WNU #961: Striking Colombian Cane Cutters Attacked

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #961, September 21, 2008

1. Colombia: Striking Cane Cutters Attacked
2. Latin America: Markets React to US Crisis
3. Haiti: New PM Faces Storm Aftermath
4. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, 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. Colombia: Striking Cane Cutters Attacked
On Sept. 15, at least 12,000 Colombian sugar cane cutters went on strike to protest the systematic violation of their labor rights and human rights. The workers cut sugar cane for 16 sugar mills in the Cauca river valley, primarily in the department of Valle del Cauca but also in the neighboring departments of Cauca, to the south, and Risaralda, to the northeast.

The same day the strike began, hundreds of agents from the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) of the Colombian National Police, together with army soldiers and private sugar company guards, attacked a group of striking cane cutters from the Incauca and Providencia sugar mills, injuring more than 100 workers, at least five of them seriously. Gildardo Nieves, from the Incauca mill, was badly wounded in the abdomen with a tear gas bomb which affected his vital organs. Four workers from the Providencia mill required medical treatment for open wounds and contusions to the eyes, face and torso.

The sugar workers called the strike to pressure the Association of Sugar Cane Growers, ASOCAÑA, to negotiate a list of demands presented to them by the cane cutters union on July 14. ASOCAÑA has refused to negotiate and instead took out paid ads on local radio and television stations, threatening layoffs in case of a strike and telling the community not to support or participate in the strike.

The sugar workers' union and human rights organizations grouped in the Campaña Prohibido Olvidar (Forgetting Is Prohibited Campaign) are demanding a full investigation into the Sept. 15 violence and an end to such attacks, respect for the labor and human rights of the sugar workers, and elimination of the current contracting system that forces sugar workers to endure 14-hour days and substandard wages. About 90% of the cane cutters in Valle del Cauca department are members of cooperatives which contract with the sugar companies; the government's Ministry of Social Protection claims that because the workers own the cooperatives, they don't have the right to bargain collectively or to strike. The workers want to end the contracting system and return to being hired directly by the sugar companies, as was the situation before 2000. Other demands include paid sick days and no reprisals against the strikers. (Communiqué from Movimiento de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Caña de Azúcar, Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Central Unitaria de Trabajadores CUT - Valle del Cauca, Asociación Nomadesc, Corporación Jurídica Utopía, Corporación Sembrar and other organizations belonging to the Campaña Prohibido Olvidar 9/15/08; El Diario del Otún (Pereira) 9/20/08; El Universal (Cartagena) 9/20/08 from Colprensa; El País (Cali) 9/20/08; see also: http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article1507 and
http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article1503

"We demand job stability; since the government of César Gaviria (1990-1994) we have been losing a percentage of our income because they kicked us out of the sugar companies, and now we have to pay social security and payroll taxes ourselves," said Azael Castro, a cane cutter for the Manuelita company. (El País (Cali) 9/20/08)
As of Sept. 20, the sugar strike was continuing; strikers were maintaining blockades at the entrances of the sugar mills, and production was halted. The news agency Colprensa reported that the strike had shut down four of Colombia's largest ethanol distilleries, causing ethanol shortages in the central area of the country. This in turn has led to a price increase for gasoline, which is sold mixed with ethanol.

Hundreds of family members of striking cane workers and other community supporters marched in the municipalities of El Cerrito and Pradera in Valle del Cauca on Sept. 19 to show their support for the workers' demands. The two municipalities are located between the Manuelita and Providencia sugar mills. (El Universal (Cartagena) 9/20/08 from Colprensa)

According to a report in the newspaper El Diario del Otún, published in Pereira, capital of Risaralda department, the strike so far involves more than 12,000 sugar workers and is affecting the Manuelita, Providencia, Pichichí, Cauca, Mayagüez, María Luisa and Central Tumaco plantations. The National Cane Cutters Union, which organized the strike, predicts that as of Sept. 23 more cane cutters will join in from the Risaralda, Ríopaila, Cabaña and La Carmelita plantations. (El Diario del Otún 9/20/08)

The workers and human rights groups are asking that messages be sent to Colombian officials supporting their demands; for details see the communiqué posted in English and Spanish at http://www.labournet.net/world/0809/colomb1.html. Send copies of all messages to Campaña Prohibido Olvidar at dhprohibidolvidar@yahoo.com and Asociación Nomadesc at accionjuridica.nomadesc@gmail.com . (Communiqué from Movimiento de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Caña de Azúcar, Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Central Unitaria de Trabajadores CUT - Valle del Cauca, Asociación Nomadesc, Corporación Jurídica Utopía, Corporación Sembrar and other organizations belonging to the Campaña Prohibido Olvidar 9/15/08)

*2. Latin America: Markets React to US Crisis
Latin American currencies rose dramatically on Sept. 19 after the US government proposed an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of US financial companies holding bad debt. The Brazilian real went up 3.5% to 1.8298 to the US dollar, its biggest gain in six years, while the Colombian peso jumped 6.7% to 2,050.9 per dollar--the peso's biggest advance in at least 13 years, according to the Bloomberg news service. The rise in the currencies followed four days of equally dramatic declines as markets reacted to a financial crisis in the US that included the collapse of the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. investment firm and a $85 billion bailout of the American International Group Inc. (AIG) insurance company. The real fell 4% from Sept. 15 to Sept. 18, while in Mexico City, stock prices on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV) fell 8.3% between Sept. 16 and Sept. 17. (Bloomberg 9/19/08; La Jornada (Mexico) 9/18/08, some from wire services)

The ups and downs in Latin American markets were in line with turmoil in markets around the world. In contrast to other financial crises over the past 15 years, this time the crisis started in the US and other rich countries, not in the emerging markets. In the current situation, the emerging markets, especially in Asia, represent the only areas in the world with strong growth. The US reacted to previous crises by demanding that countries like Mexico and Argentina impose the neoliberal economic policies widely known as the "Washington Consensus." Now the situation is reversed. Walter Molano, an emerging markets analyst for the Connecticut-based BCP Securities investment firm, called the US bailout plan "incompetent" and compared it to plans made in Argentina in the past. The US "needs something like the Washington Consensus for Latin America," he said. (Clarín (Buenos Aires) 9/21/08)

The US financial crisis is expected to have a strong effect on Mexico, whose economy is closely linked to the US economy. Appearing before Mexcian congressional committees on Sept. 17, Finance and Public Credit Secretary Agustín Carstens Carstens called the US financial crisis "the worst in a half century" and predicted that the Mexican economy wouldn't resume significant growth until the last quarter of 2009. Analysts noted that Mexico will be especially affected by the decline in the US building industry, since hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants work in construction and supplement the Mexican economy with remittances to their relatives. (LJ 9/17/08, 9/18/08)

In recent years most South American economies have tried to reduce their dependence on US investments and trade. In La Paz on Sept. 18, representatives of the Bolivian state petroleum company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), signed an agreement with the Russian Gazprom company and France's Total for exploration for natural gas in Bolivia's southeast region. The energy project, the country's largest since the nationalization of the petroleum industry in 2006, will involve an investment of $4.5 billion. President Evo Morales said that there was an understanding that cooperation will extend beyond exploration and exploitation to include industrialization. (LJ 9/19/08 from correspondent and wire services)

*3. Haiti: New PM Faces Storm Aftermath
On Sept. 5 the Haitian Senate voted 16-0 with one abstention to approve a cabinet proposed by incoming prime minister Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis. This ended a five-month period in which the country was gvoerned by a caretaker cabinet [see Update #957]. (AlterPresse 9/5/08; Haiti Support Group News Briefs 9/5/08 from Reuters)

The new cabinet faces devastation left by four tropical storms that hit the country from Aug. 16 to Sept. 7 [see Update #960]. More than 550 people died because of the storms, and Pierre-Louis said as many as 1 million Haitians might have been left homeless. As of Sept. 18 the authorities estimated that losses in the agricultural sector were more than $180 million. The country doesn't have the resources to deal with the situation, the prime minister said. "We need major support and it is time for the world to understand that." (AlterPresse 9/17/08, 9/18/08; Haiti Support Group 9/13/08 from BBC)

As of Sept. 15, the US government had promised $29.3 million in aid, including $800,000 from the Defense Department to pay for rescue equipment. The US has also given logistical support with helicopters and a ship, the USS Kearsarge. (AlterPresse 9/19/08)

*4. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico

Violence on Chile's 9-11 commemoration
http://ww4report.com/node/6029

Uruguay: The Politics of Recent History
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1477/1/

Bolivia: Opposition Accepts Morales's Call for Talks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1485/68/

The Machine Gun and The Meeting Table: Bolivian Crisis in a New South America http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1478/1/

Reactionary Rampage: The Paramilitary Massacre in Bolivia
http://nacla.org/node/5017

Bolivia: A Coup in the Making?
http://nacla.org/node/5016

Bolivia: Pando governor arrested; US turns up the heat
http://ww4report.com/node/6034

Bolivia: who controls Pando?
http://ww4report.com/node/6028

Bolivia: 18 dead in Pando, governor ordered arrested
http://ww4report.com/node/6023

Peru: Piura Votes, A Dangerous Precedent
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1479/1/

Peru: Buried But Not Forgotten on International Day of the Disappeared http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1486/1/

Bolivia: government regains control of gas lines
http://ww4report.com/node/6039

Colombia: sugar cane workers threatened
http://ww4report.com/node/6033

Denmark: pro-FARC t-shirt peddlers convicted
http://ww4report.com/node/6044

Action Alert: Help Stop US-Colombia FTA
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1480/68/

Cowboys and Indians of the Bolivarian Revolution
http://nacla.org/node/5017

Venezuela: Human Rights Watch delegation expelled
http://ww4report.com/node/6050

El Salvador: FMLN activists attacked
http://ww4report.com/node/6032

Mexico: Bloody Independence Eve Celebrations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1481/68/

Mexican army seizes $26 million in Sinaloa raid
http://ww4report.com/node/6049

Deadly repression of prison uprising in Tijuana
http://ww4report.com/node/6041

International arrests follow Independence Day terror in Mexico
http://ww4report.com/node/6040

Mexicans block rail line to demand justice in narco-killings
http://ww4report.com/node/6030

Mexico's "New Labor Culture": An Interview With Union Leader Benedicto Martínez
http://nacla.org/node/5015

Cross-Border Activists Escalate Fight Against "The Wall of Death"
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5521

Return of the Good Neighbor: From Cuba to Geneva
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5531

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/

Links but no Update for September 14, 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.]

P-MAS in Paraguay: Young Socialists Build a New Party from the Ground Up
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1460/1/

Bolivia: Violent Groups Take Over Human Rights Organization http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1466/1/

Bolivia: U.S. Ambassador Expelled for Allegedly Supporting Violent Opposition http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1469/1/

Bolivia: US Ambassador Expelled Amid "Civil War" Fears http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1464/68/

Bolivia: Escalating Tensions and Increased Violence Demonstrate Widening Rifts
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1465/68/

Bolivia: "Twenty Families Are Obstructing Governability" - Expert
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1463/68/

Bolivia: 18 dead in Pando, governor ordered arrested
http://ww4report.com/node/6023

Bolivia: US ambassador expelled amid "civil war" fears
http://ww4report.com/node/6008

Colombia: Oil Palms and Rights Abuses
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1461/68/

US boots Venezuelan ambassador
http://ww4report.com/node/6022

Venezuela boots US ambassador
http://ww4report.com/node/6021

Venezuela hosts Russian bombers —and Hezbollah?
http://ww4report.com/node/6013

Mexico reports no evidence of al-Qaeda links
http://ww4report.com/node/6017

A Tale of Three Marches: Mexico's Scattered Politics
http://nacla.org/node/4995

The Next Cuban Missile Crisis?
http://nacla.org/node/4999

Obama, Latin America, and FDR
http://nacla.org/node/4990

September 11th From Chile to Washington: Bush Follows in Pinochet's Footsteps
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1470/1/

Homeland Security admits to cost, time overruns in border fence
http://ww4report.com/node/6016

WNU #960: Argentines Set Train on Fire

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #960, September 7, 2008

1. Argentina: Passengers Set Train on Fire
2. Mexico: President's Report Protested
3. In Other News: Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba

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. Argentina: Passengers Set Train on Fire
Infuriated by a delay in service, hundreds of Argentines attacked trains and facilities of the TCB company in two stations outside Buenos Aires on Sept. 4. Protests started when a commuter train broke down near the Castelar station west of the capital, stopping service to Buenos Aires. Hundreds of people trying to get to work threw stones at train company offices, blocked trains headed in the other direction, and set a conductor's cabin on fire. In the neighboring station of Merlo, passengers set an entire eight-car train on fire, along with a ticket machine. About 100 helmeted riot police arrived after an hour, dispersing the crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets; about 20 people were arrested.

Federal justice minister Aníbal Fernández and Buenos Aires province police chief Daniel Salcedo were quick to attribute the attacks to sabotage by militant groups, including two Trotskyist organiztions, the Workers Party (PO) and the Socialist Workers Movement (MST); and Quebracho ("ax breaker"), a militant group named for a South American tree with exceptionally hard wood. Government officials said they had videos of infiltrators, including José María Escobar, a PO member who was in the Castelar station passing out fliers against the "bullet train," a planned high-speed train strongly promoted by the center-left government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Government officials even implicated Project South, which is headed by renowned filmmaker Fernando "Pino" Solanas; his latest film, "The Next Station," is a documentary on the deterioration of the railroad system.

Some sources implied the incidents were connected to the reported sabotage of two high-voltage towers in Buenos Aires province and to forest fires in Córdoba province which the authorities said were set intentionally during the week.

The militants denied any responsibility. "It's a real disgrace that the national government is inventing a conspiracy against us," Solanas said. The MST announced it was planning a defamation suit against Justice Minister Fernández. While Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo suggested that PO and Quebracho were both involved, observers noted that the two groups have little in common. The PO is a national party which runs in elections; Quebracho, which describes itself as a "patriotic revolutionary movement" rather than leftist, rejects elections. This wasn't the first violent protest since the railroad lines were privatized in the 1990s under President Carlos Menem (1989-1999). In 2005, the cancellation of service in Haedo, near Castelar on the western outskirts of Buenos Aires, provoked incidents in which 21 people were injured and 87 arrested; the station and 15 train cars were set on fire. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/5/08 from AFP, Reuters, 9/6/08 from correspondent; Clarín (Buenos Aires) 9/4/08, 9/5/08)

Correction: In Update #941 we inadvertently called the MST the "Movement Toward Socialism."

*2. Mexico: President's Report Protested
Tens of thousands of Mexican workers, tradespeople, doctors and nurses, oil workers, telephone workers, miners, teachers, parents, students and campesinos demonstrated on Sept. 1 to protest the economic policies of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa as he presented Congress with the annual state of the union report. Until two years ago, the president read the report to the two houses of Congress in an elaborate televised ceremony; the tradition ended in 2006 when opposition legislators kept then-president Vicente Fox Quesada from giving his last report [see Update #866]. This year Governance Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo simply handed a copy of the report to congressional leaders; the event took eight minutes.

In the Federal District (DF, Mexico City), protesters held some 15 different marches, rallies and sit-ins at different places and times, creating some of the biggest traffic problems in the capital in years. In the southern part of the city, 300 members of the Francisco Villa Popular Front took over tollbooths on the highway to Puebla at 7am and let traffic pass for free for two hours; others from the group did the same on the highway to Cuernavaca; the organization then tied up traffic for three hours with a march of 500 people through the city toward the Zócalo, the main plaza. Also in the southern part of the capital, employees of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) blocked the Insurgentes Sur boulevard. At other end of the DF a group of 200 members of the Popular Movement occupied five lanes of a highway at 8am to oppose Calderón's energy policies and then marched to the Tlatelolco housing project. Flight attendants demonstrated in the city's international airport, and at 4pm thousands of unionists and campesinos held the biggest demonstration of the day--a march to the Zócalo from different parts of the downtown area to demand better living conditions.

Outside the capital, dissident teachers took over Education Secretariat and Social Security offices in various states; electricity workers leafleted; and telephone workers held a one-hour strike around the country. (Crónica de Hoy (Mexico City) 9/2/08; La Jornada 9/2/08, ___)

Teachers continued to hold protests and strikes to build opposition to the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a plan supported by President Calderón and National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) head Elba Esther Gordillo [see Update #959]. On Sept. 2 teachers and students blocked the Guerrero state legislature building in Chilpancingo and set up an encampment in front of the governor's office; teachers demonstrated in 11 cities in Campeche; and 100 teachers in Yucatán announced they were forming an independent union. (LJ 9/3/08) On Sept. 3 hundreds of teachers from SNTE Section 19 in Morelos occupied tollbooths on the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, letting vehicles pass for free; Morelos teachers had been on strike since Aug. 13 to protest the ACE. (LJ 9/4/08) Some 50,000 Morelos teachers and supporters marched in Cuernavaca on Sept. 5. (LJ 9/6/08)

*3. In Other News...
Although it caused no deaths, Cuban officials said on Aug. 31 that hurricane Gustav was the island's most destructive hurricane in 50 years, knocking out electricity on the Isla de la Juventud and in much of Pinar del Río province and La Habana province. Former president Fidel Castro estimated the economic impact at $3-4 billion. (La Jornada 9/1/08, 9/4/08 from correspondent)... As of Sept. 6 more than 500 people had reportedly died in Gonaïves, Haiti's third largest city, following the passage of tropical storm Hanna; deforestation has left the Gonaïves area vulnerable to flooding, and as many as 3,000 people died there in 2004 as a result of tropical storm Jeanne [see Updates #765, 768]. Hanna came less than a week after hurricane Gustav hit the country and caused some 77 deaths; flooding from tropical storm Kay left about 40 people dead earlier in August. (Haiti Support Group News Briefs 9/5/08, 9/6/08 from AFP)... On Aug. 29 Guatemalan interior minister Francisco Jiménez announced the capture of former legislative deputy Manuel Castillo at a luxurious residence he owned near the border with El Salvador. Castillo is accused of masterminding the murder of three Salvadoran deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) and their driver on Feb. 19, 2007 [see Updates #889, 891]. (Siglo Veintiuno (Guatemala) 8/29/08 from EFE)

*4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba

The Winner in Argentina? Transgenic Soy
http://nacla.org/node/4973

Lugo Faces First Challenges: Coup Plots and the Multi-Ring
Political Circus of Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1449/1/

Bolivia Confirms Constitution Vote
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1451/68/

Interview with Former Bolivian Justice Minister Casimira
Rodríguez
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1458/1/

Radio: Residents from Ecuador's Amazon Challenge Chevron-Texaco http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1454/68/

Colombia: deadly car blast in Cali
http://ww4report.com/node/5987

Fugitive Colombian para-pol busted in Venezuela
http://ww4report.com/node/5986

Cauca: A Microcosm of Colombia, A Reflection of Our World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1452/1/

A Third Term in Office? Entrenching Colombian Authoritarianism http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1453/68/

Chávez to nationalize oil distro, move towards "Gas Revolution"
http://ww4report.com/node/5962

Venezuela refuses renewed Drug War cooperation
http://ww4report.com/node/5988

Venezuela: Creating an Endogenous Cooperative Culture
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1457/1/

Nicaragua recognizes South Ossetia, Abkhazia
http://ww4report.com/node/5985

Chiapas: one wounded as paras attack Zapatistas
http://ww4report.com/node/5990

Displaced People: NAFTA's Most Important Product
http://nacla.org/node/4980

Cuba: dissident punk rocker scores political win
http://ww4report.com/node/5963

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/

WNU #959: Brazilian Indigenous Win, Argentine Generals Lose

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #959, August 31, 2008

1. Brazil: Roraima Indigenous Win Round
2. Argentina: Two Coup Generals Get Life
3. Mexico: New Sentences in Atenco Case
4. Mexico: Morelos Teachers Strike
5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Honduras, 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 weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com

*1. Brazil: Roraima Indigenous Win Round
On Aug. 27 Minister Carlos Ayres Britto of Brazil's Supreme Court issued a recommendation favoring indigenous people in the northwestern state of Roraima who seek to maintain the Raposa Serra do Sol (RSS) area as a continuous indigenous land. Ayres Britto's 105-page opinion needs to be confirmed by the other 10 members of the Supreme Court, and the final vote will be probably be delayed to the end of the year because another member of the court, Minister Carlos Alberto Menezes, has asked to review the case.

Located on the border with Guyana and Venezuela, the 6,000-square-mile Raposa Serra do Sol region is the traditional home of some 19,000 Ingaricó, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepang and Wapichana people. Indigenous people struggled for 30 years to have RSS recognized as indigenous land. Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made the formal recognition in an April 2005 decree and stipulated that non-indigenous occupants would be removed within a year. Some powerful rice growers refused to leave and organized sometimes violent resistance when the federal government finally began removing them in March 2008. The state government backed the rice growers and filed an injunction against the removals. Ayres ruled that "[t]he rice growers have no acquired right in relation to possession of the land" and that their "presence takes extensive areas of fertile soil" from the indigenous peoples.

The indigenous groups were represented by Joenia Batista de Carvalho, a Wapichana lawyer and the head of the Indigenous Council of Roraima's legal department. She is the first indigenous lawyer to argue an indigenous rights case before the Supreme Court. (Adital 8/29/08; Rainforest Foundation Update 8/29/08)

*2. Argentina: Two Coup Generals Get Life
On Aug. 28 a federal criminal court in the northwestern Argentine province of Tucumán sentenced former generals Antonio Domingo Bussi and Luciano Benjamín Menéndez to life in prison for the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of ex-senator Guillermo Vargas Aignasse in 1976, during the coup that started the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

Menéndez had already received a life sentence in a different case in Córdoba in July. Along with six other military officers and a civilian, he was found guilty in the kidnapping, torture and extrajudicial execution of four people in 1977. The court agreed to let the 82-year-old Bussi serve his sentence at home, at least until a further decision is made in early September. Bussi was the de facto governor of Tucumán during the military regime and served as elected governor 1995-1999 after the return of democracy [see Updates #702, 718, 950; #718 erroneously gives his elected term as 1991-1995]. Claiming he was in poor health, Bussi appeared before the court in a wheelchair with a plastic tube in his nose. He didn't express regret for the crime, but he cried during the Aug. 28 sentencing and said: "My physical sufferings don't allow me to confront this ultimate combat."

The decision to let Bussi serve his sentence at home produced clashes outside the courthouse between security forces and human rights and leftist groups, resulting in some injuries. (Adital 8/29/08; La Jornada (Mexico) 8/29/08 from correspondent)

*3. Mexico: New Sentences in Atenco Case
On Aug. 21 Alberto Cervantes Juárez, first criminal court judge in Texcoco for the central Mexican state of México, sentenced campesino leader Ignacio del Valle Medina to 45 years in prison for allegedly kidnapping state officials and state and federal police agents. Judge Cervantes Juárez sentenced 10 other campesino activists to 31 years, 10 months and 15 days on the same charges. He handed down the sentences in the Molino de Flores state prison in Texcoco; 500 state riot police guarded the prison to "protect" the judge. About 150 Atenco residents arrived at the prison later in the day to protest the sentences.

The 11 defendants are members of the Front of the Peoples in Defense of the Land (FPDT), a campesino movement that formed in 2001 and successfully opposed plans to build a new international airport on farmlands in and around San Salvador Atenco municipality northeast of Mexico City in México state. The charges arose out of a May 3-4, 2006 confrontation between police and FPDT members which resulted in the deaths of two protesters, 209 arrests and accusations that police agents systematically beat and sexually abused prisoners. Del Valle is already serving a sentence of 67 years and six months in another case, concerning the alleged detention of state government officials during protests in February and April 2006 [see Update #897]
.
Del Valle's attorney, Bárbara Zamora, called the new sentences "unjust," especially for Del Valle, "since it was demonstrated that he was never in the place of the actions." According to FPDT attorney Juan de Dios Hernández Monje, "the judge himself indicated to one of the family members that he didn't decide on the sentence but that the State of México Superior Court of Justice ordered it, which demonstrates that this is an eminently political question, not a juridical one." Many Mexican and international human rights groups and activists have signed on to a petition calling for the withdrawal of the sentences against Atenco activists; it can be accessed at http://www.contraimpunidad.blogspot.com/2008/08/contra-la-represinla-accin.html
(La Jornada 8/22/08; Indymedia (US) 8/27/08)

In other news, on Aug. 27 Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice voted 11-3 to uphold an April 2007 law in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) allowing voluntary abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy [see Update #896]. The Catholic Church and the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN) had sought to have the law declared unconstitutional. The court's decision, which opens the way for other state government to legalize abortion, became official on Aug. 28. (LJ 8/28/08, 8/29/08)

*4. Mexico: Morelos Teachers Strike
Most of the 23,000 school teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos went on strike on Aug. 13 to protest the local implementation of a national plan called the Alliance for Quality of Education (ACE). The teachers, in Local 19 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), say that the plan is oriented towards consumerism and the commercialization of education and that it was imposed in ways that violate their constitutional rights. ACE was created through an agreement between Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, longtime national president of the 1.5 million-member SNTE.

On Aug. 22 some 20,000 teachers marched through Cuernavaca, the state capital, announcing plans to continue the strike and to set up an encampment in a plaza. Teachers and parents also demonstrated in other Morelos communities. Some 900 education workers marched on the same day in Veracruz state, while more than 9,000 teachers held a two-hour strike in the eastern state of Quintana Roo. On Aug. 28 Morelos teachers stepped up their actions by occupying tollbooths on highways and letting cars pass without paying; the actions were continuing as of Aug. 30. Meanwhile, federal senators from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) called for Morelos governor Marco Antonio Adame to respond to the teachers' demands. (La Jornada 8/23/08, 8/24/08, 8/31/08; Mexican Labor News and Analysis, August 2008, Vol. 13, #8)

*5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti

Asunción's Bañados Neighborhood: The Power of Community in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1445/1/

Stiglitz Goes To Paraguay: Move Over Chicago, A Cambridge Boy's in Town
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1439/1/

Bolivia: Beef Producers' Boycott - Latest Opposition Strategy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1440/68/

Peru: Indigenous Occupations End With Victory in Congress
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1448/68/

Landowners Attack Venezuelan Indigenous Clamoring for Land Rights in Zulia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1444/68/

Honduras: Joining ALBA 'A Step Towards the Centre-Left,' Says President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1443/68/

Guatemala: The Forgotten Spirits of Rabinal
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1442/1/

Development and the Desert: Border Land Struggle Turns Bloody in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1446/1/

US Actions to Block Life-saving Funds to Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1441/68/

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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