fear to report sexual exploitation and abuse by [United Nations] peacekeeping troops and humanitarian aid workers." The report details the abuse of children as young as six by United Nations troops and international aid workers in Ivory Coast, Southern Sudan and Haiti. The abuse includes "trading food for sex, rape, child prostitution, pornography, indecent sexual assault and trafficking of children for sex" [see Update #926]. (Save the Children UK report and press release, 5/27/08; CaribWorldNews.Com (New York) 5/27/08)
*2. Colombia: Paras' Laptops Go Missing
Colombian prison authorities waited more than 48 hours before securing laptop computers and cell phones belonging to 14 rightwing paramilitary leaders who were suddenly extradited to the US on May 13 [see "Colombia extradites paramilitary commanders," World War 4 Report 5/15/08]. Eventually the prison authorities turned 10 laptops over to prosecutors, along with seven cell phones, one Blackberry wireless messaging device, six or more USB memory sticks, and 72 CDs belonging to Diego Fernando Murillo ("Don Berna"); the CDs were said to be "labeled with [mass] graves by region." Paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso's laptop was sent to a repair shop on May 10, two days before the extradition, and hadn't been recovered as of May 27. SIM memory cards from cell phones belonging to Mancuso, Ramiro Vanoy and Juan Carlos Sierra were also missing.
Prisons director Eduardo Morales said he never got an order from superiors to preserve evidence in the prison cells after the inmates' surprise removal. Journalists have speculated that someone could have removed data incriminating politicians and business people during the time before the equipment was secured; 33 members of Congress have gone to jail in connection with their association with paramilitary leaders. Independent analyst Claudia Lopez said it was "outrageous" that "the computers of the paramilitaries can't survive an inspection by [prison authorities] in a maximum-security prison" when computers belonging to Raúl Reyes, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), were supposedly found intact after the Colombian military bombed a FARC camp in Ecuador on Mar. 1, "in a foreign country in the middle of the night" [see Updates #937, 949]. (International Herald Tribune 5/28/08 from AP)
*3. Chile: Colombo Suspects to Be Tried
On May 26 Chilean judge Víctor Montiglio ordered 98 former police agents and military people to face trial for their involvement in the 1975 "Operation Colombo," in which 119 opponents of dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet were kidnapped and murdered. This was the largest number of people tried to date in Chile for human rights violations committed under the 1973-1990 military regime, which executed or disappeared more than 3,000 people. The trial specifically cites the "permanent kidnapping" of 42 victims whose bodies have never been recovered
.
Operation Colombo was coordinated with other South American military regimes through the clandestine "Operation Condor" program. To cover up the murders, two one-issue periodicals were put out in July 1975--one in Argentina and one in Brazil--with articles claiming that "60 Chilean extremists" had been killed in in Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Panama and France "by their own comrades in struggle."
Also on May 26, Joan Jara, widow of the Chilean musician Víctor Jara, petitioned the Supreme Court to reopen the case of her husband's 1973 murder. On May 15 Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes Belmar found retired colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo guilty of the murder and closed the case; the family contends that several others were also involved and should be tried [see Update #948]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 5/27/08)
Correction: In Update #948 we reported that Cuban American real estate magnate Santiago Alvarez is serving a 46-month prison sentence for illegally stockpiling weapons. US District Judge James Cohn has reduced Alvarez's sentence to 30 months. Alvarez was also sentenced to 10 months in prison for refusing to testify against Cuban-born rightwinger Luis Posada Carriles. (Miami Herald 5/19/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Damming Patagonia's Rivers: A Dirty Energy Business
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5248
Amazon: "uncontacted" tribe train arrows on government aircraft
http://ww4report.com/node/5572
Stalemate in Bolivia?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1308/1/
Bolivia: Right-wing mob humiliates indigenous leaders in Sucre
http://ww4report.com/node/5577
Peru: Indigenous Organizations Aim for the Presidency
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1309/1/
Retired Colombian General with Ties to the CIA Arrested Over "Forced Disappearances" http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1310/68/
Open Letter to the U.S. Department of Justice concerning CISPES http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1303/1/
Guatemala: Ambush-Protest at Mejia VictoresÆ Home
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1300/1/
Guatemala: convictions in Río Negro massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/5578
Guatemala: Threats Against People Dealing with Crimes of the Past http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1305/68/
Mexico: campesinos occupy Chihuahua gold mine
http://ww4report.com/node/5570
Legal Victory Leads to Historic Recovery for Massacre Survivors in Haiti http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1302/68/
Back to the Future: Limits of Economic Growth in Latin America
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5247
Behind Latin America's Food Crisis
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5204
South American Nations Form New Regional Grouping
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1304/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
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