Tuesday, November 27, 2012

NYC, 11/30/12: Remembering Bernie McFall

Bernie McFall was a mainstay of New York-area activism for many years: a reliable supporter of solidarity with Central America, Cuba, Haiti and Palestine; a strong unionist; a regular volunteer for WBAI and for recycling efforts; an organizer of New York contingents for the annual protests at the US Army School of the Americas.

Bernie died on Oct. 16 after battling two forms of cancer. Friends and colleagues will be holding an informal gathering on Friday, November 30 to share memories of Bernie. Filmmaker Konrad Aderer, who featured Bernie in his documentary about Farouk Abdel-Muhti, “Enemy Alien,” will show video footage of Bernie. Please join us.

Friday, November 30, 2012, 6:30 pm
AJ Muste Memorial Institute
339 Lafayette Street, buzzer 11
New York, NY
at Bleecker Street; take the 6 train to Bleecker Street, or the B,D,F or M to Broadway-Lafayette


Bernie left a large collection of books on Latin America and the Middle East, along with reading materials in several languages, much of it in Arabic. He wanted his books to be given to people who could make good use of them. We will make the books available to the community before and during the memorial, starting at 6 pm.

For more information, write weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com
or visit http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/2012/10/bernie-mcfall-presente.html

WNU #1153: Leaders and Movements Protest Attack on Gaza

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1153, November 25, 2012

1. Latin America: Leaders and Movements Protest Attack on Gaza
2. Argentina: Unions Call First General Strike in 10 Years
3. Mexico: Torture and Disappearances Are on the Rise
4. US: SOA Protests Continue; Church Expels Activist Priest
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, Trade

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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.

*1. Latin America: Leaders and Movements Protest Attack on Gaza
In a Nov. 17 statement the leaders of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), a trade bloc made up of Argentina, BrazilParaguay (suspended), Uruguay and Venezuela, expressed their “strongest condemnation of the violence unleashed between Israel and Palestine” and their “concern with the disproportionate use of force” since Israel began a military offensive against Gaza on Nov. 14. Mercosur also expressed “its support to the request from the state of Palestine to obtain the status of [United Nations] observer member.”

The four active Mercosur members are among the 11 Latin American countries that have recognized Palestine as a state [see Update #1063]; the others are Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru. Mercosur signed a “free trade” agreement with the Palestinian National Authority in December 2011; it signed a similar trade agreement with Israel in 2007, a move opposed by many leftists, who feel cutting off trade with Mercosur would put pressure on the Israeli government. Israel’s annual exports to Mercosur are worth about $700 million; Brazil by itself is the third largest recipient of Israeli exports in the world. (MercoPress (Montevideo) 11/17/12; Aporrea.org (Venezuela) 11/19/12; People’s Daily (China) 11/21/12)

[Paraguay was suspended from Mercosur after the legislature's sudden impeachment of President Fernando Lugo on June 22 but remains a member; see Update #1135.]

Some Latin American leaders were stronger than others in their condemnation of the Israeli operation, codenamed “Pillar of Defense,” which was suspended in a ceasefire agreement on Nov. 21. On Nov. 19 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said “the first step” for resolving the conflict “should be the creation of a free and independent Palestinian state that can negotiate peace as an equal with the state of Israel.” Also on Nov. 19, El Salvador’s governing leftist party, the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), condemned the offensive as a “new massacre…against the people of Palestine” and charged that Israel had provoked the conflict. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez had characterized “Pillar of Defense” as “savage” a few days earlier, while the Cuban government repeated its “most firm support for the just cause of the Palestinian people and their inalienable rights, which include the creation of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

“[W]e back the right of the Palestinian people to be able to have their own free, independent and autonomous state,” Chile’s rightwing president, Sebastián Piñera, said during a visit to Turkey on Nov. 19, but he stressed that Chile “also support[s] Israel’s right to count on secure borders in peace.” According to the Spanish wire service EFE, Chile has the largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East.

Many groups in the region held protests against the Israeli offensive. About 30 Uruguayans demonstrated in Montevideo on Nov. 19 in front of the Israeli embassy, calling Israel a “genocidal state.” Dozens of members of the Salvadoran Palestinian Association and other organizations protested the same day in front of the Israeli embassy in El Salvador. (EFE 11/19/12 via Diario de Yucatán (Mexico))

A Mexican group protested at the Angel of Independence in Mexico City on Nov. 20, and another demonstration was held in front of the Israeli embassy. Activists were planning a further show of support for the Palestinians in front of the United Nations (UN) office in Mexico City on Nov. 27, two days before Palestinian National Authority president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is scheduled to ask the UN General Assembly for observer status for Palestine. (Adital (Brazil) 11/22/12) Hundreds of Colombians and resident Palestinians demonstrated at the Israeli embassy in Bogotá on Nov. 20; the protest tied up traffic in the city center for about two hours. A protest in Managua the next day by Nicaraguans, resident Palestinians and US citizen Nan McCurry targeted the US embassy. “I’m asking the government of my country to stop supporting Israel so that this war will end immediately,” McCurry said in a brief speech. (People’s Daily 11/21/12, 11/21/12)

A number of Arab and Palestinian groups, with the support of Brazil’s Unified Workers’ Central (CUT), are holding a Free Palestine World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in southern Brazil from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1. The goal is “to consolidate and strengthen the international solidarity movement for the rights of the Palestinians.” (Adital (Brazil) 11/20/12)

*2. Argentina: Unions Call First General Strike in 10 Years
Argentina’s largest union federation, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), and the more radical Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA) sponsored a nationwide general strike on Nov. 20 to protest President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s economic policies. The majority of the country’s unions supported the strike call, as did leftist parties and the leftist Classist and Combative Current (CCC), but the CGT section led by Antonio Caló, representing 33 industrial and service unions, ignored the strike call. Organizers called the action a success, while President Fernández dismissed it as “a phenomenon limited to some service unions and to the area around the federal capital.”

The strikers blocked the main highways into Buenos Aires and other major cities. Schools, courts, banks and gas stations were closed in Buenos Aires province, where about a third of the country’s population lives, and hospitals only accepted emergency cases. In the central province of Santa Fe, the strike shut down Rosario, the main port for the export of agricultural goods; oil production was affected in Río Negro, Neuquén and La Pampa provinces. Airports remained open but had many less flights than usual.

In addition to blocking roads, strikers reportedly threw stones at buses and punctured tires to keep people from going to work. CTA Pablo Micheli leader said strikers had blocked roads at 300 points; the media estimated that the number was 160. While claiming that hundreds of thousands of workers supported the strike, Micheli admitted that without the blockages “the strike wouldn’t have had the rate of observation that it had.” “[I]n Argentina there’s no right to strike,” he said. “We were forced to have piquetes [militant road blockages] so that the workers could justify not having gone to their work places.”

The strikers’ demands included an increase in the minimum wage and in social assistance programs; the elimination of a tax on workers’ incomes; and an increase in retirement pensions. The groups supporting the strike protested the loss of purchasing power by much of the population; some private economists claim the annual inflation rate will come to 25% this year.

The Nov. 20 action was Argentina’s first general strike since December 2002, and it marked the end of a long-time alliance between CGT general secretary Hugo Moyano and the faction of the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist) formed by President Fernández and her late husband, former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) [see Update #988]. (Terra.es (Spain) 11/21/12 from Europa Press and unidentified wire services;La Jornada (Mexico) 11/21/12 from correspondent)

*3. Mexico: Torture and Disappearances Are on the Rise
Complaints about abuses by Mexican police and soldiers have increased dramatically over the past seven years, according to testimony by Raúl Plascencia Villanueva, the president of the government’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), to the Mexican Senate’s Human Rights Commission on Nov. 21. Plascencia was reporting principally on the period from Jan. 1, 2005 to July 31, 2012, which overlaps the administration of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and his militarization of the “war on drugs.” Calderón took office on Dec. 1, 2006; he will be succeeded this Dec. 1 by Enrique Peña Nieto.

During the 2005-2012 period the CNDH received 5,568 complaints about alleged failures to follow required procedures in issuing or executing warrants for searches, Plascencia said. The agency is also investigating 2,126 cases of people who were reportedly disappeared. There were more than 9,000 complaints citing arbitrary detentions, a 121% increase during the period. In 2005 there was only one complaint of torture; in 2011 the number of complaints about torture or other cruel and degrading treatment had risen to 2,040. Since 2005 the CNDH has received a total of 34,385 complaints against federal public servants, with an 84% increase just in the last three years. The alleged abuses were “mainly concentrated under the headings of illegal searches, forcible disappearances, arbitrary detentions, executions and torture,” Plascencia said. (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/22/12)

On Nov. 21 Guerrero governor Angel Aguirre Rivero publicly apologized at a ceremony in Acapulco for the deaths of two students and a gas station worker during a confrontation on Dec. 12, 2011 between police and students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College, located in the Guerrero village of Ayotzinapa. The apology was in response to a March recommendation by the CNDH, which also required compensation for the victims’ families and for people injured in the incident [see Update #1123]. Víctor Hugo Pérez, human rights director for the federal Public Security Secretariat (SSP), was also present to offer his “profound and heartfelt apology” for the role of federal police agents in the confrontation.

The brother of the gas station worker was the only relative of a victim to attend. The other families and students from the college boycotted the ceremony; instead, they held a press conference where they demanded punishment for the officials they say are responsible for the killings. State police agents Ismael Matadamas Salinas and Rey David Cortés Flores are the only suspects detained in the case, although the Guerrero legislature is considering a petition for lifting the immunity of former state chief prosecutor Guerrero Alberto López Rosas and former state public security secretary Ramón Almonte Borja. (LJ 11/20/12, 11/22/12)

*4. US: SOA Protests Continue; Church Expels Activist Priest
The 22nd annual protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), brought several thousand activists to the Army's Fort Benning base in Columbus, Georgia, for a series of events from Nov. 16 to Nov. 18. One demonstrator, Robert Norman Chantal of Americus, Georgia, was arrested when he climbed over the base's fence during the concluding event, a symbolic funeral march, on Nov. 18. He was released later on his own recognizance, according to a Fort Benning representative. Chantal, who faces a possible six-month sentence, will be tried in a US District Court on Jan. 9.

The protest’s sponsor, SOA Watch, opposes the US Army’s training of Latin American soldiers, charging that SOA graduates have been among the region’s most notorious human rights violators. The group’s protests have gained some sympathy in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela have ended their relations with the school, and in September Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega told a human rights delegation that Nicaragua will withdraw from SOA/WHINSEC [see Update #1144]. There may also some movement in US ruling circles. On Nov. 14 Denis McDonough, national deputy security adviser to US president Barack Obama, met with an SOA Watch delegation; the group asked for the school to be shut down by executive order. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) is planning to introduce legislation in Congress in January to suspend operations at the school and investigate human rights abuses in Latin America. (SOA Watch press release 11/18/12; Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer 11/18/12)

On Nov. 19, the day after this year’s protests, the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, a Catholic religious order, issued a statement confirming that the Vatican was dismissing SOA Watch’s founder, Father Roy Bourgeois, from the priesthood and from his order for participating in an August 2008 rite ordaining a woman as a priest. Bourgeois said that the dismissal was “very difficult and painful” but that his “only regret is that it took me so long to confront the issue of male power and domination in the Catholic Church.” (Religion News Service 11/21/12 via Washington Post)

The Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH) responded to the decision with a statement noting Bourgeois’ solidarity with Hondurans after the June 2009 military coup and praising him as “a humanist, a tireless fighter for the imparting of justice, a defender of the poor and a companion to social struggles throughout the continent.” (Adital (Brazil) 11/23/12) Bourgeois’ supporters have started an online petition at http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/727/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=11972 where people can express their solidarity with his “decision to follow his conscience.”

*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, Trade

#Radical Media: Communication Unbound (Latin America)
http://nacla.org/news/2012/11/20/radical-media-communication-unbound

Latin America’s Left Turn Collides with Indigenous Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3974-latin-americas-left-turn-collides-with-indigenous-movements

Argentina fights US order to pay $1.33 billion debt
http://ww4report.com/node/11719

Industrial Soy and Sugar Cane Fuel Native Land Conflicts in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/3978-industrial-soy-and-sugar-cane-fuel-native-land-conflicts-in-brazil

Brazil: crime wars rock Sao Paulo
http://ww4report.com/node/11728

Brazil: Amazon native killed by federal police
http://ww4report.com/node/11727

Brazil: violence halts work at Belo Monte dam
http://ww4report.com/node/11726

Bolivia: dissent over indigenous identity in census
http://ww4report.com/node/11725

Peru: Amazonian leaders press land demarcation
http://ww4report.com/node/11724

Peru: campesino alliance with "illegal" miners
http://ww4report.com/node/11723

Colombia: indigenous peace proposal advanced
http://ww4report.com/node/11722

Colombia rejects Hague ruling in Nicaragua maritime dispute
http://ww4report.com/node/11729

Mass Participation in Debate on Venezuela’s Socialist Plan
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7498

EL Salvador: Proposed Culture Law Would Provide Healthcare and Funding for Artists
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3985-el-salvador-proposed-culture-law-would-provide-healthcare-and-funding-for-artists

Murders of Teenagers and Opposition Party Members Underscore Impunity in Honduras and the Failure of U.S. “Vetting”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3977-murders-of-teenagers-and-opposition-party-members-underscore-impunity-in-honduras-and-the-failure-of-us-vetting

Honduras’ Party Primaries: Voters Went to the Polls, But Can Next Year’s Elections be “Free and Fair”?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/honduras-party-primaries-voters-went-to-the-polls-but-can-next-years-elections-be-free-and-fair

Action Alert! Protect Pacific Resistance in San José del Golfo, Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3983-action-alert-protect-pacific-resistance-in-san-jose-del-golfo-guatemala

Canadian Mining on Trial (Guatemala)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3980-canadian-mining-on-trial

Guatemala’s ‘Little School of the Americas’
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3976-guatemalas-little-school-of-the-americas

Should Chiapas Farmers Suffer for California’s Carbon? (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3975-should-chiapas-farmers-suffer-for-californias-carbon

War or Peace in Mexico?
http://www.grass-roots-press.com/2012/11/24/war-or-peace-in-mexico/

Mexico: pressure mounts for drug legalization
http://ww4report.com/node/11730

Returning Migrant Children Pose Educational Challenge in Mexico
http://newamericamedia.org/2012/11/returning-migrant-children-pose-educational-challenge-in-mexico.php

The Caribbean’s Agricultural Crisis
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/23/caribbean%E2%80%99s-agricultural-crisis

Cholera Continues to Spread After Hurricane Sandy (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/cholera-continues-to-spread-after-hurricane-sandy

Quebec fracking ban challenged under NAFTA
http://ww4report.com/node/11731

For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/  
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication.

Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

WNU #1152: Mexican Congress Passes “Labor Reform”

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1152, November 18, 2012

1. Mexico: “Labor Reform” Passes; Economists Are “Upbeat”
2. Chile: Pascua Lama Mine Suspended Over Safety Issues
3. Dominican Republic: Austerity Protests Spread Abroad
4. Haiti: Students Protest Killing by Police Agent
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, US/immigration

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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.

*1. Mexico: “Labor Reform” Passes; Economists Are “Upbeat”
The Mexican Senate voted 96-28 on Nov. 13 to approve changes to the 1970 Federal Labor Law (LFT) that will legalize the use of part-time and contract employees, allow the hiring of workers for trial periods, and limit the amount of back pay businesses are required to give laid-off workers [see Update #1146]. The controversial “labor reform,” which had been approved by the Chamber of Deputies the week before, was sent on to President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, who was expected to sign it into law.

The labor code changes were pushed through--after a total of 71 days of debate in the two chambers--by legislators from the center-right National Action Party (PAN) and the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), with the support of two small centrist parties, the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM) and the New Alliance Party (PANAL). Both President Calderón, a member of the PAN, and president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, a PRI member who is to succeed Calderón on Dec. 1, supported the changes. The only opposition in the Senate came from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the small leftist Labor Party (PT).

PAN and leftist legislators worked together in the past to include articles in the bill that would promote union democracy. The PRI, which historically has a base among conservative union leaders, strongly opposed these articles, and the Chamber of Deputies stripped them out of the final bill. An alliance of the PAN and the left in the Senate restored two of the articles, 388 and 390, by a vote of 65-61 during the Nov. 13 session; these would allow workers to use the secret ballot to choose the union that represents them and to vote on whether to approve a contract. But the Senate leadership separated these two articles from the bill and sent them back to the Chamber of Deputies for discussion; the rest of the bill was sent to Calderón to become law.

“[N]o one will be able to hide the fact that this bosses’ reform is being imposed by Peña Nieto, in association with the one who’s leaving [Calderón],” Senator Manuel Bartlett, the coordinator of the PT bench, announced. Bartlett, a PRI governor of Puebla state in the 1990s before reemerging as a leftist, expressed his confidence that Mexican workers would fight the new law and demand social justice, the way European workers were fighting similar attacks on labor—apparently a reference to anti-austerity strikes many European unions were planning for Nov. 14. (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/14/12; Americas Blog 11/15/12)

A blog at the US business weekly Barron’s called the new bill a “much-needed labor reform” and said “economists are still upbeat” even though “[t]he reform is watered-down a bit.” Marco Oviedo, the head Mexican economist for the British banking group Barclays, described the bill as a “very important structural advance” that could lead to a 1.5 to 2% increase in Mexico’s GDP growth over the next decade. (Barron’s 11/14/12)

*2. Chile: Pascua Lama Mine Suspended Over Safety Issues
The Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation has had to suspend some of its operations at Pascua Lama--a giant open-pit gold, silver and copper mine being built in the Andes at the border between Argentina and Chile--as a result of an inspection by Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin) on Oct. 24. Sernageomin ordered the suspension on Oct. 31 after its inspectors found unsafe levels of fine particles in the air at the mine; a report blamed “incorrect technical monitoring” of the earth being excavated. Barrick said it suspended the operations voluntarily on Oct. 27. Chilean mining minister Hernán de Solminihac indicated that the suspension may last several weeks. (Radio Universidad de Chile 11/10/12; Bloomberg News 11/11/12 via BusinessWeek)

Workers at the mine have reported safety issues in the past, and on Aug. 4 group of 23 contract workers protested conditions at the facility by occupying the San Ambrosio Church in Vallenar, capital of the northern Chilean province of Huasco [see Update #1139]. The $8 billion mining project has also been the subject of protests in both Chile and Argentina by environmentalists who say the mine threatens glaciers and the local water supply [see Update #1140]. The two issues “are part of the same problem,” according to Lucio Cuenca, director of the Santiago-based Latin American Monitoring Center for Environmental Conflicts (OLCA). The location of the mine high in the Andes “is negative for the workers because of altitude conditions, but climatic conditions have environmental impact effects and effects on workers’ health,” he said. “When you talk about the dust that affects the health of the workers, it’s the same dust that’s destroying the glaciers.” (Radio Universidad de Chile 11/13/12)

*3. Dominican Republic: Austerity Protests Spread Abroad
A large crowd of Dominicans, mostly youths, demonstrated in the Plaza de la Bandera in Santo Domingo the evening of Nov. 17 to protest a “fiscal reform” package proposed by President Danilo Medina and passed by the Congress the week before [see Update #1151]. The government says the package, which will raise the country’s sales tax from 16% to 18% and will establish some new taxes, is necessary to make up for a deficit of 187 billion pesos (about US$4.704 billion); the protesters charge that they are being made to pay for wasteful spending by former president Leonel Fernández (1996-2000, 2004-2008 and 2008-2012) and are being subjected to an austerity program demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Some media reported that thousands participated in the Nov. 17 action and described the demonstration as the largest yet in the two weeks since the anti-austerity protests started.

Students in the crowd insisted that they weren't political opponents of the governing Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). “Our only party is the Dominican Republic,” they told reporters. “This is Dominican youth who have become indignant, who have finally opened their eyes and realized that what the political class here does is exploit society and not work for the people—and they even deny the right to education and social security for the poorest people,” one youth said. “Our country deserves better treatment.” Other protesters called on the international media to cover the movement, “since the media here are sold out.” (La Nación Dominicana (Santo Domingo) 11/18/12; Listín Diario (Santo Domingo) 11/18/12)

Dominicans living abroad also protested the austerity measures; many of the actions have been organized through a special website, “No DR Fiscal Reform.” About 50 Dominicans, mostly arts and graduate students, protested in front of their country’s embassy in Argentina on Nov. 14. A delegation tried to present a letter to the embassy staff, but an Argentine police agent said no embassy official was present to receive it—even though 30 people are listed as working in the embassy. The protesters agreed to organize further actions. (El Nuevo Diario (Santo Domingo) 11/14/12)

Dominicans in Spain protested at the consulate in Barcelona on Nov. 17 as President Medina visited Spain to attend a meeting of the Ibero-American Summit. There were also protests in Italian cities that day, and dozens of Dominicans gathered in front of the consulate in New York’s Times Square to demand imprisonment for the politicians responsible for the deficit. Other protests were reportedly planned in Florida, Mexico and Berlin. (almomento.net (Santo Domingo) 11/17/12; La Nación Dominicana 11/18/12)

Protesters also targeted repression by the police. Medical student Willy Warden Florián Ramírez was shot dead in Santo Domingo on Nov. 8 by police as they were trying to break up a student protest against the fiscal reform. Schoolteacher Angela Moquete Méndez was wounded by police the same day during a demonstration protesting a water shortage in the Villa Estela neighborhood in the southwestern city of Barahona; she died of her wounds the night of Nov. 9 in a clinic in Santo Domingo. Moquete Méndez was a leader in the teachers’ section of the social democratic Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). (Hoy (Santo Dominigo) 11/10/12)

*4. Haiti: Students Protest Killing by Police Agent
Damaël D’Haïti, an economics student at the State University of Haiti (UEH), was shot dead the evening of Nov. 10 during an event at the university’s Faculty of Law and Economics (FDSE) facility in Port-au-Prince. According to witnesses, the killer was an agent of the Haitian National Police (PNH), Macéus Pierre-Paul (or Pierre-Paul Macéus); the motive was unclear. Pierre-Paul was detained, and Port-au-Prince Government Commissioner Lucmane Délile, the chief prosecutor for the capital, insisted that justice would be carried out in this case.

UEH students began a series of protests on Nov. 12, with hundreds of youths setting up barricades of burning tires and blocking traffic along Christophe Avenue in downtown Port-au-Prince. Police from the PNH and the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) used tear gas and shots in the air to disperse the protesters. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 11/12/12) The students were back on Nov. 13, joining a demonstration by several teachers’ unions demanding better working conditions and protesting a 2% tax the government has imposed since October on salaried employees. Regular and riot police used tear gas and firearms against students in the large Champ de Mars park near the National Palace; the students responded by throwing rocks. The confrontations continued for hours, paralyzing much of the downtown area. According to press reports, armed criminals took advantage of the chaos to rob passers-by. By the end of the day, two students had been wounded. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 11/14/12)

Protests continued throughout the week. On Nov. 14 police and students confronted each other in the Champ de Mars and in front of several different UEH schools. Students set up barricades outside the Faculty of Humanities (FASCH) on Christophe Avenue; the police agents chased them into the small campus and then hurled tear gas canisters over the gate, causing panic among the students trapped inside. The tear gas also affected neighborhood residents and students at nearby schools. Meanwhile, Josué Mérilien, coordinator of the National Union of Haitian Teachers (UNNOH), charged in a press briefing that the police were the ones responsible for the chaotic situation on Nov. 13; he demanded the release of three students who had been arrested.

Port-au-Prince commissioner Délile appealed for calm and repeated that the investigation into Damaël D’Haïti's death was continuing. (AlterPresse 11/15/12; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 11/15/12) Délile himself was a student leader in 2004 in the movement against former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004). He is the eighth person to be appointed Port-au-Prince commissioner since President Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) took office in May 2011 [see Update #1148]. (Radio Kiskeya 11/12/12)

An unidentified young man was shot dead near the Champ de Mars during a student protest on Nov. 16. Students initially blamed the PNH and MINUSTAH, but both organizations denied responsibility. According to police spokesperson Frantz Lerebours, the victim was a robber who was killed by an unknown individual, not the police. An accomplice of the victim was wounded in the incident and the police had detained him, Lerebours said. (AlterPresse 11/16/12)

*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, US/immigration

Argentine Judge Freezes Chevron Assets To Pay $19 Billion Ecuador Fine
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/3965-argentine-judge-freezes-chevron-assets-to-pay-19-billion-ecuador-fine

Trouble at Brazil's Belo Monte Dam Stops Construction for Now
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3967-action-alert-leader-of-sogamoso-river-defense-in-colombia-disappeared

Earth First? Bolivia’s Mother Earth Law Meets the Neo-Extractivist Economy
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/16/earth-first-bolivia%E2%80%99s-mother-earth-law-meets-neo-extractivist-economy

The Descent of the Colombian Army
http://ww4report.com/node/11703

Colombia: Diary of a Displacement
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3968-colombia-diary-of-a-displacement

Action Alert: Leader of Sogamoso River Defense in Colombia Disappeared
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3967-action-alert-leader-of-sogamoso-river-defense-in-colombia-disappeared

Former Colombian Defence Minister Admits Sending Drones into Venezuela
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7492

Venezuelan Government to Hold Assembly With Yukpa Indigenous Group
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7495

The Task of Reading Guatemala’s Bones
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3972-the-task-of-reading-guatemalas-bones

Mexican Senate Passes Labor Reform Bill, Weakening Worker Rights
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3969-mexican-senate-passes-labor-reform-bill-weakening-worker-rights

Blood on the Silver: The High Cost of Mining Concessions in Oaxaca
http://nacla.org/news/2012/11/9/blood-silver-high-cost-mining-concessions-oaxaca

Mexico: People’s Tribunal Defends Native Villages from Dams
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3964-mexico-peoples-tribunal-defends-native-villages-from-dams

OAS Human Rights Commission Demands Protection for Activists (Mexico)
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/november122012/saving-mexico-activists.php

Despite Global Opposition, United States Votes to Continue Cuban Embargo
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/15/despite-global-opposition-united-states-votes-continue-cuban-embargo

Haiti's Excluded Majority Opposes Army's Re-Creation
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/3973-haitis-excluded-majority-opposes-armys-re-creation

The Hell that is Haiti
http://socialistaction.org/2012/11/the-hell-that-is-haiti /

Cholera as a Human Rights Issue (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/cholera-as-a-human-rights-issue

Ronald Reagan and Comprehensive Immigration Reform (US/immigration)
https://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/15/ronald-reagan-and-comprehensive-immigration-reform

For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/  
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication.

Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

WNU #1151: Dominican Student Killed During Protest

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1151, November 11, 2012

1. Dominican Republic: Student Killed During Protest Against “Reform”
2. Honduras: Four Dead in Latest Aguán Violence
3. Mexico: 14 Police Are Charged in Attack on CIA Agents
4. Puerto Rico: Fortuño Loses--But Did Statehood Win?
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, US/policy, US/immigration

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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.

*1. Dominican Republic: Student Killed During Protest Against “Reform”
Dominican medical student Willy Warden Florián Ramírez was shot dead on Nov. 8 as police attempted to break up a demonstration by students at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) protesting a “fiscal reform” that the Chamber of Deputies passed that day. Police reportedly used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition as masked students threw rocks at the agents and at passing cars. According to the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI), witnesses said police agents shot Florián and then used tear gas against people who tried to come to his aid. Police officials claim a video shows a masked protester firing at police agents. At least three other students, two police officers and a bus ticket collector were injured in the clashes. (El Diario-La Prensa (New York) 11/8/12 from correspondent via La Opinión (Los Angeles); AP 11/9/12 via Hoy (Dominican Republic); AI press release 11/9/12)

Although police officials said they were waiting for the results of a forensic examination of the bullet that killed Florián, they appeared to agree with witnesses that police agents were responsible. The officials said on Nov. 9 that at least 19 of the agents at the demonstration were being investigated. President Medina called the killing a “crime” and ordered the chief of police, Maj. Gen. José Armando Polanco Gómez, to clarify the circumstances that led to the student’s death. (EDLP 11/10/12 from correspondent)

The “fiscal reform”--proposed by the government of President Danilo Medina and passed by the Chamber of Deputies in a 103-66 vote on Nov. 8--will raise the country’s sales tax from 16% to 18% as of Jan. 1 and will establish new taxes on some staple foods, on Christmas bonuses and on fuel. According to Medina the increases are needed to cover a budget deficit of some 187 billion pesos (about US$4.704 billion), according to one source; another source gives 148.564 billion pesos (US$3.373 billion) as the number.

The budget deficit is inherited from Medina’s three-term predecessor, Leonel Fernández (1996-2000, 2004-2008 and 2008-2012), a leader of Medina’s centrist Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). Critics charged that the shortfall resulted from spending for electoral purposes during the last two Fernández administrations and from corruption among Fernández allies, including Senator Félix Bautista, a construction contractor who has been accused of payoffs to successive Haitian governments [see Update #1124]. Ramón Tito Ramírez, a spokesperson for a coalition that protested the tax increase with a march from the UASD to the National Congress on Nov. 6, told reporters that “this disaster should be paid for by those who provoked it, enriching themselves with both hands without caring that their irresponsible actions were increasing the poverty of our people.” The protesters were also calling for 5% of the national budget to be allocated to public universities like the UASD.

Another group, the Political Action Network (RAP), is planning to try Fernández on Nov. 21 at a people’s tribunal. For eight years the public “has been paying for fiscal reforms with the promise that the funds will go to social services,” according to a RED statement, “but it hasn’t happened.” The group cited the continuing “inefficiency of the health services and the non-fulfillment of the funds designated for education.” (EDLP 11/7/12 from correspondent; EFE 11/7/12 via Univision; AP 11/9/12 via Hoy)

Florián’s death made police accountability an additional issue for the protesters. Holding candles, about 50 representatives of various civil organizations demonstrated outside police headquarters in Santo Domingo the evening of Nov. 9. “We’re asking the police to stop their repression, since in any case people are going to continue the protests” against the fiscal reform, Alexander Mundaray, a spokesperson for the protesters, told the Associated Press wire service. (AP 11/9/12 via Hoy)

Amnesty International issued a statement on Nov. 9 saying that “Florián’s killing should give Dominican authorities pause to reflect on how the country’s police have been allowed to violate human rights continually with impunity.” AI said it had “previously documented soaring levels of abuse by police in the Dominican Republic, including torture and unlawful killings. An October 2011 report cited myriad cases of individuals killed by police--a tenth of all murders in the country the previous year were the result of police abuse.” (AI press release 11/9/12)

*2. Honduras: Four Dead in Latest Aguán Violence
Three Honduran campesinos--Orlando Campos, Reynaldo Rivera Paz and José Omar Paz--were killed in a drive-by shooting the weekend of Nov. 3 while they were waiting for transportation in the city of Tocoa in the northern department of Colón. The killings took place in the Lower Aguán Valley, which has been the scene of violent struggles between campesinos and large landowners since late 2009, when members of several campesino cooperatives occupied a number of estates they said were on land reserved for small farmers under an agrarian reform program from the 1980s. As many as 80 people have died in the land disputes, most of them campesinos [see Updates #1143, 1145].

On Nov. 4 the Colón departmental police announced that they had arrested Marvin Noé García Santos, a police agent from Atlántida department, in the murders. Colón police chief José Amílcar Mejía said García Santos was part of a criminal gang that included campesinos occupying the Paso Aguán estate; one source says the victims were also part of the occupation there. According to Mejía the killings resulted from a dispute among three groups over the cutting and selling of African oil palms, the main commercial crop in the Aguán. But one of the main campesino groups in the region, the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), blamed the murders on the ongoing dispute between campesinos and landowners. The group asked for “national and international organizations defending human rights to provide accompaniment to this campesino struggle” and called on Honduran president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa to “rein in this violence against the campesinos of the Lower Aguán.” (La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 11/4/12; Noticias Aliadas 11/7/12)

A fourth Aguán campesino was mudered later in the same week. According to Julián Hernández, president of the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA), three armed “men dressed in blue, security guards for landowners,” kidnapped MARCA member José Cecilio Pérez on Nov. 9 after he and other MARCA members withdrew the equivalent of $16,000 from a Tocoa bank for the salaries of members of the nearby El Despertar cooperative. Pérez’s body was found the next day near an African oil palm plantation. Hernández discounted simple robbery as the motive. “It’s a strategy of the landowners to make it appear that it was robbery,” he said, insisting that the kidnappers were wearing security guards’ uniforms. (AFP 11/10/12 via Terra.com)

The company with the largest holdings in the Aguán is Grupo Dinant, founded by Honduran cooking oil magnate Miguel Facussé Barjum, whose security guards have been blamed for many of the killings. In 2009 Dinant received a $30 million loan from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), in part to fund increased cultivation of African oil palms [see Update #1058]. The Canadian-based organization Rights Action is asking for letters to World Bank president Jim Yong Kim (at The World Bank Group, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433) calling on the bank to suspend the loan. (Upside Down World 11/8/12) An anthropologist and physician, Kim is a co-founder, along with Dr. Paul Farmer, of Partners in Health, which provides community-based health care in Haiti and other countries.

*3. Mexico: 14 Police Are Charged in Attack on CIA Agents
After more than two months of investigation, on Nov. 9 Mexico’s federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) confirmed that it was formally charging 14 federal police agents for an Aug. 24 attack on a US embassy van on a road near the Tres Marías community, south of Mexico City in the state of Morelos [see Update #1147]. The agents claimed they mistook the van’s occupants—two agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a Mexican marine—for members of a gang connected to a local kidnapping. The two CIA agents were wounded in the incident.

The PGR charged that the 14 Mexican police agents “tried to take the lives” of the three men in the embassy vehicle. Investigators determined that the police agents were driving private cars and were in civilian clothes when they attacked the embassy’s van, which was surrounded by the police agents’ vehicles. Investigators said the van, which was heavily armored, was hit with 152 bullets. The PGR’s formal charges didn’t mention possible links to organized crime, but PGR sources indicated that they thought three of the police agents had ties to the Beltrán Leyva drug cartel. The 14 agents are being held in maximum-security prisons in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and in Puente Grande, Jalisco. (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/10/12)

*4. Puerto Rico: Fortuño Loses--But Did Statehood Win?
On Nov. 7 Puerto Rican governor Luis G. Fortuño conceded defeat in his bid for a second four-year term in an election the day before that also included voting for the legislature and the municipal governments, and a non-binding referendum on the island’s status. With 96.35% of the ballots counted, Fortuño, the candidate of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP), had received 47.04% of the votes; Senator Alejandro García Padilla, running for the centrist Popular Democratic Party (PPD), won narrowly with 47.85%. Juan Dalmau Ramírez of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) came in third with 2.53%, less than the 3% required to maintain the party’s ballot status. Three smaller parties split the remaining votes. (Prensa Latina 11/7/12; Claridad (Puerto Rico) 11/8/12)

The PNP is close to the US Republican Party, and Fortuño’s aggressive promotion of neoliberal austerity policies sparked protests from unionists opposing budget cuts and layoffs, students opposing tuition hikes and environmentalists opposing a planned natural gas pipeline across the island [see Updates #1008, 1111, 1118].

The vote on Puerto Rico’s status came in two parts. In the first, voters were asked if they wanted to maintain the current relationship with the US as a Free Associated State (ELA, for its initials in Spanish, sometimes called “commonwealth” in English). The “no” won easily with 54% of the votes against 46% for “yes.” In the second part, voters were given a choice between independence, a vaguely defined “Sovereign Free Associated State,” and statehood in the US. Statehood won with 802,179 votes (61.15% of valid votes), followed by “Sovereign Free Associated State” with 436,997 votes (33.31%), and independence with just 72,551 votes (5.53%).

Pedro Pierluisi, a PNP member and Fortuño ally who won reelection as Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner (non-voting representative) to the US Congress, quickly hailed the vote as a victory for statehood. “The ball has gone into the court of the [US] Congress, and if they don’t act with speed, it can certainly pass on to international bodies,” he said in an interview that the Puerto Rican daily El Nuevo Día published on Nov. 9.

But others denied that statehood had won a clear victory. During the campaign the PPD had opposed all three choices, implying that voters shouldn’t mark their ballots for this question, and in fact a total of 468,478 ballots were left blank. The combined total for the blank ballots, the votes for independence and the votes for “Sovereign Free Associated State” came to 978,026--175,847 more than the votes for statehood--suggesting that Puerto Ricans remain divided on the issue. In the last referendum on status, in 1998, voters were given “none of the above” as an option; it won with about 50.3% of the vote [see Update #463]. (Claridad 11/8/12; EFE 11/9/12 via Univision)

*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, US/policy, US/immigration

Argentina: indignados occupy Buenos Aires
http://ww4report.com/node/11679

Argentina freezes Chevron assets in Ecuador case
http://ww4report.com/node/11678

New Media Law, New Voices in Argentina
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/3954-new-media-law-new-voices-in-argentina

Earth’s Most Threatened Tribe Make Unprecedented Visit to Brazil’s Capital
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3957-earths-most-threatened-tribe-make-unprecedented-visit-to-brazils-capital-

Peru: Water Tribunal indicts Conga project
http://ww4report.com/node/11680

God, Oil, and the Theft of Waorani DNA: A Tale of Biopiracy in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/3961-god-oil-and-the-theft-of-waorani-dna-a-tale-of-biopiracy-from-ecuador

The Military's Human Rights Record and the Peace Process in Colombia
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/3/militarys-human-rights-record-and-peace-process-colombia

What U.S. Voters Can Learn from Venezuela’s Election
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/5/what-us-voters-can-learn-venezuelas-election

Venezuela: indigenous protest for land rights
http://ww4report.com/node/11677

Campaign to Legalise Abortion in Venezuela Gains Publicity
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7452

Central American Mothers Organize to Find Their Missing Migrant Children
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3956-central-american-mothers-organize-to-find-their-missing-migrant-children

El Salvador Urged to Respond to El Calabozo Massacre Survivors’ Demands
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3955-el-salvador-urged-to-respond-to-el-calabozo-massacre-survivors-demands

Is the World Bank Funding Death Squads in Honduras?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/3958-is-the-world-bank-funding-death-squads-in-honduras

Citizen uprisings spread in Mexico
http://www.riograndedigital.com/2012/11/04/citizen-uprisings-spread-in-mexico/

Obama's Election and the Caribbean: What Does it Mean?
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/8/obamas-election-and-caribbean-what-does-it-mean

Haiti: Hidden Costs of the Industrial Zone
http://ww4report.com/node/11671

Zokiki – Unavoidable “juvenile delinquency?” (Haiti)
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2012/11/5/zokiki-unavoidable-juvenile-delinquency.html

Will the International Response to Hurricane Sandy Be Any Better than the Response to Haiti’s Quake or Cholera Disasters?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/will-the-international-response-to-hurricane-sandy-be-any-better-than-the-response-to-haitis-quake-or-cholera-disasters

Islamo-Bolivarianism: The Green-and-Red Menace in Latin America (US/policy)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3959-islamo-bolivarianism-the-green-and-red-menace-in-latin-america

Obama VS. Romney for Latin America: Carrying or Swinging the "Big Stick" (US/policy)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3953-obama-vs-romney-for-latin-america-carrying-or-swinging-the-qbig-stickq

Remembering Jose Antonio: Day of the Dead in Nogales (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/6/remembering-jose-antonio-day-dead-nogales

For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/  
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication.

Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/

Monday, November 5, 2012

WNU #1150: Sandy Kills at Least 68 in the Caribbean

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1150, November 4, 2012

1. Haiti: Hurricane Sandy Kills 54, Threatens Food Supplies
2. Jamaica: Sandy’s Damage Won’t Affect IMF Austerity Plan
3. Cuba: Sandy Is Latest in Decade of Devastating Storms
4. Caribbean Region: Will Sandy Force Real Discussion of Climate Change?
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, US/immigration

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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.

*1. Haiti: Hurricane Sandy Kills 54, Threatens Food Supplies
Tropical storm Sandy began hitting southern Haiti with heavy rain on Oct. 23, just as it was intensifying into a Category 1 hurricane; the rain continued through Oct. 26. Haiti suffered the worst damage of the Caribbean nations that Sandy affected, even though the storm’s center never passed over the country. At least 54 people died, roads and bridges were damaged, and homes were destroyed. About 200,000 people suffered from the effects of the hurricane, according to official figures, with the damage concentrated in five departments: South, Southeast, Grand Anse, Nippes and West.

Crops were ruined in the southwestern peninsula, including local staples like bananas and breadfruit. The new destruction followed the devastation of other crops by the hurricane Isaac on Aug. 24 and comes at a time when rising prices on international markets have driven up the cost of imported food, sparking large demonstrations in September to protest the high cost of living [see Update #1146]. Since August the price of a marmite (about five pounds) of black beans has risen from 200 gourdes ($4.75) to 300 gourdes ($7.12). “The economy took a huge hit,” Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told the Reuters wire service. “[F]ood security will be an issue.” Another concern is that the contamination of water by flooding may lead to an increase in cholera cases. More than 7,000 Haitians have died of the disease since it was brought to the country in October 2010 by troops of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) [see Update #1134]. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 10/24/12, 10/27/12, 10/31/12; Reuters 10/29/12)

At an Oct. 30 press conference Agriculture Minister Thomas Jacques announced ambitious plans for distributing seeds to farmers, subsidizing the repair and maintenance of irrigation systems, restoring damaged roads, and carrying out an agricultural reform that would enable Haitian farmers to supply 60% of the country’s food needs within three years; he put the current level at 45%. But Jacques acknowledged that government failures in the past were responsible for much of the damage from Sandy. One of the main causes of the flooding was the lack of river maintenance over the past decade, he said. Jacques also noted the absence of an agricultural insurance system, with the result that farmers won’t receive compensation for their losses. (AlterPresse 10/31/12)

Also on Oct. 30, Prime Minister Lamothe and President Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) declared a one-month state of emergency. Under the 1987 Constitution a state of emergency gives the president powers that include ordering evacuations, allocating funds without reference to the official budget, and using accelerated procedures to sign contracts. The president doesn’t have the power to limit free speech or other political activities under the state of emergency. (Haïti Libre (Haiti) 10/31/12)  [President Martelly has tried to exceed his constitutional powers in the past, however; see Update #1148.]

*2. Jamaica: Sandy’s Damage Won’t Affect IMF Austerity Plan
The tropical storm Sandy, now a Category 1 hurricane, hit eastern Jamaica directly on Oct. 24, with the eye making landfall on the southeast coast around 2 pm. One person was killed when a boulder rolled over a house in St. Andrew parish, which includes Kingston, and dozens of people lost their homes in the eastern parishes: St. Thomas, Portland and St. Mary. There was damage to crops and to public infrastructure. Local Government Minister Noel Arscott accompanied Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in an aerial tour of the area on Oct. 25. “Looking from the air, you could see the entire destruction of the banana crops. Not so much for coconuts, but cash crops and banana plantations have been hit severely,” he told reporters. (The Gleaner (Jamaica) 10/25/12, 10/26/12)

Preliminary estimates of the damage came to almost $5 billion, and on Oct. 24 Prime Minister Simpson Miller expressed her hope that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would take Jamaica’s losses into consideration in ongoing negotiations for a new loan to the country. But on Oct. 30 Finance Minister Peter Phillips said the lending institution would not relax its demand for austerity measures. Funds for dealing with hurricane damage will have to come from grants and reallocation within the government’s budget, he said. (The Gleaner 10/31/12)

*3. Cuba: Sandy Is Latest in Decade of Devastating Storms
Tropical storm Sandy had become a Category 2 hurricane by the time it slammed into eastern Cuba early on Oct. 25. Eleven people were killed in the eastern provinces of Santiago and Guantánamo. Official sources reported that 132,733 homes were damaged in Santiago province, of which 15,322 were destroyed; 1,052 homes were leveled in just two communities, Banes and Antilla, on the northeastern coast in neighboring Holguín province. The dozen homes that made up the little fishing village of Tortuguilla in Guantánamo province were swept away. In the central provinces heavy rains caused flooding; an official in Encrucijada municipality in Villa Clara province told the local press that the floods there were the worst in 30 years.

Sandy follows a pattern of severe hurricanes striking Cuba in recent years, including Michelle in 2001 and Dennis in 2005, and the combined effect of Gustav, Ike and Paloma in 2008. Economic damage was extensive, with banana, coffee, bean and sugar crops ruined throughout the region. As of Oct. 27 Venezuela had promised to send a total 611 tons of humanitarian aid to be split between Cuba and Haiti. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/27/12 from correspondent; AP 10/28/12 via Miami Herald)

*4. Caribbean Region: Will Sandy Force Real Discussion of Climate Change?
Although the worst damage from Sandy took place in Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba, the storm also affected other parts of the Caribbean. One man died in Juana Díaz in southern Puerto Rico on Oct. 26 when he was swept away by a river swollen because of rain from the edges of the storm, and 3,500 homes were damaged in the Dominican Republic. Sandy hit the Bahamas after leaving Cuba, and one man was killed there. The total number of deaths from Sandy in the Caribbean islands was at least 68. (AP 10/28/12 via Miami Herald) [The reported death toll in the US, which Sandy struck starting on Oct. 29, was 110 as of Nov. 4. (CNN 11/4/12)]

Although the region has always been susceptible to damage from hurricanes, “[t]he two dozen island nations of the Caribbean, and the 40 million people who live there, are in a state of increased vulnerability to climate change,” according to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Climate Change Center. “Higher temperatures, rises in sea level, and increased hurricane intensity threaten lives, property and livelihoods throughout the region.” (NACLA 11/3/12)

The relation of climate change to extreme weather remains controversial in the US, but it seems to be widely accepted in the Caribbean. On Oct. 31 Cuba’s official news agency, Prensa Latina, discussed a call by Carlos Rodríguez, a researcher at the government’s Physical Planning Institute, to prioritize preventive measures against disasters like Sandy that are related to climate change. By 2050 more than 2,500 square kilometers of Cuban territory may be submerged because of the rising sea level, he said, and the number could go up to 5,600 square kilometers by 2100. Studies by Cuban institutions agree that this will affect some 577 settlements identified as vulnerable, according to Rodríguez, who insisted that this issue needed to be considered in all planning for the island. (PL 10/31/12)

On Nov. 4 centrist French politician Brice Lalonde, a founder of the small Ecology Generation party and now the coordinator of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, noted that Sandy damaged both Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, and New York, the largest city in the US. “This is also a moral question,” he wrote. “If climate change increases the intensity of hurricanes, and if the gases released by coal, gasoline and natural gas are the main agents of climate change, then Manhattan, the economic capital of a great country that is greedy for fossil fuels, will probably have its share of the responsibility for future flooding in Cité Soleil in Port-au-Prince. Will Sandy push American voters to reflect on climate change?…. Will a part of America go on ignoring climate change?” (Le Journal du Dimanche (France) 11/4/12)

*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, US/immigration

Agribusiness as Usual: The Death of Peasant Farming in Argentina
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/3950-agribusiness-as-usual-the-death-of-peasant-farming-in-argentina

Chile: Violence and Repression against the Mapuche Population
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3944-violence-and-repression-against-the-mapuche-population

Brazil: Indigenous Community Faces Eviction
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3943-brazil-indigenous-community-faces-eviction

Bolivia Returns to the Global Bond Market
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/2/bolivia-returns-global-bond-market

Peru's Sendero Luminoso back—and the "dirty war"?
http://ww4report.com/node/11653

Peru: threats against Cajamarca movement
http://ww4report.com/node/11659

Peru and Ecuador Set to Auction Off More of Amazon for Oil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3942-peru-and-ecuador-set-to-auction-off-more-amazon-for-oil

The Military's Human Rights Record and the Peace Process in Colombia
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/3/militarys-human-rights-record-and-peace-process-colombia

Venezuela’s Mission Robinson Literacy Program Celebrates 9 Successful Years
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7402

Honduras Truth Commission Releases Report about Coup-Related Violence and Repression
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/3941-honduras-truth-commission-releases-report-about-coup-related-violence-and-repression

Guatemala's Palm Industry Leaves Locals Contemplating an Uncertain Future
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3946-guatemalas-palm-industry-leaves-locals-contemplating-an-uncertain-future

Monsanto’s bile against Mexico’s honey
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/8375

Indigenous Communities in Mexico Fight Corporate Wind Farms
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3952-indigenous-communities-in-mexico-fight-corporate-wind-farms

Climate Change and the Caribbean
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/3/climate-change-and-caribbean

Over 50 Dead from Hurricane Sandy in Haiti
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/over-50-dead-from-hurricane-sandy-in-haiti

Assessing the Beginnings of Haiti’s Latest Unnatural Disaster
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/assessing-the-beginnings-of-haitis-latest-unnatural-disaster

Ground Zero: The Tohono O'odham Nation (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/2/ground-zero-tohono-oodham-nation

For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/  
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/

For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/

END

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