Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1054, October 24, 2010
1. Mexico: Two Oaxaca Activists Murdered
2. Argentina: Activist Killed in Labor Clash
3. Costa Rica: Activists Fast to Protest Gold Mine
4. Haiti: Cholera Outbreak Kills Hundreds
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic
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. Mexico: Two Oaxaca Activists Murdered
Two unidentified men shot and killed Catarino Torres Pereda, general secretary of the Citizen Defense Committee (Codeci), at the indigenous rights group’s office in Tuxtepec in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on the afternoon of Oct. 22. The murderers escaped in a car waiting for them nearby. In the evening members of Codeci and other organizations protested the assassination with a demonstration at the Alameda de León plaza in the city of Oaxaca, the state capital.
Codeci was part of the protest movement against Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz that shut down much of the state for five months in 2006, and Torres was one of the first activists to be detained in the wave of repression Ruiz Ortiz used to fight the movement. Federal and state police arrested Torres on Aug. 6, 2006, and he was held in the Almoloya de Juárez federal prison until his release on bail on Mar. 8, 2007. Torres continued his work for indigenous rights, and this year he participated in the Free Oaxaca State Democratic Convention, which supported coalition gubernatorial candidate Gabino Cué Monteagudo, who defeated Eviel Pérez Magaña, the candidate of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Gov. Ruiz’s chosen successor. According to Tania Santillán, a Codeci leader, the assassins were wearing shirts with election propaganda for Pérez Magaña. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/23/10)
In Oct. 23, one day after the Torres murder, Heriberto Pazos Ortiz, the director and founder of the Unification Movement of the Triqui Struggle (MULT), was killed while riding in Oaxaca city. Two men on a motorcycle approached Pazos’ vehicle and shot him through a window, using silencers on their weapons. Pazos had two state police agents and a personal bodyguard with him for protection, although the authorities didn’t explain what sort of threats he was facing. Members of MULT and the indigenous Popular Unity Party (PUP) protested the killing by blocking the Cristóbal Colón and Ciudad Alemán-Puerto Ángel highways.
Founded in 1981 to struggle for the rights of the indigenous Triqui, in recent years MULT has been engaged in fights with a rival group, the Independent Unification Movement of the Triqui Struggle (MULTI), leading to a number of deaths in the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala; the Social Welfare Unity of the Triqui Region (UBISORT), a paramilitary group linked to the PRI, has also been involved [see Update #1049].
Despite the history of violence among the Triqui groups, observers on the left tended to suspect that Pazos’ murder involved forces in the PRI, which will be out of power in Oaxaca for the first time in decades when Ruiz Ortiz ends his six-year term on Nov. 30. The assassination was a “crime of state,” said Flavio Sosa Villavicencio, a state legislative deputy for the small leftist Workers Party (PT) and a leader of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), which spearheaded the protests in 2006.
The Cerezo Mexico Committee Human Rights Organization, a group that formed around the imprisonment of three brothers in 2001 [see Update #980], called the killing part of a government “[s]trategy that was designed as a form of containing, dividing and annihilating the social movement.” The use of what appeared to be professional killers with silencers on a motorcycle--the “same modus operandi as that of the Colombian paramilitaries”--“shows us an advance in the degree of sophistication in paramilitary activity in México,” the group wrote on Oct. 23. (LJ 10/24/10; Prensa Latina 10/24/10; Organización de Derechos Humanos “Comité Cerezo México” bulletin 10/23/10)
*2. Argentina: Activist Killed in Labor Clash
Thousands of Argentines rallied in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires on Oct. 21 to protest the killing of the student Mariano Ferreyra during a demonstration the day before. Ferreyra, a member of the Trotskyist Workers Party (PO), was shot in the chest in what appeared to be a clash between armed members of the Railroad Workers Union (UF) and temporary workers demanding that laid-off workers get permanent employment with the Roca Railroad, which was privatized in the 1990s. Three others were wounded in the incident, one seriously. There were reports that the police did nothing to stop the supposed UF members when they attacked the protesters.
A wide range of groups denounced the Oct. 20 attacks, including the far-left Quebracho group; the Federation of Energy Workers of the Argentine Republic (Fetera), part of the Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA); the Association of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo; student and human rights groups; and supporters of the left-leaning government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. But the incident revealed sharp divisions within the Argentine left and labor movements. Fetera charged that the government’s policies, despite their progressive appearance, are the real source of the violence against protesters. The renowned Argentine filmmaker Fernando “Pino” Solanas also accused the government of being “complicit in everything.”
On Oct. 21 President Fernández deplored the killing and insisted that her government refuses to repress demonstrations despite “the political costs of not repressing.” Luis D’Elía, director of the Federation of Lands and Housing, charged that former president Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003) was involved in the attack on the protesters. Duhalde, who met recently with UF general secretary José Pedrazza, is an opponent of Fernández and her husband, former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), within the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist). (Adital (Brazil) 10/21/10; Buenos Aires Herald, 10/21/10; La Jornada (Mexico) 10/22/10 from correspondent)
*3. Costa Rica: Activists Fast to Protest Gold Mine
On Oct. 22 three Costa Rican environmental activists marked two weeks on hunger strike against the projected Las Crucitas open-pit gold mine in San Carlos in the north of the country. Some 14 activists from two organizations, the North Front Against Mining and the Not One Mine Coordinating Committee, began the action on Oct. 8 in an encampment in front of the Presidential Residence in San José. Most of the 14 ended their fast for medical reasons but continued to support the three remaining strikers.
The activists were demanding the cancellation of Environment and Energy Ministry executive decree 34-8001 of 2008, in which former president Oscar Arias (1986-1990 and 2006-2010) declared the mine a matter of “national interest.” This eased the way for permits which were given out “in proceedings considered irregular, especially in respect to the truthfulness of environmental impact studies,” according to the Ecological Action Network (Renace), a Costa Rican organization in solidarity with the hunger strikers.
Activists say that the mining operation will destroy 200 hectares of forest and that the use of cyanide in gold extraction will contaminate two aquifers and affect the San Juan River, which marks the border with Nicaragua. According to Renace, 90% of Costa Rica’s population opposes the project.
Costa Rica’s current president, Laura Chinchilla Miranda, has said that she wants the country to move away from mining but that abrogating the permits might “expose the state to lawsuits in international bodies that could affect our development and our public finances.” Her government has said it will abide by the decision of a Costa Rican court which is currently considering the matter.
The mine is to be owned and operated by Infinito Gold Ltd, formerly Vanessa Ventures, which is based in Calgary, Canada. The company--which expects to extract 700,000 ounces of gold (19.8 tons) in 10 years, for a value of some $800 million--says the mine will create jobs and has promised to reforest hundreds of hectares of terrain. Infinito Gold claims to use the most modern “green mining” methods. (Adital (Brazil) 10/20/10, 10/21/10, 10/22/10; EFE 10/22/10 via Terra.com (Spain))
*4. Haiti: Cholera Outbreak Kills Hundreds
Dr. Gabriel Timothée, the head of Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP), announced on Oct. 23 that there were 208 confirmed deaths so far from a cholera epidemic that apparently broke out in the Lower Artibonite River region just a few days earlier. Of these, 194 deaths were in the western Artibonite region and 14 in Mirebalais in the Central Plateau, including three detainees in the Mirebalais prison. Fifty prisoners were infected, and a total of 288 people were hospitalized in Mirebalais; the number of people hospitalized in the northwest was 2,394. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/23/10)
United Nations officials announced on Oct. 24 that five cases of cholera had been detected in Port-au-Prince, where about a quarter of the country’s 8 million people live. More than a million Port-au-Prince area residents have been living in temporary encampments since Jan. 12, when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed much of the city and the surrounding region.
Cholera progresses rapidly, with severe diarrhea leading to death through dehydration. Most cases can be treated by administering rehydration packets, although some patients require antibiotics and intravenous rehydration. Good sanitation measures can largely prevent the spread of the disease. Observers are concerned that international aid agencies in Haiti will be slow to mobilize the resources needed to treat the patients, and that the crowded, unsanitary conditions in the camps could allow the disease to spread uncontrollably in the capital.
This is Haiti’s first cholera outbreak in more than 50 years. Many people suspect that the cause was the dumping of raw sewage in the Artibonite River and recent flooding after heavy rains. The Lower Artibonite region, once known "the breadbasket" because of its rice farming, was hit hard economically by competition from cheap US rice imports after the Haitian government lowered rice tariffs in 1995 under pressure from the government of US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) [see Update #1026]. (BBC News 10/24/10; Inter Press Service 10/24/10)
While there seem to be no resources for sewage treatment facilities on the Artibonite River, one of the international community’s planned post-earthquake reconstruction projects is a $190 million hydroelectric dam on the upper part of the river [see Update #1052, where the location of the dam should have been given as the Central Plateau].
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic
Photo Essay: Protest in Argentina for Mariano Ferreyra, Victim of Union Corruption
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/2750-photo-essay-protest-in-argentina-for-mariano-ferreyra-victim-of-union-corruption
Mapuche Communities in Chile: Not Underground, Still Fighting For Their Ground
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2749-mapuche-communities-in-chile-not-underground-still-fighting-for-their-ground
Chile: Women Sterilized Over HIV Status
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2747-chile-women-sterilized-over-hiv-status
Evo Morales: Iran, Bolivia share "anti-imperial" view
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9201
Peru: Neighbouring Regions Clash Over Water Diversion
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2746-peru-neighbouring-regions-clash-over-water-diversion
Women Sterilized Against Their Will in Peru Seek Justice, Again
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/2738-women-sterilised-against-their-will-in-peru-seek-justice-again
Ecuador’s Attempted Coup and Threats to Democracy in the Hemisphere
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3461
Ecuador's Challenge: Rafael Correa and the Indigenous Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2743-ecuadors-challenge-rafael-correa-and-the-indigenous-movements-
Colombia's President Warns Against Prop 19
http://globalganjareport.com/content/colombias-president-warns-against-prop-19
Venezuela: hunger strike in solidarity with accused indigenous leaders
http://ww4report.com/node/9196
Venezuela: Interview with ex-Minister of Trade Eduardo Samán - “Build a radical tendency within the PSUV”
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5718
2011 Venezuela Budget Depends Less on Petroleum
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5731
Nicaragua Denies Armed Incursion Into Costa Rica at Strategic San Juan River
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9198
Obama Asked to Curtail Assistance to Honduras
https://nacla.org/node/6779
Violence Against Honduran Resistance Movement, Unionists Continues
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2745-violence-against-honduran-resistance-movement-unionists-continues
Guatemala: Not-So-Magical Realism
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2744-guatemala-not-so-magical-realism
Displaced Zapatistas Return Home
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2740-displaced-zapatistas-return-home
Chile Rescue Stirs Up Bitter Memories of Mexican Mining Disaster
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2741-chile-rescue-stirs-up-bitter-memories-of-mexican-mining-disaster
Another youth massacre in Ciudad Juárez
http://ww4report.com/node/9197
Strengthening Law Enforcement, Democratic, and Economic Institutions to Confront the Crisis in Ciudad Juarez
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3403
Calderón’s Proposal To Try Mexican Soldiers In Civilian Courts Doesn’t Go Far Enough, Human Rights Groups Say
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/20/calderons-proposal-to-try-mexican-soldiers-in-civilian-courts-doesnt-go-far-enough-human-rights-groups-say/
Mexico divided on California cannabis vote
http://globalganjareport.com/content/mexico-divided-on-california-cannabis-vote
Haiti report finds officers guilty in prison massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/9194
Haiti’s Flawed Elections: A Set-Back for the Country’s Political Future-and the Post-Earthquake Rebuilding Process
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2742-haitis-flawed-elections-a-set-back-for-the-countrys-political-future-and-the-post-earthquake-rebuilding-process
Beyond Wyclef: What Haitians Want From Elections
http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/americas/2147-beyond-wyclef-what-haitians-want-from-electio
Citizen Protests, Government Repression Mount in Haiti
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-bell/citizen-protests-governme_b_766360.html
Dominican National Police: A Deadly Tradition
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/caribbean-archives-45/2739-dominican-national-police-a-deadly-tradition
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
WNU #1053: Panama Withdraws Anti-Labor Law
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1053, October 17, 2010
1. Panama: Government Withdraws Anti-Labor Law
2. Haiti: UN Troops Attack UN Protest
3. Chile: 31 Miners Died in Past Year
4. Latin America: Oct. 12 Brings Marches and Apologies
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin American Left, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, 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. Panama: Government Withdraws Anti-Labor Law
After 90 days of negotiations with unions and other social organizations, on Oct. 10 the government of rightwing Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli approved an agreement to rescind a controversial law and replace it with a package of six separate laws. The original Law 30—which was passed in June and quickly became known as the “sausage law” because so many different measures were stuffed into it—ignited strikes and protests by unions and environmental groups that resulted in at least two deaths in July and forced the Martinelli government to negotiate [see Update #1044].
According to Genaro López, a leader of the large, militant Only Union of Construction and Similar Workers (SUNTRACS), the agreement eliminates the main features of Law 30 that the social movements opposed. López said the agreement removes Article 28, which allowed police agents to avoid prison when they committed criminal acts in the exercise of their functions, and restores a requirement for environmental impact studies for development projects, along with dues checkoffs for unions and a ban on hiring replacement workers in the case of a strike. The government still needed to send the new package of laws to the National Assembly for approval. (EFE 10/10/10 via Terra.com (Spain); Prensa Latina 10/10/10)
President Martinelli remains popular despite the opposition to Law 30. A poll the Unimer company conducted for the daily La Prensa from Oct. 7 to Oct. 11 gave him an approval rating of 69.4%. But a year ago, after three months in office, Martinelli had an approval rating of 85.9%; it had fallen to 65.7% by the summer. La Prensa noted that the 3.7% improvement in his October rating coincided with the success of the negotiations over Law 30. (EFE 10/16/10 via Infolatam)
*2. Haiti: UN Troops Attack UN Protest
On Oct. 15 about 60 Haitians protested an extension of the mandate for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) by blocking the entrance to the mission’s main logistics base near the Port-au-Prince airport. The Associated Press wire service reported that the protesters, many of them people left homeless by a major earthquake on Jan. 12, spray-painted slogans on cars and burned the Brazilian flag; Brazilian troops lead the joint military-police mission, which has occupied Haiti since June 2004.
MINUSTAH security forces reacted violently to the protest, with a plainclothes guard striking a protester and a Jordanian soldier firing a warning shot. AP journalists said a Haitian police agent hit protesters with his rifle and a UN vehicle “push[ed] through the crowd, knocking over protesters and journalists.”
The United Nations (UN) Security Council had voted unanimously on Oct. 14 to extend MINUSTAH’s mandate for one year, to Oct. 15, 2011. The council set the maximum number of soldiers for the force at 8,940 and the number of police agents at 4,391; in 2008 the maximum was 7,060 soldiers and 2,091 police agents[see Update #964]. The UN has budgeted $380 million for the mission this year. (AP 10/15/10 via San Francisco Examiner; AlterPresse (Haiti) 10/14/10; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/14/10)
Opposition to renewing the mandate is widespread among grassroots organizations, and protests against the UN occupation have been on the rise since the death of 16-year-old Gérald Jean Gilles at a MINUSTAH camp in Cap-Haïtien on Aug. 17 [see Update #1049]. At an Oct. 15 press conference, economist Camille Chalmers, executive secretary of the nonprofit Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), denounced the mission as part of a “new offensive by American imperialism.” He cited a history of abuse, including a major case of sexual abuse that led to the removal of more than 100 Sri Lankan soldiers [see Update #923], and noted that MINUSTAH cost a total of $5 billion from 2004 to 2009. “[R]ather than serving to reinforce the institutional capabilities of the Haitian state, [these resources] have been squandered in the operational expenses of the UN mission,” Chalmers said. (AlterPresse 10/15/10)
On Oct. 14 the Haitian delegation to the third World March of Women conference, held in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told the 1,000 representatives from 42 countries that “Haitian women are fighting against the presence of MINUSTAH in our country.” (AlterPresse 10/16/10)
In other news, teachers’ unions, the labor group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers Struggle”), Solidarity With Haitian Women (SOFA) and the Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH) called for a demonstration on Oct. 15 to protest the killing of teacher Louis Jean Filbert, who was wounded on Oct. 8 during a rally for universal education; he died the next day [see Update #1052]. (Contrary to earlier reports, he was apparently hit by a tear-gas grenade, not a police bullet.) The police agent Francine Desruisseaux is suspected of causing Filbert’s death. As of Oct. 12 she was reportedly being sought by the authorities. (Radio Kiskeya 10/12/10; Agence Haïtienne de Presse (Haiti) 10/13/10; AlterPresse 10/14/10)
*3. Chile: 31 Miners Died in Past Year
While the world media focused on the successful rescue of 33 Chilean miners on Oct. 12 and 13, 69 days after they had been trapped by a collapse in the San José gold and copper mine in the northern Atacama region, Chilean union leaders charged that persistent problems with safety in the country’s mines were being downplayed.
In the past decade Chilean 373 miners have died in accidents, 31 of them in the past year. Most of the deaths occurred in small- and medium-sized privately owned mines and among the freelance miners known as pirquineros; the multinationals and the state-owned copper mining enterprise, Corporación Nacional del Cobre, have a low rate of accidents. Reporting by journalists Pablo Obregón and Carla Gardella suggests that the accident rate increases as prices for copper rise and owners push to speed up the rate of extraction. There were 28 fatal mining accidents in 2002, when the price of copper on world markets was very low; the number rose to 40 in 2007 as the price of copper rose.
The San Esteban company, which owns the San José mine, has a record of safety problems. When a miner died at San José in 2004, the workers protested, calling the death “the culmination of a series of accidents” over the previous five years. The site was temporarily closed in 2007 because of structural problems, but the authorities decided to reopen it. The collapse that trapped the 33 miners on Aug. 5 was “an accident that never should have happened,” according to Marco Canales, a leader in the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), the main Chilean labor federation.
Although rightwing president Sebastián Piñera has gotten a great deal of favorable publicity from the rescue of the miners, the media have generally ignored his government’s decision a few days before the San José collapse to close the Labor Ministry office in charge of enforcing standards for workers. After the collapse, it came out that the government agency charged with monitoring the safety of mines, the National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin), had just two inspectors in the whole Atacama region, where dozens of small- and medium-sized mines operate. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/16/10; Economía y Negocios (Chile) 8/15/10)
*4. Latin America: Oct. 12 Brings Marches and Apologies
Representatives of Chilean social and humanitarian organizations marked 518 years since the arrival of European colonizer Christopher Columbus by marching on Oct. 12 in the southern Araucanía region in solidarity with Chile’s indigenous peoples. About 5,000 people had held a similar solidarity march in Santiago the day before. The marches had a special focus on the situation of the Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous group, and a liquids-only hunger strike by Mapuche prisoners that ended on Oct. 8 after more than 80 days [see Update #1052]. A group of the prisoners released a communiqué on Oct. 12 calling on the government to fulfill the promises it made to them in negotiations to end the hunger strike. “A new process of struggle will begin,” the prisoners wrote. (Prensa Latina 10/12/10)
In Bolivia grassroots organizations held a march on Oct. 12 in La Paz they said was intended to increase awareness about the defense of the rights of Mother Earth.
Thousands of indigenous Colombians and a large group of public university students marched in Bogota for four hours on Oct. 12. The minga (indigenous mobilization) was organized by the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia together with various organizations from the social movements.
In Guatemala hundreds of campesinos and indigenous people marked Oct. 12 by protesting in front of the Supreme Court of Justice, the National Congress and the Presidential Residence in Guatemala City. The National Coordinating Committee of Campesino Organizations charged in a communiqué that the indigenous people of Guatemala, who represent 42% of the country’s 14 million inhabitants, continue to be marginalized and that only “the mechanisms of imposition have changed.”
Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes offered apologies in the name of the state to the country’s indigenous people for the “persecution and extermination” to which they were subjected. Funes, from the leftist Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), observed the anniversary by opening a national indigenous congress which was to discuss the problems indigenous groups face and ways to solve them with the aid of the government. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/13/10 from AFP, Prensa Latina)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin American Left, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
Culture shock for Latin American left
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/06/culture-shock-latin-american-left
Dancing with Dynamite Book Review: The Future of Latin America’s Leftist Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2729-dancing-with-dynamite-book-review-the-future-of-latin-americas-leftist-movements
Final Chilean Miner Brought To Surface After 22 1/2-Hour Rescue Effort
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/14/final-chilean-miner-brought-to-surface-after-22-12-hour-rescue-effort/
Brazil: Toward the Continuation of Lulismo
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3328
Controlling Coca Cultivation Bolivian Style
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2721-can-bolivia-slow-cocaine-production-
Peru: UN warned on oil development threat to uncontacted peoples
http://ww4report.com/node/9184
Coup in Ecuador?
https://nacla.org/node/6770
Accusations that Weaken Us All: A response to Eva Golinger’s Attack on the CONAIE
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2730-accusations-that-weaken-us-all-a-response-to-eva-golingers-attack-on-the-conaie
Colombia: another indigenous leader assassinated
http://ww4report.com/node/9185
Colombia: SOA graduate charged in massacres
http://ww4report.com/node/9187
Venezuela Signs Nuclear Energy Deals with Russia
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5719
Venezuela Commemorates Indigenous Resistance with Abya-Yala Congress, Demonstrations
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5713
Panama: Indigenous, Labor, Environmental Groups Need Your Support
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2732-panama-indigenous-labor-environmental-groups-need-your-support
Saving Honduras?
http://counterpunch.org/pine10152010.html
Mexico: Tamaulipas beheading linked to case of slain US reporter?
http://ww4report.com/node/9186
The beginning of U.S. military assistance to Mexico
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3365
Mexican Representative Says There Will Be No Climate Deal in Cancun
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3390
Cuba's Crossroads
https://nacla.org/node/6776
Cuba’s Campaign Against Medical Racism Spreads to Africa
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2736-cubas-campaign-against-medical-racism-spreads-to-africa
New report on camp conditions by Refugee International
http://www.haitisupportgroup.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=422:new-report-on-camp-conditions-by-refugee-international&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=141
Haiti’s 1.3 Million Camp Dwellers Waiting in Vain
http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article10127
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1053, October 17, 2010
1. Panama: Government Withdraws Anti-Labor Law
2. Haiti: UN Troops Attack UN Protest
3. Chile: 31 Miners Died in Past Year
4. Latin America: Oct. 12 Brings Marches and Apologies
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin American Left, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, 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. Panama: Government Withdraws Anti-Labor Law
After 90 days of negotiations with unions and other social organizations, on Oct. 10 the government of rightwing Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli approved an agreement to rescind a controversial law and replace it with a package of six separate laws. The original Law 30—which was passed in June and quickly became known as the “sausage law” because so many different measures were stuffed into it—ignited strikes and protests by unions and environmental groups that resulted in at least two deaths in July and forced the Martinelli government to negotiate [see Update #1044].
According to Genaro López, a leader of the large, militant Only Union of Construction and Similar Workers (SUNTRACS), the agreement eliminates the main features of Law 30 that the social movements opposed. López said the agreement removes Article 28, which allowed police agents to avoid prison when they committed criminal acts in the exercise of their functions, and restores a requirement for environmental impact studies for development projects, along with dues checkoffs for unions and a ban on hiring replacement workers in the case of a strike. The government still needed to send the new package of laws to the National Assembly for approval. (EFE 10/10/10 via Terra.com (Spain); Prensa Latina 10/10/10)
President Martinelli remains popular despite the opposition to Law 30. A poll the Unimer company conducted for the daily La Prensa from Oct. 7 to Oct. 11 gave him an approval rating of 69.4%. But a year ago, after three months in office, Martinelli had an approval rating of 85.9%; it had fallen to 65.7% by the summer. La Prensa noted that the 3.7% improvement in his October rating coincided with the success of the negotiations over Law 30. (EFE 10/16/10 via Infolatam)
*2. Haiti: UN Troops Attack UN Protest
On Oct. 15 about 60 Haitians protested an extension of the mandate for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) by blocking the entrance to the mission’s main logistics base near the Port-au-Prince airport. The Associated Press wire service reported that the protesters, many of them people left homeless by a major earthquake on Jan. 12, spray-painted slogans on cars and burned the Brazilian flag; Brazilian troops lead the joint military-police mission, which has occupied Haiti since June 2004.
MINUSTAH security forces reacted violently to the protest, with a plainclothes guard striking a protester and a Jordanian soldier firing a warning shot. AP journalists said a Haitian police agent hit protesters with his rifle and a UN vehicle “push[ed] through the crowd, knocking over protesters and journalists.”
The United Nations (UN) Security Council had voted unanimously on Oct. 14 to extend MINUSTAH’s mandate for one year, to Oct. 15, 2011. The council set the maximum number of soldiers for the force at 8,940 and the number of police agents at 4,391; in 2008 the maximum was 7,060 soldiers and 2,091 police agents[see Update #964]. The UN has budgeted $380 million for the mission this year. (AP 10/15/10 via San Francisco Examiner; AlterPresse (Haiti) 10/14/10; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/14/10)
Opposition to renewing the mandate is widespread among grassroots organizations, and protests against the UN occupation have been on the rise since the death of 16-year-old Gérald Jean Gilles at a MINUSTAH camp in Cap-Haïtien on Aug. 17 [see Update #1049]. At an Oct. 15 press conference, economist Camille Chalmers, executive secretary of the nonprofit Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), denounced the mission as part of a “new offensive by American imperialism.” He cited a history of abuse, including a major case of sexual abuse that led to the removal of more than 100 Sri Lankan soldiers [see Update #923], and noted that MINUSTAH cost a total of $5 billion from 2004 to 2009. “[R]ather than serving to reinforce the institutional capabilities of the Haitian state, [these resources] have been squandered in the operational expenses of the UN mission,” Chalmers said. (AlterPresse 10/15/10)
On Oct. 14 the Haitian delegation to the third World March of Women conference, held in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told the 1,000 representatives from 42 countries that “Haitian women are fighting against the presence of MINUSTAH in our country.” (AlterPresse 10/16/10)
In other news, teachers’ unions, the labor group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers Struggle”), Solidarity With Haitian Women (SOFA) and the Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH) called for a demonstration on Oct. 15 to protest the killing of teacher Louis Jean Filbert, who was wounded on Oct. 8 during a rally for universal education; he died the next day [see Update #1052]. (Contrary to earlier reports, he was apparently hit by a tear-gas grenade, not a police bullet.) The police agent Francine Desruisseaux is suspected of causing Filbert’s death. As of Oct. 12 she was reportedly being sought by the authorities. (Radio Kiskeya 10/12/10; Agence Haïtienne de Presse (Haiti) 10/13/10; AlterPresse 10/14/10)
*3. Chile: 31 Miners Died in Past Year
While the world media focused on the successful rescue of 33 Chilean miners on Oct. 12 and 13, 69 days after they had been trapped by a collapse in the San José gold and copper mine in the northern Atacama region, Chilean union leaders charged that persistent problems with safety in the country’s mines were being downplayed.
In the past decade Chilean 373 miners have died in accidents, 31 of them in the past year. Most of the deaths occurred in small- and medium-sized privately owned mines and among the freelance miners known as pirquineros; the multinationals and the state-owned copper mining enterprise, Corporación Nacional del Cobre, have a low rate of accidents. Reporting by journalists Pablo Obregón and Carla Gardella suggests that the accident rate increases as prices for copper rise and owners push to speed up the rate of extraction. There were 28 fatal mining accidents in 2002, when the price of copper on world markets was very low; the number rose to 40 in 2007 as the price of copper rose.
The San Esteban company, which owns the San José mine, has a record of safety problems. When a miner died at San José in 2004, the workers protested, calling the death “the culmination of a series of accidents” over the previous five years. The site was temporarily closed in 2007 because of structural problems, but the authorities decided to reopen it. The collapse that trapped the 33 miners on Aug. 5 was “an accident that never should have happened,” according to Marco Canales, a leader in the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), the main Chilean labor federation.
Although rightwing president Sebastián Piñera has gotten a great deal of favorable publicity from the rescue of the miners, the media have generally ignored his government’s decision a few days before the San José collapse to close the Labor Ministry office in charge of enforcing standards for workers. After the collapse, it came out that the government agency charged with monitoring the safety of mines, the National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin), had just two inspectors in the whole Atacama region, where dozens of small- and medium-sized mines operate. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/16/10; Economía y Negocios (Chile) 8/15/10)
*4. Latin America: Oct. 12 Brings Marches and Apologies
Representatives of Chilean social and humanitarian organizations marked 518 years since the arrival of European colonizer Christopher Columbus by marching on Oct. 12 in the southern Araucanía region in solidarity with Chile’s indigenous peoples. About 5,000 people had held a similar solidarity march in Santiago the day before. The marches had a special focus on the situation of the Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous group, and a liquids-only hunger strike by Mapuche prisoners that ended on Oct. 8 after more than 80 days [see Update #1052]. A group of the prisoners released a communiqué on Oct. 12 calling on the government to fulfill the promises it made to them in negotiations to end the hunger strike. “A new process of struggle will begin,” the prisoners wrote. (Prensa Latina 10/12/10)
In Bolivia grassroots organizations held a march on Oct. 12 in La Paz they said was intended to increase awareness about the defense of the rights of Mother Earth.
Thousands of indigenous Colombians and a large group of public university students marched in Bogota for four hours on Oct. 12. The minga (indigenous mobilization) was organized by the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia together with various organizations from the social movements.
In Guatemala hundreds of campesinos and indigenous people marked Oct. 12 by protesting in front of the Supreme Court of Justice, the National Congress and the Presidential Residence in Guatemala City. The National Coordinating Committee of Campesino Organizations charged in a communiqué that the indigenous people of Guatemala, who represent 42% of the country’s 14 million inhabitants, continue to be marginalized and that only “the mechanisms of imposition have changed.”
Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes offered apologies in the name of the state to the country’s indigenous people for the “persecution and extermination” to which they were subjected. Funes, from the leftist Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), observed the anniversary by opening a national indigenous congress which was to discuss the problems indigenous groups face and ways to solve them with the aid of the government. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/13/10 from AFP, Prensa Latina)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin American Left, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
Culture shock for Latin American left
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/06/culture-shock-latin-american-left
Dancing with Dynamite Book Review: The Future of Latin America’s Leftist Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2729-dancing-with-dynamite-book-review-the-future-of-latin-americas-leftist-movements
Final Chilean Miner Brought To Surface After 22 1/2-Hour Rescue Effort
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/14/final-chilean-miner-brought-to-surface-after-22-12-hour-rescue-effort/
Brazil: Toward the Continuation of Lulismo
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3328
Controlling Coca Cultivation Bolivian Style
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2721-can-bolivia-slow-cocaine-production-
Peru: UN warned on oil development threat to uncontacted peoples
http://ww4report.com/node/9184
Coup in Ecuador?
https://nacla.org/node/6770
Accusations that Weaken Us All: A response to Eva Golinger’s Attack on the CONAIE
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2730-accusations-that-weaken-us-all-a-response-to-eva-golingers-attack-on-the-conaie
Colombia: another indigenous leader assassinated
http://ww4report.com/node/9185
Colombia: SOA graduate charged in massacres
http://ww4report.com/node/9187
Venezuela Signs Nuclear Energy Deals with Russia
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5719
Venezuela Commemorates Indigenous Resistance with Abya-Yala Congress, Demonstrations
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5713
Panama: Indigenous, Labor, Environmental Groups Need Your Support
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2732-panama-indigenous-labor-environmental-groups-need-your-support
Saving Honduras?
http://counterpunch.org/pine10152010.html
Mexico: Tamaulipas beheading linked to case of slain US reporter?
http://ww4report.com/node/9186
The beginning of U.S. military assistance to Mexico
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3365
Mexican Representative Says There Will Be No Climate Deal in Cancun
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3390
Cuba's Crossroads
https://nacla.org/node/6776
Cuba’s Campaign Against Medical Racism Spreads to Africa
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2736-cubas-campaign-against-medical-racism-spreads-to-africa
New report on camp conditions by Refugee International
http://www.haitisupportgroup.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=422:new-report-on-camp-conditions-by-refugee-international&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=141
Haiti’s 1.3 Million Camp Dwellers Waiting in Vain
http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article10127
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, October 11, 2010
WNU #1052: Chile’s Mapuche Prisoners End Hunger Strike
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1052, October 10, 2010
1. Chile: Mapuche Prisoners End Hunger Strike
2. Haiti: Donors Detail “Reconstruction” Plans
3. Haiti: Who Speaks for Lavalas in the Elections?
4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, 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. Chile: Mapuche Prisoners End Hunger Strike
Ten indigenous Mapuche prisoners in the city of Angol in Chile’s southern Araucanía region agreed late on Oct. 8 to end a liquids-only hunger strike protesting the use of Law No. 19.027, an “antiterrorism” measure from the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, against indigenous activists [see Update #1049]. A total of 34 Mapuche prisoners in six locations had participated in the hunger strike, which started on July 12, but 24 of them ended their action on Oct. 2.
Jorge Huenchullán, the spokesperson for the 10 prisoners in Angol, said that they made the agreement because of the serious health conditions of some of the strikers even though “from the beginning we made it clear that [the agreement] wasn’t sufficient.” The Mapuche prisoners are serving long sentences under Law No. 19.027, which treats land occupations and attacks on the equipment or personnel of multinational companies as acts of terrorism; indigenous activists say they need to use these tactics to protest illegal seizures of their land.
It was not clear what concessions the government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera had made during the eight hours of negotiations that secretaries of state held with six strikers in the Victoria hospital in Angol on Oct. 8, but officials made several conciliatory gestures that day as the negotiations were taking place. Piñera visited the heavily Mapuche area of Purén, and the government announced a proposal for the Constitution to recognize indigenous peoples. Presidential spokesperson Ena von Baer announced plans for a Nov. 2 meeting in Concepción between a government representative, Mapuche spokesperson Natividad Llanquileo and Catholic archbishop Ricardo Ezzati, who acted as a mediador during the hunger strike.
Congress recently passed a modification to the “antiterrorism” law that exempted minors under the age of 18 and reduced the penalties for arson; the charges against the prisoners included setting fire to ranches and agricultural machinery. The government is also talking about improving roads, schools and health care in the Mapuche region.
The Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous group, accounting for about 700,000 of the country’s 17 million inhabitants. (Prensa Latina 10/9/10; La Tercera (Chile) 10/10/10; La Jornada (Mexico) 10/10/10 from correspondent and unidentified wire services)
*2. Haiti: Donors Detail “Reconstruction” Plans
On Oct. 6 Haitian president René Préval, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) attended a meeting in Port-au-Prince of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (CIRH), the group in charge of monitoring the use of international aid to help the country recover from a devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. This was only the third time the group has met since it was formally established on Apr. 21.
At the Oct. 6 meeting the CIRH approved 18 new projects, expected to cost $803.2 million; the group has now approved a total of 49 projects. But Bellerive and Clinton, the CIRH’s two co-presidents, said the new focus needs to be on executing projects, not just approving them. According to Clinton, the priorities should be creating a system of universal education, providing women’s health services, constructing new homes and removing the rubble left by the earthquake. Clinton expressed regret for delays in the delivery of promised funds from the US, which he said would start flowing within days, and he called on other donor nations to expedite their payments. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/6/10; AlterPresse (Haiti) 10/6/10; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 10/7/10)
At least some of the CIRH’s reconstruction projects seem intended to benefit the private sector in the donor countries, including the US and Brazil.
During the week of Oct. 4 details were released on an agreement the Haitian and US governments signed on Sept. 20 for creating two industrial parks for assembly plants where low-wage workers will stitch together garments for export, principally to North American manufacturers and retailers [see Update #1050]. The first will be, as expected, near the government-organized camp for displaced persons at Corail-Cesselesse just north of Port-au-Prince; the 220-hectare park is to be leased by Seoul-based Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd. The Inter-American Development Bank (IBD) is paying for the planning studies, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) is building the park, and the US government is giving support for electric power and supplying 10,000 housing units. The second industrial park will be in the north of the country at a location to be determined; the South Korean Hansoll Textile, Ltd company will lease the park, and the US will supply power and 12,000 housing units. (AlterPresse 10/7/10)
During a Sept. 29-30 visit to Haiti, Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim presented the results of a study for building a hydroelectric dam on the Artibonite River in the Central Plateau at a cost of $190 million. Brazil is putting up $40 million, and Haiti is seeking the rest from international institutions like the IBD. Although Brazil is donating the money through the CIRH, the project has been being planned for three years, since long before the earthquake. (AlterPresse 9/30/10) Brazilian companies are expected to build the dam. (HydroWorld.com 3/2/10)
Correction: This paragraph originally misidentified the location of the dam.
The day before the CIRH meeting economist Camille Chalmers, executive secretary of the nonprofit Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), held a press conference criticizing the international efforts at reconstruction. “Nine months after the earthquake it is unacceptable that only 4% of the rubble has been removed, only 2-3% of the promised funds have been disbursed,” he said. He also criticized the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which he said continues to charge interest on loans. Some international institutions, including the IDB, cancelled Haiti’s debts, but they have attached conditions to the cancellations.
Chalmers called for reducing Haitian dependence on these institutions. “An extraordinary inter-Haitian solidarity was already displayed after Jan. 12 and needs to be supported by concrete policies and alternative financing mechanisms,” he said. (AlterPresse 10/5/10)
In other news, on Oct. 8--two days after Bill Clinton called for a system of universal education--riot police used tear gas to disperse teachers, students and parents demonstrating outside the National Education and Professional Training Ministry (MENFP) in Port-au-Prince to call for the government to expand the education system. Two people were wounded. A police bullet reportedly hit math and physics teacher Jean Philbert Louis (or Jean Louis Filbert) in the head; he died the next day at the Hospital of the State University of Haiti (HUEH). Jean Pierre Edouard, who denied being part of the protest, was lightly injured and didn’t need to be hospitalized. (Agence Haïtienne de Presse (Haiti) 10/8/10; Radio Kiskeya 10/9/10)
*3. Haiti: Who Speaks for Lavalas in the Elections?
In a letter sent to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton the week of Oct. 4, a group of 45 US Congress members called on the US government not to support presidential and legislative elections in Haiti on Nov. 28 if the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) continues its exclusion of 14 political parties from the ballot. The letter focused on the exclusion of the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996 and 2001-2004) [see Update #1039]; the letter’s author was Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who is said to be close to Aristide and to FL. The elections will cost some $29 million and will largely be financed by the international community, including the US. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/8/10; New York Times 10/9/10 from Reuters)
The situation seemed less clear back in Haiti. FL coordinator Maryse Narcisse indicated in mid-September that she supported calls to boycott the elections [see Update #1049], but a number of politicians associated with FL or Aristide have decided to run with other parties. Three of them are officially approved presidential candidates: former prime minister Yvon Neptune; Yves Christalin, one of FL’s founders; and Aristide’s former lawyer, Jean Henry Céant [see Update #1043]
On Oct. 7 Sonny Aurélien (or Sony Orélien), general secretary of the Cell for Reflection of the FL Grassroots Base Organizations, spoke at a press conference announcing his group’s support for Christalin, who he said would bring Aristide back from his exile in South Africa. According to a local radio station, Radio Kiskeya, the press conference was held at the home of folksinger and longtime FL activist Annette Auguste (“Sò Ann,” “Sister Ann”), although she was not present. Like Rep. Waters, Sò Ann is considered close to Aristide. On Oct. 8 Ansyto Félix of the FL Mobilization Commission denied that the FL was supporting Christalin. (Radio Kiskeya 10/7/10; Agence Haïtienne de Presse (Haiti) 10/7/10, 10/8/10)
But Yvon Neptune, who was Aristide’s last prime minister (2002-2004) and was imprisoned for two years after Aristide’s ouster on Feb. 29, 2004, is clearly not seeking support from FL or Aristide. During an Oct. 6 interview on Radio Kiskeya, he said that Aristide had resigned in proper form in 2004. “I had a copy of Mr. Aristide’s resignation letter,” he said. “It was authentic.” Aristide and his supporters have always insisted that he was the victim of a “modern kidnapping” by the US and possibly other countries. Neptune also said that the bands of Aristide supporters widely known as chimè had been integrated into the police force in the last days of Aristide’s administration. (Radio Kiskeya 10/6/10)
President René Préval has also been having problems with a former prime minister, Jacques-Edouard Alexis, who is now running for president for the Mobilization for Haiti’s Progress (MPH) after being passed over for the nomination of Préval’s Unity party in favor of Jude Célestin. On Oct. 5 Alexis charged that Préval had distributed firearms to his supporters to ensure Unity’s victory in the elections. (Radio Métropole (Haiti) 10/5/10)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico
Brazil: Social Movement Leaders Predict Gains with Rousseff
https://nacla.org/node/6767
Brazilian Elections: Shifting Dynamics and the Green Vote
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/2727-brazilian-elections-shifting-dynamics-and-the-green-vote
Guaraní under siege (Brazil)
http://ww4report.com/node/8124#comment-321920
Bolivia: newspapers protest proposed racism law
http://ww4report.com/node/9177
Seven SOA graduates convicted in Peru
http://ww4report.com/node/9175
Peru: indigenous leader Alberto Pizango runs for president
http://ww4report.com/node/9176
Standing Up for Democracy in Ecuador
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3330
Ecuador Detains 46 Police Officers; Obama Calls Correa To Ask For Calm
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/07/ecuador-detains-46-police-officers-obama-calls-correa-to-ask-for-calm/
Ecuador: Air Force and Navy Reluctantly Backed President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2722-chavez-revving-up-revolution-with-land-takeovers-
SOA graduate charged in Ecuador coup attempt
http://ww4report.com/node/9174
U.S. Base Deal for Colombia: Back to the Status Quo
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2728-us-base-deal-for-colombia-back-to-the-status-quo
Where Flowers Bloom So Does Hope: Colombia’s Troubled Flower Industry
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2723-where-flowers-bloom-so-does-hope-colombias-troubled-flower-industry
Venezuela: Chávez announces new land seizures
http://ww4report.com/node/9172
Chávez Revving Up Revolution with Land Takeovers
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2722-chavez-revving-up-revolution-with-land-takeovers-
Venezuelan Mitsubishi Workers Protest Further Firings and Government Treatment
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5698
Colombian-Venezuelan Integration Furthered after July Break in Ties
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5699
Panama Awakes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2725-panama-awakes
Mexico Ordered To Pay Damages To Two Indigenous Women Raped By Soldiers
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/05/mexico-ordered-to-pay-damages-to-two-indigenous-women-raped-by-soldiers/
State Department Backing US Troops In Mexico
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/erin-rosa/2010/10/state-department-backing-us-troops-mexico
Goldcorp’s Peñasquito Mine Sparks Controversy In Mazapil, Mexico
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/05/goldcorps-penasquito-mine-sparks-controversy-in-mazapil-mexico/
San Juan Copala evacuated (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/9130#comment-321919
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1052, October 10, 2010
1. Chile: Mapuche Prisoners End Hunger Strike
2. Haiti: Donors Detail “Reconstruction” Plans
3. Haiti: Who Speaks for Lavalas in the Elections?
4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, 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. Chile: Mapuche Prisoners End Hunger Strike
Ten indigenous Mapuche prisoners in the city of Angol in Chile’s southern Araucanía region agreed late on Oct. 8 to end a liquids-only hunger strike protesting the use of Law No. 19.027, an “antiterrorism” measure from the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, against indigenous activists [see Update #1049]. A total of 34 Mapuche prisoners in six locations had participated in the hunger strike, which started on July 12, but 24 of them ended their action on Oct. 2.
Jorge Huenchullán, the spokesperson for the 10 prisoners in Angol, said that they made the agreement because of the serious health conditions of some of the strikers even though “from the beginning we made it clear that [the agreement] wasn’t sufficient.” The Mapuche prisoners are serving long sentences under Law No. 19.027, which treats land occupations and attacks on the equipment or personnel of multinational companies as acts of terrorism; indigenous activists say they need to use these tactics to protest illegal seizures of their land.
It was not clear what concessions the government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera had made during the eight hours of negotiations that secretaries of state held with six strikers in the Victoria hospital in Angol on Oct. 8, but officials made several conciliatory gestures that day as the negotiations were taking place. Piñera visited the heavily Mapuche area of Purén, and the government announced a proposal for the Constitution to recognize indigenous peoples. Presidential spokesperson Ena von Baer announced plans for a Nov. 2 meeting in Concepción between a government representative, Mapuche spokesperson Natividad Llanquileo and Catholic archbishop Ricardo Ezzati, who acted as a mediador during the hunger strike.
Congress recently passed a modification to the “antiterrorism” law that exempted minors under the age of 18 and reduced the penalties for arson; the charges against the prisoners included setting fire to ranches and agricultural machinery. The government is also talking about improving roads, schools and health care in the Mapuche region.
The Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous group, accounting for about 700,000 of the country’s 17 million inhabitants. (Prensa Latina 10/9/10; La Tercera (Chile) 10/10/10; La Jornada (Mexico) 10/10/10 from correspondent and unidentified wire services)
*2. Haiti: Donors Detail “Reconstruction” Plans
On Oct. 6 Haitian president René Préval, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) attended a meeting in Port-au-Prince of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (CIRH), the group in charge of monitoring the use of international aid to help the country recover from a devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. This was only the third time the group has met since it was formally established on Apr. 21.
At the Oct. 6 meeting the CIRH approved 18 new projects, expected to cost $803.2 million; the group has now approved a total of 49 projects. But Bellerive and Clinton, the CIRH’s two co-presidents, said the new focus needs to be on executing projects, not just approving them. According to Clinton, the priorities should be creating a system of universal education, providing women’s health services, constructing new homes and removing the rubble left by the earthquake. Clinton expressed regret for delays in the delivery of promised funds from the US, which he said would start flowing within days, and he called on other donor nations to expedite their payments. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/6/10; AlterPresse (Haiti) 10/6/10; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 10/7/10)
At least some of the CIRH’s reconstruction projects seem intended to benefit the private sector in the donor countries, including the US and Brazil.
During the week of Oct. 4 details were released on an agreement the Haitian and US governments signed on Sept. 20 for creating two industrial parks for assembly plants where low-wage workers will stitch together garments for export, principally to North American manufacturers and retailers [see Update #1050]. The first will be, as expected, near the government-organized camp for displaced persons at Corail-Cesselesse just north of Port-au-Prince; the 220-hectare park is to be leased by Seoul-based Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd. The Inter-American Development Bank (IBD) is paying for the planning studies, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) is building the park, and the US government is giving support for electric power and supplying 10,000 housing units. The second industrial park will be in the north of the country at a location to be determined; the South Korean Hansoll Textile, Ltd company will lease the park, and the US will supply power and 12,000 housing units. (AlterPresse 10/7/10)
During a Sept. 29-30 visit to Haiti, Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim presented the results of a study for building a hydroelectric dam on the Artibonite River in the Central Plateau at a cost of $190 million. Brazil is putting up $40 million, and Haiti is seeking the rest from international institutions like the IBD. Although Brazil is donating the money through the CIRH, the project has been being planned for three years, since long before the earthquake. (AlterPresse 9/30/10) Brazilian companies are expected to build the dam. (HydroWorld.com 3/2/10)
Correction: This paragraph originally misidentified the location of the dam.
The day before the CIRH meeting economist Camille Chalmers, executive secretary of the nonprofit Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), held a press conference criticizing the international efforts at reconstruction. “Nine months after the earthquake it is unacceptable that only 4% of the rubble has been removed, only 2-3% of the promised funds have been disbursed,” he said. He also criticized the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which he said continues to charge interest on loans. Some international institutions, including the IDB, cancelled Haiti’s debts, but they have attached conditions to the cancellations.
Chalmers called for reducing Haitian dependence on these institutions. “An extraordinary inter-Haitian solidarity was already displayed after Jan. 12 and needs to be supported by concrete policies and alternative financing mechanisms,” he said. (AlterPresse 10/5/10)
In other news, on Oct. 8--two days after Bill Clinton called for a system of universal education--riot police used tear gas to disperse teachers, students and parents demonstrating outside the National Education and Professional Training Ministry (MENFP) in Port-au-Prince to call for the government to expand the education system. Two people were wounded. A police bullet reportedly hit math and physics teacher Jean Philbert Louis (or Jean Louis Filbert) in the head; he died the next day at the Hospital of the State University of Haiti (HUEH). Jean Pierre Edouard, who denied being part of the protest, was lightly injured and didn’t need to be hospitalized. (Agence Haïtienne de Presse (Haiti) 10/8/10; Radio Kiskeya 10/9/10)
*3. Haiti: Who Speaks for Lavalas in the Elections?
In a letter sent to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton the week of Oct. 4, a group of 45 US Congress members called on the US government not to support presidential and legislative elections in Haiti on Nov. 28 if the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) continues its exclusion of 14 political parties from the ballot. The letter focused on the exclusion of the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996 and 2001-2004) [see Update #1039]; the letter’s author was Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who is said to be close to Aristide and to FL. The elections will cost some $29 million and will largely be financed by the international community, including the US. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/8/10; New York Times 10/9/10 from Reuters)
The situation seemed less clear back in Haiti. FL coordinator Maryse Narcisse indicated in mid-September that she supported calls to boycott the elections [see Update #1049], but a number of politicians associated with FL or Aristide have decided to run with other parties. Three of them are officially approved presidential candidates: former prime minister Yvon Neptune; Yves Christalin, one of FL’s founders; and Aristide’s former lawyer, Jean Henry Céant [see Update #1043]
On Oct. 7 Sonny Aurélien (or Sony Orélien), general secretary of the Cell for Reflection of the FL Grassroots Base Organizations, spoke at a press conference announcing his group’s support for Christalin, who he said would bring Aristide back from his exile in South Africa. According to a local radio station, Radio Kiskeya, the press conference was held at the home of folksinger and longtime FL activist Annette Auguste (“Sò Ann,” “Sister Ann”), although she was not present. Like Rep. Waters, Sò Ann is considered close to Aristide. On Oct. 8 Ansyto Félix of the FL Mobilization Commission denied that the FL was supporting Christalin. (Radio Kiskeya 10/7/10; Agence Haïtienne de Presse (Haiti) 10/7/10, 10/8/10)
But Yvon Neptune, who was Aristide’s last prime minister (2002-2004) and was imprisoned for two years after Aristide’s ouster on Feb. 29, 2004, is clearly not seeking support from FL or Aristide. During an Oct. 6 interview on Radio Kiskeya, he said that Aristide had resigned in proper form in 2004. “I had a copy of Mr. Aristide’s resignation letter,” he said. “It was authentic.” Aristide and his supporters have always insisted that he was the victim of a “modern kidnapping” by the US and possibly other countries. Neptune also said that the bands of Aristide supporters widely known as chimè had been integrated into the police force in the last days of Aristide’s administration. (Radio Kiskeya 10/6/10)
President René Préval has also been having problems with a former prime minister, Jacques-Edouard Alexis, who is now running for president for the Mobilization for Haiti’s Progress (MPH) after being passed over for the nomination of Préval’s Unity party in favor of Jude Célestin. On Oct. 5 Alexis charged that Préval had distributed firearms to his supporters to ensure Unity’s victory in the elections. (Radio Métropole (Haiti) 10/5/10)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico
Brazil: Social Movement Leaders Predict Gains with Rousseff
https://nacla.org/node/6767
Brazilian Elections: Shifting Dynamics and the Green Vote
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/2727-brazilian-elections-shifting-dynamics-and-the-green-vote
Guaraní under siege (Brazil)
http://ww4report.com/node/8124#comment-321920
Bolivia: newspapers protest proposed racism law
http://ww4report.com/node/9177
Seven SOA graduates convicted in Peru
http://ww4report.com/node/9175
Peru: indigenous leader Alberto Pizango runs for president
http://ww4report.com/node/9176
Standing Up for Democracy in Ecuador
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3330
Ecuador Detains 46 Police Officers; Obama Calls Correa To Ask For Calm
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/07/ecuador-detains-46-police-officers-obama-calls-correa-to-ask-for-calm/
Ecuador: Air Force and Navy Reluctantly Backed President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2722-chavez-revving-up-revolution-with-land-takeovers-
SOA graduate charged in Ecuador coup attempt
http://ww4report.com/node/9174
U.S. Base Deal for Colombia: Back to the Status Quo
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2728-us-base-deal-for-colombia-back-to-the-status-quo
Where Flowers Bloom So Does Hope: Colombia’s Troubled Flower Industry
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2723-where-flowers-bloom-so-does-hope-colombias-troubled-flower-industry
Venezuela: Chávez announces new land seizures
http://ww4report.com/node/9172
Chávez Revving Up Revolution with Land Takeovers
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2722-chavez-revving-up-revolution-with-land-takeovers-
Venezuelan Mitsubishi Workers Protest Further Firings and Government Treatment
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5698
Colombian-Venezuelan Integration Furthered after July Break in Ties
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5699
Panama Awakes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2725-panama-awakes
Mexico Ordered To Pay Damages To Two Indigenous Women Raped By Soldiers
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/05/mexico-ordered-to-pay-damages-to-two-indigenous-women-raped-by-soldiers/
State Department Backing US Troops In Mexico
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/erin-rosa/2010/10/state-department-backing-us-troops-mexico
Goldcorp’s Peñasquito Mine Sparks Controversy In Mazapil, Mexico
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/05/goldcorps-penasquito-mine-sparks-controversy-in-mazapil-mexico/
San Juan Copala evacuated (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/9130#comment-321919
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, October 4, 2010
WNU #1051: “No Problem” With Constituent Assembly for Honduras?
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1051, October 3, 2010
1. Honduras: “What’s the Problem” With a Constituent Assembly?
2. Colombia: Inspector General Removes Senator Córdoba
3. Argentina: Chilean Rebel Gets Asylum
4. Guatemala: US Apologizes for Syphilis Experiment
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Amazonia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, 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. Honduras: “What’s the Problem” With a Constituent Assembly?
At a press conference in Tegucigalpa on Sept. 29, a reporter asked conservative Honduran president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa about calls from unions and grassroots organizations for a constituent assembly to rewrite the country’s 1982 Constitution. “But what’s the problem with that?” Lobo responded. “What’s the problem?” The president said he considered it his “moral duty…to invite the sectors that promote it to hold a dialogue…. Let’s sit down and discuss [these things]. That isn’t the problem.”
Lobo’s comment seemed to represent a break from the official policy of ignoring calls for rewriting the Constitution, a proposal which the Honduran elite vehemently opposes. An effort by former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009) to hold a nonbinding plebiscite on calling a constituent assembly was one of the reasons given for the military coup d’état that removed him from office on June 28, 2009, the day the vote was to take place. Lobo--who was elected on Nov. 29, 2009, in elections organized by the de facto government installed by the coup--has made it clear that his government does not support a constituent assembly.
But it is now obvious that there is widespread support for the idea. On Sept. 15 the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of many different groups opposing the 2009 coup, concluded a campaign it started on Apr. 20 to gather 1.25 million signatures on a petition calling for a constituent assembly [see Update #1047]. The final count, according to the FNRP, was 1,342,876 signatures.
This is a significant number in a country with a total population of about eight million, and considerably higher than the number of votes Lobo received in last year’s elections. According to Honduras’ Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), there were 4,611,211 registered voters at the time of the elections; 2,300,056 people voted, the TSE says, and Lobo received 1,213,695 votes. Even this number is too high, according to the resistance, which boycotted the elections and estimates that the actual turnout was much lower than the 49.9% claimed by the TSE [see Update #1017]. (Honduras Culture and Politics blog 10/1/10; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 9/29/10; El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula) 9/17/10; TSE website, accessed 10/3/10)
In other news, Marvin Ponce, a legislative deputy for the small center-left Democratic Unification (UD) party, said there was applause in the generally conservative National Congress at reports on Sept. 30 that a coup was taking place against the leftist government of Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa. Many of the current members also supported the 2009 coup in Honduras.
On Oct. 1, after it was clear that Correa was still in office, the FNRP issued a statement congratulating the “heroic people of Ecuador” for their “triumph over the retrograde forces of the oligarchy and imperialism.” “We too will drive out the tyrants imposed by the force of arms,” the FNRP said. (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 10/1/10, ___)
*2. Colombia: Inspector General Removes Senator Córdoba
On Sept. 27 Colombian inspector general Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado announced that he was removing Senator Piedad Córdoba from her position and barring her from public office for 18 years because of what he said were her links to the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Córdoba, a member of the centrist Liberal Party, has mediated in negotiations which led to the release of 14 prisoners held by the FARC [see Updates #977, 1032]. She is also a member of Colombians for Peace, formed in 2008 by politicians, intellectuals, artists, journalists and former FARC prisoners to seek solutions to the armed conflicts in the country.
The move against Córdoba came four days after a leading FARC commander, Jorge Briceño Suárez ("Mono Jojoy"), was killed along with 20 other rebels in a bombing operation by the Colombian military [see WW4 Report 9/26/10].
Inspector General Ordóñez, who has the authority to remove elected officials, claimed that Córdoba had gone beyond her role as a negotiator by advising FARC commanders on how to handle hostage releases. The Colombian authorities said the charges against Córdoba are based on information found in computers used by FARC spokesperson and negotiator Raúl Reyes. The computers were seized in March 2008, when the Colombian military bombed and raided a FARC camp in Ecuador, killing Reyes and about 20 other people, and the Colombian government has been using information allegedly from the computers to attack its opponents on the left [see Update #958].
In response to her dismissal, Córdoba wrote that Ordóñez has been “seriously questioned for his activities against the rights of women and the LGBT population [and for] the illegal operations of the DAS”--the Administrative Department of Security, the political police--and is being “investigated by the Supreme Court of Justice.” She called her removal “one more instance of the political persecution that has been carried out against me in the last 12 years,” including a kidnapping by rightwing paramilitaries. For a time she and her family had to live in exile to assure their safety. She said she was filing an appeal, but it has to be with the same office that removed her; there is no higher authority in these cases. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/28/10 from Reuters, DPA, AFP; Caracol Radio (Colombia) 9/28/10)
In an opinion piece published on Oct. 1, former Cuba president Fidel Castro Ruz praised Córdoba, mentioning that she and several others had met with him in Cuba a few weeks earlier. He noted their “profound desire to seek peace for their country.” “However, I’m not surprised by the decision taken by the inspector general, which follows the official policy of a country virtually occupied by Yankee troops.” (LJ 10/1/10)
*3. Argentina: Chilean Rebel Gets Asylum
On Sept. 30 the National Refugee Commission of Argentina (Conare) granted political asylum to Sergio Galvarino Apablaza Guerra, a former leader of Chile’s rebel Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR). Chile is seeking Apablaza’s extradition to stand trial for the assassination of Chilean senator Jaime Guzmán, a close ally of dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, in 1991, a year after the end of Chile’s 1973-1990 military dictatorship. Apablaza is also charged with the 1991 kidnapping of Cristián Edwards del Río, the son of one of the owners of the Santiago daily El Mercurio.
Apablaza has lived in Argentina since 1993. Argentine police arrested him in 2004 on the Chilean charges; Apablaza claimed at the time that the FPMR had split and that he did not belong to the faction that carried out the attacks. An Argentine judge released him on bond in 2005, ruling that the Chilean charges were political and that Chile had denied Apablaza due process [see Update #806]. Chile appealed to Argentina’s Supreme Court of Justice, which ruled in favor of the extradition request on Sept. 14 of this year.
According to a source in the Argentine government, Conare granted Apablaza asylum because he was "a political activist, a fighter against the dictatorship.” “He isn’t a common citizen,” the source said. The decision is causing tensions between Chile’s government and the center-left government of Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. On Oct. 1 rightwing Chilean president Sebastián Piñera said Conare’s move “means a step backward for the cause of justice and human rights in my country.” (La Nación (Argentina) 10/1/10; EFE 10/3/10 via ABC (Spain))
*4. Guatemala: US Apologizes for Syphilis Experiment
US president Barack Obama personally apologized by phone to Guatemalan president Álvaro Colom on Oct. 1 shortly after the US revealed that the US Public Health Service had purposely infected Guatemalan soldiers, prisoners and mental patients with syphilis and gonorrhea in a 1946-48 experiment to test the effectiveness of penicillin in fighting sexually transmitted diseases. The program exposed some 1,500 Guatemalans to the diseases, and 696 were reportedly infected. It is not clear how many of them received medical treatment.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (PASB), the predecessor of the current Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), financed the experiment, which was carried out under the government of Guatemalan president Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, although apparently there was some deception of Guatemalan officials. The program was directed by Dr. John Cutler of the US Public Health Service; Cutler was later involved in the notorious 1932-1972 study in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which African-American men with syphilis were deliberately left untreated. The Guatemalan experiment only came to light now because of independent research by Wellesley College professor Susan M. Reverby.
At an Oct. 1 press conference President Colom called the experiment a “crime against humanity” and said his government “reserves the right to file a complaint.” Nery Rodenas Paredes, head of the Guatemalan Archdiocese’s human rights office, said that “it’s not enough to ask for pardon,” the US needs to pay compensation to the victims’ families.
Dr. Mark Siegler, director of the Maclean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago’s medical school, told the New York Times: “It’s ironic—no, it’s worse than that, it’s appalling—that, at the same time as the United States was prosecuting Nazi doctors for crimes against humanity, the US government was supporting research that placed human subjects at enormous risk.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/2/10 from correspondent, 10/2/10 from AFP, Notimex; NYT 10/2/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Amazonia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Long Standing Impunity Challenges Argentina: 4 Years Without Julio Lopez
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/2709-long-standing-impunity-challenges-argentina-4-years-without-julio-lopez
Indigenous organizations declare "emergency" in Amazonia
http://ww4report.com/node/9156
Coup d'etat underway in Ecuador?
http://ww4report.com/node/9157
Ecuador: The President "Is Going to Pay for What He's Done"
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53024
Ecuador: army rescues Correa from hospital
http://ww4report.com/node/9158
No Room For Ambivalence: Support President Rafael Correa and Ecuadorean Democracy
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3285
CONAIE on the Attempted Coup in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2717-conaie-on-the-attempted-coup-in-ecuador
Report from Ecuador: Democracy Under Threat
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/component/content/article/2720-report-from-ecuador-democracy-under-threat-
Colombia: The Significance of the Killing of FARC Leader “Mono Jojoy”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2708-the-significance-of-the-killing-of-farc-leader-mono-jojoy
Colombia’s Senator Cordoba Booted For Alleged FARC Links
http://latindispatch.com/2010/09/28/colombias-senator-cordoba-booted-for-alleged-farc-links/
150 Scholars Call on Georgetown to Fire Álvaro Uribe (Colombia)
https://nacla.org/node/6759
Venezuelan Elections: Socialists Advance, Opposition Loses Ground Compared to 2000 Elections
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5666
A New Opportunity for Venezuela’s Socialists
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5683
Repression's Reward in Honduras? Dinner with Obama
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-frank/repressions-reward-in-hon_b_738620.html
U.S. 'Democracy Promotion' in Honduras
https://nacla.org/node/6761
Guatemala, in the Sights of the Zetas
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3279
Mexico: youths lynched in Chihuahua kidnapping
http://ww4report.com/node/9155
Corruption And Deforestation Caused Oaxaca’s Mudslide Disaster
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2712-corruption-and-deforestation-caused-oaxacas-mudslide-disaster
Cuba Travel Legislation Vote Postponed; Not Likely To Be Taken Up Until After Midterm Elections
http://latindispatch.com/2010/09/30/cuba-travel-legislation-vote-postponed-not-likely-to-be-taken-up-until-after-midterm-elections/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1051, October 3, 2010
1. Honduras: “What’s the Problem” With a Constituent Assembly?
2. Colombia: Inspector General Removes Senator Córdoba
3. Argentina: Chilean Rebel Gets Asylum
4. Guatemala: US Apologizes for Syphilis Experiment
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Amazonia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, 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. Honduras: “What’s the Problem” With a Constituent Assembly?
At a press conference in Tegucigalpa on Sept. 29, a reporter asked conservative Honduran president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa about calls from unions and grassroots organizations for a constituent assembly to rewrite the country’s 1982 Constitution. “But what’s the problem with that?” Lobo responded. “What’s the problem?” The president said he considered it his “moral duty…to invite the sectors that promote it to hold a dialogue…. Let’s sit down and discuss [these things]. That isn’t the problem.”
Lobo’s comment seemed to represent a break from the official policy of ignoring calls for rewriting the Constitution, a proposal which the Honduran elite vehemently opposes. An effort by former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009) to hold a nonbinding plebiscite on calling a constituent assembly was one of the reasons given for the military coup d’état that removed him from office on June 28, 2009, the day the vote was to take place. Lobo--who was elected on Nov. 29, 2009, in elections organized by the de facto government installed by the coup--has made it clear that his government does not support a constituent assembly.
But it is now obvious that there is widespread support for the idea. On Sept. 15 the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of many different groups opposing the 2009 coup, concluded a campaign it started on Apr. 20 to gather 1.25 million signatures on a petition calling for a constituent assembly [see Update #1047]. The final count, according to the FNRP, was 1,342,876 signatures.
This is a significant number in a country with a total population of about eight million, and considerably higher than the number of votes Lobo received in last year’s elections. According to Honduras’ Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), there were 4,611,211 registered voters at the time of the elections; 2,300,056 people voted, the TSE says, and Lobo received 1,213,695 votes. Even this number is too high, according to the resistance, which boycotted the elections and estimates that the actual turnout was much lower than the 49.9% claimed by the TSE [see Update #1017]. (Honduras Culture and Politics blog 10/1/10; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 9/29/10; El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula) 9/17/10; TSE website, accessed 10/3/10)
In other news, Marvin Ponce, a legislative deputy for the small center-left Democratic Unification (UD) party, said there was applause in the generally conservative National Congress at reports on Sept. 30 that a coup was taking place against the leftist government of Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa. Many of the current members also supported the 2009 coup in Honduras.
On Oct. 1, after it was clear that Correa was still in office, the FNRP issued a statement congratulating the “heroic people of Ecuador” for their “triumph over the retrograde forces of the oligarchy and imperialism.” “We too will drive out the tyrants imposed by the force of arms,” the FNRP said. (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 10/1/10, ___)
*2. Colombia: Inspector General Removes Senator Córdoba
On Sept. 27 Colombian inspector general Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado announced that he was removing Senator Piedad Córdoba from her position and barring her from public office for 18 years because of what he said were her links to the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Córdoba, a member of the centrist Liberal Party, has mediated in negotiations which led to the release of 14 prisoners held by the FARC [see Updates #977, 1032]. She is also a member of Colombians for Peace, formed in 2008 by politicians, intellectuals, artists, journalists and former FARC prisoners to seek solutions to the armed conflicts in the country.
The move against Córdoba came four days after a leading FARC commander, Jorge Briceño Suárez ("Mono Jojoy"), was killed along with 20 other rebels in a bombing operation by the Colombian military [see WW4 Report 9/26/10].
Inspector General Ordóñez, who has the authority to remove elected officials, claimed that Córdoba had gone beyond her role as a negotiator by advising FARC commanders on how to handle hostage releases. The Colombian authorities said the charges against Córdoba are based on information found in computers used by FARC spokesperson and negotiator Raúl Reyes. The computers were seized in March 2008, when the Colombian military bombed and raided a FARC camp in Ecuador, killing Reyes and about 20 other people, and the Colombian government has been using information allegedly from the computers to attack its opponents on the left [see Update #958].
In response to her dismissal, Córdoba wrote that Ordóñez has been “seriously questioned for his activities against the rights of women and the LGBT population [and for] the illegal operations of the DAS”--the Administrative Department of Security, the political police--and is being “investigated by the Supreme Court of Justice.” She called her removal “one more instance of the political persecution that has been carried out against me in the last 12 years,” including a kidnapping by rightwing paramilitaries. For a time she and her family had to live in exile to assure their safety. She said she was filing an appeal, but it has to be with the same office that removed her; there is no higher authority in these cases. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/28/10 from Reuters, DPA, AFP; Caracol Radio (Colombia) 9/28/10)
In an opinion piece published on Oct. 1, former Cuba president Fidel Castro Ruz praised Córdoba, mentioning that she and several others had met with him in Cuba a few weeks earlier. He noted their “profound desire to seek peace for their country.” “However, I’m not surprised by the decision taken by the inspector general, which follows the official policy of a country virtually occupied by Yankee troops.” (LJ 10/1/10)
*3. Argentina: Chilean Rebel Gets Asylum
On Sept. 30 the National Refugee Commission of Argentina (Conare) granted political asylum to Sergio Galvarino Apablaza Guerra, a former leader of Chile’s rebel Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR). Chile is seeking Apablaza’s extradition to stand trial for the assassination of Chilean senator Jaime Guzmán, a close ally of dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, in 1991, a year after the end of Chile’s 1973-1990 military dictatorship. Apablaza is also charged with the 1991 kidnapping of Cristián Edwards del Río, the son of one of the owners of the Santiago daily El Mercurio.
Apablaza has lived in Argentina since 1993. Argentine police arrested him in 2004 on the Chilean charges; Apablaza claimed at the time that the FPMR had split and that he did not belong to the faction that carried out the attacks. An Argentine judge released him on bond in 2005, ruling that the Chilean charges were political and that Chile had denied Apablaza due process [see Update #806]. Chile appealed to Argentina’s Supreme Court of Justice, which ruled in favor of the extradition request on Sept. 14 of this year.
According to a source in the Argentine government, Conare granted Apablaza asylum because he was "a political activist, a fighter against the dictatorship.” “He isn’t a common citizen,” the source said. The decision is causing tensions between Chile’s government and the center-left government of Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. On Oct. 1 rightwing Chilean president Sebastián Piñera said Conare’s move “means a step backward for the cause of justice and human rights in my country.” (La Nación (Argentina) 10/1/10; EFE 10/3/10 via ABC (Spain))
*4. Guatemala: US Apologizes for Syphilis Experiment
US president Barack Obama personally apologized by phone to Guatemalan president Álvaro Colom on Oct. 1 shortly after the US revealed that the US Public Health Service had purposely infected Guatemalan soldiers, prisoners and mental patients with syphilis and gonorrhea in a 1946-48 experiment to test the effectiveness of penicillin in fighting sexually transmitted diseases. The program exposed some 1,500 Guatemalans to the diseases, and 696 were reportedly infected. It is not clear how many of them received medical treatment.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (PASB), the predecessor of the current Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), financed the experiment, which was carried out under the government of Guatemalan president Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, although apparently there was some deception of Guatemalan officials. The program was directed by Dr. John Cutler of the US Public Health Service; Cutler was later involved in the notorious 1932-1972 study in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which African-American men with syphilis were deliberately left untreated. The Guatemalan experiment only came to light now because of independent research by Wellesley College professor Susan M. Reverby.
At an Oct. 1 press conference President Colom called the experiment a “crime against humanity” and said his government “reserves the right to file a complaint.” Nery Rodenas Paredes, head of the Guatemalan Archdiocese’s human rights office, said that “it’s not enough to ask for pardon,” the US needs to pay compensation to the victims’ families.
Dr. Mark Siegler, director of the Maclean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago’s medical school, told the New York Times: “It’s ironic—no, it’s worse than that, it’s appalling—that, at the same time as the United States was prosecuting Nazi doctors for crimes against humanity, the US government was supporting research that placed human subjects at enormous risk.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/2/10 from correspondent, 10/2/10 from AFP, Notimex; NYT 10/2/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Amazonia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Long Standing Impunity Challenges Argentina: 4 Years Without Julio Lopez
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/2709-long-standing-impunity-challenges-argentina-4-years-without-julio-lopez
Indigenous organizations declare "emergency" in Amazonia
http://ww4report.com/node/9156
Coup d'etat underway in Ecuador?
http://ww4report.com/node/9157
Ecuador: The President "Is Going to Pay for What He's Done"
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53024
Ecuador: army rescues Correa from hospital
http://ww4report.com/node/9158
No Room For Ambivalence: Support President Rafael Correa and Ecuadorean Democracy
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3285
CONAIE on the Attempted Coup in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2717-conaie-on-the-attempted-coup-in-ecuador
Report from Ecuador: Democracy Under Threat
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/component/content/article/2720-report-from-ecuador-democracy-under-threat-
Colombia: The Significance of the Killing of FARC Leader “Mono Jojoy”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2708-the-significance-of-the-killing-of-farc-leader-mono-jojoy
Colombia’s Senator Cordoba Booted For Alleged FARC Links
http://latindispatch.com/2010/09/28/colombias-senator-cordoba-booted-for-alleged-farc-links/
150 Scholars Call on Georgetown to Fire Álvaro Uribe (Colombia)
https://nacla.org/node/6759
Venezuelan Elections: Socialists Advance, Opposition Loses Ground Compared to 2000 Elections
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5666
A New Opportunity for Venezuela’s Socialists
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5683
Repression's Reward in Honduras? Dinner with Obama
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-frank/repressions-reward-in-hon_b_738620.html
U.S. 'Democracy Promotion' in Honduras
https://nacla.org/node/6761
Guatemala, in the Sights of the Zetas
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3279
Mexico: youths lynched in Chihuahua kidnapping
http://ww4report.com/node/9155
Corruption And Deforestation Caused Oaxaca’s Mudslide Disaster
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2712-corruption-and-deforestation-caused-oaxacas-mudslide-disaster
Cuba Travel Legislation Vote Postponed; Not Likely To Be Taken Up Until After Midterm Elections
http://latindispatch.com/2010/09/30/cuba-travel-legislation-vote-postponed-not-likely-to-be-taken-up-until-after-midterm-elections/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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