From Scapegoating to Solidarity: 2016 Is the Year to Turn the Immigration Debate Around

By David L. Wilson, Truthout
March 15, 2016

There are two surprising facts that most mainstream US media outlets have studiously ignored in their coverage of immigration and the 2016 presidential campaign:

First, the Republican candidates are promising to end a wave of unauthorized immigration that actually ended eight years ago.

And second, the same working-class white people who cheer billionaire candidate Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rants would themselves benefit from legalizing the immigration status of the approximately 11 million people who currently lack legal papers.

We'd be well on our way to ending the current anti-immigrant frenzy if only we could get these two facts across to a majority of the US population - and this might be the year to do it.[...]

Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35220-from-scapegoating-to-solidarity-2016-is-the-year-to-turn-the-immigration-debate-around

Failing to Connect the Dots on Immigration: The Democratic Debate in Miami

As investigative journalist Allan Nairn said on Democracy Now! in January: "Well, you know, if you go and burn down your neighbor's house, don't complain when, as they run from the flames, they come onto your lawn."

By David L. Wilson and Jane Guskin, MRZine
March 13, 2016

The March 9 debate in Miami between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was the first chance the two candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination had to discuss immigration and its connections to trade and U.S. policy in Latin America. Unfortunately, neither candidate took advantage of the opportunity.

The mainstream "immigration debate" generally avoids mentioning the forces that have driven millions of Latin Americans to move here without legal authorization over the past forty years. The media and the politicians treat the migration either as a natural disaster ("flooding over the border") or as a second-rate science fiction movie ("the aliens are invading") -- with either scenario seen as deserving an aggressive response.[...]

Read the full article:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/wg130316.html

The Part of “Illegal” They Don’t Understand: Book Review

By David L. Wilson, Monthly Review
October 2015

Aviva Chomsky, Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014), 256 pages, $16, paperback.

Anyone who really wants to understand U.S. immigration policy needs to read the brief history of the U.S.-Mexico border in Aviva Chomsky’s often-brilliant new book on immigration.1

Politicians constantly tell us we have lost control of the border. In fact, as Undocumented demonstrates, never in the 166 years since the border was established by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo has it been so tightly controlled as it is now. For nearly half its history it was exactly the thing immigration opponents say they fear most—an open border. The first serious restrictions did not come until a head tax and a literacy requirement were imposed in 1917, and even then there was an exemption for Mexican workers, the people most likely to enter the country from the south. The creation of the Border Patrol in 1924 was mainly a Prohibition Era measure to keep alcohol out.

Far from trying to control the border, U.S. businesses and politicians were trying to get people to cross it.[...]

Read the full article:
http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/the-part-of-illegal-they-dont-understand/

U.S. and Dominican Immigration Policies: Is There a Difference?

By David L. Wilson, Upside Down World
October 16, 2015

Texas officials have now found a way to circumvent the long-established understanding that children born in the United States are automatically U.S. citizens.

Over the past year some state officials have been refusing to provide copies of Texas-born children’s birth certificates to their undocumented parents. The Texas bureaucrats don’t try to deny that the children are citizens; instead, they simply demand that the parents produce certain types of identification documents—-documents which many unauthorized immigrants from Mexico and Central America are unable to obtain. The result is that the kids are being denied their rights as U.S. citizens—-including, in some cases, the right to enroll in kindergarten—-and may end up stateless.

This subterfuge must sound familiar to many Dominicans of Haitian ancestry. The current threat by the Dominican Republic to expel tens of thousands of Dominican-born Haitian descendants evolved over the past decade out of an unofficial practice very much like the one in Texas.[...]

Read the full article:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/caribbean-archives-45/5495-us-and-dominican-immigration-policies-is-there-a-difference

It's Time for Bernie Sanders to Step Up on Immigration

If immigration is a problem, it's because US policies have made it one. For someone like Bernie Sanders, there should be no difficulty finding a solution.

By Jane Guskin and David L. Wilson, Truthout
September 28, 2015

As the presidential primary races heat up, Donald Trump has gotten a lot of attention for spouting racist diatribes against Mexicans and proposing to deport all undocumented immigrants.

On the other end of the spectrum, Democratic contender Bernie Sanders has a record of supporting rational immigration policies. He backs legalization for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living here now. He supports efforts to make sure immigrant workers have the right to organize and to earn a decent wage. He opposes guest-worker programs, which bring foreigners here to work for low pay with limited labor rights and then boot them out of the country when the job's done - or whenever they try to organize or speak out about abuses.

Yet in an interview with the news website Vox, Sanders dismissed "open borders" as "a Koch brothers proposal," referring to the notoriously right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch.[...]

Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32975-it-s-time-for-bernie-sanders-to-step-up-on-immigration

Stop Securing the Border and Start Valuing Migrants' Lives

Above all, we need to remember that border enforcement isn't just a counterproductive waste of taxpayers' money; it's also lethal.

By David L. Wilson, Truthout
July 27, 2015

US billionaire and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is not the only politician intent on barricading the southwestern border of the United States. Calls for "regaining control of our border" are commonplace in US political discourse, routinely repeated by both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. The most recent proposal for "comprehensive immigration reform" is a good example. The bill, which passed the Senate in June 2013 but was blocked by House Republicans as "dangerously liberal," included provisions for doubling the current number of Border Patrol agents and adding $30 billion to the border enforcement budget over the next ten years.

The general public overwhelmingly backs these calls for more enforcement. While a survey the Pew Research Center conducted in May found respondents generally supportive of immigrants - 72 percent said undocumented people now living here should be allowed to stay - 80 percent thought "a lot" or "more" could be done to reduce unauthorized immigration at the borders.

This support continues despite a complete lack of evidence that an increase is necessary or that it would be effective - or even that there's an actual "crisis" of people crossing the border. What the facts show, on the contrary, is that the current policy is expensive and counterproductive and needs to be rolled back.[...]

Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32069-stop-securing-the-border-and-start-valuing-migrants-lives

"Something Better" Than Detention for Immigrants?

The success of activists and community leaders in winning release from electronic monitoring underscores the arbitrary nature of the program.... So is this whole exercise designed to prevent people from "absconding," or just to punish and humiliate them?

By Jane Guskin, Truthout
May 21, 2015

The New York Times editorial board recently put out a call to "End Immigration Detention." Detention "breeds cruelty and harm, and squanders taxpayer money," violates due process, "shatters families and traumatizes children" and is "immoral," the Times writes.

"Shut the system down, and replace it with something better," the editorial adds. The Times recommends cheaper and "more humane" alternatives including "ankle bracelets and other monitoring technologies."

Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in a December 2014 op-ed, suggested electronic ankle monitors and release on bond as "effective and more humane alternatives to detention."[...]

Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30913-something-better-than-detention-for-immigrants

Photo: Cinthya Santos Briones

US Program to Resettle Central American Minors Likely to Help Few

By David L. Wilson and Jane Guskin, Truthout
April 30, 2015

Central American children are back in the news. The number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border was up again in March, although it was still only half the figure recorded in March 2014. Parents and young children continue to be held in immigration detention centers, leading to protests like a five-day hunger strike at the Karnes, Texas, facility in early April. And Republican politicians and ultraconservative media are once again complaining that President Obama is being soft on undocumented children fleeing violence in Central America.

The right's latest target is a program the Obama administration announced last fall under which some Central American immigrant parents can apply to have children still living in their home country declared refugees and reunited with their families here. According to the US State Department, which administers the program, the goal is "to provide a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to the dangerous journey that some children are currently undertaking to the United States."

"This is in complete violation of what the Constitution says," Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) announced on April 23 as he prepared to deliver a letter co-signed by 36 representatives demanding an end to the program. A Senate judiciary subcommittee held a hearing that day to discuss the policy, which subcommittee chair Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) claimed had "created a dangerous situation."

The legislators' concerns seem exaggerated.[...]

Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30523-us-program-to-resettle-central-american-minors-likely-to-help-few

WNU #1255: Panama Dam Construction Suspended

Issue #1254, February 15, 2015

1. Panama: Barro Blanco Dam Construction Suspended
2. Honduras: AFL-CIO Blames Trade Policies for Crisis
3. Mexico: UN Criticizes Officials on Disappearances
4. Haiti: New General Strike Shuts Down Capital
5. Dominican Republic: Was Haitian Man Lynched?
6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, US/immigration

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.

Note: As we announced last month, this will be the last regular issue of the Update. We want to thank all the people who have helped over the past 25 years by writing, researching, aiding in distribution and circulation, and sending financial contributions. We plan to go on using the Update's Twitter account (@WeeklyNewsUpdat) for now, and we'll occasionally post items to the Update blog and email list, along with links to stories in other media.

We encourage our readers to keep up to date with news from the Americas through the many English-language publications now covering the region. Twelve are listed below after the links to alternative sources.

*1. Panama: Barro Blanco Dam Construction Suspended
Panamanian vice president and foreign minister Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado announced on Feb. 9 that the country’s National Environmental Authority (ANAM) had ordered the temporary suspension of work on the $130 million Barro Blanco hydroelectric project, which is being built on the Tabasará river in the western province of Chiriquí [see Update #1254]. ANAM attributed the suspension to the owners’ failure to comply with requirements in an environmental impact study, including those for clear agreements with the affected communities and for a plan approved by the National Culture Institute (INAC) to protect archeological objects likely to be flooded because of the dam. ANAM officials also cited the owners’ handling of hazardous waste without an environmental impact study and the lack of a plan for the management of sediments.

The suspension came four days before preliminary talks between the government and representatives of the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group, which opposes the Barro Blanco project. The Feb. 13 talks were in preparation for a formal dialogue scheduled for Feb. 24. The two parties are seeking “a consensus that takes into account human rights, the protection of the original peoples, the environment [and] sustainable development,” Governance Minister Milton Henríquez said on Feb. 12. The government has invited United Nations (UN) representatives to participate in the discussions. However, the UN itself has come under criticism from international environmental groups for the decision of its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to approve the project. Eva Filzmoser, the director of the Brussels-based Carbon Market Watch, charged on Feb. 10 that the CDM board “approved Barro Blanco when it was clear that the dam would flood the homes of numerous indigenous families. This decision is a warning signal that safeguards must be introduced to protect human rights, including robust stakeholder consultations and a grievance mechanism.” (La Estrella de Panamá 2/9/15, 2/13/15; Intercontinental Cry 2/10/15)

*2. Honduras: AFL-CIO Blames Trade Policies for Crisis
US political and trade policies “play a major role” in worsening the poverty and violence that are root causes of unauthorized immigration to the US by Hondurans, according to a report released by the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation, on Jan. 12. The report, “Trade, Violence and Migration: The Broken Promises to Honduran Workers,” grew out of the experiences of a delegation the union group sent to Honduras in October following a sharp increase in migration from the country by unaccompanied minors the previous spring [see Update #1254]. The report notes that Honduras is now “the most unequal country in Latin America,” with an increase in poverty by 4.5 percentage points from 2006 to 2013. “[T]he percentage of those working full time but receiving less than the minimum wage has gone up by nearly 30%,” according to the report.

One cause of poverty and violence in Honduras, according to the report, was the June 2009 coup that removed former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009), with only token objections from the US government. “Since the 2009 coup, the ruling governments have failed to respect worker and human rights or create decent work, and instead have built a repressive security apparatus to put down dissent,” the authors wrote. Another principal cause of the country’s problems was the implementation of the 2004 Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). The delegation found that CAFTA-DR’s “architecture of deregulation coupled with investor protection allowed companies to outsource labor-intensive components of their supply chains to locations with weak labor laws and low wages.” The agreement “accelerated free market devastation,” Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and a participant in the delegation, told a reporter. He noted “constant violations of organizing rights…that included everything from the murder of [union] leaders to the collapse of bargaining rights where they once existed.”

“Failed trade and migration policies continue to exacerbate Honduras’ problems,” the report concludes. “The US government criminalizes migrant children and their families, while pursuing trade deals that simultaneously displace subsistence farmers and lower wages and standards across other sectors, and eliminate good jobs, intensifying the economic conditions that drive migration. This dynamic is enhanced in countries like Honduras, where the government's own policies leave workers and families vulnerable to abuse.” (National Catholic Reporter 1/28/15; The Nation 2/6/15; Equal Times 2/10/15)

Probably the best known of the displacements of subsistence farmers occurred in northern Honduras’ Lower Aguán River Valley, where campesino groups struggling to regain their land have been victims of violence by the military and private security forces since 2009 [see Update #1243]. A recent example was the forced disappearance of Cristian Alberto Martínez Pérez, a young activist in the Gregorio Chávez Campesino Movement (MCGC, also referred to as the Gregorio Chávez Collective), as he was riding his bicycle the evening of Jan. 29 near his home in Panamá community, Trujillo municipality, Colón department.

Human rights groups and several campesino organizations quickly responded to Martínez Pérez’s disappearance by joining together in an intensive search. The youth was found alive--but tied up and dehydrated--a few meters from the Paso Aguán estate the morning of Feb. 1, about 62 hours after his abduction. He said he had been seized by a soldier and a security guard and confined to a vehicle, where he was questioned about his group’s leaders and possible plans for an occupation of the estate. Paso Aguán is owned by Honduran entrepreneur and landowner Miguel Facussé Barjum and is guarded by soldiers and security employers of the powerful Corporación Dinant food-product company, which Facussé founded. At least two deaths have been reported on the estate in the past; the MCGC is apparently named for one of the victims [see Update #1226]. (Defensores en Línea 2/3/15; Honduprensa 2/5/15)

The Aguán campesino movement is the subject of a new documentary, “Resistencia: The Film,” which is premiering in Montreal on Feb. 20. For more information, go to https://www.facebook.com/events/760100744074861

*3. Mexico: UN Criticizes Officials on Disappearances
In a report published on Feb. 13, the United Nations’ Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) called on the Mexican government to prioritize actions to deal with the large number of disappearances taking place in many parts of the country, often with the participation of government functionaries. Although international attention has been focused on the September abduction of 43 students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College, located in the Guerrero town of Ayotzinapa [see Update #1254], the total number of people who have gone missing in Mexico since the militarization of the “war on drugs” began in late 2006 is estimated at 22,600. “[I]n contrast to the thousands of enforced disappearances,” CED member Rainer Huhle told a news briefing, citing the government’s own statistics, “there are exactly six persons put to trial and sentenced for this crime.”

The report was based on an evaluation the CED carried out Feb. 2-3 at the group’s headquarters in Geneva. The CED recognized some advances by the Mexican government, including the ratification of all United Nations human rights treaties and the adoption of a General Law for Victims, but expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s failure even to keep an accurate record of the number of forced disappearances. The committee’s recommendations included creating a national registry of disappearances and the formation of a special unit to search for disappeared persons. (La Jornada (Mexico) 2/14/15; Jurist 2/14/15)

The Ayotzinapa case has brought international attention to Mexico’s record on disappearances. On Jan. 22 the London-based rights group Amnesty International (AI) criticized what it called “the faltering investigations overseen by the Mexican Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam.” “The disappearance of [the Ayotzinapa] students is a crime that has shocked the world,” AI Americas director Erika Guevara Rosas said. “This tragedy has changed the distorted perception that the human rights situation has been improving in Mexico since President [Enrique] Peña Nieto took power” in 2012.

Criticism is also starting to increase in the US, whose government and media have strongly backed Peña Nieto in the past. The Mexican government’s account of the Ayotzinapa abductions “isn’t a historical truth,” José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director of US-based Human Right Watch (HRW), said recently. “It’s an official version.” The website of the influential weekly The New Yorker has carried five articles so far on the Ayotzinapa case by novelist Francisco Goldman. The latest, posted on Feb. 7, details the many questions raised by the official account of the abduction of the students. (AI press release 1/22/15; New Yorker 2/7/15; Jurist 2/13/15)

In related news, the cousin of a disappearance victim was murdered around noon on Feb. 13 in Iguala de la Independencia, the Guerrero city that was the site of the September attack on the Ayotzinapa students. Two men on a motorcycle gunned Norma Angélica Bruno Román down in front of her three children as they were on the way to a cemetery for the burial of another murder victim, José Ramón Bernabé Armenta, who had been killed two days earlier. Initial reports said Bruno Román was an activist with the local Committee of Forced Disappearance Victims; the committee is also known as “The Other Disappeared,” since it deals with victims other than the missing 43 students. The group clarified later that Bruno Román had participated in the group’s activities in her search for her cousin, Ivette Melissa Flores Román, who has been missing since she was abducted from her home the night of Oct. 24, 2012. However, Bruno Román wasn’t part of the group, and committee members felt her murder wasn’t connected to their work. (Proceso (Mexico) 2/13/15; LJ 2/14/15)

*4. Haiti: New General Strike Shuts Down Capital
A general strike by Haitian transit workers and opposition groups paralyzed Port-au-Prince and some other cities Feb. 9-10 in a protest against high fuel prices and the government of President Michel Joseph Martelly. With most forms of public transportation shut down, the capital’s streets were empty except for rocks and burning tires that strike supporters set up as barricades; some streets were turned into improvised soccer fields. People generally stayed home, and most government offices, businesses, banks and schools were closed. There was little violence, although one police agent, Ravelin Yves André, reportedly received a stab wound in the impoverished Cité Soleil sector while trying to remove burning tires.

Petit-Goâve and Miragoâne in South department observed the strike, while Cap-Haïtien in North department and Les Cayes in South department mostly ignored it the first day, according to media reports. There was more strike activity in Cap-Haïtien the second day, while a few people went back to work in Port-au-Prince, where the government provided some free bus service.

This was the second general strike in a week over fuel prices [see Update #1254]. A two-day strike called by transit workers for Feb. 2-3 ended after one day when the government agreed to lower gasoline prices from 215 gourdes to 195 gourdes (about US$4.58 to US$4.15) for a gallon, with corresponding reductions for diesel fuel and kerosene. But the second general strike was more political, with support from such opposition groups as the Patriotic Force for Respect for the Constitution (FOPARC), which backs the Family Lavalas (FL) party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004). The government refused to consider the protesters’ demand for a price reduction of 100 gourdes (about US$2.17). Officials said the country needed to pay off some of a large debt for the oil it has acquired through Venezuela’s Petrocaribe program. But many people disagreed. “We are poor, we cannot live anymore,” a driver of one of the minibuses known as tap-taps complained to a reporter. “Gasoline prices are falling worldwide, so it should be the same here in Haiti.” (AlterPresse (Haiti) 2/9/15, 2/10/15, 2/10/15; Reuters 2/10/15)

*5. Dominican Republic: Was Haitian Man Lynched?
The body of a Haitian immigrant, Claude (“Tulile”) Jean Harry, was found hanging from a tree in Ercilia Pepín Park in Santiago de los Cabelleros, the capital of the northern Dominican province of Santiago, on Feb. 11. Dominican police spokespeople say they are working on the theory that Jean Harry was killed to prevent him from testifying about the Feb. 9 murder of Altagracia Díaz Ventura. According to the police, Díaz Ventura was killed by her sister-in-law, Annery Núñez, who then stole the victim’s money and furniture. Jean Harry did odd jobs in the area; he may have been paid to help move the furniture and could have found out about the murder. Annery Núñez had turned herself into the police as of Feb. 15.

Haitian immigrants and human rights organization questioned the police version, noting the increase in anti-Haitian sentiment following a September 2013 Constitutional Tribunal (TC) ruling that deprived thousands of Haitian-descended Dominicans of citizenship [see Update #1253]. “Nobody knows yet the reason behind the lynching, but it comes in the context of constant discrimination and violence against Haitians,” the Robert F Kennedy Center for Human Rights’ Santiago Canton said. Jean Harry was murdered just hours after a group of Dominicans publicly burned the Haitian flag in Santiago. As of Feb. 13 the authorities said they had arrested five members of the group. (The Guardian (UK) 2/12/15 from correspondent; AlterPresse (Haiti) 2/13/15; El Nuevo Diario (Dominican Republic) 2/15/15)

*6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, US/immigration

Latin America: Solidarity and Accompaniment
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Solidarity-and-Accompaniment-20150208-0008.html

Washington’s Prying Eyes (Latin America)
https://nacla.org/article/washington%E2%80%99s-prying-eyes

Editor's Note: last print edition of NACLA's Report on the Americas (Latin America)
https://nacla.org/article/editor%27s-note

Investigation Into Argentine President Will Resume
http://latindispatch.com/2015/02/13/investigation-into-argentine-president-will-resume/

Argentina Wins British Victory in Vulture Funds Battle
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Argentina-Wins-British-Victory-in-Vulture-Funds-Battle-20150214-0013.html

Argentina: Chinese spaceport plan protested
http://ww4report.com/node/13979

Can Bolivia Chart a Sustainable Path Away From Capitalism?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5212-can-bolivia-chart-a-sustainable-path-away-from-capitalism-

Peruvian Youth Celebrates Victory Over Government and Big Business’ Ley Pulpín
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/5213-peruvian-youth-celebrates-victory-over-government-and-big-business-ley-pulpin

Peru’s Media-Friendly Mining Ban Conceals Toxic Inaction
https://nacla.org/article/peru%E2%80%99s-media-friendly-mining-ban-conceals-toxic-inaction

Peru: protests against PlusPetrol turn deadly
http://ww4report.com/node/13974

Deep in the Amazon, a Tiny Tribe Is Beating Big Oil (Ecuador)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5214-deep-in-the-amazon-a-tiny-tribe-is-beating-big-oil-

Colombia: Urgent Action: Afro-descendant leaders threatened
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR23/006/2015/en/60719a46-80d6-4ca7-b4b7-18c6bc6e360a/amr230062015en.html

Venezuela Coup Thwarted
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Evidence-Reveals-Canada-UK-Involvement-in-Venezuela-Coup-Plot-20150213-0035.html

Hector Navarro: I’m Encouraging a Rebellion at the Bases of the PSUV (Venezuela)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11209

How US 'Free Trade' Policies Created the Central American Migration Crisis
www.thenation.com/blog/197313/how-us-free-trade-policies-created-central-american-migration-crisis

UN Registered Barro Blanco Hydroelectric Dam Temporarily Suspended Over Non-Compliance With Environmental Impact Assessment (Panama)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/un-registered-barro-blanco-hydroelectric-dam-temporarily-suspended-non-compliance-environmental-impact-assessment/

Salvadorans Demand Trial for Former Right-Wing President
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Salvadorans-Demand-Trial-for-Former-Right-Wing-President-20150213-0036.html

Did Bill O'Reilly Cover Up a War Crime in El Salvador?
www.thenation.com/blog/197401/did-bill-oreilly-cover-war-crime-el-salvador

Daniel’s Story: A Mother’s Memories of an Ayotzinapa Victim (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/daniels-story-a-mothers-memories-of-an-ayotzinapa-victim/

Mexican Teachers Take to the Streets Again
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/mexican-teachers-take-to-the-streets-again/

Divisadero: Tierra Nativa Raramuri (Mexico)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/divisadero-tierra-nativa-raramuri/

Paved With Bad Intentions: The Ñatho (Otomí) Struggle Against the Toluca-Naucalpan Super Highway (Mexico)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/paved-bad-intentions/

How to Close Guantanamo (Cuba)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14563

CEP Proposes Legislative Elections in July, Presidential in October (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/cep-proposes-legislative-elections-in-july-presidential-in-october

Americas Program Policy Report: Border Drones a Financial and Policy Bust (US/immigration)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14573

Radically Reshaping Latina/o America (US/immigration)
https://nacla.org/article/radically-reshaping-latinao-america

Washington Police Shooting Ingites a Cross-Border Controversy (US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/washington-police-shooting-ingites-a-cross-border-controversy/

For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/

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/

WNU #1252: Argentine Prosecutor Dies in “Suicide”

Issue #1252, January 25, 2015

1. Argentina: AMIA Prosecutor Dies in “Suicide”
2. Argentina: Many Are Suspected in AMIA Coverup
3. Mexico: More PEMEX Contract Scandals Exposed
4. Guatemala: Top Cop Convicted in Embassy Fire
5. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, US/immigration

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.

Note: The Update is ceasing publication on Feb. 15. In each of the remaining issues we will try to include some updated information on stories we covered in the past.

*1. Argentina: AMIA Prosecutor Dies in “Suicide”
Argentine federal prosecutor Natalio Alberto Nisman was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment late on Jan. 18 with a gunshot wound to his head. Nisman had filed a 289-page criminal complaint on Jan. 14 charging that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman and eight others, including two Iranians, had acted to cover up the alleged role of the Iranian government in the July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires [see World War 4 Report 1/19/15]. The bombing, which left 85 dead and some 300 injured, is considered the deadliest anti-Semitic attack carried out anywhere since World War 2. Nisman’s death came the day before he was to testify to the National Congress about the charges.

Nisman’s body was found in his locked apartment by his mother and agents from his 10-member security detail after the prosecutor failed to answer phone calls; he was lying next to the .22-caliber handgun used to shoot him. Investigators initially suggested suicide, as did President Fernández in a Facebook posting on Jan. 20. But evidence emerged later that undercut the suicide hypothesis: Nisman had not appeared suicidal; there was no note; gunpowder traces weren’t detected on Nisman’s hands; a locksmith disputed claims that two entrances to the apartment were locked; and a previously unnoticed third entrance was discovered. Reversing her earlier position, Fernández wrote on Jan. 22 that the prosecutor had probably been murdered. (New York Times 1/22/15, 1/23/15 from correspondents; InfoBAE (Argentina) 1/22/15)

In October 2006 Nisman--who was appointed to head the AMIA inquiry by former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), Fernández’s late husband--formally charged the Lebanese organization Hezbollah with carrying out the AMIA bombing and the Iranian government with ordering it. In January 2013 Argentina and Iran signed an agreement for a joint investigation into the attack [see Update #1195]. Nisman opposed the deal, as did Jewish community leaders, who felt this would impede prosecution of the Iranian suspects. An Argentine appeals court ruled the agreement unconstitutional on May 15, 2014, although the government has appealed the decision [see World War 4 Report 5/18/14].

In his Jan. 14 complaint, based in part on intercepted phone calls, Nisman accused the presidency and people close to Fernández of working to negate the charges against Iran in exchange for trade deals. In addition to President Fernández and Foreign Minister Timerman, Nisman named legislative deputy Andrés “Cuervo” Larroque; Luis D’Elía, a leader in the leftist Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA) and the piquetero (“picketer”) unemployed movement who is close to the government [see Update #975]; Fernando Esteche, the leader of the far-left group Quebracho [see Update #960]; Héctor Yrimia, a former prosecutor in the AMIA case; Mohsen Rabbani, a former cultural attaché to the Iranian embassy suspected of masterminding the bombing [see Update #1124]; and Jorge “Yussuf” Khalil, an Iranian community leader in Buenos Aires. The complaint included transcripts of phone conversations between D’Elía and Khalil. (Todo Noticias (Argentina) 1/15/15, 1/23/15; NYT 1/22/15 from correspondents)

Fernández supporters noted that Nisman had close relations with the US embassy in Buenos Aires, according to US diplomatic cables released by the Wikileaks group in 2010, and that he followed advice from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs (OIA). It seems that Nisman regularly notified the embassy in advance about his legal moves. A confidential diplomatic cable dated May 19, 2009, notes that Nisman advised the embassy of his request for the indictment of a new AMIA suspect the day before he submitted the request to the judge in the case, Rodolfo Canicoba Corra. (Buenos Aires Herald 1/16/15)

In related news, at least 10 people were injured the night of Jan. 18-19 when a crowd chanting anti-Semitic slogans attacked a hostel in Lago Puelo in the southern province of Chubut, beating and robbing Israeli tourists. The hostel’s owner, Sergio Polak, said the crowd also hurled rocks and Molotov bombs and fired shots. Attacks on the hostel “started in March or April last year,” he said. “We connect it with the campaign going on for a while on the subject of Israeli tourism. They say [the guests] are Israeli soldiers.” The attack reportedly went on for hours because the local police didn’t have enough agents on hand. There were about 10 assailants, identified as neighbors of the hostel. Initially no one was arrested, but a local radio station reported later that the attackers were “at the disposition of justice.” (La Nación (Argentina) 1/21/15 from Agencia DyN)

*2. Argentina: Many Are Suspected in AMIA Coverup
While the US media focused on the late Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s Jan. 14 charges against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, many people have been accused over the years of blocking the investigation into the deadly 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building. The people suspected include a former president, a judge, an intelligence chief, and officials of two foreign governments. After an inquiry that has gone on for 21 years under several different governments, Argentine prosecutors have still not won a single conviction in the case.

In May 2008 Nisman charged former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) with impeding the initial investigation during his presidency. In March 2012 federal judge Ariel Lijo ordered Menem to stand trial on the charges, along with the judge who headed the original investigation, Juan José Galeano; intelligence service directors Hugo Anzorreguy and Juan Carlos Anchezar; and two commanders of the federal police [see Update #1124]. The trial still hasn’t taken place. Formerly an opponent of President Fernández, Menem is now a political ally and seems to be having a relatively easy time in the courts. He is also implicated in the government's clandestine sales of 6,500 tons of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995. In March 2013 an appeals court found him guilty of “aggravated smuggling,” but he currently enjoys immunity as a senator for La Rioja province [see Updates #1097, 1167].

Menem was allied with the US government while he was president, and the US embassy was clearly upset when Nisman filed charges against him in the AMIA case. Nisman apologized for not giving the embassy advance warning, according to a May 27 confidential cable obtained by the Wikileaks group. Then-US ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne, now the ambassador to Mexico, complained in another confidential cable two days later that the Menem charges “could complicate international efforts to bring the Iranian indictees to justice.” “Nisman may still be currying favor from the Casa Rosada [Argentina’s presidential palace] with a view to a favorable judicial appointment in the future,” Wayne claimed. The May 27 cable emphasized the US government’s interest in keeping the investigation centered on Iran and away from Menem: “Legatt officers [legal attachés] have for the past two years recommended to Nisman that he focus on the perpetrators of the terrorist attack and not on the possible mishandling of the first investigation.” (Buenos Aires Herald 1/16/15)

Although never formally charged, another coverup suspect is Antonio Horacio Stiles, better known as “Jaime Stiusso” (or “Stiuso”), the director of operations for the federal Intelligence Service (SI) until Fernández replaced him in December. Stiusso entered intelligence work in 1972, serving under the highly repressive 1976-1983 military junta and then under all governments since the restoration of democracy. He is said to have been close to Nisman, and also to have worked closely with Israel’s Mossad and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Stiusso seemed to have a great deal of power in the government. Then-justice minister Gustavo Beliz had to resign his post on July 25, 2004 after tangling with the intelligence director. Beliz went on television the same day to charge that Stiusso had “messed up” the AMIA investigation. Beliz also said Argentina’s intelligence apparatus was a “black hole,” a “parallel state” and a “secret police without any controls,” and he described Stiusso as someone “the whole world fears because they say he’s dangerous and can have you killed.” (La Nación (Argentina) 12/18/14; El País (Madrid) 1/25/15)

Although the Iranian government would obviously have reasons to block the inquiry if Iranian officials were involved in the AMIA bombing, there have also been accusations against Israeli officials. In January 2014 former Israeli ambassador to Argentina Yitzhak Aviran (1993-2000) announced that his country had killed most of the perpetrators of the attack. “The vast majority of the guilty parties are in another world, and this is something we did,” he said. Argentine foreign minister Héctor Timerman noted that Aviran’s comments “would imply that Israel hid information from Argentine courts, blocking new evidence from appearing.” Timerman demanded that Aviran tell Argentine prosecutors whether Israel had further information [see Update #1205].

Some Argentines noted that suspect “suicides” like Nisman’s are hardly unprecedented in the country [see Update #454]. Claims of suicide have been questioned in at least five other cases, all of which took place during Menem’s presidency or involved Menem or people close to him. In three of the cases, the victim was about to testify or was considering doing so.

Former Customs head Brig. Gen. Rodolfo Echegoyen (or Etchegoyen) was shot in the head in his studio in December 1990; as in the Nisman case, there were no traces of gunpowder on his hands. Echegoyen was reportedly investigating the Edcadassa company, owned by members of the Yoma family, former in-laws of then-president Menem. Postal magnate and former Menem associate Alfredo Yabrán was found dead of apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds in one of his country estates in May 1998; he was sought for questioning in the January 1997 murder of photojournalist José Luis Cabezas, who had been investigating Yabrán’s business activities. Naval captain Horacio Pedro Estrada was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment in August 1998; again, no traces of gunpowder were found, and the right-handed Estrada was shot in the left side of his head. Estrada was reportedly considering testifying in the case of illegal arms sales to Ecuador and Croatia. Also in August 1998, Marcelo Cattáneo was found hanging in an abandoned structure on a Buenos Aires university campus; he was charged with paying bribes in a corruption case involving the state-owned Banco Nacion bank and IBM, the US computer giant. His family expressed doubts about the suicide hypothesis. Lourdes di Natale, once a secretary to former Menem in-law Emir Yoma, supposedly fell or jumped to her death from her apartment’s balcony while drunk in March 2003, but no alcoholic beverage was found in her apartment and the amount of alcohol in her blood should have made her incapable of getting on the balcony. She was about to testify in the case of the smuggled arms. (Diario Uno (Argentina) 6/18/12; Página 12 (Argentina) 1/20/15)

*3. Mexico: More PEMEX Contract Scandals Exposed
Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico’s giant state-owned oil monopoly, signed contracts worth $149 billion with outside companies from 2003 to 2012, according to a Jan. 23 investigative report by the Reuters wire service; about 8% of these contracts were cited by a congressional watchdog, the Chamber of Deputies’ Federal Audit Office (ASF), as having irregularities “ranging from overcharging for shoddy work to outright fraud,” Reuters’ reporters wrote. The problems involved more than 100 contracts with a total value of $11.7 billion.

Reuters’ revelations appeared as Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto was pushing ahead with an “energy reform” program to open up the country’s petroleum industry to still more contracts with private firms. Praised by the US government and media, the program is unpopular with many Mexicans, who see it as a form of disguised privatization. Two major scandals implicating PEMEX contractors came to light last year, one involving Oceanografía SA de CV and the US banking corporation Citigroup Inc., the other involving the California-based technology company Hewlett-Packard (HP) [see Update #1239].

PEMEX officials rarely act to correct the contract problems, according to Reuters. From 2008 to 2012 the ASF sent PEMEX 274 recommendations to take action on the irregularities. PEMEX’s response so far has been to suspend a few employees in just three of the cases; the rest of the recommendations were dismissed or are still awaiting action. The government plans to establish a new independent auditing office for the enterprise to resolve this problem, but past performance by PEMEX auditors leads to skepticism. One example was the case of sales to Brazilian chemical maker Unigel SA. From to 2009 to 2011 PEMEX’s petrochemicals subsidiary sold the Brazilian company a chemical at an unexplained discount that cost the Mexican enterprise $24.2 million. PEMEX internal auditors flagged the problem, but the head auditor advised his colleagues to “work with the director of PEMEX Petrochemicals to attend to and answer [our] recommendations, with the aim of avoiding them becoming definitive issues.” The PEMEX officials who approved the deal weren’t disciplined; one now works for Unigel.

“PEMEX’s taxes and dividends finance about 30 percent of the federal budget,” Reuters noted. “Contract abuse at the oil giant eats into the government’s ability to fund services from healthcare to road building.” (Business Insider 1/23/15 from Reuters)

Meanwhile, PEMEX and the overall Mexican economy are being hurt by plunging oil prices on international markets. As of Jan. 23 PEMEX’s oil was selling at $38.03 a barrel, its lowest price since June 2009. (La Jornada (Mexico) 1/24/15). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects a growth rate of 3.2% for Mexico this year and 3.5% for 2016, a little below its projections for the world as a whole--3.5% in 2015 and 3.7% in 2016. (Forbes México 1/20/15 from Reuters)

*4. Guatemala: Top Cop Convicted in Embassy Fire
On Jan. 19 Guatemala’s High Risk Court B convicted former police chief Pedro García Arredondo of the deaths of 37 people in a fire at the Spanish embassy in Guatemala City on Jan. 31, 1980 [see Update #1237]. García Arredondo was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the fire and 50 years for the deaths of two students; he is already serving a 70-year sentence for the killing of a student. The fire broke out when police stormed the embassy, which had been occupied by indigenous and campesino protesters from El Quiché department; the police blocked the doors and refused to let firefighters enter. The victims included the Spanish consul, two of his employees, a former Guatemalan vice president, a former Guatemalan foreign relations minister, and 22 El Quiché campesinos; one was Vicente Menchú, the father of 1992 Nobel peace prize winner Rigoberta Menchú Tum.

The rightwing government of President Otto Pérez Molina, who was a military officer at the time of the fire, said it respected the court’s decision. A note from the Foreign Relations Ministry expressed regret for the deaths of “famous Spanish people and Guatemalans.” “These situations cannot be repeated,” the note added. The Spanish Foreign Ministry wrote that the Spanish government “expresses its satisfaction and congratulates the Guatemalan justice system for having, 35 years later, judged these acts in accordance with the laws and with respect for due process.” (Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 1/20/15 from AFP; Prensa Latina 1/20/15)

As of Jan. 13 Judge Carol Patricia Flores had ordered a medical examination for former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-83) to determine whether he can attend his new trial for genocide against Ixil Mayans in El Quiché department. He failed to appear at a hearing on Jan. 12 to discuss administrative issues in the trial. Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide and sentenced to 80 years in prison on May 10, 2013, but the Constitutional Court threw the verdict out 10 days later [see Update #1178]. A new trial started on Jan. 5 but was immediately suspended because of a defense challenge to one of the judges, Jeannette Valdez, on the grounds that she had written her 2004 doctoral thesis about the genocide. (La Nación (Costa Rica) 1/13/15 from AFP)

*5. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, US/immigration

Commodity boom extracting increasingly heavy toll on Amazon forests (South America)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5191-commodity-boom-extracting-increasingly-heavy-toll-on-amazon-forests-

New Evidence Raises Questions About Death of Argentine Prosecutor
http://latindispatch.com/2015/01/22/new-evidence-raises-questions-about-death-of-argentine-prosecutor/

Prosecutor’s Death a Test for Argentine Democracy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/5192-prosecutors-death-a-test-for-argentine-democracy

La Legua: Building Community in Small Spaces (Chile)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14486

In Memoriam: Pedro Lemebel (Chile)
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/23/memoriam-pedro-lemebel

Bolivian Socialist Funds Election Campaign by Selling Potatoes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5188-bolivian-socialist-funds-election-campaign-by-selling-potatoes

Ecuador: Waorani warriors on trial in oil-field raid
http://ww4report.com/node/13925

Chevron Crowned as World's Worst Company for the Environment (Ecuador)
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Chevron-Crowned-as-Worlds-Worst-Company-for-the-Environment-20150123-0024.html

Ecuador: The “Citizens’ Revolution” vs Social Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/5189-ecuador-the-citizens-revolution-vs-social-movements

Social Movements Demand ¨Maximum Sentence¨ for Indigenous Leader’s Murderer as Trial Continues (Venezuela)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11165

El Salvador: Pardon Granted For One of 17 Women Jailed for Miscarriage, Accused of Homicide
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/el-salvador-archives-74/5198-el-salvador-pardon-granted-for-one-of-17-women-jailed-for-miscarraige

Evidence the DEA Attempted to Alter Testimony on Drug War Massacre in Honduras
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14509

Trial on Guatemala’s Spanish Embassy Fire Resumes Today: The Rest is History (Video)
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/19/trial-guatemala%E2%80%99s-spanish-embassy-fire-resumes-today-rest-history-video

2015 US Appropriations Act Maintains Restrictions On US Military Aid To Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5186-2015-us-appropriations-act-maintains-restrictions-on-us-military-aid-to-guatemala

Mexico: Ayotzinapa, Emblem of the Twenty-First Century Social Order
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/5193-mexico-ayotzinapa-emblem-of-the-twenty-first-century-social-order

Forced Disappearances Are Humanitarian Crisis in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5195-forced-disappearances-are-humanitarian-crisis-in-mexico

Lopez Obrador Back on the Battlefield (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/lopez-obrador-back-on-the-battlefield/

Vanished in Vallarta (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/vanished-in-vallarta/

Mexico: cops arrested in 'disappearance' of reporter
http://ww4report.com/node/13920

Cuba, U.S. Agree on Diplomacy, Clash Over Human Rights During Historic Talks
http://latindispatch.com/2015/01/23/cuba-u-s-agree-on-diplomacy-clash-over-human-rights-during-historic-talks/

The Cuban Opening and the Struggles for a New Social Order
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5194-the-cuban-opening-and-the-struggles-for-a-new-social-order

Security Council Arrives in Haiti as New Electoral Commission is Announced
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/security-council-arrives-in-haiti-as-new-electoral-commission-is-announced

New Tools for Assessing Progress in Haiti Reconstruction and Development
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/new-tools-for-assessing-progress-in-haiti-reconstruction-and-development

Is USAID Helping Haiti to Recover, or US Contractors to Make Millions?
www.thenation.com/article/195673/usaid-helping-haiti-recover-or-us-contractors-make-millions

Over 17,000 Mexican Children Attempt to Enter US Every Year (US/immigration)
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Over-17000-Mexican-Children-Attempt-to-Enter-US-Every-Year-20150123-0019.html

The Israel-Mexico Border: How Israeli High-Tech Firms Are Up-Armoring the U.S.-Mexico Border
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/27/israel-mexico-border

Joining our struggles to build another world: 10 years of horizontal organising in El Barrio, New York (US/immigration)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14495

For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/

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/

WNU #1249: Chile Court Hands Barrick Gold a New Setback

Issue #1249, January 4, 2015

1. Chile: Court Rejects New Pascua Lama Appeal
2. Colombia: OAS Court Rules on Palace of Justice Deaths
3. Colombia: Rights Suits Against US Firms Dismissed
4. Haiti: Martelly Names New Prime Minister
5. Puerto Rico: More Cleanup Needed for Vieques
6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico

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.

Note: The Update is ceasing publication on Feb. 15. In each of the remaining issues we will try to include some updated information on stories we covered in the past.

*1. Chile: Court Rejects New Pascua Lama Appeal
The Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation, the world’s largest gold producer, faced another setback to its mammoth Pascua Lama gold and silver mine [see Update #1198] in late December when Chile’s Supreme Court rejected its appeal of a lower court’s decision on environmental fines. Barrick’s Chilean subsidiary, Compañía Minera Nevada SPA, was disputing an environmental court’s March 2013 ruling that a fine the government’s Environmental Bureau had imposed on Barrick was inadequate. In a decision announced on Dec. 30, a Supreme Court panel rejected the appeal on a technicality: the justices held that Minera Nevada wasn’t a party to the original case and therefore couldn’t appeal the environmental court’s ruling.

Situated high in the Andes on both sides of the border between Argentina and Chile, the Pascua Lama project, planned as one of the world’s largest gold and silver mines, has been met with numerous challenges from environmentalists and local communities, especially over the risks it is said to represent for Andean glaciers. The challenges have been especially effective in Chile, where Barrick is currently facing fines of more than $16 million for violations by the project. The company suspended construction in November 2013 but has indicated that it hopes to restart construction of the mine.

In a statement dated Dec. 31, a group of 10 local and environmental organizations opposing the mine said the Supreme Court decision was “an important step and once again ratifies our objectives, which are the revocation of the environmental permit [for the construction] and the definitive closing of the Pascua Lama project…. Irreparable damage has been done in our mountain range; we will not accept any monetary fine; this doesn’t bring any solution to the constantly irresponsible and criminal attitude of the Barrick mining company in our territory.” (El Mostrador Mercados (Chile) 12/31/14; Wall Street Journal 12/31/14; Piensa Chile 1/3/15)

*2. Colombia: OAS Court Rules on Palace of Justice Deaths
On Dec. 10 the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CorteIDH), an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), notified the Colombian government that the court held it responsible for serious human rights violations in its handling of the seizure of the Palace of Justice by the Apr. 19 Movement (M-19) rebel group on Nov. 6, 1985. The violations included 11 forced disappearances, four cases of torture, one extrajudicial execution and negligence in the investigation of the security forces’ retaking of the building one day later, on Nov. 7, an operation in which more than 100 people died, mostly hostages and rebels. The court ordered the Colombian government to pay compensation to the victims, offer a formal and public apology, and produce a documentary explaining what happened.

Apparently the M-19, which demobilized in 1991, planned to use the Palace of Justice takeover to stage a trial of then-president Belisario Betancur (1982–1986) for problems in the government’s peace negotiations with the group. Military intelligence was aware of the rebels’ plans but failed to provide protection for the building. After a commando of 35 M-19 fighters seized the Palace of Justice, the government refused to hold substantive negotiations. Instead, President Betancur gave military commanders permission to storm the building with soldiers, police and armored vehicles. Almost all of the rebels died in the assault, along with 11 of the 25 justices of the Supreme Court and dozens of other hostages. The building caught on fire and was largely destroyed, as were thousands of court documents.

At the end of the assault, the military seized a group of survivors, including visitors, workers from the cafeteria and one rebel, Irma Franco, calling them “suspects.” Franco was killed, and 11 of the survivors have never reappeared. The military also tortured four people, and tortured and then executed a magistrate, Carlos Horacio Urán; his body was placed back in the building to make it appear that he was killed in crossfire. (Colombia Reports 12/10/14; Univision 12/15/14; Adital (Brazil) 12/17/14, some from Verdad Abierta;

The government has never accepted its responsibility in the violence. “The judicial institutions…for nearly 30 years have obstructed the investigations, in favor of the perpetrators,” Viviana Krsticevic, executive director of the nongovernmental Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), wrote after the decision was released. In recent years the government finally prosecuted two of the top commanders: retired colonel Alfonso Plazas Vega was sentenced in June 2010 to 30 years in prison for his involvement in the case of the 11 people disappeared [see World War 4 Report, 6/20/14], and retired general Jesús Armando Arias Cabrales received a 35-year sentence in April 2011 for the disappearances. However, efforts are under way to have Col. Plazas’ conviction overturned.

The Colombian government announced that it would comply with the CorteIDF’s orders. “If this promise is respected,” Krsticevic wrote, “the case of the Palace of Justice will mark a ‘before’ and ‘after’ for Colombia.” (Semana (Colombia) 04/29/11; Colombia Reports 12/10/14; Univision 12/15/14)

In late December the Colombian government’s Unit for Comprehensive Attention and Reparation for Victims of the Armed Conflict issued its first official list of victims from the last 30 years of internal fighting. The agency put the total at 6.8 million, about one-seventh of the country’s 48 million inhabitants. Of these, 86% are people who were forcibly displaced, according to the group’s director, Paula Gaviria. The remaining 14% are “victims of threats, homicide, forced disappearance; and, in a lower proportion, of kidnapping, sexual violence, plundering or neglect of goods, wounding, torture, forced recruitment of children, and attacks,” she said. Gaviria claims that the government is now actively working to return 4.7 million of the displaced to their homes or to compensate them in some other way. About 2.7 million of the victims blamed rebels groups for their victimization, 1.3 million blamed rightwing paramilitaries, 2.9 million didn’t assign blame, and only 28,833 blamed government security forces, according to Gaviria, who is a grandchild of former president Betancur. (El Tiempo (Colombia) 12/28/14)

*3. Colombia: Rights Suits Against US Firms Dismissed
On Dec. 15 the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district court judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit against the Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corporation by family members of three union leaders that the 18th Brigade of the Colombian National Army killed in 2004. In the suit, Saldana v. Occidental Petroleum Corp, the family members argued that under the 1789 Alien Tort Statute the US company shared responsibility for the killings by the Colombian military, which originally claimed that the three unionists were guerrilla fighters. Occidental’s Colombian subsidiary and the Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol together gave $6.3 million in assistance to the brigade; the companies said the aid was intended to help the brigade protect a pipeline near the border with Venezuela that rebel groups were attacking.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court, which is based in San Francisco, ruled in an unsigned opinion that the suit treated an inherently political question which couldn’t be argued in a US court. (New York Times 12/15/14 from Reuters)

This was the latest in a string of defeats for human rights suits since April 2013, when a US Supreme Court ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum severely restricted victims’ use of the Alien Tort Statute for abuses committed in foreign countries [see Updates #1187, 1205]. On Nov. 12 another 9th Circuit Court panel threw out a similar suit against Occidental and a US security contractor, AirScan, Inc., for the killing of 17 people, including six children, in the Colombian air force’s Dec. 13, 1998 cluster bomb attack on the village of Santo Domingo, Tame municipality, Arauca department. The 2-1 split decision cited the Kiobel case in dismissing the suit’s use of the Alien Tort Statue. The suit, Mujica et al v. AirScan Inc et al, also cited the Torture Victim Protection Act, but the court held that the law doesn’t apply to corporate defendants. The decision was written by Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, who as assistant US attorney general in 2002 produced--along with his deputy, John Yoo--the so-called “torture memo” justifying the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects. (Daily Mail (UK) 11/12/14 from Reuters)

On July 24 the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a 2007 suit against Charlotte, NC-based Chiquita Brands International Inc by some 4,000 Colombians whose relatives were killed by the rightwing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) [see Update #1193]. In 2007 Chiquita admitted to having paid out $1.7 million to the AUC over seven years; the US government fined the company $25 million for supporting a terrorist organization. In a 2-1 decision the 11th Circuit Court, which is based in Atlanta, ruled out the use of the Alien Tort Statute and, like the 9th Circuit Court, held that Torture Victim Protection Act only applies to people, not to corporations. The decision was written by Judge David Sentelle. Paul Wolf, who represents many of the plaintiffs, called the dismissal of the suit “another tragedy for the victims of the war, who have already been through so much.” (BBC News 7/24/14)

*4. Haiti: Martelly Names New Prime Minister
The heads of the three branches of the Haitian government reached an accord late on Dec. 29 aimed at heading off a constitutional crisis when the terms of one-third of the country’s senators expire on Jan. 12, leaving the Parliament without a quorum [see Update #1246]. The agreement—signed by Haitian president Michel Martelly, Senate president Simon Dieuseul Desras, Chamber of Deputies president Jacques Stevenson Thimoléon and Superior Council of the Judicial Branch (CSPJ) president Arnel Alexis Joseph—extends terms to April for current members of the Chamber of Deputies and to September for current senators. The term extension will be inserted into legislation amending the electoral law and will only take effect if Parliament passes it by Jan. 12. In the event that the long-stalled election law is passed, the government can proceed to form a new Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and schedule legislative, municipal and local elections, which have been delayed since 2011. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 12/30/14)

The agreement is one of several efforts by President Martelly’s government to counter a stream of militant opposition protests since the fall. On Dec. 25 Martelly nominated longtime politician Evans Paul to replace former prime minister Laurent Lamothe, a friend of the president’s who was pressured into resigning on Dec. 12. Paul started his political career as a radio journalist under the dictatorship of the late “president for life” Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Baby Doc,” 1971-1986). Using the name K-Plim--short for “Konpè Plim,” which is roughly equivalent to “Partner Pen” or “Brother Pen”--Paul was critical of the Duvalier regime and became an ally of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004), then a left-leaning Catholic priest. Elected Port-au-Prince mayor in 1990 as an Aristide supporter, Paul eventually became a bitter enemy of the former priest. (Reuters 12/15/14) In 2010, however, Paul joined an alliance some observers called “unnatural” because it brought together Aristide supporters and opponents in protests against then-president René Préval (1996-2001, 2006-2011) [see Update #1033].

Also as part of the concessions to the opposition, Martelly has released some 40 prisoners who the opposition says were jailed for their political activities. The latest was Jean Robert Vincent, arrested in February 2012, reportedly for distributing materials against the Martelly administration; he was freed on Dec. 30. The brothers Enold and Josué Florestal were released about two weeks before Vincent. The Florestals faced a murder accusation, but the charge came after they started a suit in August 2012 alleging corruption and misuse of titles by Martelly’s wife, Sophia Saint-Rémy, and his son, Olivier Martelly. The prisoner releases started in December, just one month after a Nov. 2 interview with TV5 Monde, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Le Monde in which Martelly said he wasn’t aware “that there are demonstrators in prison” or that there were political prisoners in Haiti. (AlterPresse 12/31/14)

In other news, Uruguay’s General Assembly has decided to reduce its contingent in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) by about 60%--from 605 to 250—between Feb. 28 and Dec. 31, according to the Spanish wire service EFE. Adopted unanimously by the Senate, the troop reduction measure was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on Dec. 29. Uruguay’s center-left government has indicated that a complete withdrawal of the troops is also possible, depending on circumstances. Activists in a number of South American countries have been campaigning for an end to their militaries’ participation in the mission, a military-police operation stationed in Haiti since June 2004 [see Update #1238]. (AlterPresse 12/30/14)

*5. Puerto Rico: More Cleanup Needed for Vieques
As of Dec. 11 authorities had closed the Playa Grande beach area in the western region of a national wildlife refuge on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques following the discovery of pieces of inactive munitions there. The US Environmental Protection Agency said the US Navy had removed a projectile, a mortar tail and other objects, although officials insisted that the materials didn’t pose any danger to visitors. The munitions are left over from the Navy’s use of Vieques for testing weapons from the 1940s until May 2003, when mass civil disobedience by Vieques residents and their supporters forced the Navy to withdraw. A total of 1,640 arrests were made from 1999 to 2003 as activists carried out militant protests, including a yearlong occupation of the bombing range. Federal judges handed down jail sentences to protesters totaling 26 years, along with fines totaling $50,980 [see Update #692].

Most of the territory used by the Navy was turned over to the US Department of the Interior in 2003, although the Vieques municipal government received a portion. Cleanup operations began in 2004. Over the past 10 years the US has spent about $220 million removing 28,000 objects, including munitions, bombs, other artifacts and residue from explosives. According to Pedro Pierluisi, the US Congress’s resident commissioner in Puerto Rico, Congress members are seeking an additional $17 million for cleanup efforts next year. Puerto Rican governance secretary Víctor Suárez said a delegation of US experts would be visiting to examine the possibility that new technology could be used to accelerate the cleanup effort. (Associated Press 12/11/14; Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 1/2/15)

*6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico

Torture Reports: Brazil and the United States Release Reports Documenting Systematic Human Rights Abuses
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/5165-torture-reports-brazil-and-the-united-states-release-reports-documenting-systematic-human-rights-abuses-

Indigenous Bolivia begins to shine under Morales
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5161-indigenous-bolivia-begins-to-shine-under-morales-

Peruvian Communities Reject COP 20 and Build the Movement of the People for El Buen Vivir
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/5164-peruvian-communities-reject-cop-20-and-build-the-movement-of-the-people-for-el-buen-vivir

Climate Change Threatens Quechua and Their Crops in Peru’s Andes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/5167-climate-change-threatens-quechua-and-their-crops-in-perus-andes

Why Is Ecuador Selling Its Economic and Environmental Future to China?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5160-why-is-ecuador-selling-its-economic-and-environmental-future-to-china-

Maduro Confirms Venezuelan Economy in Recession, Announces “Recovery Plan” for 2015
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11122

Former Guatemala Dictator to Stand Trial Again for Genocide
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Former-Guatemala-Dictator-to-Stand-Trial-Again-for-Genocide-20150103-0004.html

Remembering Guatemala’s First Genocide Conviction as the Trial Resumes Today
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/05/remembering-guatemala%E2%80%99s-first-genocide-conviction-trial-resumes-today

Maya Land Rights & Governance (Belize)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/maya-land-rights-governance/

The U.S. and Mexico: Hand-in-Hand in Human Rights Violations
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-u-s-and-mexico-hand-in-hand-in-human-rights-violations/

Complicity and Cover-Ups in Mexican Massacres (Audio)
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/30/complicity-and-cover-ups-mexican-massacres-audio

Chicago link to Mexican mass abduction?
http://ww4report.com/node/13862

Cuba: #YoTambienExijo and 'regime change'
http://ww4report.com/node/13868

A View on Cuba's Opening From the De Facto U.S. Colony of Puerto Rico
https://nacla.org/blog/2014/12/29/view-cuba-opening-de-facto-us-colony-puerto-rico

Dissecting the Drug War: New Book Charts Ways Global Capitalism Profits From "War on People" (US/policy)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/5166-dissecting-the-drug-war-new-book-charts-ways-global-capitalism-profits-from-qwar-on-peopleq

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://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/

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:
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