Issue #1228, July 27, 2014
1. Latin America: Gaza Attack Draws Strong Protests
2. Central America: Leaders Hold Summit on Child Migration
3. US: Police Try to Block Annual SOA Vigil
4. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, 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. Latin America: Gaza Attack Draws Strong Protests
An Israeli military offensive on the Palestinian territory of Gaza starting on July 8 has brought widespread condemnation from governments and activists in Latin America. The response to the current military action, which is codenamed “Operation Protective Edge,” follows a pattern set during a similar December 2008-January 2009 Israeli offensive in Gaza, “Operation Cast Lead,” when leftist groups and people of Arab descent mounted protests and leftist and center-left governments issued statements sharply criticizing the Israeli government [see Update #973].
In Argentina, dozens of people demonstrated on July 25 at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires to demand that the left-leaning government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner break off relations with Israel to repudiate “the brutal and criminal attack against the Palestinian people.” The protest was organized by the Argentine Committee of Solidarity With the Palestinian People and various left parties. While the government hasn’t broken relations with Israel, at a meeting of the United Nations (UN) Security Council Argentine representative Maria Cristina Perceval accused Israel of “indiscriminate abuse of militarism” and “disproportionate use of force.” (Terra Mexico 7/25/14; Fox News Latino 7/23/14, some from AP)
Some 5,000 Chileans marched to the Israeli embassy in Santiago on July 19 to protest the military operation. Some demonstrators glued pictures of children who have died in the attacks to the walls of the building; the marchers then proceeded to the US embassy to protest US support for the Israeli operation. The day before, on July 18, representatives of the Mapuche indigenous group joined some 200 protesters in Temuco, the capital of the southern region of Araucanía, in a march calling for “an end to the massacre of the Palestinian people.” The protest was organized by the Arab Union for Palestine in Temuco and included Romina Tuma, the regional housing secretary, who charged that the Israelis are committing genocide; President Michelle Bachelet supports the Palestinian people, Tuma added. Bachelet’s center-left government has in fact suspended free trade agreement negotiations with Israel to protest the Israeli operation, and the Foreign Ministry has announced plans for aid for Palestinian victims in Gaza, according to the Santiago Times. Chile has a population of about 300,0000 people of Middle Eastern and Arab ancestry. (AFP 7/21/14 via Times of Israel; Radio Bío Bío (Chile) 7/18/14; Mapu Express 7/18/14; Fox News Latino 7/23/14, some from AP)
Uruguay also condemned Israel’s military attacks. A government statement said the operation in Gaza “caused dozens of civilian deaths and injuries, including women and children, in a disproportionate response to the launch of rockets against the Israeli territory on the part of armed Palestinian groups.” The Palestinian organization Hamas came in for criticism as well, because of its “repeated [rocket] launchings that put the civilian population in central and southern Israel at risk.” (The Americas Blog 7/21/14)
Late on July 24 Brazil’s center-left government announced its condemnation of the “disproportionate use of force by Israel in the Gaza Strip, from which large numbers of civilian casualties, including women and children, resulted.” Foreign Ministry officials said that they had recalled the Brazilian ambassador to Israel for consultations, and that Brazil had voted in favor of a United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR) decision to send a team to investigate accusations of war crimes in the region. Israeli officials appeared to be infuriated by the snub from a country which has bought and leased billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and fighter planes from Israel in the last 15 years. “Such steps do not contribute to promote calm and stability in the region,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor announced on July 25. “Rather, they provide tailwind to terrorism, and naturally affect Brazil’s capacity to wield influence.” He called Brazil “a diplomatic dwarf” and sneered at the Brazilian soccer team for losing a World Cup match to Germany 7-1 on July 8. (News Latino 7/23/14, some from AP; Wall Street Journal online 7/24/14; Haaretz (Israel) 7/25/14; Washington Post 7/25/14)
Bolivian president Evo Morales has petitioned the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to consider opening a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for “crimes against humanity” and “genocide.” Morales’ center-left government restricted diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009 because of the earlier operation against Gaza. (The Americas Blog 7/21/14)
Hundreds of Peruvians, many of them of Palestinian descent, protested at the Israeli embassy in Lima on July 25, calling for their own government to recall its ambassador to Israel. “Countries that don’t withdraw their ambassadors are becoming somewhat complicit in this massacre,” one of the protesters told the Canal N television channel. A week earlier, the government had expressed its great concern about the violence, condemning both the Israeli attack and the launching of rockets against Israel by Hamas. (Terra 7/25/14 from EFE)
Ecuadorian foreign minister Ricardo Patiño announced on July 17 that the center-left government of President Rafael Correa was recalling its ambassador to Israel for consultations “because of violence unleashed and deaths produced in the Gaza Strip.” “We condemn the Israeli military incursion in Palestinian territory; we demand an end to operations and indiscriminate attacks on a civilian population,” Patiño said. (El Universo (Quito) 7/17/14 from AFP) In related news, a July 12-16 meeting in Quito of the Women’s Collective of the South American section of the international small-scale farmers’ organization Vía Campesina denounced the Israeli operation as a “genocidal invasion” and demanded “respect for the principle of sovereignty and the right of Palestinian campesinas and campesinos to live, produce and remain in their land and territory.” The collective accused Israel of “colonial practices.” (Vía Campesina 7/22/14)
In Venezuela hundreds of protesters, including legislative deputies, demonstrated in Caracas on July 14 against the Israeli operation. The leftist government of then-president Hugo Chávez Frías broke off ties with Israel in 2009 to protest Operation Cast Lead. The government of current president Nicolás Maduro released a statement on July 19 charging that the latest attacks “initiated a higher phase of [Israel’s] policy of genocide and extermination with the ground invasion of Palestinian territory, killing innocent men, women, girls and boys.” The government “also rejects the cynical campaigns trying to condemn both parties equally, when it is clear you cannot morally compare occupied and massacred Palestine with the occupying state, Israel, which also possesses military superiority and acts on the margins of international law.” (HispanTV (Iran) 7/14/14; Chicago Tribune 7/19/14 from Reuters)
In Nicaragua hundreds of people marched to the UN office in Managua on July 14 to demand an end to the Israeli offensive, chanting: “No to genocide in Gaza and all of Palestine,” “Solidarity between the peoples” and “Long live free Palestine.” The marchers included the Palestinian ambassador to Nicaragua, Mohamed L. Saadat, who called for a “Palestine free of violence.” Along with Guatemala, Haiti, and Paraguay, Nicaragua hadn’t made an official statement on the conflict as of July 21. (Terra 7/14/14 from EFE; The Americas Blog 7/21/14)
About 50 students and other activists took to the streets in El Salvador on July 14 to protest the Israeli offensive. “Palestine is a free state, stop Israel’s terrorism” and “I’m no friend of Israel” were among the slogans the protesters chanted outside the Israeli embassy. “We want to show our indignation over the suffering of the Palestinian people, and so we demand that Israel end this genocide in the Gaza Strip,” Amalia Pineda, a representative of the Palestine Solidarity Network, told journalists. The center-left government of President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has condemned what it called “Israel’s increased armed aggression against the Gaza Strip,” citing the “loss of human lives, hundreds of injuries and the flight of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, besides serious material damage.” The UN’s legitimate self-defense clause “does not justify the use of disproportionate military force against another state, much less against its civilian population,” the government said. (Noticias 7/14/14; The Americas Blog 7/21/14)
In Mexico, indigenous Mayans who have converted to Islam held their first protest ever in the southeastern state of Chiapas. About 60 of the area’s 600 or 700 Tzotzil Muslims marched in San Cristóbal de las Casas on July 24 to demand that “the genocide end.” “We are few but we can’t be silent before the massacre against the people of Palestine,” Hibrahim Checheb, a representative of the Al-Kauz mosque, told a reporter. The group of Tzotziles, mostly from the nearby municipality of San Juan Chamula, converted about 18 years earlier. (La Jornada 7/24/14) Activists in Mexico City held a protest on July 11 outside the Foreign Relations Secretariat. About 300 people participated in the action, whose sponsors included the Solidarity With Palestine Coordinating Committee (Corsopal). The organizers expelled five members of a group called “Black Eagles” from the protest; they were carrying signs with anti-Semitic slogans. (Milenio (Mexico) 7/11/14)
Cuba’s Foreign Ministry charged Israel with “us[ing] its military and technological superiority to execute a policy of collective punishment with a disproportionate use of force which causes civilian casualties and enormous material damage.” The country’s Communist government broke off diplomatic ties with Israel in 1973 and has provided Palestinian groups with financial and diplomatic support over the years. (The Americas Blog 7/21/14; Fox News Latino 7/23/14, some from AP)
*2. Central America: Leaders Hold Summit on Child Migration
US president Barack Obama hosted a meeting in Washington, DC, on July 25 with three Central American presidents—Salvador Sánchez Cerén of El Salvador, Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala and Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras--to discuss the recent increase in unauthorized immigration to the US by unaccompanied minors [see Update #1227]. About 57,000 unaccompanied minors, mostly from the three Central American presidents’ countries, were detained at the Mexico-US border from October 2013 through June 2014. President Obama called for joint work to discourage further child migration; the US would do its part by making it clear that the minors would be repatriated unless they could convince US officials they were in danger if they returned, Obama said. The left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada headlined its coverage with the sentence: “The US has great compassion for child migrants; they’ll be deported: Obama.”
The Obama administration had been floating a proposal for setting up an office in Honduras, and possibly in El Salvador and Guatemala, to process youths and families seeking refugee status. But Obama played the idea down after the summit. “There may be some narrow circumstances in which there is humanitarian or refugee status that a family might be eligible for,” he said. “But I think it’s important to recognize that that would not necessarily accommodate a large number of additional migrants.” (La Jornada 7/26/14 from correspondent; Associated Press 7/26/14 via CBS (Washington, DC))
The Central American presidents all emphasized the importance of crime and poverty as forces motivating migration, but rightwing presidents Pérez and Hernández seemed mostly interested in getting more US military aid. The US-funded “drug war” programs in Colombia and Mexico, Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative, “were successful for the US and those two countries in the struggle against narco trafficking, but they gave us a tremendous problem,” Hernández said the day before the summit, referring to the relocation of some drug smuggling activities into Central America. “So we need to have our own plan.” (LJ 7/25/14 from AFP)
While media coverage stressed pressure on Obama from anti-immigrant conservatives, human rights groups and religious organizations were pressing him from the left. More than 40 organizations signed on to an open letter started by the DC-based Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) calling for the US to provide children and families with “all due [legal] protections.” “[M]ore border security will not help,” according to the open letter, which was released on July 24; the US must “face the root causes of violence at the community level.” Adam Isacson, WOLA’s senior associate for regional security policy, dismissed the calls for more military assistance to Central America. “What we’d like to see is a package of assistance to Central America that is focused entirely on the civilian side of what it takes to protect,” Isacson told the Inter Press Service (IPS): “getting police to respect people,” “a much stronger justice system,” and “more emphasis on creating opportunities…combined with Central American presidents’ commitment to raise more taxes from their wealthiest.”
Also on July 24, two organizations, the New York-based Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) and the DC-based Detention Watch Network, released a statement deploring conditions at the Artesia Family Detention Facility in New Mexico. After interviewing immigrant families at the detention center, 22 organizations concluded that “[t]he Administration’s intent to deport everyone as quickly as possible for optics is sacrificing critical due process procedures and sending families--mothers, babies, and children--back despite clear concerns for their safety in violation of US and international law.” (IPS 7/25/14 via Upside Down World)
*3. US: Police Try to Block Annual SOA Vigil
The US advocacy group SOA Watch reported on July 22 that the police in Columbus, Georgia, are trying to impose unacceptable restrictions on the annual vigil the group has held there every November since 1990 to protest the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA) [see Update #1200]. According to SOA Watch, Columbus police chief Ricky Boren wants to limit the vigil to 200 people on sidewalks outside the US Army’s Fort Benning, where WHINSEC is based. In previous years thousands of people have demonstrated at a gate leading to the base. Boren is also seeking to deny a permit for the group to post its stage and sound system at the usual spot.
“This year, more than any other, we are called to demonstrate our solidarity with the people of Latin America,” Roy Bourgeois, the Catholic priest who founded SOA Watch, said in response to the restrictions. “When our military training continues to target communities, forcing the unaccompanied migration of thousands of refugee children, we must speak out.” Noting that it won in federal courts in 2001 and 2002 against government efforts to restrict the vigils, SOA Watch has started a petition “calling on the Columbus police department to reverse its decision and to uphold the constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of assembly.” The petition can be accessed at http://org.salsalabs.com/o/727/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=16129. (SOA Watch press release 7/22/14; National Catholic Reporter 7/22/14)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, US/immigration
The BRICS Bank: part of a new financial architecture (Latin America)
http://alainet.org/active/75589
Land Rights in Latin America: Where are the Voices of Indigenous Women?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4955-land-rights-in-latin-america-where-are-the-voices-of-indigenous-women
Radical Cities – Latin America's revolutionary housing solutions
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4949-radical-cities--latin-americas-revolutionary-housing-solutions
How Have Latin America’s Political Leaders Responded to Israel’s Siege on Gaza?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/how-have-latin-americas-political-leaders-responded-to-israels-siege-on-gaza
Challenging Myths About Chapare Coca Paste Production (Bolivia)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/22/challenging-myths-about-chapare-coca-paste-production
Bolivia’s Military and Police Protests: The “Children of Evo” Speak Out
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/7/25/bolivia%E2%80%99s-military-and-police-protests-%E2%80%9Cchildren-evo%E2%80%9D-speak-out
Amazon Oil Spill Has Killed Tons of Fish, Sickened Native People (Peru)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/amazon-oil-spill-killed-tons-fish-sickened-native-people-24886/
Peru Passes a Packet of Neoliberal Reforms, Erodes Environmental Protections and Labor Rights
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/4956-peru-passes-a-packet-of-neoliberal-reforms-erodes-environmental-protections-and-labor-rights
Peru and Colombia: Community self-defense against megaminería
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12676
Is Water Still a Human Right in Ecuador?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/4953-is-water-still-a-human-right-in-ecuador
Global Climate Change in Rural Colombia Is About More Than Just the Climate
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/23/global-climate-change-rural-colombia-about-more-just-climate
Chavista Debate More than Pragmatists vs Radicals (Venezuela)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10798
Child Migrants Are Refugees the U.S. Helped Create (Central America)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/21/child-migrants-are-refugees-us-helped-create
U.S. Turns Back on Child Migrants After Its Policies in Guatemala, Honduras Sowed Seeds of Crisis
www.democracynow.org/2014/7/17/us_turns_back_on_child_migrants
U.S., Regional Leaders Convene over Migration Crisis (Central America)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4957-us-regional-leaders-convene-over-migration-crisis
Violence, Main Motor of Child Migration in El Salvador
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12671
Hondurans don’t need yet another neoliberal boondoggle
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4948-hondurans-dont-need-yet-another-neoliberal-boondoggle
Guatemala: Opposition to Mining, the New Threat to National Security
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4952-guatemala-opposition-to-mining-the-new-threat-to-national-security
The Morena Party Obtains Legal Status, Prepares for 2015 Elections; What Will Morena Mean for Mexico’s Political Future?
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=226#1738
Mexico Arrests Self-defense Force Leader Mireles and Others
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=226#1727
Johnson Controls Workers in Reynosa Demand Their Rights (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=226#1739
Mexican Fracking Foes Lose a Big Round
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/mexican-fracking-foes-lose-a-big-round/
Forgotten Refugees: Mexico’s Displacement Crisis
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12643
Migrant Shelter Faces Police Abuses on the Border (Mexico)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/25/migrant-shelter-faces-police-abuses-border
Secretary General in Haiti for Cholera “Photo-op” as Transparency Questions Continue to Dog the UN
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/secretary-general-in-haiti-for-cholera-photo-op-as-transparency-questions-continue-to-dog-the-un
“Assessing Progress in Haiti Act” Passed by Congress
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/assessing-progress-in-haiti-act-passed-by-congress
Blowback on the Border (US/immigration)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12614
Massive Rights Violations Charged at New Mexico Detention Facility (US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/massive-rights-violations-charged-at-new-mexico-detention-facility/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/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, July 29, 2014
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
WNU #1227: US Deports Hondurans as Violence Continues
Issue #1227, July 20, 2014
1. Honduras: US Deports Migrants as Violence Continues
2. El Salvador: Workers Win $1.5 Million in Maquila Closing
3. Brazil: BRICS Nations Plan New Development Bank
4. Haiti: UN Head Makes "Pilgrimage" for Cholera Victims
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. 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. Honduras: US Deports Migrants as Violence Continues
A plane chartered by the US government carried 38 Honduran deportees from an immigration detention center in Artesia, New Mexico, to the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on July 14. This was the first US deportation flight entirely dedicated to mothers and children: eight mothers, 13 girls and nine boys were scheduled for the trip, although two couldn’t travel because of illness. Reporters, Honduran officials and Ana García de Hernández, the wife of President Juan Orlando Hernández, were on hand for the flight’s arrival. President Hernández's government promised the deportees job leads, a $500 stipend, psychological counseling and schooling, but a returning mother, Angélica Gálvez, told the Los Angeles Times that in the end she and her six-year-old daughter Abigail didn’t get enough money to pay for the three-hour trip to their home in La Ceiba. “They haven’t helped me before,” she said. “Why should I believe them now?”
The publicity around the flight was apparently part of a US effort to reduce a recent increase in unauthorized immigration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, mostly by unaccompanied minors and women with their children; some 57,000 unaccompanied child migrants have been detained at the Mexico-US border since October, 35,000 of them Central Americans [see Update #1225]. An unnamed official from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described the deportation flight as “just the initial wave.” “Our border is not open to illegal migration, and we will send recent illegal migrants back,” the official said. (LAT 7/14/14)
Other US government efforts to discourage immigration include commissioning songs that stress the dangers of attempts to enter the US without authorization. This started in 2004 when the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a DHS agency, sent a five-song CD to radio stations throughout Mexico. Currently 21 Guatemalan, Salvadoran and Honduran radio stations are playing a CBP-commissioned cumbia song, “La Bestia,” named for the notoriously dangerous train Central American migrants often ride to get through southern Mexico; migrants call it “The Beast” [see Update #1220]. The song, which the radio stations play without any reference to its US origin, is reportedly very popular. (The Daily Beast 7/12/14)
Honduran critics of US policies charge that these efforts don’t address the causes underlying the wave of departures from the country. Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate; with a population of about 438,00, San Pedro Sula, the home of many of the people heading north, had 778 homicides in 2013 and 594 so far this year, the municipal morgue reports. According to Hugo Ramón Maldonado, vice president of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (Codeh), some 80% of the people emigrating from Honduras are fleeing criminality or violence. He blamed the government’s failure to pursue criminals and dismissed the government reception of the deportees on July 14 as “a political show with our returned migrants.” “What is happening in this country is a great tragedy,” he added. (LAT 7/14/14)
In an interview published July 14 by the Mexican daily Excélsior, rightwing president Hernández blamed the violence on US drug policy. “The root cause is that the US and Colombia carried out big operations in the fight against drugs,” he said. “Then Mexico did it.” This “drug war” policy pushed drug traffickers into the northern Central American countries, El Salvador,Guatemala and Honduras, he indicated, “creating a serious problem for us that sparked this migration.” However, Hernández is apparently seeking US funding so that he can start similar operations in his own country. (Reuters 7/14/14 via Huffington Post)
In fact, drug traffickers appear to operate quite openly in parts of Honduras. On July 17 a group of heavily armed men seized some 20 members of the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH), a leading organization of the Garífuna ethnic group, in Vallecito in the northern department of Colón. Some OFRANEH members managed to escape and mobilize supporters, with the result that the gang eventually released the captives, who included OFRANEH coordinator Miriam Miranda. The Garífuna’s right to the Vallecito territory was recognized by the government’s National Agrarian Institute (INA) in 1997, and the Supreme Court of Justice upheld the group’s claim against cooking oil magnate Miguel Facussé Barjum’s attempt to seize part of the land the next year. More recently, drug traffickers invaded Vallecito and built a landing strip there. The Garífuna regained control in 2013, but the gang appeared to be trying to restore the landing strip this July. The OFRANEH members were investigating when they were seized. They noted that their kidnappers didn’t bother to hide their faces; as of July 18 there had been no arrests. (Adital (Brazil) 7/18/14; Rebelión 7/19/14 from Lista Informativa Nicaragua y Más (LINyM))
Meanwhile, Honduran police agents continue to be accused of major crimes [see Update #1203]. On July 14 three agents of the National Directorate of Special Investigation Services (DNSEI) were indicted in connection with the murder of two women, Yury Fabiola Hernández and Gessy Marleny García, at a restaurant in a Tegucigalpa suburb on July 9; they were also accused of wounding a third women, who is now a protected witness. Agent Marvin Joel Gallegos Suárez was charged with the murders, while agents Fredy Gerardo Mendoza Arriaza and Gregorio Alexander Anariba Meraz were charged with complicity in the murders and with violation of their duties. (Latin American Herald Tribune 7/13/14 from EFE; El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 7/15/14)
*2. El Salvador: Workers Win $1.5 Million in Maquila Closing
On July 12 the 1,066 laid-off employees of El Salvador’s Manufacturas del Río (MDR) apparel factory began receiving benefits, back wages and severance pay that they were owed after the plant closed suddenly on Jan. 7. MDR--a joint venture of the Mexican company Kaltex and the Miami-based Argus Group which stitched garments for such major brands as Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, Lacoste, Levi Strauss and Adidas—shut down without notice after the Textile Industry Workers Union (STIT), an affiliate of the Salvadoran Union Front (FSS), spent two months attempting to negotiate a contract. No apparel plant in El Salvador has a labor contract.
Salvadoran unionists said that although they took the necessary steps with the Salvadoran Attorney General’s Office and the courts to win compensation, international solidarity was crucial to the victory. The STIT filed complaints with the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) in the US and put pressure on the Argus Group with support from two US-based groups, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ. In Mexico student activists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), and the Center for Labor Research & Consulting (CILAS) aided a campaign to pressure Kaltex. The German-based Christian Initiative Romero (CIR) backed the Salvadoran union’s efforts in Germany to inform Adidas shareholders about the MDR closing; Adidas had sourced garments from the plant for 10 years. (International Union League for Brand Responsibility 7/15/14)
*3. Brazil: BRICS Nations Plan New Development Bank
The BRICS group of five nations--Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa--held its sixth annual summit this year from July 14 to July 16 in Fortaleza in the northeastern Brazilian state of Ceará and in Brasilia, the Brazilian capital. The main business for the five nations’ leaders was formalizing their agreement on a plan to create a development bank to serve as an alternative to lending institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which are largely dominated by the US and its allies. Although the project will need approval from the countries’ legislatures, the BRICS leaders indicated that the group’s lending institution would be called the New Development Bank, would be based in Shanghai and would be headed for the first five years by a representative of India. The bank is to start off in 2016 with $50 billion in capital, $10 billion from each BRICS member. The BRICS nations will maintain control of the bank, but membership will be open to other countries; in contrast to the IMF and the World Bank, the New Development Bank will not impose budgetary conditions on loan recipients.
The BRICS nations--which together now account for about 20% of the world’s total gross domestic products, according to Russian president Vladimir Putin—all have major economies but lack the economic power of the traditional advanced industrial sector based in Europe, Japan and North America. However, there are important differences in their economies, their political systems and their objectives; the New Development Bank plan was held up for years as China, by far the largest of the five economies, sought to dominate the bank. (The Guardian (UK) 7/15/14 from Reuters; Wall Street Journal 7/16/14)
Grassroots organizations charge that the BRICS governments frequently don’t represent the needs and wishes of their populations. The Brazilian Network for the Integration of Peoples (Rebrip) joined with a number of other groups to hold a sort of counter-summit in Fortaleza on July 15. “[S]trong social inequalities and development models based on the super-exploitation of natural resources motivate social organizations and movements in the bloc’s countries to set up joint actions that aim to guarantee rights, equality, and social and environmental justice,” the event’s announcement said. “We believe that the BRICS’ impacts—positive or negative—in the international system and in our societies depend on the ability of the peoples to mobilize themselves, to debate and to dispute the directions taken by their countries and the international coalitions that they are part of.” (Adital (Brazil) 7/16/14)
On the way to the summit, Russian president Putin visited Cuba and then Argentina, where he and Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed several accords on July 12, including one on nuclear power. A Russian delegation was planning to visit the Vaca Muerta region’s shale deposits, which Argentina is planning to exploit through hydrofracking in a joint venture with the US-based Chevron Corporation [see Update #1221]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 7/13/14 from correspondent)
*4. Haiti: UN Head Makes "Pilgrimage" for Cholera Victims
United Nations (UN) secretary general Ban Ki-moon made a two-day visit to Haiti on July 14 and July 15 to promote a $2.2 billion program that he launched in December 2012 to eliminate cholera from the country over the next 10 years. He traveled with Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe to the village of Las Palmas, near Hinche in the Central Plateau, to announce a “Total Sanitation Campaign,” the second phase of the cholera elimination program, which remains underfunded. Ban called the visit a “necessary pilgrimage”; at a church service in Las Palmas he acknowledged “that the epidemic has caused much anger and fear” and that it “continues to affect an unacceptable number of people.”
Many Haitians remained critical of Ban, who has refused to accept UN responsibility for the cholera outbreak, despite overwhelming evidence that it was caused by poor sanitation in October 2010 at a base used by troops from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) [see Update #1195]. Haitian human rights lawyer Mario Joseph said it was “an insult to all Haitians for the secretary general to come to Haiti for a photo opportunity when he refuses to take responsibility for the thousands of Haitians killed and the hundreds of thousands sickened by the UN cholera epidemic.” The Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP) said the visit would be a good occasion for Ban to say “when MINUSTAH will leave the country,” to “recognize officially the UN’s responsibility in the introduction of cholera in Haiti” and “to define a compensation plan for the victims.” (AlterPresse (Haiti) 7/14/14; The Guardian (UK) 7/16/14, some from unidentified wire services)
Ban’s visit came a month after a June 13 incident in New York in which a professional process server attempted to hand the secretary general a formal complaint in connection with a lawsuit filed in March at a Brooklyn federal court. Stan Alpert, one of the attorneys for the 1,500 plaintiffs in the suit, which seeks to make the UN accept responsibility for the epidemic, said Ban was given the complaint; the UN denies that he received it. (Miami Herald 6/17/14)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico
Argentina: Mapuche Community Takes Direct Action Against Oil and Gas Exploitation on Its Territory
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4940-argentina-mapuche-community-takes-direct-action-against-oil-and-gas-exploitation-on-its-territory
Why did Uruguay Request its Own Integration into the Trade in Services Agreement?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4943-why-did-uruguay-request-its-integration-into-the-trade-in-services-agreement
The Promises and Limitations of Revolutionary Change in Bolivia: A Book Review of Evo’s Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/4939-the-promises-and-limitations-of-revolutionary-change-in-bolivia-a-book-review-of-evos-bolivia
Bolivia: 'dirty war' fears as Evo seeks third term
http://ww4report.com/node/13390
Ethnic cleansing on Peru's jungle border
http://ww4report.com/node/13395
A Massacre of Convenience: Democracy, Progress, and the Disappearance of a People In the Ecuadorian Amazon
http://intercontinentalcry.org/massacre-convenience-24820/
The Problem with the Venezuela Sanctions Debate
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/the-problem-with-the-venezuela-sanctions-debate
Maduro Extends Planned “Shakeup” of Venezuelan State and Economy
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10796
Nicaragua Vive! 35 Years Since the Triumph of the Sandinista Revolution
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/nicaragua-archives-62/4942-nicaragua-vive-35-years-since-the-triumph-of-the-sandinista-revolution
Nicaragua: inter-oceanic canal route approved
http://ww4report.com/node/13391
Salvadoran Feminists Push Debate on El Salvador’s Stringent Abortion Ban
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/el-salvador-archives-74/4944-salvadoran-feminists-push-debate-on-el-salvadors-stringent-abortion-ban
The Depths of Hell in Honduras: Honduran Collapse, Mining and Organized Crime
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4945-the-depths-of-hell-in-honduras-honduran-collapse-mining-and-organized-crime
The Drones of Mexico
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-drones-of-mexico/
How the Mexican Drug Trade Thrives on Free Trade
www.thenation.com/article/180587/how-mexican-drug-trade-thrives-free-trade
Mexico’s Health Care Professionals Rise Up
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/mexicos-health-care-professionals-rise-up/
NAFTA Advocates Continue to Make Misleading Claims (Mexico)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/nafta-advocates-continue-to-make-misleading-claims
How the Mexican Drug Trade Thrives on Free Trade
http://www.thenation.com/article/180587/how-mexican-drug-trade-thrives-free-trade
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/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/
1. Honduras: US Deports Migrants as Violence Continues
2. El Salvador: Workers Win $1.5 Million in Maquila Closing
3. Brazil: BRICS Nations Plan New Development Bank
4. Haiti: UN Head Makes "Pilgrimage" for Cholera Victims
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. 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. Honduras: US Deports Migrants as Violence Continues
A plane chartered by the US government carried 38 Honduran deportees from an immigration detention center in Artesia, New Mexico, to the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on July 14. This was the first US deportation flight entirely dedicated to mothers and children: eight mothers, 13 girls and nine boys were scheduled for the trip, although two couldn’t travel because of illness. Reporters, Honduran officials and Ana García de Hernández, the wife of President Juan Orlando Hernández, were on hand for the flight’s arrival. President Hernández's government promised the deportees job leads, a $500 stipend, psychological counseling and schooling, but a returning mother, Angélica Gálvez, told the Los Angeles Times that in the end she and her six-year-old daughter Abigail didn’t get enough money to pay for the three-hour trip to their home in La Ceiba. “They haven’t helped me before,” she said. “Why should I believe them now?”
The publicity around the flight was apparently part of a US effort to reduce a recent increase in unauthorized immigration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, mostly by unaccompanied minors and women with their children; some 57,000 unaccompanied child migrants have been detained at the Mexico-US border since October, 35,000 of them Central Americans [see Update #1225]. An unnamed official from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described the deportation flight as “just the initial wave.” “Our border is not open to illegal migration, and we will send recent illegal migrants back,” the official said. (LAT 7/14/14)
Other US government efforts to discourage immigration include commissioning songs that stress the dangers of attempts to enter the US without authorization. This started in 2004 when the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a DHS agency, sent a five-song CD to radio stations throughout Mexico. Currently 21 Guatemalan, Salvadoran and Honduran radio stations are playing a CBP-commissioned cumbia song, “La Bestia,” named for the notoriously dangerous train Central American migrants often ride to get through southern Mexico; migrants call it “The Beast” [see Update #1220]. The song, which the radio stations play without any reference to its US origin, is reportedly very popular. (The Daily Beast 7/12/14)
Honduran critics of US policies charge that these efforts don’t address the causes underlying the wave of departures from the country. Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate; with a population of about 438,00, San Pedro Sula, the home of many of the people heading north, had 778 homicides in 2013 and 594 so far this year, the municipal morgue reports. According to Hugo Ramón Maldonado, vice president of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (Codeh), some 80% of the people emigrating from Honduras are fleeing criminality or violence. He blamed the government’s failure to pursue criminals and dismissed the government reception of the deportees on July 14 as “a political show with our returned migrants.” “What is happening in this country is a great tragedy,” he added. (LAT 7/14/14)
In an interview published July 14 by the Mexican daily Excélsior, rightwing president Hernández blamed the violence on US drug policy. “The root cause is that the US and Colombia carried out big operations in the fight against drugs,” he said. “Then Mexico did it.” This “drug war” policy pushed drug traffickers into the northern Central American countries, El Salvador,Guatemala and Honduras, he indicated, “creating a serious problem for us that sparked this migration.” However, Hernández is apparently seeking US funding so that he can start similar operations in his own country. (Reuters 7/14/14 via Huffington Post)
In fact, drug traffickers appear to operate quite openly in parts of Honduras. On July 17 a group of heavily armed men seized some 20 members of the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH), a leading organization of the Garífuna ethnic group, in Vallecito in the northern department of Colón. Some OFRANEH members managed to escape and mobilize supporters, with the result that the gang eventually released the captives, who included OFRANEH coordinator Miriam Miranda. The Garífuna’s right to the Vallecito territory was recognized by the government’s National Agrarian Institute (INA) in 1997, and the Supreme Court of Justice upheld the group’s claim against cooking oil magnate Miguel Facussé Barjum’s attempt to seize part of the land the next year. More recently, drug traffickers invaded Vallecito and built a landing strip there. The Garífuna regained control in 2013, but the gang appeared to be trying to restore the landing strip this July. The OFRANEH members were investigating when they were seized. They noted that their kidnappers didn’t bother to hide their faces; as of July 18 there had been no arrests. (Adital (Brazil) 7/18/14; Rebelión 7/19/14 from Lista Informativa Nicaragua y Más (LINyM))
Meanwhile, Honduran police agents continue to be accused of major crimes [see Update #1203]. On July 14 three agents of the National Directorate of Special Investigation Services (DNSEI) were indicted in connection with the murder of two women, Yury Fabiola Hernández and Gessy Marleny García, at a restaurant in a Tegucigalpa suburb on July 9; they were also accused of wounding a third women, who is now a protected witness. Agent Marvin Joel Gallegos Suárez was charged with the murders, while agents Fredy Gerardo Mendoza Arriaza and Gregorio Alexander Anariba Meraz were charged with complicity in the murders and with violation of their duties. (Latin American Herald Tribune 7/13/14 from EFE; El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 7/15/14)
*2. El Salvador: Workers Win $1.5 Million in Maquila Closing
On July 12 the 1,066 laid-off employees of El Salvador’s Manufacturas del Río (MDR) apparel factory began receiving benefits, back wages and severance pay that they were owed after the plant closed suddenly on Jan. 7. MDR--a joint venture of the Mexican company Kaltex and the Miami-based Argus Group which stitched garments for such major brands as Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, Lacoste, Levi Strauss and Adidas—shut down without notice after the Textile Industry Workers Union (STIT), an affiliate of the Salvadoran Union Front (FSS), spent two months attempting to negotiate a contract. No apparel plant in El Salvador has a labor contract.
Salvadoran unionists said that although they took the necessary steps with the Salvadoran Attorney General’s Office and the courts to win compensation, international solidarity was crucial to the victory. The STIT filed complaints with the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) in the US and put pressure on the Argus Group with support from two US-based groups, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ. In Mexico student activists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), and the Center for Labor Research & Consulting (CILAS) aided a campaign to pressure Kaltex. The German-based Christian Initiative Romero (CIR) backed the Salvadoran union’s efforts in Germany to inform Adidas shareholders about the MDR closing; Adidas had sourced garments from the plant for 10 years. (International Union League for Brand Responsibility 7/15/14)
*3. Brazil: BRICS Nations Plan New Development Bank
The BRICS group of five nations--Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa--held its sixth annual summit this year from July 14 to July 16 in Fortaleza in the northeastern Brazilian state of Ceará and in Brasilia, the Brazilian capital. The main business for the five nations’ leaders was formalizing their agreement on a plan to create a development bank to serve as an alternative to lending institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which are largely dominated by the US and its allies. Although the project will need approval from the countries’ legislatures, the BRICS leaders indicated that the group’s lending institution would be called the New Development Bank, would be based in Shanghai and would be headed for the first five years by a representative of India. The bank is to start off in 2016 with $50 billion in capital, $10 billion from each BRICS member. The BRICS nations will maintain control of the bank, but membership will be open to other countries; in contrast to the IMF and the World Bank, the New Development Bank will not impose budgetary conditions on loan recipients.
The BRICS nations--which together now account for about 20% of the world’s total gross domestic products, according to Russian president Vladimir Putin—all have major economies but lack the economic power of the traditional advanced industrial sector based in Europe, Japan and North America. However, there are important differences in their economies, their political systems and their objectives; the New Development Bank plan was held up for years as China, by far the largest of the five economies, sought to dominate the bank. (The Guardian (UK) 7/15/14 from Reuters; Wall Street Journal 7/16/14)
Grassroots organizations charge that the BRICS governments frequently don’t represent the needs and wishes of their populations. The Brazilian Network for the Integration of Peoples (Rebrip) joined with a number of other groups to hold a sort of counter-summit in Fortaleza on July 15. “[S]trong social inequalities and development models based on the super-exploitation of natural resources motivate social organizations and movements in the bloc’s countries to set up joint actions that aim to guarantee rights, equality, and social and environmental justice,” the event’s announcement said. “We believe that the BRICS’ impacts—positive or negative—in the international system and in our societies depend on the ability of the peoples to mobilize themselves, to debate and to dispute the directions taken by their countries and the international coalitions that they are part of.” (Adital (Brazil) 7/16/14)
On the way to the summit, Russian president Putin visited Cuba and then Argentina, where he and Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed several accords on July 12, including one on nuclear power. A Russian delegation was planning to visit the Vaca Muerta region’s shale deposits, which Argentina is planning to exploit through hydrofracking in a joint venture with the US-based Chevron Corporation [see Update #1221]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 7/13/14 from correspondent)
*4. Haiti: UN Head Makes "Pilgrimage" for Cholera Victims
United Nations (UN) secretary general Ban Ki-moon made a two-day visit to Haiti on July 14 and July 15 to promote a $2.2 billion program that he launched in December 2012 to eliminate cholera from the country over the next 10 years. He traveled with Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe to the village of Las Palmas, near Hinche in the Central Plateau, to announce a “Total Sanitation Campaign,” the second phase of the cholera elimination program, which remains underfunded. Ban called the visit a “necessary pilgrimage”; at a church service in Las Palmas he acknowledged “that the epidemic has caused much anger and fear” and that it “continues to affect an unacceptable number of people.”
Many Haitians remained critical of Ban, who has refused to accept UN responsibility for the cholera outbreak, despite overwhelming evidence that it was caused by poor sanitation in October 2010 at a base used by troops from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) [see Update #1195]. Haitian human rights lawyer Mario Joseph said it was “an insult to all Haitians for the secretary general to come to Haiti for a photo opportunity when he refuses to take responsibility for the thousands of Haitians killed and the hundreds of thousands sickened by the UN cholera epidemic.” The Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP) said the visit would be a good occasion for Ban to say “when MINUSTAH will leave the country,” to “recognize officially the UN’s responsibility in the introduction of cholera in Haiti” and “to define a compensation plan for the victims.” (AlterPresse (Haiti) 7/14/14; The Guardian (UK) 7/16/14, some from unidentified wire services)
Ban’s visit came a month after a June 13 incident in New York in which a professional process server attempted to hand the secretary general a formal complaint in connection with a lawsuit filed in March at a Brooklyn federal court. Stan Alpert, one of the attorneys for the 1,500 plaintiffs in the suit, which seeks to make the UN accept responsibility for the epidemic, said Ban was given the complaint; the UN denies that he received it. (Miami Herald 6/17/14)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico
Argentina: Mapuche Community Takes Direct Action Against Oil and Gas Exploitation on Its Territory
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4940-argentina-mapuche-community-takes-direct-action-against-oil-and-gas-exploitation-on-its-territory
Why did Uruguay Request its Own Integration into the Trade in Services Agreement?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4943-why-did-uruguay-request-its-integration-into-the-trade-in-services-agreement
The Promises and Limitations of Revolutionary Change in Bolivia: A Book Review of Evo’s Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/4939-the-promises-and-limitations-of-revolutionary-change-in-bolivia-a-book-review-of-evos-bolivia
Bolivia: 'dirty war' fears as Evo seeks third term
http://ww4report.com/node/13390
Ethnic cleansing on Peru's jungle border
http://ww4report.com/node/13395
A Massacre of Convenience: Democracy, Progress, and the Disappearance of a People In the Ecuadorian Amazon
http://intercontinentalcry.org/massacre-convenience-24820/
The Problem with the Venezuela Sanctions Debate
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/the-problem-with-the-venezuela-sanctions-debate
Maduro Extends Planned “Shakeup” of Venezuelan State and Economy
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10796
Nicaragua Vive! 35 Years Since the Triumph of the Sandinista Revolution
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/nicaragua-archives-62/4942-nicaragua-vive-35-years-since-the-triumph-of-the-sandinista-revolution
Nicaragua: inter-oceanic canal route approved
http://ww4report.com/node/13391
Salvadoran Feminists Push Debate on El Salvador’s Stringent Abortion Ban
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/el-salvador-archives-74/4944-salvadoran-feminists-push-debate-on-el-salvadors-stringent-abortion-ban
The Depths of Hell in Honduras: Honduran Collapse, Mining and Organized Crime
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4945-the-depths-of-hell-in-honduras-honduran-collapse-mining-and-organized-crime
The Drones of Mexico
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-drones-of-mexico/
How the Mexican Drug Trade Thrives on Free Trade
www.thenation.com/article/180587/how-mexican-drug-trade-thrives-free-trade
Mexico’s Health Care Professionals Rise Up
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/mexicos-health-care-professionals-rise-up/
NAFTA Advocates Continue to Make Misleading Claims (Mexico)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/nafta-advocates-continue-to-make-misleading-claims
How the Mexican Drug Trade Thrives on Free Trade
http://www.thenation.com/article/180587/how-mexican-drug-trade-thrives-free-trade
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/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, July 15, 2014
Links but No Update for July 13, 2014
[There is no Update this week; we'll be back next week. Below are links to stories from other sources.]
U.S. on Its Own, Once Again, at OAS Meeting on Argentinean Sovereign Debt
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/us-on-its-own-once-again-at-oas-meeting-on-argentinean-sovereign-debt
Argentina: Communities to Resist Oil Extraction in National Park
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/4929-communities-to-resist-oil-extraction-in-national-park-in-argentina-
Putin signs Argentina nuclear deals on Latin America tour
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4936-putin-signs-argentina-nuclear-deals-on-latin-america-tour
Conservatives in Uruguay Want to Put More Youth in Prison. Civil Society is Saying No.
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/8/conservatives-uruguay-want-put-more-youth-prison-civil-society-saying-no
Pioneering Cannabis Regulation in Uruguay
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/10/pioneering-cannabis-regulation-uruguay-0
Cartes, A Year Later (Paraguay)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12603
Brazil, Defeat and the High Cost of Hosting FIFA’s World Cup
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12551
Brazil’s Agribusiness Lobby Pushes Back Against Indigenous Land Recognition
http://intercontinentalcry.org/brazils-agribusiness-lobby-pushes-back-indigenous-land-recognition-24685/
Brazil: Where Indian Lives are not Worth a Traffic Sign
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4931-brazil-where-indian-lives-are-not-worth-a-traffic-
Brazil: Where Indian Lives are not Worth a Traffic Sign
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4931-brazil-where-indian-lives-are-not-worth-a-traffic-sign
Shining Path leaders indicted in US court (Peru)
http://ww4report.com/node/13354
Peru: interior minister linked to journalist's murder
http://ww4report.com/node/13366
Peru: protest new legal assault on environment
http://ww4report.com/node/13367
Cajamarca: police attack campesino community (Peru)
http://ww4report.com/node/13372
Peru: mass mobilizations for persecuted regional leader
http://ww4report.com/node/13322#comment-452226
Analysts Confused as Venezuelans Say Their Country is Second Most Democratic in Region
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10786
Venezuela: new attack on indigenous leader
http://ww4report.com/node/13368
Voices of the Resistance Movement in Guatemala
http://intercontinentalcry.org/voices-resistance-movement-guatemala/
Guatemalan Government Moves to Expel Witnesses to Police Violence at US-Canadian Mine Site
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4928-guatemalan-government-moves-to-expel-witnesses-to-police-violence-at-us-canadian-mine-site
A Day Like Today, Now. (Honduras)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12517
Status of violence against women in Honduras
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12582
The Government of El Salvador Lacks Accurate Data on Child Migration
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12569
Juarez Violence and Arrest Patterns: Then and Now (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/juarez-violence-and-arrest-patterns-then-and-now/
Fracking Fights Loom Large in Mexico
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/fracking-fights-loom-large-in-mexico/
Interview With the Last Peyote Guardians: José Luis “Katira” Ramírez And Clemente Ramírez (Mexico)
http://intercontinentalcry.org/interview-last-peyote-guardians-jose-luis-katira-ramirez-clemente-ramirez-24654/
Carlos Slim’s Empire Broken Up But Oligarchs Still Control Mexico
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/7/15/carlos-slim%E2%80%99s-empire-broken-oligarchs-still-control-mexico
A Cover-up in a Young Migrant’s Death? (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/a-cover-up-in-a-young-migrants-death/
US Border Patrol smuggled arms for Sinaloa Cartel? (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/13353
Mexico: campesinos block Tabasco oil wells
http://ww4report.com/node/13373
Despite Flawed Electoral Process, International Community Support Continues Unabated (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/despite-flawed-electoral-process-international-community-support-continues-unabated
The Caribbean: A Clean Energy Revolution on the Front Lines of Climate Change
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4930-the-caribbean-a-clean-energy-revolution-on-the-front-lines-of-climate-change
Does the US Have a Double Standard When it Comes to Spying on Latin America? (US/policy)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/does-the-us-have-a-double-standard-when-it-comes-to-spying-on-latin-america
The U.S. Roots of the Central American Immigrant Influx (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/7/8/us-roots-central-american-immigrant-influx
Advice on Public Spending from an Undocumented Felon (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/9/advice-public-spending-undocumented-felon
Latino Youth Activists Teach Murrieta and the Nation A Civics Lesson
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/14/latino-youth-activists-teach-murrieta-and-nation-civics-lesson
Immigrant justice activists call upon Central American children to be treated as refugees
http://wagingnonviolence.org/2014/07/immigrant-justice-activists-call-upon-central-american-children-treated-refugees/
And a word from our friends at UDW:
Support Grassroots Media: Donate to Upside Down World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3442-support-grassroots-media-donate-to-upside-down-world
U.S. on Its Own, Once Again, at OAS Meeting on Argentinean Sovereign Debt
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/us-on-its-own-once-again-at-oas-meeting-on-argentinean-sovereign-debt
Argentina: Communities to Resist Oil Extraction in National Park
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/4929-communities-to-resist-oil-extraction-in-national-park-in-argentina-
Putin signs Argentina nuclear deals on Latin America tour
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4936-putin-signs-argentina-nuclear-deals-on-latin-america-tour
Conservatives in Uruguay Want to Put More Youth in Prison. Civil Society is Saying No.
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/8/conservatives-uruguay-want-put-more-youth-prison-civil-society-saying-no
Pioneering Cannabis Regulation in Uruguay
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/10/pioneering-cannabis-regulation-uruguay-0
Cartes, A Year Later (Paraguay)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12603
Brazil, Defeat and the High Cost of Hosting FIFA’s World Cup
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12551
Brazil’s Agribusiness Lobby Pushes Back Against Indigenous Land Recognition
http://intercontinentalcry.org/brazils-agribusiness-lobby-pushes-back-indigenous-land-recognition-24685/
Brazil: Where Indian Lives are not Worth a Traffic Sign
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4931-brazil-where-indian-lives-are-not-worth-a-traffic-
Brazil: Where Indian Lives are not Worth a Traffic Sign
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4931-brazil-where-indian-lives-are-not-worth-a-traffic-sign
Shining Path leaders indicted in US court (Peru)
http://ww4report.com/node/13354
Peru: interior minister linked to journalist's murder
http://ww4report.com/node/13366
Peru: protest new legal assault on environment
http://ww4report.com/node/13367
Cajamarca: police attack campesino community (Peru)
http://ww4report.com/node/13372
Peru: mass mobilizations for persecuted regional leader
http://ww4report.com/node/13322#comment-452226
Analysts Confused as Venezuelans Say Their Country is Second Most Democratic in Region
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10786
Venezuela: new attack on indigenous leader
http://ww4report.com/node/13368
Voices of the Resistance Movement in Guatemala
http://intercontinentalcry.org/voices-resistance-movement-guatemala/
Guatemalan Government Moves to Expel Witnesses to Police Violence at US-Canadian Mine Site
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4928-guatemalan-government-moves-to-expel-witnesses-to-police-violence-at-us-canadian-mine-site
A Day Like Today, Now. (Honduras)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12517
Status of violence against women in Honduras
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12582
The Government of El Salvador Lacks Accurate Data on Child Migration
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12569
Juarez Violence and Arrest Patterns: Then and Now (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/juarez-violence-and-arrest-patterns-then-and-now/
Fracking Fights Loom Large in Mexico
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/fracking-fights-loom-large-in-mexico/
Interview With the Last Peyote Guardians: José Luis “Katira” Ramírez And Clemente Ramírez (Mexico)
http://intercontinentalcry.org/interview-last-peyote-guardians-jose-luis-katira-ramirez-clemente-ramirez-24654/
Carlos Slim’s Empire Broken Up But Oligarchs Still Control Mexico
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/7/15/carlos-slim%E2%80%99s-empire-broken-oligarchs-still-control-mexico
A Cover-up in a Young Migrant’s Death? (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/a-cover-up-in-a-young-migrants-death/
US Border Patrol smuggled arms for Sinaloa Cartel? (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/13353
Mexico: campesinos block Tabasco oil wells
http://ww4report.com/node/13373
Despite Flawed Electoral Process, International Community Support Continues Unabated (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/despite-flawed-electoral-process-international-community-support-continues-unabated
The Caribbean: A Clean Energy Revolution on the Front Lines of Climate Change
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4930-the-caribbean-a-clean-energy-revolution-on-the-front-lines-of-climate-change
Does the US Have a Double Standard When it Comes to Spying on Latin America? (US/policy)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/does-the-us-have-a-double-standard-when-it-comes-to-spying-on-latin-america
The U.S. Roots of the Central American Immigrant Influx (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/7/8/us-roots-central-american-immigrant-influx
Advice on Public Spending from an Undocumented Felon (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/9/advice-public-spending-undocumented-felon
Latino Youth Activists Teach Murrieta and the Nation A Civics Lesson
http://nacla.org/news/2014/7/14/latino-youth-activists-teach-murrieta-and-nation-civics-lesson
Immigrant justice activists call upon Central American children to be treated as refugees
http://wagingnonviolence.org/2014/07/immigrant-justice-activists-call-upon-central-american-children-treated-refugees/
And a word from our friends at UDW:
Support Grassroots Media: Donate to Upside Down World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3442-support-grassroots-media-donate-to-upside-down-world
Monday, July 7, 2014
WNU #1226: New Death Reported in Honduran Land Struggle
Issue #1226, July 6, 2014
1. Honduras: New Death Reported in Land Struggle
2. Brazil: Campesino Protesters Occupy Banks
3. Brazil: US Turns Over Documents on Military's Abuses
4. Chile: Judge Confirms US Role in 1973 Killings
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Mexico, 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. Honduras: New Death Reported in Land Struggle
Honduran security forces mounted a major operation on July 3 to remove hundreds of campesinos from an estate they had occupied in a dispute over land in the Lower Aguán River Valley in the northern department of Colón. One of the occupiers, Pedro Avila, was shot dead in the operation and two were wounded, according to Santos Torres, who heads the campesinos’ organization, the Gregorio Chávez Collective. Some 400 families were “violently evicted” and “repressed with tear gas and live ammunition,” the campesinos charged in a statement, and at least 20 people were detained. The operation was carried out by soldiers under the command of Col. René Jovel Martínez and by National Police agents and by security guards in the pay of the Corporación Dinant food-product company, the campesinos said. The estate, named Paso Aguán, is owned by Honduran entrepreneur and landowner Miguel Facussé Barjum, Dinant’s founder [see Update #1204]. On July 4 Dinant business relations director Roger Pineda denied that company security guards were involved. Pineda claimed no one was killed, although “the effects of the tear gas made [one person] pass out.”
At least 147 people, including more than 104 campesinos, have died violently in the region since a number of campesino collectives started occupying estates in late 2009 to promote their claim that the landowners had illegally acquired territory intended for family farmers in an agrarian reform program in the 1990s [see Update #1221]. Facussé’s Paso Aguán estate has repeatedly been a target of occupations by one of the largest campesino groups, the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA); the violent July 3 eviction followed a removal of occupiers from the same site just a week before, on June 26. The Gregorio Chávez Collective appears to be named for a 69-year-old MUCA supporter whose body was found buried on the estate in July 2012; there was evidence that he was tortured before being killed [see Update #1136]. (El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 6/27/14; Radio Bío Bío (Chile) 7/3/14 from AFP; La Tribune (Tegucigalpa) 7/5/14)
About 500 families from another group, the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA), occupied the El Despertar estate on June 24. Soldiers, police agents and security guards under the command of the military’s Col. German Alfaro removed the occupiers and arrested five campesinos later the same day; no injuries were reported. Col. Afaro claimed his forces found three M16 rifles, a Falk rife, 30-calibre rifle, a Macarov pistol, bulletproof vests and police uniforms at the site. The campesinos had reoccupied the estate after being removed on May 21. (El Heraldo 6/24/14)
El Despertar is owned by a Nicaraguan entrepreneur named René Alberto Morales Carazo [see Update #1137, which incorrectly described him as an “entrepreneur and politician”]. Apparently Morales Carazo is involved in the distribution of African palm oil grown in Honduras, as are Miguel Facussé and the Dinant company. According to a March 2007 article in the Nicaraguan daily El Nuevo Diario, Morales Carazo is the brother of Jaime René Morales Carazo, a leader in the rightwing contra war against the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government during the 1980s--and later the country’s vice president in the 2007-2012 administration of the FSLN’s Daniel Ortega Saavedra. (END 3/12/07)
*2. Brazil: Campesino Protesters Occupy Banks
Some 3,000 campesinos, including children and seniors, some with musical instruments, staged sit-ins on June 26 in the states of Goiás, Bahía and Piauí at 18 branches of Brazil’s two largest state-owned banks, the Banco do Brasil and the Caixa Económica Federal. The daylong protest, organized by the Popular Campesino Movement (MCP), targeted budget cuts in the government’s popular low-income housing program, My House My Life; MCP leaders said 950 campesino families had been dropped from My House My Life’s National Rural Habitation Program (PNHR). The group demanded an increase in housing construction for the rest of this year, payment for projects already in progress, and improvements in the PNHR for next year. “The campesino families are struggling for a dignified life and don’t accept having to wait more time for reform, enlargement [of the program] and construction of housing,” the MCP said in a statement. “Waiting longer means increasing the exodus from the countryside and increasing the problems of rural life.”
The protesters left the banks at the end of the day after the Caixa--which administers My House My Life, with investment from the government and from private investors--promised to include the MCP in the PNHR program and to fund the projects already started, with the possibility of constructing 1,000 new housing units in the three states. The bank also agreed to discuss the MCP’s reform proposals. (Jornal Opção (Goiânia) 6/26/14; Adital (Brazil) 6/26/14, 6/27/14)
*3. Brazil: US Turns Over Documents on Military's Abuses
During a visit to Brasilia on June 17, US vice president Joe Biden presented Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff with 43 declassified US State Department documents referring to abuses committed under the country’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship. The handover of the documents, which will go to Brazil’s National Truth Commission (CNV), was part of an effort to mend relations with Brazil after revelations in 2013 that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had been spying on Brazilian government agencies and on President Rousseff herself [see Update #1193]. The NSA revelations led to Brazil’s cancellation of a planned state visit to the US in September 2013 and to the US manufacturer Boeing Co’s loss of a $4 billion fighter jet contract with the Brazilian air force. (Reuters 6/17/14)
The CNV posted all 43 documents to its website on July 2, and the Washington, DC-based National Security Archive research group’s blog Redacted links to five documents of special interest. One of these, an April 1973 cable from the US consul general in Rio de Janeiro entitled “Widespread Arrests and Psychophysical Interrogation of Suspected Subversives,” detailed a “sophisticated and elaborate psychophysical duress system” used to “intimidate and terrify” suspected leftists. In some cases suspects were placed naked on a metal floor “through which electric current is pulsated.” The military also used more violent methods, and the suspects were sometimes “eliminated”; the media were told that these prisoners were killed in shootouts. “The shootout technique is being used increasingly in order to deal with the public relations aspect of eliminating subversives,” the cable said, and to “obviate ‘death-by-torture’ charges in the international press.”
The State Department seemed less concerned about the reports of torture than about the possibility that the US Senate might pass an amendment proposed by then-senator John Tunney (D-CA) to pressure the Brazilian military to end the practice. A July 1972 cable from the US embassy in Brasilia, “Allegation of torture in Brazil,” claimed that top Brazilian officials were trying to halt the use of “excessive police measures,” but “without undermining the continuing and notably successful battle against terrorism.” The cable’s author--presumably then-ambassador William Rountree--said there appeared to be a reduction in the reports of torture, “undoubtedly due in part to [Brazilian government] success in substantially reducing number of active terrorists.” The US government did not “condone” what the cable described as “harsh interrogation techniques,” the writer noted, but he said he “strongly support[ed] the [State] Department’s efforts to dissuade senators from advancing the new proposal [for an anti-torture amendment], and to encourage its defeat if offered.”
The military was apparently not selective about which people it arrested and tortured. “Conditions in DEOPS Prison as Told by Detained American Citizen,” an Oct. 7, 1970 memo, recounted the experiences of Robert Henry North, described as a “tall, clean-cut” US citizen working for a Brazilian seed company. North was arrested at an airport on his return from a trip to the US and was kept for three days in a cell with six other detainees. He reported that all of his cellmates were being held without charges and had been tortured. North, who was fluent in Portuguese, was convinced that five of the cellmates “were absolutely innocent of subversive political activity,” although the sixth “looked like he might easily throw a bomb.” The authorities arrested North himself because they had a watch list with the names of members of the radical US Weather Underground group, including the activist Robert Henry Roth; it seems the name was enough of a match for the military to justify an arrest. (Redacted 7/3/14)
*4. Chile: Judge Confirms US Role in 1973 Killings
Chilean investigative judge Jorge Zepeda has ruled that US intelligence agents shared responsibility for the killing of US journalist Charles Horman and US graduate student Frank Teruggi by the Chilean military in the days after the Sept. 11, 1973 coup that overthrew leftist president Salvador Allende Gossens. “US military intelligence services played a fundamental role in the murders of two US citizens in 1973, providing the Chilean military with information that brought [them] to death,” Zepeda concluded in his report, which the Associated Press wire service cited on July 1. This was the first official confirmation of suspicions by Horman and Teruggi’s families and friends that the US shared in the responsibility for the killings, the subject of the 1982 film “Missing.”
Zepeda named retired Chilean army colonel Pedro Espinoza as the mastermind behind both murders and counterintelligence agent Rafael González Berdugo as an accomplice in Horman’s death. Zepeda had requested the extradition of former US Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis in 2011 to stand trial for providing the information that led to the killings; Chile’s Supreme Court of Justice upheld the request in October 2012 [see Update #1149]. Apparently the courts were unaware that Davis was in fact living in Chile; he died in a Santiago nursing home in 2013. (El Nuevo Herald 7/1/14 from AP; The Jurist 7/2/14)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Mexico, US/immigration
Popular agrarian reform: an alternative to the capitalist model (Latin America)
http://alainet.org/active/75084
"World Cup For Who?" Photo Report From Outside the Stadiums (Brazil)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/4916-qworld-cup-for-whoq-photo-report-from-outside-the-stadiums
Brazil Organizations Challenge Legality of Belo Monte Dam in Court
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4919-brazil-organizations-challenge-legality-of-belo-monte-dam-in-court
U.S. Gives Brazil Declassified Documents Detailing Torture and Executions During its Dictatorship Era
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4917-us-gives-brazil-declassified-documents-detailing-torture-and-executions-during-its-dictatorship-era
Brazil: 'imminent' threat to isolated peoples
http://ww4report.com/node/13355
The Fifth Anniversary of the Bagua Massacre in Alternative Media and Art (Peru)
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/7/2/fifth-anniversary-bagua-massacre-alternative-media-and-art
Mining and Post-conflict in Colombia
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12465
Venezuelan Farmers on Disputed Land Say They Have No Intention of Vacating
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10772
Narco wars drive migrant kids to US borders (Central America)
http://ww4report.com/node/13344#comment-452207
Honduran Charter Cities New Model for Salvadoran Private Sector
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4918-honduran-charter-cities-new-model-for-salvadoran-private-sector
Being Young and Zapatista in La Realidad (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12455
From El Barrio to La Realidad, Women Lead Struggles to Transform the World (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12475
Burn Them Alive! (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/burn-them-alive/
The Big History of Little Chihuahua (US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-big-history-of-little-chihuahua/
In Oregon, activists have forced sheriffs to defy ICE (US/immigration)
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/oregon-activists-forced-sheriffs-defy-ice/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence/
http://upsidedownworld.org/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/http://upsidedownworld.org/org/
1. Honduras: New Death Reported in Land Struggle
2. Brazil: Campesino Protesters Occupy Banks
3. Brazil: US Turns Over Documents on Military's Abuses
4. Chile: Judge Confirms US Role in 1973 Killings
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Mexico, 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. Honduras: New Death Reported in Land Struggle
Honduran security forces mounted a major operation on July 3 to remove hundreds of campesinos from an estate they had occupied in a dispute over land in the Lower Aguán River Valley in the northern department of Colón. One of the occupiers, Pedro Avila, was shot dead in the operation and two were wounded, according to Santos Torres, who heads the campesinos’ organization, the Gregorio Chávez Collective. Some 400 families were “violently evicted” and “repressed with tear gas and live ammunition,” the campesinos charged in a statement, and at least 20 people were detained. The operation was carried out by soldiers under the command of Col. René Jovel Martínez and by National Police agents and by security guards in the pay of the Corporación Dinant food-product company, the campesinos said. The estate, named Paso Aguán, is owned by Honduran entrepreneur and landowner Miguel Facussé Barjum, Dinant’s founder [see Update #1204]. On July 4 Dinant business relations director Roger Pineda denied that company security guards were involved. Pineda claimed no one was killed, although “the effects of the tear gas made [one person] pass out.”
At least 147 people, including more than 104 campesinos, have died violently in the region since a number of campesino collectives started occupying estates in late 2009 to promote their claim that the landowners had illegally acquired territory intended for family farmers in an agrarian reform program in the 1990s [see Update #1221]. Facussé’s Paso Aguán estate has repeatedly been a target of occupations by one of the largest campesino groups, the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA); the violent July 3 eviction followed a removal of occupiers from the same site just a week before, on June 26. The Gregorio Chávez Collective appears to be named for a 69-year-old MUCA supporter whose body was found buried on the estate in July 2012; there was evidence that he was tortured before being killed [see Update #1136]. (El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 6/27/14; Radio Bío Bío (Chile) 7/3/14 from AFP; La Tribune (Tegucigalpa) 7/5/14)
About 500 families from another group, the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA), occupied the El Despertar estate on June 24. Soldiers, police agents and security guards under the command of the military’s Col. German Alfaro removed the occupiers and arrested five campesinos later the same day; no injuries were reported. Col. Afaro claimed his forces found three M16 rifles, a Falk rife, 30-calibre rifle, a Macarov pistol, bulletproof vests and police uniforms at the site. The campesinos had reoccupied the estate after being removed on May 21. (El Heraldo 6/24/14)
El Despertar is owned by a Nicaraguan entrepreneur named René Alberto Morales Carazo [see Update #1137, which incorrectly described him as an “entrepreneur and politician”]. Apparently Morales Carazo is involved in the distribution of African palm oil grown in Honduras, as are Miguel Facussé and the Dinant company. According to a March 2007 article in the Nicaraguan daily El Nuevo Diario, Morales Carazo is the brother of Jaime René Morales Carazo, a leader in the rightwing contra war against the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government during the 1980s--and later the country’s vice president in the 2007-2012 administration of the FSLN’s Daniel Ortega Saavedra. (END 3/12/07)
*2. Brazil: Campesino Protesters Occupy Banks
Some 3,000 campesinos, including children and seniors, some with musical instruments, staged sit-ins on June 26 in the states of Goiás, Bahía and Piauí at 18 branches of Brazil’s two largest state-owned banks, the Banco do Brasil and the Caixa Económica Federal. The daylong protest, organized by the Popular Campesino Movement (MCP), targeted budget cuts in the government’s popular low-income housing program, My House My Life; MCP leaders said 950 campesino families had been dropped from My House My Life’s National Rural Habitation Program (PNHR). The group demanded an increase in housing construction for the rest of this year, payment for projects already in progress, and improvements in the PNHR for next year. “The campesino families are struggling for a dignified life and don’t accept having to wait more time for reform, enlargement [of the program] and construction of housing,” the MCP said in a statement. “Waiting longer means increasing the exodus from the countryside and increasing the problems of rural life.”
The protesters left the banks at the end of the day after the Caixa--which administers My House My Life, with investment from the government and from private investors--promised to include the MCP in the PNHR program and to fund the projects already started, with the possibility of constructing 1,000 new housing units in the three states. The bank also agreed to discuss the MCP’s reform proposals. (Jornal Opção (Goiânia) 6/26/14; Adital (Brazil) 6/26/14, 6/27/14)
*3. Brazil: US Turns Over Documents on Military's Abuses
During a visit to Brasilia on June 17, US vice president Joe Biden presented Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff with 43 declassified US State Department documents referring to abuses committed under the country’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship. The handover of the documents, which will go to Brazil’s National Truth Commission (CNV), was part of an effort to mend relations with Brazil after revelations in 2013 that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had been spying on Brazilian government agencies and on President Rousseff herself [see Update #1193]. The NSA revelations led to Brazil’s cancellation of a planned state visit to the US in September 2013 and to the US manufacturer Boeing Co’s loss of a $4 billion fighter jet contract with the Brazilian air force. (Reuters 6/17/14)
The CNV posted all 43 documents to its website on July 2, and the Washington, DC-based National Security Archive research group’s blog Redacted links to five documents of special interest. One of these, an April 1973 cable from the US consul general in Rio de Janeiro entitled “Widespread Arrests and Psychophysical Interrogation of Suspected Subversives,” detailed a “sophisticated and elaborate psychophysical duress system” used to “intimidate and terrify” suspected leftists. In some cases suspects were placed naked on a metal floor “through which electric current is pulsated.” The military also used more violent methods, and the suspects were sometimes “eliminated”; the media were told that these prisoners were killed in shootouts. “The shootout technique is being used increasingly in order to deal with the public relations aspect of eliminating subversives,” the cable said, and to “obviate ‘death-by-torture’ charges in the international press.”
The State Department seemed less concerned about the reports of torture than about the possibility that the US Senate might pass an amendment proposed by then-senator John Tunney (D-CA) to pressure the Brazilian military to end the practice. A July 1972 cable from the US embassy in Brasilia, “Allegation of torture in Brazil,” claimed that top Brazilian officials were trying to halt the use of “excessive police measures,” but “without undermining the continuing and notably successful battle against terrorism.” The cable’s author--presumably then-ambassador William Rountree--said there appeared to be a reduction in the reports of torture, “undoubtedly due in part to [Brazilian government] success in substantially reducing number of active terrorists.” The US government did not “condone” what the cable described as “harsh interrogation techniques,” the writer noted, but he said he “strongly support[ed] the [State] Department’s efforts to dissuade senators from advancing the new proposal [for an anti-torture amendment], and to encourage its defeat if offered.”
The military was apparently not selective about which people it arrested and tortured. “Conditions in DEOPS Prison as Told by Detained American Citizen,” an Oct. 7, 1970 memo, recounted the experiences of Robert Henry North, described as a “tall, clean-cut” US citizen working for a Brazilian seed company. North was arrested at an airport on his return from a trip to the US and was kept for three days in a cell with six other detainees. He reported that all of his cellmates were being held without charges and had been tortured. North, who was fluent in Portuguese, was convinced that five of the cellmates “were absolutely innocent of subversive political activity,” although the sixth “looked like he might easily throw a bomb.” The authorities arrested North himself because they had a watch list with the names of members of the radical US Weather Underground group, including the activist Robert Henry Roth; it seems the name was enough of a match for the military to justify an arrest. (Redacted 7/3/14)
*4. Chile: Judge Confirms US Role in 1973 Killings
Chilean investigative judge Jorge Zepeda has ruled that US intelligence agents shared responsibility for the killing of US journalist Charles Horman and US graduate student Frank Teruggi by the Chilean military in the days after the Sept. 11, 1973 coup that overthrew leftist president Salvador Allende Gossens. “US military intelligence services played a fundamental role in the murders of two US citizens in 1973, providing the Chilean military with information that brought [them] to death,” Zepeda concluded in his report, which the Associated Press wire service cited on July 1. This was the first official confirmation of suspicions by Horman and Teruggi’s families and friends that the US shared in the responsibility for the killings, the subject of the 1982 film “Missing.”
Zepeda named retired Chilean army colonel Pedro Espinoza as the mastermind behind both murders and counterintelligence agent Rafael González Berdugo as an accomplice in Horman’s death. Zepeda had requested the extradition of former US Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis in 2011 to stand trial for providing the information that led to the killings; Chile’s Supreme Court of Justice upheld the request in October 2012 [see Update #1149]. Apparently the courts were unaware that Davis was in fact living in Chile; he died in a Santiago nursing home in 2013. (El Nuevo Herald 7/1/14 from AP; The Jurist 7/2/14)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Mexico, US/immigration
Popular agrarian reform: an alternative to the capitalist model (Latin America)
http://alainet.org/active/75084
"World Cup For Who?" Photo Report From Outside the Stadiums (Brazil)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/4916-qworld-cup-for-whoq-photo-report-from-outside-the-stadiums
Brazil Organizations Challenge Legality of Belo Monte Dam in Court
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4919-brazil-organizations-challenge-legality-of-belo-monte-dam-in-court
U.S. Gives Brazil Declassified Documents Detailing Torture and Executions During its Dictatorship Era
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4917-us-gives-brazil-declassified-documents-detailing-torture-and-executions-during-its-dictatorship-era
Brazil: 'imminent' threat to isolated peoples
http://ww4report.com/node/13355
The Fifth Anniversary of the Bagua Massacre in Alternative Media and Art (Peru)
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/7/2/fifth-anniversary-bagua-massacre-alternative-media-and-art
Mining and Post-conflict in Colombia
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12465
Venezuelan Farmers on Disputed Land Say They Have No Intention of Vacating
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10772
Narco wars drive migrant kids to US borders (Central America)
http://ww4report.com/node/13344#comment-452207
Honduran Charter Cities New Model for Salvadoran Private Sector
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4918-honduran-charter-cities-new-model-for-salvadoran-private-sector
Being Young and Zapatista in La Realidad (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12455
From El Barrio to La Realidad, Women Lead Struggles to Transform the World (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12475
Burn Them Alive! (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/burn-them-alive/
The Big History of Little Chihuahua (US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-big-history-of-little-chihuahua/
In Oregon, activists have forced sheriffs to defy ICE (US/immigration)
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/oregon-activists-forced-sheriffs-defy-ice/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence/
http://upsidedownworld.org/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/http://upsidedownworld.org/org/
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
WNU #1225: Brazilian Judge Blocks Gold Mine
Issue #1225, June 29, 2014
1. Brazil: Canadian Gold Mine Loses License
2. Chile: Bachelet Promises New Mapuche Policy
3. Central America: What's Causing Child Migration?
4. Cuba: Foreign Investment Law Takes Effect
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, US/immigration, US/policy
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. Brazil: Canadian Gold Mine Loses License
Brazilian federal judge Claudio Henrique de Pina has revoked Toronto-based Belo Sun Mining Corp.’s environmental license for the construction of the $750 million Volta Grande open-pit gold mine near the Xingu river in the northern state of Pará, the federal Public Ministry office in the state announced the evening of June 25. Upholding a suspension ordered last November, the judge ruled that Belo Sun had failed to address the “negative and irreversible” impact the mine would have on three indigenous groups in the area, the Paquiçamba, the Arara da Volta Grande and the Ituna/Itatá. The communities are already under threat from the construction of the nearby Belo Monte dam [see Update #1189], which will cut water flows by 80% to 90% when it goes into operation, according to the government’s National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI).
A Belo Sun news release said the decision only means that the company needs to complete a five-month impact study; it has already commissioned the study, which will start as soon as researchers have permission to access indigenous lands, according to the news release. The mine was expected to open in 2016 and to produce 313,100 ounces of gold each year over a 10-year lifetime; if built, it will be the largest gold mine in Brazil. Belo Sun’s shares were down nearly 10% on the Toronto Stock Exchange by noon on June 26. (Ministério Público Federal no Pará press release 6/25/14; Reuters 6/26/14; Mining.com 6/26/14). [This is the latest in a series of reversals for gold mining projects in Latin America, most notably Barrick Gold’s mammoth Pascua Lama mine on the Argentine-Chilean border in the Andes; see Update #1223.]
Meanwhile, a new study by researchers at the Federal University of Pará finds that construction at the controversial Belo Monte dam, expected to be the third largest in the world, has led to the sexual exploitation of local indigenous people. The groups impacted were the Parakanã, the Arara da Cachoeira Seca, the Arara da Volta Grande do Xingu and the Juruna do Paquiçamba, the researchers said. There is also evidence of sexual trafficking of minors. According to the daily Folha de São Paulo, the reported cases of sexual abuse of minors in Altamira--the city most affected by the Belo Monte project and the 25,000 workers building it--rose from 43 in 2010 to 75 in 2011, the year construction began. (Terra Brasil 6/8/14)
*2. Chile: Bachelet Promises New Mapuche Policy
Chilean president Michelle Bachelet announced a new government policy for the country’s indigenous communities on June 24, We Tripantu, the last day of the June 21-24 New Year celebrations observed by the Mapuche, the largest of the indigenous groups. The new policy includes the creation of an Indigenous Affairs Ministry; a Council of Indigenous Peoples to develop proposals and oversee negotiations; designated seats in Congress for indigenous groups; a commission to establish an official version of indigenous history acceptable to all sides; and a continuation of an existing program through which the government buys territory in the south-central Araucanía region and transfers it to Mapuche communities that claim it, with the goal of ending land disputes and occupations that have troubled the region in recent years [see Update #1216].
“Almost 25 years and five presidencies have passed since we recovered our democracy and despite our effort we are still in debt to [Chile’s] indigenous people,” Bachelet said, referring to the period since the end of the 1973-1990 military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. “Now is the time to have the courage to take new steps forward, not with an eye on the short term but aiming to achieve the progress that has long eluded our brothers and sisters from the indigenous communities.”
Some Mapuche activists were not convinced by Bachelet’s program. Aucán Huilcamán, who represents the Council of All Lands, an organization including Mapuche from both Chile and Argentina, dismissed the Council of Indigenous Peoples as “a kindergarten” and said the government’s policy continued “colonialism and the domestication of the indigenous peoples.” (Santiago Times 6/24/14; Reuters 6/24/14; Radio Bío Bío (Chile) 6/24/14) In a statement released on June 15, a week before Bachelet’s announcement, the militant Arauco Malleco Coordinating Committee (CAM) described the president’s approach as “[o]n one hand echoing the pressures of the capitalist business class in the Mapuche zone, and on the other deepening the militarization and the repression against our communities.” The CAM said it was “taking up with greater conviction its anti-capitalist struggle based on self-defense and territorial control until the Mapuche national liberation.” (La Haine (Spain) 6/15/14)
On June 19 Chile’s ambassador to the international organizations based in Geneva, Marta Maurás, gave the United Nations Human Rights Council the Bachelet government’s commitment to end the application of Chile’s “antiterrorist” law to Mapuche activists. Cuba, Germany and the US had asked Chile to discontinue the use of the law, which gives the police and courts extraordinary powers in cases the government designates as terror-related. This was one of 185 recommendations the Human Rights Council has made to Chile; the country has accepted 180 of them. The law dates back to the military dictatorship, but all the governments since the restoration of democracy, including Bachelet’s 2006-2010 administration, have used it against Mapuche activists struggling to reclaim indigenous lands. (El Nacional (Venezuela) 6/19/14 from EFE)
*3. Central America: What's Causing Child Migration?
In a statement released in the last week of June, the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH), a leading organization of the Garífuna ethnic group, charged that the US-backed Honduran government was largely responsible for the dramatic increase in minors trying to migrate from Central America over the past few years [see Update #1224]. The organization said the government “blames the numbers only on narco trafficking; however, they forget that this catastrophe is also caused by collusion among politicians, business leaders, state security forces and criminal organizations linked to the trafficking of narcotics. The government has seen the situation worsen for years without doing anything to change the scenario, much less to avoid it.”
Honduras is the country providing the largest number—more than 13,000--of the nearly 35,000 underage Central Americans detained at the US border in the last six months; the others come mostly from Guatemala and El Salvador. OFRANEH pointed to statistics from the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Casa Alianza Honduras, which reported that 287 people were murdered in Honduras in May alone, 104 of them under the age of 23. From 2010 to 2013, more than 27,000 people were killed in Honduras, according to OFRANEH; about 450 of the victims were younger than 14. (Adital (Brazil) 6/23/14)
In related news, on June 23 unidentified assailants gunned down Luis Alonso Fúnez Duarte, the producer of a music program on the Súper 10 radio station in Catacamas, in the eastern department of Olancho. He was reportedly the second producer of a music program to be murdered in Olancho in June, and the 42nd Honduran media worker killed in the five years since the June 28, 2009 military coup that overthrew former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009). (Adital 6/25/14)
Much of the US coverage of the child migrants has played down the violence against minors in the countries they come from and instead has emphasized reports that the migrants were drawn to the US by the expectation of lenient treatment. According to US journalist David Bacon, this version of events largely started with a report from the US Border Patrol which was “leaked” to Brandon Darby, a former informant and infiltrator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who is close to the rightwing Tea Party; reports based on this leak were circulated on the far-right website breitbart.com. (CounterPunch 6/26/14)
In contrast, a report released by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) on Mar. 12 cited fear of violence as the main cause for the increased migration. A careful survey of child migrants in 2013 found “that no less than 58% of the 404 children interviewed were forcibly displaced” because of violence, and that they warrant protection as refugees under United Nations conventions. In an interview with the National Journal, UNHCR senior protection officer Leslie Vélez, one of the report’s authors, said 48% of the children “shared experiences of how they had been personally affected by the augmented violence” from “organized armed criminal actors, including drug cartels and gangs, or by state actors.” Only nine of the 404 children “mentioned any kind of possibility of the US treating children well.” She noted that the Central American migrants are not just fleeing to the US. Many go to Mexico, and migration to Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama has increased by 712% since 2008. (NJ 6/16/14)
A reporter from the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada got similar results from interviews at an immigration detention center in Tapachula in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas. “Going back means losing your life because of the gangs,” a Honduran man traveling with his baby told the reporter. An older man with two granddaughters, ages seven and 10, said: “I left Honduras because they already killed three of my four sons. I can’t stay to wait for them to take away my granddaughters. There the gangs kill for anything, take our houses, our pay. Everything.” Asked if he wanted to go home, a six-year-old Honduran boy began to cry and told the reporter: “They kill people there, and you can’t play.” (LJ 6/29/14)
*4. Cuba: Foreign Investment Law Takes Effect
Cuba’s new Foreign Investment Law went into effect on June 28, as was planned when the National Assembly of Popular Power passed the measure in March [see Update #1214]. The government is hoping to generate some $2.5 billion in investment each year under the law, which cuts tax rates for foreign investors from 30% to 15% and guarantees that most foreign-owned companies will be exempt from expropriation. Investment is expected to be focused on light industry, packaging, chemicals, iron and steel, building materials, logistics and pharmaceuticals; much of it will go to the Mariel port, 40 km west of Havana, which is being developed as a major “free trade zone.” The government is currently studying 23 proposals for projects from Brazil, China, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia. The new law doesn’t allow for private Cuban citizens to invest, and Cubans will work for the foreign companies through state-owned employment companies, not directly. (La Jornada (Mexico) 6/29/14 from DPA, AFP, Prensa Latina; Global Post 6/29/14 from Xinhua)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, US/immigration, US/policy
A Turning Point for Drug Policy (Latin America)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/6/27/turning-point-drug-policy-1
How the Drug Trade Criminalizes Women Disproportionately
http://nacla.org/news/2014/6/30/how-drug-trade-criminalizes-women-disproportionately
Raúl Zibechi: Latin America Today, Seen From Below
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4907-raul-zibechi-latin-america-today-seen-from-below
People’s Tribunal Seeks to Counter Canadian Pro-Mining Spin (Latin America)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4910-peoples-tribunal-seeks-to-counter-canadian-pro-mining-spin
Elbit: Exporting Oppression from Palestine to Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4911-israeli-defense-company-elbit-systems-from-apartheid-wall-in-palestine-to-the-us-border
Pérez Esquivel to Griesa: it is just not to pay an illegitimate and immoral debt (Argentina)
http://alainet.org/active/74936
Chile's Bachelet Promises to Return Land to Indigenous People
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4909-chiles-bachelet-promises-to-return-land-to-indigenous-people
Argentina Seeks to Ward Off “Paradoxical” Default
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4906-argentina-seeks-to-ward-off-paradoxical-default
For 2nd Anniversary of “Curuguaty Massacre,” New Report Sheds Light on the Criminalization of Peasants and Right to Land in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4904-for-2nd-anniversary-of-curuguaty-massacre-new-report-sheds-light-on-the-criminalization-of-peasants-and-right-to-land-in-paraguay
Peru now has a ‘licence to kill’ environmental protesters
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4913-peru-now-has-a-licence-to-kill-environmental-protesters
Jurassic Park amid Peruvian poverty
http://ww4report.com/node/13322#comment-452190
Colombia: security workers blockade coal mine
http://ww4report.com/node/13333
Venezuelan President Maduro Responds to Former Ministers’ Criticisms
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10761
The U.S. Re-militarization of Central America and Mexico
https://nacla.org/article/us-re-militarization-central-america-and-mexico
Nicaragua’s Mayagna People and Their Rainforest Could Vanish
http://intercontinentalcry.org/nicaraguas-mayagna-people-rainforest-vanish-24439/
Puerto Castilla, Honduras: Corporate and Military Interests Above Garífuna Community Survival
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/4905-puerto-castilla-honduras-corporate-and-military-interests-above-garifuna-community-survival
Mayan People’s Council Organizes National Strike in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4914-mayan-peoples-council-organizes-national-strike-in-guatemala
Mexico: From “the land belongs to those who work it” to “the land belongs to those who drill it.”
http://alainet.org/active/74851
Subcomandante Marcos announces: “We have decided that as of today, Marcos no longer exists” (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12406
Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians (Mexico)
http://intercontinentalcry.org/huicholes-last-peyote-guardians/
Mexico Rape Victim Faces Prison Time for Self-Defense
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4912-mexico-rape-victim-faces-prison-time-for-self-defence
Thousands of Physicians March in Mexico: "We Are Doctors, Not Gods or Criminals"
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=225#1718
Wage Theft in Mexico: the Cost of an Unpaid Lunch Break
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=225#1720
Child Migrants and Media Half-Truths (US/immigration)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12389
Confronting the Central American Refugee Crisis
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12441
Immigrants or Refugees? (US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/immigrants-or-refugees/
Tea Party and Border Patrol Spin the Story of Children in Detention
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/26/tea-party-and-border-patrol-spin-the-story-of-children-in-detention/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/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/
1. Brazil: Canadian Gold Mine Loses License
2. Chile: Bachelet Promises New Mapuche Policy
3. Central America: What's Causing Child Migration?
4. Cuba: Foreign Investment Law Takes Effect
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, US/immigration, US/policy
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. Brazil: Canadian Gold Mine Loses License
Brazilian federal judge Claudio Henrique de Pina has revoked Toronto-based Belo Sun Mining Corp.’s environmental license for the construction of the $750 million Volta Grande open-pit gold mine near the Xingu river in the northern state of Pará, the federal Public Ministry office in the state announced the evening of June 25. Upholding a suspension ordered last November, the judge ruled that Belo Sun had failed to address the “negative and irreversible” impact the mine would have on three indigenous groups in the area, the Paquiçamba, the Arara da Volta Grande and the Ituna/Itatá. The communities are already under threat from the construction of the nearby Belo Monte dam [see Update #1189], which will cut water flows by 80% to 90% when it goes into operation, according to the government’s National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI).
A Belo Sun news release said the decision only means that the company needs to complete a five-month impact study; it has already commissioned the study, which will start as soon as researchers have permission to access indigenous lands, according to the news release. The mine was expected to open in 2016 and to produce 313,100 ounces of gold each year over a 10-year lifetime; if built, it will be the largest gold mine in Brazil. Belo Sun’s shares were down nearly 10% on the Toronto Stock Exchange by noon on June 26. (Ministério Público Federal no Pará press release 6/25/14; Reuters 6/26/14; Mining.com 6/26/14). [This is the latest in a series of reversals for gold mining projects in Latin America, most notably Barrick Gold’s mammoth Pascua Lama mine on the Argentine-Chilean border in the Andes; see Update #1223.]
Meanwhile, a new study by researchers at the Federal University of Pará finds that construction at the controversial Belo Monte dam, expected to be the third largest in the world, has led to the sexual exploitation of local indigenous people. The groups impacted were the Parakanã, the Arara da Cachoeira Seca, the Arara da Volta Grande do Xingu and the Juruna do Paquiçamba, the researchers said. There is also evidence of sexual trafficking of minors. According to the daily Folha de São Paulo, the reported cases of sexual abuse of minors in Altamira--the city most affected by the Belo Monte project and the 25,000 workers building it--rose from 43 in 2010 to 75 in 2011, the year construction began. (Terra Brasil 6/8/14)
*2. Chile: Bachelet Promises New Mapuche Policy
Chilean president Michelle Bachelet announced a new government policy for the country’s indigenous communities on June 24, We Tripantu, the last day of the June 21-24 New Year celebrations observed by the Mapuche, the largest of the indigenous groups. The new policy includes the creation of an Indigenous Affairs Ministry; a Council of Indigenous Peoples to develop proposals and oversee negotiations; designated seats in Congress for indigenous groups; a commission to establish an official version of indigenous history acceptable to all sides; and a continuation of an existing program through which the government buys territory in the south-central Araucanía region and transfers it to Mapuche communities that claim it, with the goal of ending land disputes and occupations that have troubled the region in recent years [see Update #1216].
“Almost 25 years and five presidencies have passed since we recovered our democracy and despite our effort we are still in debt to [Chile’s] indigenous people,” Bachelet said, referring to the period since the end of the 1973-1990 military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. “Now is the time to have the courage to take new steps forward, not with an eye on the short term but aiming to achieve the progress that has long eluded our brothers and sisters from the indigenous communities.”
Some Mapuche activists were not convinced by Bachelet’s program. Aucán Huilcamán, who represents the Council of All Lands, an organization including Mapuche from both Chile and Argentina, dismissed the Council of Indigenous Peoples as “a kindergarten” and said the government’s policy continued “colonialism and the domestication of the indigenous peoples.” (Santiago Times 6/24/14; Reuters 6/24/14; Radio Bío Bío (Chile) 6/24/14) In a statement released on June 15, a week before Bachelet’s announcement, the militant Arauco Malleco Coordinating Committee (CAM) described the president’s approach as “[o]n one hand echoing the pressures of the capitalist business class in the Mapuche zone, and on the other deepening the militarization and the repression against our communities.” The CAM said it was “taking up with greater conviction its anti-capitalist struggle based on self-defense and territorial control until the Mapuche national liberation.” (La Haine (Spain) 6/15/14)
On June 19 Chile’s ambassador to the international organizations based in Geneva, Marta Maurás, gave the United Nations Human Rights Council the Bachelet government’s commitment to end the application of Chile’s “antiterrorist” law to Mapuche activists. Cuba, Germany and the US had asked Chile to discontinue the use of the law, which gives the police and courts extraordinary powers in cases the government designates as terror-related. This was one of 185 recommendations the Human Rights Council has made to Chile; the country has accepted 180 of them. The law dates back to the military dictatorship, but all the governments since the restoration of democracy, including Bachelet’s 2006-2010 administration, have used it against Mapuche activists struggling to reclaim indigenous lands. (El Nacional (Venezuela) 6/19/14 from EFE)
*3. Central America: What's Causing Child Migration?
In a statement released in the last week of June, the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH), a leading organization of the Garífuna ethnic group, charged that the US-backed Honduran government was largely responsible for the dramatic increase in minors trying to migrate from Central America over the past few years [see Update #1224]. The organization said the government “blames the numbers only on narco trafficking; however, they forget that this catastrophe is also caused by collusion among politicians, business leaders, state security forces and criminal organizations linked to the trafficking of narcotics. The government has seen the situation worsen for years without doing anything to change the scenario, much less to avoid it.”
Honduras is the country providing the largest number—more than 13,000--of the nearly 35,000 underage Central Americans detained at the US border in the last six months; the others come mostly from Guatemala and El Salvador. OFRANEH pointed to statistics from the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Casa Alianza Honduras, which reported that 287 people were murdered in Honduras in May alone, 104 of them under the age of 23. From 2010 to 2013, more than 27,000 people were killed in Honduras, according to OFRANEH; about 450 of the victims were younger than 14. (Adital (Brazil) 6/23/14)
In related news, on June 23 unidentified assailants gunned down Luis Alonso Fúnez Duarte, the producer of a music program on the Súper 10 radio station in Catacamas, in the eastern department of Olancho. He was reportedly the second producer of a music program to be murdered in Olancho in June, and the 42nd Honduran media worker killed in the five years since the June 28, 2009 military coup that overthrew former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009). (Adital 6/25/14)
Much of the US coverage of the child migrants has played down the violence against minors in the countries they come from and instead has emphasized reports that the migrants were drawn to the US by the expectation of lenient treatment. According to US journalist David Bacon, this version of events largely started with a report from the US Border Patrol which was “leaked” to Brandon Darby, a former informant and infiltrator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who is close to the rightwing Tea Party; reports based on this leak were circulated on the far-right website breitbart.com. (CounterPunch 6/26/14)
In contrast, a report released by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) on Mar. 12 cited fear of violence as the main cause for the increased migration. A careful survey of child migrants in 2013 found “that no less than 58% of the 404 children interviewed were forcibly displaced” because of violence, and that they warrant protection as refugees under United Nations conventions. In an interview with the National Journal, UNHCR senior protection officer Leslie Vélez, one of the report’s authors, said 48% of the children “shared experiences of how they had been personally affected by the augmented violence” from “organized armed criminal actors, including drug cartels and gangs, or by state actors.” Only nine of the 404 children “mentioned any kind of possibility of the US treating children well.” She noted that the Central American migrants are not just fleeing to the US. Many go to Mexico, and migration to Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama has increased by 712% since 2008. (NJ 6/16/14)
A reporter from the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada got similar results from interviews at an immigration detention center in Tapachula in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas. “Going back means losing your life because of the gangs,” a Honduran man traveling with his baby told the reporter. An older man with two granddaughters, ages seven and 10, said: “I left Honduras because they already killed three of my four sons. I can’t stay to wait for them to take away my granddaughters. There the gangs kill for anything, take our houses, our pay. Everything.” Asked if he wanted to go home, a six-year-old Honduran boy began to cry and told the reporter: “They kill people there, and you can’t play.” (LJ 6/29/14)
*4. Cuba: Foreign Investment Law Takes Effect
Cuba’s new Foreign Investment Law went into effect on June 28, as was planned when the National Assembly of Popular Power passed the measure in March [see Update #1214]. The government is hoping to generate some $2.5 billion in investment each year under the law, which cuts tax rates for foreign investors from 30% to 15% and guarantees that most foreign-owned companies will be exempt from expropriation. Investment is expected to be focused on light industry, packaging, chemicals, iron and steel, building materials, logistics and pharmaceuticals; much of it will go to the Mariel port, 40 km west of Havana, which is being developed as a major “free trade zone.” The government is currently studying 23 proposals for projects from Brazil, China, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia. The new law doesn’t allow for private Cuban citizens to invest, and Cubans will work for the foreign companies through state-owned employment companies, not directly. (La Jornada (Mexico) 6/29/14 from DPA, AFP, Prensa Latina; Global Post 6/29/14 from Xinhua)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, US/immigration, US/policy
A Turning Point for Drug Policy (Latin America)
http://nacla.org/news/2014/6/27/turning-point-drug-policy-1
How the Drug Trade Criminalizes Women Disproportionately
http://nacla.org/news/2014/6/30/how-drug-trade-criminalizes-women-disproportionately
Raúl Zibechi: Latin America Today, Seen From Below
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4907-raul-zibechi-latin-america-today-seen-from-below
People’s Tribunal Seeks to Counter Canadian Pro-Mining Spin (Latin America)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4910-peoples-tribunal-seeks-to-counter-canadian-pro-mining-spin
Elbit: Exporting Oppression from Palestine to Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4911-israeli-defense-company-elbit-systems-from-apartheid-wall-in-palestine-to-the-us-border
Pérez Esquivel to Griesa: it is just not to pay an illegitimate and immoral debt (Argentina)
http://alainet.org/active/74936
Chile's Bachelet Promises to Return Land to Indigenous People
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4909-chiles-bachelet-promises-to-return-land-to-indigenous-people
Argentina Seeks to Ward Off “Paradoxical” Default
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4906-argentina-seeks-to-ward-off-paradoxical-default
For 2nd Anniversary of “Curuguaty Massacre,” New Report Sheds Light on the Criminalization of Peasants and Right to Land in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4904-for-2nd-anniversary-of-curuguaty-massacre-new-report-sheds-light-on-the-criminalization-of-peasants-and-right-to-land-in-paraguay
Peru now has a ‘licence to kill’ environmental protesters
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4913-peru-now-has-a-licence-to-kill-environmental-protesters
Jurassic Park amid Peruvian poverty
http://ww4report.com/node/13322#comment-452190
Colombia: security workers blockade coal mine
http://ww4report.com/node/13333
Venezuelan President Maduro Responds to Former Ministers’ Criticisms
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10761
The U.S. Re-militarization of Central America and Mexico
https://nacla.org/article/us-re-militarization-central-america-and-mexico
Nicaragua’s Mayagna People and Their Rainforest Could Vanish
http://intercontinentalcry.org/nicaraguas-mayagna-people-rainforest-vanish-24439/
Puerto Castilla, Honduras: Corporate and Military Interests Above Garífuna Community Survival
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/4905-puerto-castilla-honduras-corporate-and-military-interests-above-garifuna-community-survival
Mayan People’s Council Organizes National Strike in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4914-mayan-peoples-council-organizes-national-strike-in-guatemala
Mexico: From “the land belongs to those who work it” to “the land belongs to those who drill it.”
http://alainet.org/active/74851
Subcomandante Marcos announces: “We have decided that as of today, Marcos no longer exists” (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12406
Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians (Mexico)
http://intercontinentalcry.org/huicholes-last-peyote-guardians/
Mexico Rape Victim Faces Prison Time for Self-Defense
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4912-mexico-rape-victim-faces-prison-time-for-self-defence
Thousands of Physicians March in Mexico: "We Are Doctors, Not Gods or Criminals"
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=225#1718
Wage Theft in Mexico: the Cost of an Unpaid Lunch Break
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=225#1720
Child Migrants and Media Half-Truths (US/immigration)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12389
Confronting the Central American Refugee Crisis
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12441
Immigrants or Refugees? (US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/immigrants-or-refugees/
Tea Party and Border Patrol Spin the Story of Children in Detention
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/26/tea-party-and-border-patrol-spin-the-story-of-children-in-detention/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/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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