Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1206, January 26, 2014
1. Guatemala: Maquila Owner Stole $6 Million From Workers
2. Mexico: Police Break Up Blockade of Goldcorp Mine
3. Brazil: 143 Arrested as World Cup Protests Continue
4. Argentina: Peso Falls as Emerging Markets Weaken
5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, 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. Guatemala: Maquila Owner Stole $6 Million From Workers
Over the course of 12 years management at the Alianza Fashion apparel factory in the central Guatemalan department of Chimaltenango cheated employees out of some $6 million dollars in back wages and benefits, according to a report released on Jan. 23 by the Pittsburgh-based Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights (IGLHR, formerly the National Labor Committee). The maquiladora—a tax-exempt assembly plant producing for export—stitched items like suits and jackets for at least 60 US retailers, including Macy’s, JCPenney, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart. The owner, a South Korean national named Boon Chong Park, shut the factory down in March 2013.
The report is based on more than 200 documents--including pay stubs, invoices and manufacturing specifications—that were smuggled out of the plant last spring. According to the IGLHR, the documents show that while the plant usually employed from 1,050 to 1,500 workers, the company only made the legally required contributions for pensions and healthcare for 65 workers from 2001 to 2013. The total lost benefits came to more than $4.7 million. When Alianza closed down, the company failed to pay the 548 workers still employed there the $1.2 million it owed them in back wages and benefits. Base pay at the plant was $1.05 an hour, about the same as the minimum wage for the maquiladora sector in 2013, 65.63 quetzales (US$8.36) a day. In 2010 the company fired 60 workers without severance pay after they formed an independent union and registered it with the government.
The North American companies that had their goods produced at Alianza have tried to play down their connection to the plant; spokespeople said the companies hadn’t placed orders recently, or they insisted that the orders were placed through third parties. The Phillips-Van Heusen company has donated $100,000 to a fund for the 548 workers left out of work when the plant closed, but as of Jan. 23 other North American companies had failed to respond to requests that they make similar contributions. (Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 12/26/13; ABC News 1/23/14; The Nation 1/23/14; Univision 1/24/14)
Shortly after the company closed last March, some 800 of the former workers occupied the plant to demand payment of back wages, apparently without success. They also complained that they had been underpaid during the year leading up to the closure, and that managers routinely subjected them to racist insults. (Prensa Libre 4/1/13)
*2. Mexico: Police Break Up Blockade of Goldcorp Mine
On Jan. 24 the government of the north-central Mexican state of Zacatecas sent about 200 riot and ministerial police to remove some 30 campesinos and their relatives from an entrance they were blocking to the Peñasquito open-pit gold mine in Mazapil municipality. Campesinos from the Las Mesas ejido (communal farm) and the Cedros annex began blocking the entrance on Jan. 16 to get attention from state and federal authorities for their demand to reopen negotiations with the mine’s owner, the Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc., about the rent the company is paying to use ejido land. In addition to removing the protesters, the police arrested two campesino leaders, the brothers Epifanio and Mónico Morquecho, and took them to the prison in Concepción del Oro municipality, 40 km away; they were charged with damages, looting and extortion, based on a criminal complaint from Goldcorp.
The Peñasquito mine occupies 5,400 hectares in the Mazapil Valley, including 240 hectares Goldcorp rented from the ejido in 2006 for 30 years in exchange for a one-time payment of 10,000 pesos (about US$744) per hectare. Goldcorp “took advantage of our ignorance,” the ejido members told a reporter on Jan. 24. The campesinos’ blockade was mostly symbolic, since the mine’s employees and trucks could use at least three other entrances. The state government reportedly ordered the large-scale police operation against the protesters after Goldcorp threatened to suspend work at the Peñasquito and withdraw its investments in the state. (La Jornada (Mexico) 1/25/14)
In other news, activist and theater director Francisco Kuykendall (“Kuy”) died on Jan. 25 after suffering a cardiopulmonary arrest. A supporter of The Other Campaign, a political movement inspired by the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), Kuykendall was one of two protesters seriously injured during demonstrations in Mexico City against the inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto on Dec. 1, 2012 [see Update #1155]. His skull was fractured when he was hit by a police projectile—either a rubber bullet or a tear gas grenade—and he never completely recovered. Kuykendall’s friends and colleagues said his death was an example of the impunity that continues in Mexico, as well a message from the government intended to intimidate dissident groups. (LJ 1/26/14)
*3. Brazil: 143 Arrested as World Cup Protests Continue
Brazilians demonstrated in 36 cities on Jan. 25 to protest the underfunding of health, education, transportation and infrastructure at the same time that the government is pouring money into preparations for the 2016 Olympic Games and the World Cup soccer championship, which is to be held June 12-July 13 this year in 12 Brazilian cities. The protests, reportedly called by the clandestine internet activist group Anonymous, were a continuation of massive demonstrations targeting these issues last June [see Update #1181], but only a few thousand people turned out on Jan. 25, in contrast to the million or more who marched in 2013.
At least 143 people were arrested at the Jan. 25 demonstration in São Paulo. Some 2,000 protesters gathered at the Museo de Arte and then marched up Paulista Avenue, carrying signs with such slogans as “No rights, no Cup,” and, in English, “FIFA go home”—a reference to the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), which sponsors the World Cup games. The protest began peacefully, but later some demonstrators split off and confronted the police. At least one vehicle was burned and there were acts of vandalism at several banks. In Natal, in the northeastern state of Rio Grande, 15 people were arrested during a protest in front of the Arena das Dunas soccer stadium, which Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff had inaugurated on Jan. 22. A group attempting to enter the stadium reportedly damaged access steps and set fire to an area used by the stadium workers. Demonstrations in other cities were generally peaceful. (El Nacional (Venezuela) 1/25/14, from EFE; La Jornada (Mexico) 1/26/14 from AFP)
*4. Argentina: Peso Falls as Emerging Markets Weaken
The Argentine peso fell by some 8% on Jan. 23, declining from 7.14 pesos to the US dollar to 7.75 at the end of the day. The currency plunged by 20% in the early hours, to 8.50 pesos to the dollar, but regained much of the loss after the central bank intervened later in the day; the bank reportedly spent $100 million in the process. This was the worst showing for the peso since the country’s financial crisis in late 2001 and early 2002.
The problems in Argentina affected other Latin American markets. The Brazilian real fell by 1.2% to 2.40 reais to the dollar, and the São Paulo stock exchange, the BM&F Bovespa, declined by almost 2%. The Mexican peso, which has been falling since the beginning of the month, continued to decline, ending Jan. 23 at 13.42 pesos to the dollar, a 2.44% decline since Jan. 1. The fall of the Argentine peso was probably one of the factors contributing to the decline in the New York Stock Exchange on Jan. 24. The Dow Jones index fell by 318 points, 2.1%, while Standard and Poor’s fell by 38.17 units, 2.09%, and the Nasdaq fell by 90 points, 2.2%.
Analysts offered different explanations for the Argentine peso’s decline. One cause appeared to be a slowing of China’s economy, which led investors to pull out of emerging markets around the world. The immediate cause may have been a decision by Argentina’ s new economy minister, Axel Kicillof, to protect the country’s foreign reserves by withdrawing support for the peso. Until late January the government had been propping the peso up by selling off reserves. Kicillof himself offered a different explanation. He charged that Juan José Aranguren, the president of Shell Argentina, Royal Dutch Shell’s local subsidiary, had intentionally precipitated the crisis on Jan. 23 by offering to buy $3 million at a rate of 8.40 pesos to the dollar. “The maneuver was so obvious that there’s no need to explain it too much,” Kicillof said on Jan. 24. Aranguren was trying to destabilize the government by pushing the peso down, according to Kicillof. (Wall Street Journal 1/23/14; New York Times 1/24/14; La Jornada (Mexico) 1/24/14, 1/25/14, 1/25/14 from correspondent, 1/26/14 from correspondent)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, US/immigration
Chile: wildcat strike paralyzes ports
http://ww4report.com/node/12952
ICJ rules on Peru-Chile maritime border dispute
http://ww4report.com/node/12959
Large-Scale Mining in Uruguay: Time to Vote?
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/1/17/large-scale-mining-uruguay-time-vote
Brazil: prison violence spills into streets —again
http://ww4report.com/node/12951
The Criminalization of Poverty in Brazil, a Global Power
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11352
Peru: mineral company evicts campesino family
http://ww4report.com/node/12956
Peru: no sterilization abuse charges for Fujimori
http://ww4report.com/node/12955
Facing the New Conquistador: Indigenous Rights and Repression in Rafael Correa’s Ecuador
http://intercontinentalcry.org/facing-new-conquistador-indigenous-rights-repression-rafael-correas-ecuador-21831/
Bogotá stand-off amid renewed repression (Colombia)
http://ww4report.com/node/12954
Colombia: Embera indigenous leaders assassinated
http://ww4report.com/node/12953
Brookings Institution Calls on Obama to Support a Hypothetical Coup Against Venezuela's Maduro
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/brookings-institution-calls-on-obama-to-support-a-hypothetical-coup-against-venezuelas-maduro
Latest Human Rights Watch Report: 30 Lies about Venezuela
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10301
Rethinking the Drug War in Central America and Mexico (Full Report)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11315
El Salvador: Increase in Homicides Linked to “Extermination Groups” and ARENA Campaign
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4665-el-salvador-increase-in-homicides-linked-to-extermination-groups-and-arena-campaign
World Bank Forced To Admit Failings On Controversial Human Rights Scandal (Honduras)
http://intercontinentalcry.org/world-bank-forced-admit-failings-controversial-human-rights-scandal/
SOA Grads Prominent among New Military Leadership in Honduras as New President Prepares to Take Office
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4658-soa-grads-prominent-among-new-military-leadership-in-honduras-as-new-president-prepares-to-take-office
U.S. Government Holding World Bank and IADB Accountable to Ensure Reparations for Chixoy Dam Victims in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4654-us-government-holding-world-bank-and-iadb-accountable-to-ensure-reparations-for-chixoy-dam-victims-in-guatemala
Reviewing NAFTA and the Environment (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/reviewing-nafta-and-the-environment
The Rainbow Warrior Comes to Mexico
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-rainbow-warrior-comes-to-mexico/
Insecurity: The Achilles Heel of Mexican Reforms?
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/insecurity-the-achilles-heel-of-mexican-reforms/
Mexico: The Politics of a State Meltdown
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/mexico-the-politics-of-a-state-meltdown/
Mexico: First Statement from the Self-Defense Group of Aquila, Michoacán
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4656-mexico-first-statement-from-the-self-defense-group-of-aquila-michoacan
Mexican Labor Year in Review – 2013
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=220#1671
Twenty Years since the Chiapas Rebellion: the Zapatistas, Their Politics, and Their Impact (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=220#1672
At anniversary of Zapatista uprising, rebellion belongs to all (Mexico)
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/anniversary-zapatista-uprising-rebellion-belongs/
Mesoamérica Resiste! The Beehive Collective: Building Solidarity through Storytelling and Art (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4655-mesoamerica-resiste-the-beehive-collective-building-solidarity-through-storytelling-and-art
Mexico: nine dead in prison massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/12946
Four Years After Haiti’s Earthquake, Still Waiting for a Roof
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/4659-four-years-after-haitis-earthquake-still-waiting-for-a-roof
Venezuela Chairs Committee on Draconian Anti-Haitian Citizenship Ruling (Dominican Republic)
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/1/21/venezuela-chairs-committee-draconian-anti-haitian-citizenship-ruling
Latino New York: An Introduction (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/1/23/latino-new-york-introduction
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://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
WNU #1205: Teachers’ Strike Closes Puerto Rico’s Schools
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1205, January 19, 2014
1. Puerto Rico: Teachers' Strike Shuts School System
2. Haiti: Judge Seeks Charges in Journalist's Murder
3. Argentina: Did Israel Kill Off AMIA Bombers?
4. Chile: Mapuche Environmental Activist Dies
5. Guatemala: Indigenous Ex-Rebel Leader Killed
6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. 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. Puerto Rico: Teachers' Strike Shuts School System
According to Puerto Rican education secretary Rafael Román, some 35,000 of the island’s 38,000 public school classroom teachers stayed off work on Jan. 14, the first day of a two-day strike protesting changes to teachers’ pensions mandated in Law 160, which was approved by the Legislative Assembly and signed by Gov. Alejandro García Padilla in December [see Update #1204]. Student attendance was just 0.09%, Román said. While 51% of the principals reported to their schools for what was to be the first school day after Christmas break, Román admitted that the 1,460 schools in the system were effectively shut down. The job action was called jointly by all the Puerto Rican teachers’ unions, principally the Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), Teachers’ Association of Puerto Rico (AMPR) and Educamos (“We Educate”).
Law 160 cuts teachers’ pensions from 75% of their final salary to 65%, increases their contributions to the pension fund from 9% to 10%, and raises the retirement age for new hires to 62. Gov. García Padilla—whose party, the New Progressive Party (PNP), is close to the Democrats in the US—insists that the changes are necessary to keep US rating agencies from reducing Puerto Rico’s general obligation bonds to junk status. The measures appear to be widely unpopular. AMPR president Aida Díaz, who supported García when he ran for governor in 2012, has threatened to call for more strikes if Law 160 isn’t amended. As an alternative to the pension changes, the teachers have proposed a 1% tax on multinationals to help cover Puerto Rico’s budget shortfalls. The companies “take $37 billion out of the country, which is almost three or four times the country’s budget,” Rafael Bernabe, the leader of the small leftist Working People's Party (PPT), said at a Jan. 14 support rally, which included the Sovereign Union Movement (MUS) and LGBT activists.
On the evening of Jan. 14 Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court responded to a suit from the AMPR by suspending application of Law 160 until Judge Pagán Osorio has completed a review of the changes, which the union contends are unconstitutional. Judge Osorio is to rule by Feb. 7. Meanwhile, the government and the unions began talks on Jan. 15 to seek a negotiated resolution to the pension dispute. (El Nuevo Día (Guaynabo) 1/14/14; Prensa Latina 1/14/14, 1/15/14; El Diario La Prensa (NY) 1/15/14 from EFE; Washington Post 1/15/14 from AP; People’s World 1/16/14)
*2. Haiti: Judge Seeks Charges in Journalist's Murder
On Jan. 17 Haitian investigative judge Yvickel Dabrésil issued a report on the April 2000 murder of the popular journalist Jean Léopold Dominique and Jean-Claude Louissaint, the guard at Dominique’s Haïti Inter radio station [see Update #1176]. Dabrésil recommended that the three-judge Appeals Court panel handling the case issue charges against Mirlande Libérus Pavert, a former senator from the Lavalas Family (FL) party, as the intellectual author of the killing. The report also named former Port-au-Prince deputy mayor Gabriel Harold Sévère and Marie Annette Auguste, a folksinger and FL activist widely known as Sò An (“Sister Anne”), along with six others: Frantz Camille, Jeudy Jean Daniel, Markenton Michel, Toussaint Mercidieu, Mérité Milien and Dimsley Milien. Dominique’s widow, Michèle Montas, said the report was “a positive step, almost 10 years after I went to the appellate court to demand that the intellectual authors, those who ordered and planned the crime, be identified.”
Famously outspoken, Dominique had denounced both rightwing politicians and politicians in the populist FL, the party headed by former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996 and 2001-2004). At least 19 witnesses testified before Judge Dabrésil in his 2011-2013 investigation, including Aristide and former president René Garcia Préval (1996-2001 and 2006-2011). The judge based his accusation against Mirlande Libérus on testimony from Aristide’s former chief of security, Oriel Jean, who was charged with drug trafficking by the US in 2004 [see Update #741] and served a three-year sentence ending in 2007. Jean named Libérus as the person who wanted “to shut Jean Dominique up.” Dabrésil noted that she refused to leave her residence in the US to testify in his investigation. FL supporters suggested that the report’s release was a maneuver by the government of President Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) as he and opposition parties argue over how and when to hold long-delayed legislative and local elections. Dabrésil’s report noted that Aristide said in his testimony that Libérus was innocent and “mustn’t be the victim of these lies” from Oriel Jean. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 1/18/14; Miami Herald 1/18/14 from correspondent)
Meanwhile, the cases against former “president for life” Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier (1971-1986) for corruption and human rights abuses seem to remain stalled [see Update #1177]. Two Haitian human rights organizations held a press conference on Jan. 16 to mark the third anniversary of Duvalier’s return to Haiti. The Collective Against Impunity demanded that “the Appeals Court stop trampling on the rights of citizens” and set “a date by which to rule on the case.” The Duty to Remember Committee charged that Duvalier was “walking about the Republic as if nothing happened…and we, the victims, are the ones made to feel guilty.” Two international organizations, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI), jointly issued a similar statement the day before, denouncing a “lack of political will and unacceptable court delays” that “are allowing [Duvalier] to escape justice for human rights violations.” (The Jurist 1/15/14; AlterPresse 1/18/14)
There has been some progress on freeing the more than 5 million Swiss francs (about US$5.5 million) in a Swiss bank account held by Duvalier—apparently all that is left of the millions the dictator took when he fled Haiti in February 1986. As of Dec. 26, Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Tribunal (TAF) had ruled that the way was open for the money to be restored to the Haitian government, on the grounds that Duvalier and his relatives had failed to offer evidence that the funds came from any source other than the Haitian government. (France Antilles (Martinique) 12/26/13)
*3. Argentina: Did Israel Kill Off AMIA Bombers?
The 20-year-old investigation into the July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires [see Update #1195] took a new turn on Jan. 2 with the publication of a claim by former Israeli ambassador to Argentina Yitzhak Aviran (1993-2000) that his country had killed most of the perpetrators. “The vast majority of the guilty parties are in another world, and this is something we did,” Aviran told the Spanish-language Jewish News Agency (AJN) in an interview about his experiences in Argentina. On Jan. 3 Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor dismissed the claim as “complete nonsense.”
The bombing of AMIA’s community center left 85 dead and some 300 injured in the worst incident of anti-Semitic violence since World War 2; it came two years after 29 people were killed in a bombing of the Israeli embassy. Argentine prosecutors have accused Iran of planning the attacks and using operatives from the Lebanese organization Hezbollah to carry them out. The investigation has made little progress over the past two decades, and former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) faces possible charges of impeding the initial inquiry [see Update #1167]. In 2013 Argentina and Iran agreed to proceed with a joint investigation into the AMIA attack, but Israel opposes the accord, as do Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman and spokespeople from Argentina’s Jewish community.
“From Aviran’s statements we can deduce the reasons why Israel has opposed the Memorandum of Understanding” with Iran, Argentine foreign minister Héctor Timerman said in response to the interview. Aviran’s “words are very serious because they would imply that Israel hid information from Argentine courts, blocking new evidence from appearing,” Timerman added. He demanded that Aviran tell Argentine prosecutors whether Israel has further information. (AJN 1/2/14; Haaretz (Israel) 1/3/14 from Jewish Telegraphic Agency; Buenos Aires Herald 1/4/14)
In other news, on Jan. 14 the US Supreme Court ruled in a 9-0 decision that the German auto manufacturer Daimler AG could not be sued in a US court for alleged human rights violations at the company’s Mercedes-Benz factory in Argentina. The ruling in Daimler AG v. Bauman is the second time in a year that the court has thrown out a human rights suit based on the 1789 Alien Tort Statute: in April 2013 the court rejected a similar suit, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum [see Update #1173]. Mercedes-Benz is under investigation in Argentina for alleged violations and collaboration with the 1976-1983 military dictatorship [see Update #1156]. (Reuters 1/14/14)
Meanwhile, a recently recovered US State Department memo from April 1977 reinforces earlier indications that former secretary of state Henry Kissinger (1973-1977) approved the atrocities committed by the Argentine junta in 1976 against suspected leftists. According to the memo, then-US ambassador to Argentina Robert Hill told then-assistant secretary of state for human rights Patt Derian about a conversation Kissinger held the previous June with Argentine foreign minister César Augusto Guzzetti. “Kissinger asked [Guzzetti] how long will it take you (the Argentines) to clean up the problem,” the memo says, referring to the Argentine left. “Guzzetti replied that it would be done by the end of the year. Kissinger approved. In other words, Ambassador Hill explained, Kissinger gave the Argentines the green light.” In 2003 the DC-based nonprofit National Security Archive released a memo describing a similar but somewhat less explicit conversation between Kissinger and Guzzetti in October 1976 [see Update #723]. (Mother Jones 1/14/14)
*4. Chile: Mapuche Environmental Activist Dies
The body of Chilean environmental activist Nicolasa Quintreman, an indigenous Mapuche from the Pehuenche subgroup, was found on Dec. 24 floating in the Lago Ralco reservoir in Alto Bío Bío commune in the central Bío Bío region. Prosecutor Carlos Diaz said there was no evidence of violence. The 74-year-old Quintreman, who was visually impaired, “apparently slipped and fell into the lake,” he said. Together with her sister Berta Quintreman, who survived her, Nicolasa Quintreman led a 10-year fight to stop the Endesa power company from building a dam on the Bío Bío river and flooding their ancestral village. The dam was eventually built, producing the reservoir in which Nicolasa Quintreman drowned. But the campaign of peaceful protests that the sisters led in the face of tear gas, rubber bullets and illegal raids by police was an inspiration for the growth of Chile’s environmental movement.
“She left a very profound mark,” center-left Party for Democracy (PPD) leader Domingo Namuncura said after Quintreman’s death. “This legacy that has since been followed by so many people, it will remain there, imperishable… Relations between indigenous people and the state are now seen differently.” (PiensaChile.com 12/24/13; Japan Times 12/29/13 from AP)
*5. Guatemala: Indigenous Ex-Rebel Leader Killed
Guatemalan indigenous activist Juan de León Tuyuc Velásquez was murdered the night of Jan. 15-16 by unknown persons in Sololá, capital of the western department of Sololá. The body had gunshot wounds and signs of beating. Tuyuc worked on development projects in indigenous communities, and under the pseudonym “Peter” he commanded a front of the leftist Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war. His sister, Rosalina Tuyuc, heads the National Coordinating Committee of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA), which represents women widowed by the war. Indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchú, the winner of the 1992 Nobel peace prize, described Juan Tuyuc as “committed to democracy, justice” and “the firm and lasting building of peace.” She called for the “prompt investigation, capture and application of the law to the material and intellectual authors of the crime.” (Latin American Herald Tribune 1/16/14 from EFE; TeleSUR 1/16/14, some from AFP)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
New Memo: Kissinger Gave the "Green Light" for Argentina's Dirty War
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4650-new-memo-kissinger-gave-the-qgreen-lightq-for-argentinas-dirty-war
SCOTUS rules for Daimler in Argentina rights case
http://ww4report.com/node/12929
More Forced Evictions in Rio de Janeiro: What Happened to the Statute of the City? (Brazil)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/more-forced-evictions-in-rio-de-janeiro-what-happened-to-the-statute-of-the-city
Descendants of Slaves Report Military Abuses in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/4648-descendants-of-slaves-report-military-abuses-in-brazil
Managing Bolivian Capitalism
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4652-managing-bolivian-capitalism
Bolivia: pro-MAS faction takes CONAMAQ office
http://ww4report.com/node/12933
Peru to move ahead with Camisea gas expansion?
http://ww4report.com/node/12936
Peru: new confrontation at Conga mine site
http://ww4report.com/node/12935
New Christie Attack Dog Attorney No Friend to Ecuador's Indigenous Peoples
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/new-christie-attack-dog-a_b_4629610.html
Enemy of the State: The Battle Over Sustainable Development in Ecuador's Intag Valley
http://ww4report.com/node/12939
Colombia, a society tired of war
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11278
Southwest Antioquia: Microcosm of Social Conflict in Colombia’s New Gold Rush
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/4642-southwest-antioquia-microcosm-of-social-conflict-in-colombias-new-gold-rush
Where is Venezuela’s Economy Headed?
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10289
Panama’s Indigenous Peoples: Paying the price for hydro
http://intercontinentalcry.org/panamas-indigenous-communities-paying-price-hydro/
Construction of Nicaraguan Canal to Begin in Late 2014
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/nicaragua-archives-62/4653-construction-of-nicaraguan-canal-to-begin-in-late-2014
Reagan-Era Criminal slanders FMLN (El Salvador)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4646-reagan-era-criminal-slanders-fmln
US Congressional Appropriations Bill Would Impose New Restrictions on Honduras Support
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/us-congressional-appropriations-bill-would-impose-new-restrictions-on-honduras-support
Peña Nieto: Pemex for sale (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/12802#comment-451953
Zapatistas at Twenty (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11287
The Permanent People’s Tribunal and the Counterinsurgency War in Chiapas
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4639-the-permanent-peoples-tribunal-and-the-counterinsurgency-war-in-chiapas
Confirmed: The DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico's Most Notorious Drug Cartel
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4651-confirmed-the-dea-struck-a-deal-with-mexicos-most-notorious-drug-cartel
Behind a New Armed Conflict in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4645-behind-a-new-armed-conflict-in-mexico
Mexico: Colima campesinos declare mine-free zone
http://ww4report.com/node/12934
Mexico City barrio resists spread of car culture
http://ww4report.com/node/12937
How Disaster Relief Became a Disaster of its Own - Jake Johnston in Boston Review (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/how-disaster-relief-became-a-disaster-of-its-own-jake-johnston-in-boston-review
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://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.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. 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.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
Issue #1205, January 19, 2014
1. Puerto Rico: Teachers' Strike Shuts School System
2. Haiti: Judge Seeks Charges in Journalist's Murder
3. Argentina: Did Israel Kill Off AMIA Bombers?
4. Chile: Mapuche Environmental Activist Dies
5. Guatemala: Indigenous Ex-Rebel Leader Killed
6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. 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. Puerto Rico: Teachers' Strike Shuts School System
According to Puerto Rican education secretary Rafael Román, some 35,000 of the island’s 38,000 public school classroom teachers stayed off work on Jan. 14, the first day of a two-day strike protesting changes to teachers’ pensions mandated in Law 160, which was approved by the Legislative Assembly and signed by Gov. Alejandro García Padilla in December [see Update #1204]. Student attendance was just 0.09%, Román said. While 51% of the principals reported to their schools for what was to be the first school day after Christmas break, Román admitted that the 1,460 schools in the system were effectively shut down. The job action was called jointly by all the Puerto Rican teachers’ unions, principally the Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), Teachers’ Association of Puerto Rico (AMPR) and Educamos (“We Educate”).
Law 160 cuts teachers’ pensions from 75% of their final salary to 65%, increases their contributions to the pension fund from 9% to 10%, and raises the retirement age for new hires to 62. Gov. García Padilla—whose party, the New Progressive Party (PNP), is close to the Democrats in the US—insists that the changes are necessary to keep US rating agencies from reducing Puerto Rico’s general obligation bonds to junk status. The measures appear to be widely unpopular. AMPR president Aida Díaz, who supported García when he ran for governor in 2012, has threatened to call for more strikes if Law 160 isn’t amended. As an alternative to the pension changes, the teachers have proposed a 1% tax on multinationals to help cover Puerto Rico’s budget shortfalls. The companies “take $37 billion out of the country, which is almost three or four times the country’s budget,” Rafael Bernabe, the leader of the small leftist Working People's Party (PPT), said at a Jan. 14 support rally, which included the Sovereign Union Movement (MUS) and LGBT activists.
On the evening of Jan. 14 Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court responded to a suit from the AMPR by suspending application of Law 160 until Judge Pagán Osorio has completed a review of the changes, which the union contends are unconstitutional. Judge Osorio is to rule by Feb. 7. Meanwhile, the government and the unions began talks on Jan. 15 to seek a negotiated resolution to the pension dispute. (El Nuevo Día (Guaynabo) 1/14/14; Prensa Latina 1/14/14, 1/15/14; El Diario La Prensa (NY) 1/15/14 from EFE; Washington Post 1/15/14 from AP; People’s World 1/16/14)
*2. Haiti: Judge Seeks Charges in Journalist's Murder
On Jan. 17 Haitian investigative judge Yvickel Dabrésil issued a report on the April 2000 murder of the popular journalist Jean Léopold Dominique and Jean-Claude Louissaint, the guard at Dominique’s Haïti Inter radio station [see Update #1176]. Dabrésil recommended that the three-judge Appeals Court panel handling the case issue charges against Mirlande Libérus Pavert, a former senator from the Lavalas Family (FL) party, as the intellectual author of the killing. The report also named former Port-au-Prince deputy mayor Gabriel Harold Sévère and Marie Annette Auguste, a folksinger and FL activist widely known as Sò An (“Sister Anne”), along with six others: Frantz Camille, Jeudy Jean Daniel, Markenton Michel, Toussaint Mercidieu, Mérité Milien and Dimsley Milien. Dominique’s widow, Michèle Montas, said the report was “a positive step, almost 10 years after I went to the appellate court to demand that the intellectual authors, those who ordered and planned the crime, be identified.”
Famously outspoken, Dominique had denounced both rightwing politicians and politicians in the populist FL, the party headed by former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996 and 2001-2004). At least 19 witnesses testified before Judge Dabrésil in his 2011-2013 investigation, including Aristide and former president René Garcia Préval (1996-2001 and 2006-2011). The judge based his accusation against Mirlande Libérus on testimony from Aristide’s former chief of security, Oriel Jean, who was charged with drug trafficking by the US in 2004 [see Update #741] and served a three-year sentence ending in 2007. Jean named Libérus as the person who wanted “to shut Jean Dominique up.” Dabrésil noted that she refused to leave her residence in the US to testify in his investigation. FL supporters suggested that the report’s release was a maneuver by the government of President Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) as he and opposition parties argue over how and when to hold long-delayed legislative and local elections. Dabrésil’s report noted that Aristide said in his testimony that Libérus was innocent and “mustn’t be the victim of these lies” from Oriel Jean. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 1/18/14; Miami Herald 1/18/14 from correspondent)
Meanwhile, the cases against former “president for life” Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier (1971-1986) for corruption and human rights abuses seem to remain stalled [see Update #1177]. Two Haitian human rights organizations held a press conference on Jan. 16 to mark the third anniversary of Duvalier’s return to Haiti. The Collective Against Impunity demanded that “the Appeals Court stop trampling on the rights of citizens” and set “a date by which to rule on the case.” The Duty to Remember Committee charged that Duvalier was “walking about the Republic as if nothing happened…and we, the victims, are the ones made to feel guilty.” Two international organizations, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI), jointly issued a similar statement the day before, denouncing a “lack of political will and unacceptable court delays” that “are allowing [Duvalier] to escape justice for human rights violations.” (The Jurist 1/15/14; AlterPresse 1/18/14)
There has been some progress on freeing the more than 5 million Swiss francs (about US$5.5 million) in a Swiss bank account held by Duvalier—apparently all that is left of the millions the dictator took when he fled Haiti in February 1986. As of Dec. 26, Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Tribunal (TAF) had ruled that the way was open for the money to be restored to the Haitian government, on the grounds that Duvalier and his relatives had failed to offer evidence that the funds came from any source other than the Haitian government. (France Antilles (Martinique) 12/26/13)
*3. Argentina: Did Israel Kill Off AMIA Bombers?
The 20-year-old investigation into the July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires [see Update #1195] took a new turn on Jan. 2 with the publication of a claim by former Israeli ambassador to Argentina Yitzhak Aviran (1993-2000) that his country had killed most of the perpetrators. “The vast majority of the guilty parties are in another world, and this is something we did,” Aviran told the Spanish-language Jewish News Agency (AJN) in an interview about his experiences in Argentina. On Jan. 3 Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor dismissed the claim as “complete nonsense.”
The bombing of AMIA’s community center left 85 dead and some 300 injured in the worst incident of anti-Semitic violence since World War 2; it came two years after 29 people were killed in a bombing of the Israeli embassy. Argentine prosecutors have accused Iran of planning the attacks and using operatives from the Lebanese organization Hezbollah to carry them out. The investigation has made little progress over the past two decades, and former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) faces possible charges of impeding the initial inquiry [see Update #1167]. In 2013 Argentina and Iran agreed to proceed with a joint investigation into the AMIA attack, but Israel opposes the accord, as do Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman and spokespeople from Argentina’s Jewish community.
“From Aviran’s statements we can deduce the reasons why Israel has opposed the Memorandum of Understanding” with Iran, Argentine foreign minister Héctor Timerman said in response to the interview. Aviran’s “words are very serious because they would imply that Israel hid information from Argentine courts, blocking new evidence from appearing,” Timerman added. He demanded that Aviran tell Argentine prosecutors whether Israel has further information. (AJN 1/2/14; Haaretz (Israel) 1/3/14 from Jewish Telegraphic Agency; Buenos Aires Herald 1/4/14)
In other news, on Jan. 14 the US Supreme Court ruled in a 9-0 decision that the German auto manufacturer Daimler AG could not be sued in a US court for alleged human rights violations at the company’s Mercedes-Benz factory in Argentina. The ruling in Daimler AG v. Bauman is the second time in a year that the court has thrown out a human rights suit based on the 1789 Alien Tort Statute: in April 2013 the court rejected a similar suit, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum [see Update #1173]. Mercedes-Benz is under investigation in Argentina for alleged violations and collaboration with the 1976-1983 military dictatorship [see Update #1156]. (Reuters 1/14/14)
Meanwhile, a recently recovered US State Department memo from April 1977 reinforces earlier indications that former secretary of state Henry Kissinger (1973-1977) approved the atrocities committed by the Argentine junta in 1976 against suspected leftists. According to the memo, then-US ambassador to Argentina Robert Hill told then-assistant secretary of state for human rights Patt Derian about a conversation Kissinger held the previous June with Argentine foreign minister César Augusto Guzzetti. “Kissinger asked [Guzzetti] how long will it take you (the Argentines) to clean up the problem,” the memo says, referring to the Argentine left. “Guzzetti replied that it would be done by the end of the year. Kissinger approved. In other words, Ambassador Hill explained, Kissinger gave the Argentines the green light.” In 2003 the DC-based nonprofit National Security Archive released a memo describing a similar but somewhat less explicit conversation between Kissinger and Guzzetti in October 1976 [see Update #723]. (Mother Jones 1/14/14)
*4. Chile: Mapuche Environmental Activist Dies
The body of Chilean environmental activist Nicolasa Quintreman, an indigenous Mapuche from the Pehuenche subgroup, was found on Dec. 24 floating in the Lago Ralco reservoir in Alto Bío Bío commune in the central Bío Bío region. Prosecutor Carlos Diaz said there was no evidence of violence. The 74-year-old Quintreman, who was visually impaired, “apparently slipped and fell into the lake,” he said. Together with her sister Berta Quintreman, who survived her, Nicolasa Quintreman led a 10-year fight to stop the Endesa power company from building a dam on the Bío Bío river and flooding their ancestral village. The dam was eventually built, producing the reservoir in which Nicolasa Quintreman drowned. But the campaign of peaceful protests that the sisters led in the face of tear gas, rubber bullets and illegal raids by police was an inspiration for the growth of Chile’s environmental movement.
“She left a very profound mark,” center-left Party for Democracy (PPD) leader Domingo Namuncura said after Quintreman’s death. “This legacy that has since been followed by so many people, it will remain there, imperishable… Relations between indigenous people and the state are now seen differently.” (PiensaChile.com 12/24/13; Japan Times 12/29/13 from AP)
*5. Guatemala: Indigenous Ex-Rebel Leader Killed
Guatemalan indigenous activist Juan de León Tuyuc Velásquez was murdered the night of Jan. 15-16 by unknown persons in Sololá, capital of the western department of Sololá. The body had gunshot wounds and signs of beating. Tuyuc worked on development projects in indigenous communities, and under the pseudonym “Peter” he commanded a front of the leftist Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war. His sister, Rosalina Tuyuc, heads the National Coordinating Committee of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA), which represents women widowed by the war. Indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchú, the winner of the 1992 Nobel peace prize, described Juan Tuyuc as “committed to democracy, justice” and “the firm and lasting building of peace.” She called for the “prompt investigation, capture and application of the law to the material and intellectual authors of the crime.” (Latin American Herald Tribune 1/16/14 from EFE; TeleSUR 1/16/14, some from AFP)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
New Memo: Kissinger Gave the "Green Light" for Argentina's Dirty War
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4650-new-memo-kissinger-gave-the-qgreen-lightq-for-argentinas-dirty-war
SCOTUS rules for Daimler in Argentina rights case
http://ww4report.com/node/12929
More Forced Evictions in Rio de Janeiro: What Happened to the Statute of the City? (Brazil)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/more-forced-evictions-in-rio-de-janeiro-what-happened-to-the-statute-of-the-city
Descendants of Slaves Report Military Abuses in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/4648-descendants-of-slaves-report-military-abuses-in-brazil
Managing Bolivian Capitalism
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4652-managing-bolivian-capitalism
Bolivia: pro-MAS faction takes CONAMAQ office
http://ww4report.com/node/12933
Peru to move ahead with Camisea gas expansion?
http://ww4report.com/node/12936
Peru: new confrontation at Conga mine site
http://ww4report.com/node/12935
New Christie Attack Dog Attorney No Friend to Ecuador's Indigenous Peoples
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/new-christie-attack-dog-a_b_4629610.html
Enemy of the State: The Battle Over Sustainable Development in Ecuador's Intag Valley
http://ww4report.com/node/12939
Colombia, a society tired of war
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11278
Southwest Antioquia: Microcosm of Social Conflict in Colombia’s New Gold Rush
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/4642-southwest-antioquia-microcosm-of-social-conflict-in-colombias-new-gold-rush
Where is Venezuela’s Economy Headed?
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10289
Panama’s Indigenous Peoples: Paying the price for hydro
http://intercontinentalcry.org/panamas-indigenous-communities-paying-price-hydro/
Construction of Nicaraguan Canal to Begin in Late 2014
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/nicaragua-archives-62/4653-construction-of-nicaraguan-canal-to-begin-in-late-2014
Reagan-Era Criminal slanders FMLN (El Salvador)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4646-reagan-era-criminal-slanders-fmln
US Congressional Appropriations Bill Would Impose New Restrictions on Honduras Support
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/us-congressional-appropriations-bill-would-impose-new-restrictions-on-honduras-support
Peña Nieto: Pemex for sale (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/12802#comment-451953
Zapatistas at Twenty (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11287
The Permanent People’s Tribunal and the Counterinsurgency War in Chiapas
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4639-the-permanent-peoples-tribunal-and-the-counterinsurgency-war-in-chiapas
Confirmed: The DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico's Most Notorious Drug Cartel
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4651-confirmed-the-dea-struck-a-deal-with-mexicos-most-notorious-drug-cartel
Behind a New Armed Conflict in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4645-behind-a-new-armed-conflict-in-mexico
Mexico: Colima campesinos declare mine-free zone
http://ww4report.com/node/12934
Mexico City barrio resists spread of car culture
http://ww4report.com/node/12937
How Disaster Relief Became a Disaster of its Own - Jake Johnston in Boston Review (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/how-disaster-relief-became-a-disaster-of-its-own-jake-johnston-in-boston-review
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://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.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. 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.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
WNU #1204: Argentine Court Suspends Monsanto Construction
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1204, January 12, 2014
1. Argentina: Court Suspends Monsanto Plant Construction
2. Honduras: Audit Faults World Bank Loan in Aguán
3. Haiti: Union Leaders Fired Over Wage Protests
4. Haiti: Lavalas Expels Two Populist Politicians
5. Puerto Rico: Teachers to Strike Over Pensions
6. US: IRS Targets Cuba Solidarity Group
7. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, 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. Argentina: Court Suspends Monsanto Plant Construction
A three-judge panel of an appeals court in the central Argentine province of Córdoba has ordered the Missouri-based biotech giant Monsanto Company to suspend construction of a seed-drying plant in the town of Malvinas Argentinas pending the completion of an environmental impact study. The court’s 2-1 decision was in response to a suit by ecologists and Malvinas residents charging that local authorities violated environmental laws when they authorized the construction. Monsanto issued a statement saying the company had already completed its own impact study and would appeal the court’s decision.
Residents of Malvinas, a working-class suburb of the city of Córdoba, have been organizing against Monsanto since June 2012, when the company announced plans for the facility, which is to occupy 27 hectares. Activists began blockading roads to the site on Sept. 19, 2013; they have managed to cut off access ever since, despite death threats and violent attacks by Monsanto supporters [see Update #1201]. Monsanto calls the activists “extremists” who have “incited violence and systematically ignored judicial decisions,” preventing Monsanto employees and contractors from “exercis[ing] their right to work.”
Monsanto is a leading producer of genetically modified (GM) seeds and of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup. The company reported on Jan. 8 that had earned $368 million in the quarter ending on Nov. 30, up from $339 million for that period the year before. (TeleSUR 1/9/14; MercoPress (Montevideo) 1/10/14)
*2. Honduras: Audit Faults World Bank Loan in Aguán
Issue #1204, January 12, 2014
1. Argentina: Court Suspends Monsanto Plant Construction
2. Honduras: Audit Faults World Bank Loan in Aguán
3. Haiti: Union Leaders Fired Over Wage Protests
4. Haiti: Lavalas Expels Two Populist Politicians
5. Puerto Rico: Teachers to Strike Over Pensions
6. US: IRS Targets Cuba Solidarity Group
7. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, 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. Argentina: Court Suspends Monsanto Plant Construction
A three-judge panel of an appeals court in the central Argentine province of Córdoba has ordered the Missouri-based biotech giant Monsanto Company to suspend construction of a seed-drying plant in the town of Malvinas Argentinas pending the completion of an environmental impact study. The court’s 2-1 decision was in response to a suit by ecologists and Malvinas residents charging that local authorities violated environmental laws when they authorized the construction. Monsanto issued a statement saying the company had already completed its own impact study and would appeal the court’s decision.
Residents of Malvinas, a working-class suburb of the city of Córdoba, have been organizing against Monsanto since June 2012, when the company announced plans for the facility, which is to occupy 27 hectares. Activists began blockading roads to the site on Sept. 19, 2013; they have managed to cut off access ever since, despite death threats and violent attacks by Monsanto supporters [see Update #1201]. Monsanto calls the activists “extremists” who have “incited violence and systematically ignored judicial decisions,” preventing Monsanto employees and contractors from “exercis[ing] their right to work.”
Monsanto is a leading producer of genetically modified (GM) seeds and of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup. The company reported on Jan. 8 that had earned $368 million in the quarter ending on Nov. 30, up from $339 million for that period the year before. (TeleSUR 1/9/14; MercoPress (Montevideo) 1/10/14)
*2. Honduras: Audit Faults World Bank Loan in Aguán
On Jan. 10 the World Bank’s Office of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman (CAO) released a report criticizing the process through which the bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) granted a $30 million loan in 2009 to the Honduran-based food-product company Corporación Dinant [see Update #1058]. An audit that the CAO started in April 2012 found that the IFC failed to apply its own ethical standards in issuing the loan, which is to be used in part for growing African oil palms in the Aguán Valley in northern Honduras. The Aguán’s largest landowner is Dinant’s founder, the politically well-connected cooking oil magnate Miguel Facussé Barjum. Producing palm oil has become highly profitable, since the oil can be used both for food and as biofuel.
Human rights activists objected to the IFC loan, noting charges by campesino organizations that Facussé and other Aguán landowners acquired their huge estates illegally in areas slated for agrarian reform. Campesinos began a series of land occupations in late 2009 to promote their claims. Since then the region has been the site of bloody conflicts, with 104 campesinos killed as of July 2013, according to the North American nonprofit Rights Action [see Update #1182]. Some 40 of the deaths have involved Facussé’s security guards or have occurred on or near his property. In 2010 Rights Action sent the World Bank a letter describing the situation as a “human rights disaster” and charging the IFC with “gross negligence” in granting the loan. The IFC defended Facussé as a “very respected businessman.” It held up disbursement of the second $15 million of the loan but subsequently approved a $70 million investment in one of Dinant’s biggest lenders, the Banco Financiera Comercial Hondureña (Ficohsa), representing a 10% stake in the bank. (Global Post 1/4/14; Huffington Post 1/10/14; New York Times 1/10/14)
The Honduran government has militarized the Aguán, ostensibly to stop the violence, but campesino groups say the military is actually backing the landowners. Rights Action notes that the “Honduran regime remains in power due in large part to its political, economic and military relations with the US and Canada and the ‘development’ banks.” The group recommends that Canadian and US activists follow up on the CAO report by sending copies of news articles “and your own letters, to your politicians (MPs, Congress members and senators) and your own media.” (Rights Action 1/12/14)
*3. Haiti: Union Leaders Fired Over Wage Protests
Six workers at the One World Apparel S.A. garment assembly plant in the north of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, were given notices of dismissal on Jan. 8, four weeks after workers shut down production in the city’s apparel sector with Dec. 10 and Dec. 11 protests demanding a daily minimum wage of 500 gourdes (about US$12.08) [see Update #1203]. The fired workers--Jude Pierre, Luckner Louis, Deroy Jean Baptiste, Paul René Pierre, Jean Luvard Exavier and Rubin Mucial—are all on the executive committee of the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA), a member union in the Collective of Textile Union Organizations (KOSIT), the labor alliance that led the December protests.
The firings appear to be part of a management drive to stop the protest movement. When union activists tried to hold another demonstration on Dec. 18 outside the city’s main industrial park, riot police blocked the protesters from marching and plant security guards prevented most workers from joining the action. Two participants were arrested and held over night at the Delmas 33 police station; one, Edouardo Iléma, a member of the group Workers’ Antenna, said hooded police pushed him to the ground and kicked and beat him. The two activists were released after an intervention by Mario Joseph, president of the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI). (AlterPresse (Haiti) 12/18/13, 12/19/13, 1/9/14)
According to Charles Auguste Archelus—the secretary general of the Confederation of Haitian Workers’ Forces (CFOH), one of the three union federations in KOSIT—a total of 26 workers at various plants have been fired so far for their role in the December protests. Archelus was one of three KOSIT representatives speaking at a meeting with solidarity activists in Brooklyn, NY on Jan. 11; the others were Dominique Saint-Eloi, general coordinator of the National Confederation of Haitian Workers (CNOHA), and Yannick Etienne, of the May 1 Union Group-Batay Ouvriye (ESPM-BO, “Workers’ Struggle”), which includes SOTA. The unionists were in the US in a Jan. 9-15 visit sponsored by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) labor monitoring group to meet with representatives of three North America manufacturers that have T-shirts stitched in Haiti: Montreal-based Gildan Activewear Inc., Kentucky-based Fruit of the Loom and Hanesbrands Inc., which is based in North Carolina. In November Gildan and Fruit of the Loom said they would require their Haitian suppliers to pay piece-rate workers at least the 300 gourde daily minimum wage (about US$7.22 at the time of the announcement) that went into effect by law in October 2012 [see Update #1200]; it is unclear whether Hanesbrands has now joined the other two companies in this commitment. (Report from Update editor)
Despite the tensions in the garment assembly sector, on Jan. 2 the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced a $40.5 million grant to expand the Caracol Industrial Park (PIC), a massive facility built in the Northeast department since the January 2010 earthquake to house more assembly plants [see Update #1197]. The IDB says the new grant will “bolster the Haitian government's efforts to attract more job-generating investments in an economically disadvantaged but potentially productive region” by “financing the construction of more factory shells, canteens, administrative buildings and other service facilities, roads and utility networks.” The IDB had previously put $50 million into the project, which promoters say will generate 20,000 to 65,000 jobs; the US has donated $124 million. Currently the PIC has four tenants and employs less than 3,000 workers. (IDB press release 1/2/14 via 4-Traders; AlterPresse 1/10/14)
*4. Haiti: Lavalas Expels Two Populist Politicians
Division and confusion reportedly marred celebrations by Haiti’s Lavalas Family (FL) party in Port-au-Prince on Dec. 16 to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the overwhelming 1990 electoral victory of the party’s founder, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004). Hundreds of FL supporters marched from the site of the St. Jean Bosco church, where Aristide served as a priest in the 1980s, to the Jean Aristide Foundation in the northeastern suburb of Tabarre. But participants reported that when party coordinator Maryse Narcisse tried to speak, she was drowned out by supporters of Senator Moïse Jean-Charles and Deputy Arnel Bélizaire, two populist members of Haiti’s Parliament. Following a dispute over planning for a November demonstration, the FL Executive Committee announced on Dec. 2 that the party “protests with all its might against any public declaration” from Jean-Charles and Bélizaire, describing them as “some people who present themselves as Lavalas Family members.”
Jean-Charles, a senator from the North department, ran on the line of the Unity party of former president René Préval (1996-2001, 2006-2011) in 2010 elections from which FL was excluded, but he says he was previously twice elected mayor of the town of Milot as an FL candidate. He has been a prominent speaker at FL-dominated demonstrations against current president Michel Martelly [see Update #1146]. Deputy Bélizaire was elected to Parliament as a candidate of the Veye Yo (“Watch Them”) party, which ran FL politicians when the FL was excluded [see Update #1104].
Charles reacted angrily to his de facto expulsion from the FL, charging on the radio that the party had been taken over by a “macouto-bourgeois group” (a reference to the Tontons Macoute, a paramilitary force used by the 1957-1986 Duvalier family dictatorship). He also claimed that FL coordinator Narcisse formerly worked for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) along with President Martelly’s wife, Sophia Martelly. The senator said he had asked Aristide himself to intervene. According to Jean-Charles, Aristide answered: “I am no longer involved in politics.” (Haïti Liberté 12/12/13 via Before It’s News; AlterPresse (Haiti) 12/16/13)
*5. Puerto Rico: Teachers to Strike Over Pensions
Scores of Puerto Rican teachers briefly occupied the Senate chamber in San Juan on Dec. 19 to protest legislation proposed by Gov. Alejandro García Padilla to change the retirement and pension system for the island’s teachers. After scuffling with Capitol building employees, the chanting teachers, many wearing yellow T-shirts, pushed their way into the chamber, forcing the 16 senators present to move to another room. Protests continued at the Capitol throughout the week, with teachers and police clashing outside the building on Dec. 21. Despite the actions, both chambers of the Legislative Assembly narrowly voted to pass the bill—the House of Representatives on Dec. 21 by a vote of 26 to 20 and the Senate on Dec. 23 by a vote of 14 to 13.
Under the new law, starting at the end of the school year pensions will be reduced from 75% of a teacher’s final salary to 65% and teachers’ contributions to the pension fund will increase from 9% to 10%. For newly hired teachers, retirement age will be increased to 62; currently teachers can retire at 55 after 30 years in the education system or at 60 after less than 30 years. Gov. García Padilla insisted that the changes were necessary because of threats from US credit rating agencies, principally Moody’s Corporation and Fitch Ratings Inc., to lower Puerto Rico’s general obligation bonds to junk status if alleged problems in its pension systems weren’t solved. Opponents of the changes charge that the Puerto Rican government is letting Wall Street dictate its policies.
The three teachers unions—the Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), the Teachers’ Association of Puerto Rico (AMPR) and Educamos (“We Educate”)—have called for a 48-hour strike by the 41,973 active teachers starting on Jan. 14 in an effort to have the new law overturned or declared unconstitutional. (EFE 12/19/13; Reuters 12/24/13; Rebelión 1/2/14; Global Post 1/7/14 from EFE; Claridad (Puerto Rico) 1/9/14)
*6. US: IRS Targets Cuba Solidarity Group
The New York-based nonprofit Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) announced on Jan. 6 that the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has recommended ending the group’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Founded in 1967 by the late Rev. Lucius Walker [see Update #1048], IFCO is the first national foundation in the US controlled by people of color. It is probably best known as the sponsor of Pastors for Peace, which for the past 22 years has organized the US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan, an annual shipment of humanitarian aid to Cuba; Pastors for Peace has also provided humanitarian aid for Nicaragua, Haiti and other countries.
The IRS’s two-year investigation started with a letter to the service from two members of Congress—Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC)—suggesting that IFCO was tied to terrorist organizations because of some $1.2 million in aid it sent to the people of Gaza through the Viva Palestina group in 2009. In its report, the IRS cites a “comprehensive report” by Steve Emerson’s notoriously inaccurate Investigative Project on Terrorism to suggest that some of the aid may have gone to the Hamas organization, which the US lists as a terrorist group. The IRS also charges that the Friendshipments and some aid for US medical students in Cuba may violate the 50-year US embargo against Cuba. In an appeal by New York attorney Martin Stolar, IFCO denies sending aid to Hamas; notes that the relevant US agency, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), has never penalized it for the Friendshipments; and states that OFAC has licensed the medical students to spend money in Cuba.
IFCO has asked supporters to contact US Congress members “and let them know that we need their support. Ask them to contact the Treasury Department to ask them to stop this political persecution and harassment against IFCO.” Treasure can also be contacted directly by fax at 202-622-6415 or via internet at http://www.treasury.gov/connect/Pages/contact-us.aspx. (IFCO letter 1/6/14; Vice (Montreal) 1/8/14; Ahora (Cuba) 1/10/14 from Radio Havana)
*7. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, US/immigration
UN Climate Negotiations: Indigenous Resistance from Within (Latin America)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/1/11/un-climate-negotiations-indigenous-resistance-within
Andean protesters resist death-marred Dakar Rally (Argentina/Bolivia)
http://ww4report.com/node/12915
Sawhoyamaxa Battle for Their Land in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/4629-sawhoyamaxa-battle-for-their-land-in-paraguay
Chico Mendes: 25 Years after His Death (Brazil)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4632-chico-mendes-25-years-after-his-death
Peru: Achuar leader on prison hunger strike
http://ww4report.com/node/12916
One-quarter of Colombia's Indians Displaced - Report
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4633-one-quarter-of-colombias-indians-displaced-report
The Crisis of the National State: How Will Colombia Weigh In?
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/1/8/crisis-national-state-how-will-colombia-weigh
Colombia: ecologists cut off talks on alpine mining
http://ww4report.com/node/12917
Venezuelans Call for Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10269
Panama, Nicaragua canal plans stalled
http://ww4report.com/node/12899
Costa Rica: the next narco-state?
http://ww4report.com/node/12900
Guatemala grapples with opium boom
http://ww4report.com/node/12901
US ambassador to Honduras offers tacit support of brutal crackdown
america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/1/u-s-ambassador-humanrightsviolationshonduras.html
Honduras and the Dirty war Fuelled by the West's Drive for Clean Energy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4630-honduras-and-the-dirty-war-fuelled-by-the-wests-drive-for-clean-energy
Zapatistas: Twenty Years After (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4634-zapatistas-twenty-years-after
The Permanent People’s Tribunal and the Counterinsurgency War in Chiapas (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4639-the-permanent-peoples-tribunal-and-the-counterinsurgency-war-in-chiapas
Zapatista's Warning Over NAFTA Rings True 2 Decades Later (Mexico)
therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11281
20 Years on, Mexico is NAFTA's Biggest Lie
therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&Itemid=74&jumival=11282
NAFTA Hurt Workers on Both Sides of the Border (Mexico)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11279
An Honest Look at Mexican Economic Growth in the NAFTA Era
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/an-honest-look-at-mexican-economic-growth-in-the-nafta-era
"It's not just 2 pesos; It's the country:" Mexico City's #PosMeSalto Movement Protests Rising Transit Cost
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4635-qits-not-just-2-pesos-its-the-countryq-mexico-citys-posmesalto-movement-protests-rising-transit-costs
Four Years after Earthquake, Housing, Sanitation, Health Care are Still Pressing Needs in Haiti
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/four-years-after-earthquake-housing-sanitation-health-care-are-still-pressing-needs-in-haiti
Questions about the reconstruction's housing projects (Haiti)
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2014/1/8/questions-about-the-reconstructions-housing-projects.html
Meet the New Boss: Jeh Johnson (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/1/7/meet-new-boss-jeh-johnson
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://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.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. 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.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
Human rights activists objected to the IFC loan, noting charges by campesino organizations that Facussé and other Aguán landowners acquired their huge estates illegally in areas slated for agrarian reform. Campesinos began a series of land occupations in late 2009 to promote their claims. Since then the region has been the site of bloody conflicts, with 104 campesinos killed as of July 2013, according to the North American nonprofit Rights Action [see Update #1182]. Some 40 of the deaths have involved Facussé’s security guards or have occurred on or near his property. In 2010 Rights Action sent the World Bank a letter describing the situation as a “human rights disaster” and charging the IFC with “gross negligence” in granting the loan. The IFC defended Facussé as a “very respected businessman.” It held up disbursement of the second $15 million of the loan but subsequently approved a $70 million investment in one of Dinant’s biggest lenders, the Banco Financiera Comercial Hondureña (Ficohsa), representing a 10% stake in the bank. (Global Post 1/4/14; Huffington Post 1/10/14; New York Times 1/10/14)
The Honduran government has militarized the Aguán, ostensibly to stop the violence, but campesino groups say the military is actually backing the landowners. Rights Action notes that the “Honduran regime remains in power due in large part to its political, economic and military relations with the US and Canada and the ‘development’ banks.” The group recommends that Canadian and US activists follow up on the CAO report by sending copies of news articles “and your own letters, to your politicians (MPs, Congress members and senators) and your own media.” (Rights Action 1/12/14)
*3. Haiti: Union Leaders Fired Over Wage Protests
Six workers at the One World Apparel S.A. garment assembly plant in the north of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, were given notices of dismissal on Jan. 8, four weeks after workers shut down production in the city’s apparel sector with Dec. 10 and Dec. 11 protests demanding a daily minimum wage of 500 gourdes (about US$12.08) [see Update #1203]. The fired workers--Jude Pierre, Luckner Louis, Deroy Jean Baptiste, Paul René Pierre, Jean Luvard Exavier and Rubin Mucial—are all on the executive committee of the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA), a member union in the Collective of Textile Union Organizations (KOSIT), the labor alliance that led the December protests.
The firings appear to be part of a management drive to stop the protest movement. When union activists tried to hold another demonstration on Dec. 18 outside the city’s main industrial park, riot police blocked the protesters from marching and plant security guards prevented most workers from joining the action. Two participants were arrested and held over night at the Delmas 33 police station; one, Edouardo Iléma, a member of the group Workers’ Antenna, said hooded police pushed him to the ground and kicked and beat him. The two activists were released after an intervention by Mario Joseph, president of the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI). (AlterPresse (Haiti) 12/18/13, 12/19/13, 1/9/14)
According to Charles Auguste Archelus—the secretary general of the Confederation of Haitian Workers’ Forces (CFOH), one of the three union federations in KOSIT—a total of 26 workers at various plants have been fired so far for their role in the December protests. Archelus was one of three KOSIT representatives speaking at a meeting with solidarity activists in Brooklyn, NY on Jan. 11; the others were Dominique Saint-Eloi, general coordinator of the National Confederation of Haitian Workers (CNOHA), and Yannick Etienne, of the May 1 Union Group-Batay Ouvriye (ESPM-BO, “Workers’ Struggle”), which includes SOTA. The unionists were in the US in a Jan. 9-15 visit sponsored by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) labor monitoring group to meet with representatives of three North America manufacturers that have T-shirts stitched in Haiti: Montreal-based Gildan Activewear Inc., Kentucky-based Fruit of the Loom and Hanesbrands Inc., which is based in North Carolina. In November Gildan and Fruit of the Loom said they would require their Haitian suppliers to pay piece-rate workers at least the 300 gourde daily minimum wage (about US$7.22 at the time of the announcement) that went into effect by law in October 2012 [see Update #1200]; it is unclear whether Hanesbrands has now joined the other two companies in this commitment. (Report from Update editor)
Despite the tensions in the garment assembly sector, on Jan. 2 the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced a $40.5 million grant to expand the Caracol Industrial Park (PIC), a massive facility built in the Northeast department since the January 2010 earthquake to house more assembly plants [see Update #1197]. The IDB says the new grant will “bolster the Haitian government's efforts to attract more job-generating investments in an economically disadvantaged but potentially productive region” by “financing the construction of more factory shells, canteens, administrative buildings and other service facilities, roads and utility networks.” The IDB had previously put $50 million into the project, which promoters say will generate 20,000 to 65,000 jobs; the US has donated $124 million. Currently the PIC has four tenants and employs less than 3,000 workers. (IDB press release 1/2/14 via 4-Traders; AlterPresse 1/10/14)
*4. Haiti: Lavalas Expels Two Populist Politicians
Division and confusion reportedly marred celebrations by Haiti’s Lavalas Family (FL) party in Port-au-Prince on Dec. 16 to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the overwhelming 1990 electoral victory of the party’s founder, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004). Hundreds of FL supporters marched from the site of the St. Jean Bosco church, where Aristide served as a priest in the 1980s, to the Jean Aristide Foundation in the northeastern suburb of Tabarre. But participants reported that when party coordinator Maryse Narcisse tried to speak, she was drowned out by supporters of Senator Moïse Jean-Charles and Deputy Arnel Bélizaire, two populist members of Haiti’s Parliament. Following a dispute over planning for a November demonstration, the FL Executive Committee announced on Dec. 2 that the party “protests with all its might against any public declaration” from Jean-Charles and Bélizaire, describing them as “some people who present themselves as Lavalas Family members.”
Jean-Charles, a senator from the North department, ran on the line of the Unity party of former president René Préval (1996-2001, 2006-2011) in 2010 elections from which FL was excluded, but he says he was previously twice elected mayor of the town of Milot as an FL candidate. He has been a prominent speaker at FL-dominated demonstrations against current president Michel Martelly [see Update #1146]. Deputy Bélizaire was elected to Parliament as a candidate of the Veye Yo (“Watch Them”) party, which ran FL politicians when the FL was excluded [see Update #1104].
Charles reacted angrily to his de facto expulsion from the FL, charging on the radio that the party had been taken over by a “macouto-bourgeois group” (a reference to the Tontons Macoute, a paramilitary force used by the 1957-1986 Duvalier family dictatorship). He also claimed that FL coordinator Narcisse formerly worked for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) along with President Martelly’s wife, Sophia Martelly. The senator said he had asked Aristide himself to intervene. According to Jean-Charles, Aristide answered: “I am no longer involved in politics.” (Haïti Liberté 12/12/13 via Before It’s News; AlterPresse (Haiti) 12/16/13)
*5. Puerto Rico: Teachers to Strike Over Pensions
Scores of Puerto Rican teachers briefly occupied the Senate chamber in San Juan on Dec. 19 to protest legislation proposed by Gov. Alejandro García Padilla to change the retirement and pension system for the island’s teachers. After scuffling with Capitol building employees, the chanting teachers, many wearing yellow T-shirts, pushed their way into the chamber, forcing the 16 senators present to move to another room. Protests continued at the Capitol throughout the week, with teachers and police clashing outside the building on Dec. 21. Despite the actions, both chambers of the Legislative Assembly narrowly voted to pass the bill—the House of Representatives on Dec. 21 by a vote of 26 to 20 and the Senate on Dec. 23 by a vote of 14 to 13.
Under the new law, starting at the end of the school year pensions will be reduced from 75% of a teacher’s final salary to 65% and teachers’ contributions to the pension fund will increase from 9% to 10%. For newly hired teachers, retirement age will be increased to 62; currently teachers can retire at 55 after 30 years in the education system or at 60 after less than 30 years. Gov. García Padilla insisted that the changes were necessary because of threats from US credit rating agencies, principally Moody’s Corporation and Fitch Ratings Inc., to lower Puerto Rico’s general obligation bonds to junk status if alleged problems in its pension systems weren’t solved. Opponents of the changes charge that the Puerto Rican government is letting Wall Street dictate its policies.
The three teachers unions—the Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), the Teachers’ Association of Puerto Rico (AMPR) and Educamos (“We Educate”)—have called for a 48-hour strike by the 41,973 active teachers starting on Jan. 14 in an effort to have the new law overturned or declared unconstitutional. (EFE 12/19/13; Reuters 12/24/13; Rebelión 1/2/14; Global Post 1/7/14 from EFE; Claridad (Puerto Rico) 1/9/14)
*6. US: IRS Targets Cuba Solidarity Group
The New York-based nonprofit Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) announced on Jan. 6 that the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has recommended ending the group’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Founded in 1967 by the late Rev. Lucius Walker [see Update #1048], IFCO is the first national foundation in the US controlled by people of color. It is probably best known as the sponsor of Pastors for Peace, which for the past 22 years has organized the US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan, an annual shipment of humanitarian aid to Cuba; Pastors for Peace has also provided humanitarian aid for Nicaragua, Haiti and other countries.
The IRS’s two-year investigation started with a letter to the service from two members of Congress—Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC)—suggesting that IFCO was tied to terrorist organizations because of some $1.2 million in aid it sent to the people of Gaza through the Viva Palestina group in 2009. In its report, the IRS cites a “comprehensive report” by Steve Emerson’s notoriously inaccurate Investigative Project on Terrorism to suggest that some of the aid may have gone to the Hamas organization, which the US lists as a terrorist group. The IRS also charges that the Friendshipments and some aid for US medical students in Cuba may violate the 50-year US embargo against Cuba. In an appeal by New York attorney Martin Stolar, IFCO denies sending aid to Hamas; notes that the relevant US agency, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), has never penalized it for the Friendshipments; and states that OFAC has licensed the medical students to spend money in Cuba.
IFCO has asked supporters to contact US Congress members “and let them know that we need their support. Ask them to contact the Treasury Department to ask them to stop this political persecution and harassment against IFCO.” Treasure can also be contacted directly by fax at 202-622-6415 or via internet at http://www.treasury.gov/connect/Pages/contact-us.aspx. (IFCO letter 1/6/14; Vice (Montreal) 1/8/14; Ahora (Cuba) 1/10/14 from Radio Havana)
*7. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, US/immigration
UN Climate Negotiations: Indigenous Resistance from Within (Latin America)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/1/11/un-climate-negotiations-indigenous-resistance-within
Andean protesters resist death-marred Dakar Rally (Argentina/Bolivia)
http://ww4report.com/node/12915
Sawhoyamaxa Battle for Their Land in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/4629-sawhoyamaxa-battle-for-their-land-in-paraguay
Chico Mendes: 25 Years after His Death (Brazil)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4632-chico-mendes-25-years-after-his-death
Peru: Achuar leader on prison hunger strike
http://ww4report.com/node/12916
One-quarter of Colombia's Indians Displaced - Report
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4633-one-quarter-of-colombias-indians-displaced-report
The Crisis of the National State: How Will Colombia Weigh In?
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/1/8/crisis-national-state-how-will-colombia-weigh
Colombia: ecologists cut off talks on alpine mining
http://ww4report.com/node/12917
Venezuelans Call for Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10269
Panama, Nicaragua canal plans stalled
http://ww4report.com/node/12899
Costa Rica: the next narco-state?
http://ww4report.com/node/12900
Guatemala grapples with opium boom
http://ww4report.com/node/12901
US ambassador to Honduras offers tacit support of brutal crackdown
america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/1/u-s-ambassador-humanrightsviolationshonduras.html
Honduras and the Dirty war Fuelled by the West's Drive for Clean Energy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4630-honduras-and-the-dirty-war-fuelled-by-the-wests-drive-for-clean-energy
Zapatistas: Twenty Years After (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4634-zapatistas-twenty-years-after
The Permanent People’s Tribunal and the Counterinsurgency War in Chiapas (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4639-the-permanent-peoples-tribunal-and-the-counterinsurgency-war-in-chiapas
Zapatista's Warning Over NAFTA Rings True 2 Decades Later (Mexico)
therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11281
20 Years on, Mexico is NAFTA's Biggest Lie
therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&Itemid=74&jumival=11282
NAFTA Hurt Workers on Both Sides of the Border (Mexico)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11279
An Honest Look at Mexican Economic Growth in the NAFTA Era
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/an-honest-look-at-mexican-economic-growth-in-the-nafta-era
"It's not just 2 pesos; It's the country:" Mexico City's #PosMeSalto Movement Protests Rising Transit Cost
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4635-qits-not-just-2-pesos-its-the-countryq-mexico-citys-posmesalto-movement-protests-rising-transit-costs
Four Years after Earthquake, Housing, Sanitation, Health Care are Still Pressing Needs in Haiti
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/four-years-after-earthquake-housing-sanitation-health-care-are-still-pressing-needs-in-haiti
Questions about the reconstruction's housing projects (Haiti)
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2014/1/8/questions-about-the-reconstructions-housing-projects.html
Meet the New Boss: Jeh Johnson (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/1/7/meet-new-boss-jeh-johnson
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://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.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. 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.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Links but No Update for January 5, 2014
[We continue to have problems with computer replacement. We hope to resume full publication soon.]
Drone Use Soars in Latin America, Remains Widely Unregulated
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4615-drone-use-soars-in-latin-america-remains-widely-unregulated-
Land Conflicts in Argentina: From Resistance to Systemic Transformation
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/4624-land-conflicts-in-argentina-from-resistance-to-systemic-transformation
Chile: 'Caravan of Death' perps guilty of murder
http://ww4report.com/node/12860
Paraguay: Woman at the center of resistance
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11255
Brazilian Ruralists Hold ‘Auction for Resistance’ Against Indigenous Land Claims
http://intercontinentalcry.org/brazilian-ruralists-hold-auction-resistance-indigenous-land-claims/
Brazil: indigenous reserve attacked in Amazon
http://ww4report.com/node/12871
Brazil: Guaraní prepared to die for demarcation
http://ww4report.com/node/12872
Was Snowden’s Letter to Brazil a Quid-Pro-Quo Offer?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/was-snowdens-letter-to-brazil-a-quid-pro-quo-offer
Bolivia: Presidente Evo’s Double Christmas Bonus
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/1/4/bolivia-presidente-evo%E2%80%99s-double-christmas-bonus
Close the NGOs: Asserting Sovereignty or Eroding Democracy? (Bolivia/Ecuador)
http://nacla.org/blog/2013/12/31/close-ngos-asserting-sovereignty-or-eroding-democracy
Peru: Police Abuse in the Pay of Mining Companies
https://nacla.org/blog/2013/12/16/peru-police-abuse-pay-mining-companies
Peru: controversial copper project moves ahead
http://ww4report.com/node/12878
US Government Misled Public on Critical Role in Colombia’s 2008 Illegal Cross-border Attack
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/us-government-misled-public-on-critical-role-in-colombias-2008-illegal-cross-border-attack
The U.S. Multibillion “Black Budget” War in Colombia
http://nacla.org/blog/2013/12/26/us-multibillion-%E2%80%9Cblack-budget%E2%80%9D-war-colombia
Colombia: photos link Uribe to narcos, paras
http://ww4report.com/node/12897
ELN bombsColombia oil pipeline infrastructure
http://ww4report.com/node/12896
Colombia: US suspends spraying after pilots downed
http://ww4report.com/node/12895
Colombia: intensified violence against labor leaders
http://ww4report.com/node/12874
Venezuelan Government to “Establish New Economic Order” Next Year after 56.2% Inflation in 2013
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10261
Outrage Following Honduran Colonel‘s Attack against U.S. Human Rights Defender
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/outrage-following-honduran-colonels-attack-against-us-human-rights-defender
Mexican Congress Passes Energy Reform Law: Oil, Gas, and Electric Open to Foreign Investment
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=219#1663
No Golden Pond for NAFTA Generation Retirees (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11244
The EZLN - A look at its History (Part 3): The Option for the Poor
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4616-the-ezln-a-look-at-its-history-part-3-the-option-for-the-poor
Chiapas: Zapatistas mark 20 years of rebellion (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/12881
New Forms of Revolution (Part 1): The Lacandona Commune (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4620-new-forms-of-revolution-part-1-the-lacandona-commune
Teacher Dissidents Continue Protests, Plan Convention to Chart Future (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=219#1667
UNESCO concerned that mining projects threaten sacred sites essential for the Wixárika pilgrimage to Wirikuta (Mexico)
http://intercontinentalcry.org/unesco-concerned-mining-projects-threaten-sacred-sites-essential-wixarika-pilgrimage-wirikuta/
AID Takes Step Toward Greater Transparency, Reveals Low Levels of Local Procurement (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/usaid-takes-step-toward-greater-transparency-reveals-low-levels-of-local-procurement
Taino Rising (Puerto Rico)
http://intercontinentalcry.org/taino-rising/
Book Review: Undoing Border Imperialism (immigration)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4621-book-review-undoing-border-imperialism
Drone Use Soars in Latin America, Remains Widely Unregulated
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4615-drone-use-soars-in-latin-america-remains-widely-unregulated-
Land Conflicts in Argentina: From Resistance to Systemic Transformation
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/4624-land-conflicts-in-argentina-from-resistance-to-systemic-transformation
Chile: 'Caravan of Death' perps guilty of murder
http://ww4report.com/node/12860
Paraguay: Woman at the center of resistance
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11255
Brazilian Ruralists Hold ‘Auction for Resistance’ Against Indigenous Land Claims
http://intercontinentalcry.org/brazilian-ruralists-hold-auction-resistance-indigenous-land-claims/
Brazil: indigenous reserve attacked in Amazon
http://ww4report.com/node/12871
Brazil: Guaraní prepared to die for demarcation
http://ww4report.com/node/12872
Was Snowden’s Letter to Brazil a Quid-Pro-Quo Offer?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/was-snowdens-letter-to-brazil-a-quid-pro-quo-offer
Bolivia: Presidente Evo’s Double Christmas Bonus
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/1/4/bolivia-presidente-evo%E2%80%99s-double-christmas-bonus
Close the NGOs: Asserting Sovereignty or Eroding Democracy? (Bolivia/Ecuador)
http://nacla.org/blog/2013/12/31/close-ngos-asserting-sovereignty-or-eroding-democracy
Peru: Police Abuse in the Pay of Mining Companies
https://nacla.org/blog/2013/12/16/peru-police-abuse-pay-mining-companies
Peru: controversial copper project moves ahead
http://ww4report.com/node/12878
US Government Misled Public on Critical Role in Colombia’s 2008 Illegal Cross-border Attack
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/us-government-misled-public-on-critical-role-in-colombias-2008-illegal-cross-border-attack
The U.S. Multibillion “Black Budget” War in Colombia
http://nacla.org/blog/2013/12/26/us-multibillion-%E2%80%9Cblack-budget%E2%80%9D-war-colombia
Colombia: photos link Uribe to narcos, paras
http://ww4report.com/node/12897
ELN bombsColombia oil pipeline infrastructure
http://ww4report.com/node/12896
Colombia: US suspends spraying after pilots downed
http://ww4report.com/node/12895
Colombia: intensified violence against labor leaders
http://ww4report.com/node/12874
Venezuelan Government to “Establish New Economic Order” Next Year after 56.2% Inflation in 2013
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10261
Outrage Following Honduran Colonel‘s Attack against U.S. Human Rights Defender
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/outrage-following-honduran-colonels-attack-against-us-human-rights-defender
Mexican Congress Passes Energy Reform Law: Oil, Gas, and Electric Open to Foreign Investment
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=219#1663
No Golden Pond for NAFTA Generation Retirees (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11244
The EZLN - A look at its History (Part 3): The Option for the Poor
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4616-the-ezln-a-look-at-its-history-part-3-the-option-for-the-poor
Chiapas: Zapatistas mark 20 years of rebellion (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/12881
New Forms of Revolution (Part 1): The Lacandona Commune (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4620-new-forms-of-revolution-part-1-the-lacandona-commune
Teacher Dissidents Continue Protests, Plan Convention to Chart Future (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=219#1667
UNESCO concerned that mining projects threaten sacred sites essential for the Wixárika pilgrimage to Wirikuta (Mexico)
http://intercontinentalcry.org/unesco-concerned-mining-projects-threaten-sacred-sites-essential-wixarika-pilgrimage-wirikuta/
AID Takes Step Toward Greater Transparency, Reveals Low Levels of Local Procurement (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/usaid-takes-step-toward-greater-transparency-reveals-low-levels-of-local-procurement
Taino Rising (Puerto Rico)
http://intercontinentalcry.org/taino-rising/
Book Review: Undoing Border Imperialism (immigration)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4621-book-review-undoing-border-imperialism
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