Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1067, February 13, 2011
1. Puerto Rico: University Professors Strike, President Resigns
2. Mexico: US Holds Murdered Activist’s Son and Granddaughter
3. Mexico: WikiLeaks Cables Treat “Drug War,” FARC Links
4. Guatemala: Cable Claims Zetas Are Taking Over the North
5. Haiti: US Liberals Push for Aristide’s Return
6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Puerto Rico: University Professors Strike, President Resigns
A confrontation between police and University of Puerto Rico (UPR) students on Feb. 9 at the Río Piedras campus in San Juan quickly escalated into what appeared to be the most violent event in two months of protests against an $800 tuition surcharge imposed this year [see Update #1066].
The day began with two separate demonstrations. A group of students started to paint protest slogans on a street inside the campus, while administrative workers, members of the Brotherhood of Exempt Non-Teaching Employees (HEEND), took over the office of UPR rector Ana Guadalupe to demand the removal of the police from campus. Police agents attempted to photograph the student protesters, who claimed they were exercising their constitutional right to free speech. Shoving matches led to beatings and the use of pepper spray by helmeted riot police. Agents arrived on horseback and motorcycles while a helicopter circled over the campus. The students fled, but then regrouped twice and fought back against the police as many other students joined the protest. Outside supporters of the students organized two marches into the campus.
By the evening there were reports that 23 students had been arrested and 14 agents were injured, as were an unknown number of students; some agents, students and journalists had been splashed with the paint that was intended for writing slogans. Students hung a banner from the campus’ landmark tower reading: “We will win.” (WAPA-TV (Puerto Rico) 2/9/11, some from CyberNews; Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 2/9/11; Indymedia PR 2/10/11; NCM Noticias 2/13/11 via Indymedia PR)
There are indications that the conservative administration of Gov. Luis Fortuño had made plans to escalate the violence, even though police tactics in earlier protests had already brought charges of brutality and sexual abuse. The Puerto Rican Association of University Professors (APPU), which represents UPR professors, said it had information about a high-level meeting on Feb. 7 in which it was remarked that “everything was turning out well” in the UPR crisis and that “all that’s missing” is a death to blame on the students. (NCM Noticias 2/13/11)
If the Puerto Rican government was trying to provoke an incident, the tactic misfired badly. Even police superintendent José Figueroa Sancha admitted in a radio interview that the police response had been excessive. The APPU and the HEEND called a 24-hour strike for Feb. 10 to protest the police presence on UPR campuses and to shut down Río Piedras in order to prevent more violence. Campus maintenance workers joined the strike, which was extended through Feb. 11 despite the university’s announcement that it would dock the strikers’ pay. (Prensa Latina 2/11/11)
As the strike was in progress on Feb. 10, UPR president José Ramón de la Torre sent a letter to police superintendent Figueroa Sancha requesting “the withdrawal of the police from the University of Puerto Rico.” De la Torre, who had previously supported the police presence, then resigned “for family reasons.” The resignation was made official on Feb. 11. (El Nuevo Día (Guaynabo) 2/11/11; TeleSUR 2/12/11)
On Feb. 12, thousands of students and supporters turned out for “I Love the UPR,” a march to demand the withdrawal of the police. Supported by 72 social organizations and opposition political parties, the mass protest moved through San Juan streets, with motorists honking in support, and marched into the campus, with chants of “Out, out,” past police agents who were unable or unwilling to stop the procession. “If this is the minority, where is the majority?” protesters asked, referring to claims that only a small minority of students and other Puerto Ricans support the protests. Even former governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá (2005-2009) joined the march, although some protesters jeered him because of his efforts to break a teachers’ strike in 2008 [see Update #936].
“Whoever thinks this movement has run out of gas should look at this demonstration and think again,” Student Representative Committee (CRE) spokesperson Ian Camilo Cintrón told the crowd. “The police are in the university to guarantee a project for the privileged and the elite and not a project for the majority. What’s at stake here is accessibility for young people who can’t count on the resources to be able to come to this institution.” (END 2/13/11; NCM Noticias 2/13/11)
As the crisis continued in Puerto Rico, on Feb. 11 Gov. Fortuño was in Washington, DC, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The governor is considered a rising star in the US conservative movement, and Republican strategists feel he might help the party reach out to Latino voters. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is hoping for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, has mentioned Fortuño as a potential running mate. (Times of India 2/11/11 from AP; The Virginian-Pilot 2/8/11 from Politico)
Update, Feb. 14: Today Gov. Fortuño announced the partial removal of police agents from the Río Piedras campus. “The police shouldn’t be in the UPR,” he said. “They should be in the streets.” Agents were seen gathering their equipment and preparing to move out. (END 2/14/11)
*2. Mexico: US Holds Murdered Activist’s Son and Granddaughter
Friends of the Women of Juárez, an organization based in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has written US Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano to call for the release of three-year-old Mexican national Heidi Barraza Frayre and her uncle, Juan Manuel Frayre, to the care of relatives in El Paso, Texas. The granddaughter of slain Mexican activist Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, Heidi Frayre is in US custody while the government investigates whether her El Paso relatives will be able to care for her. She has been staying in a Houston shelter for immigrant children run by a Catholic charity. Juan Manuel Frayre, one of Escobedo’s sons, is in immigration detention in Chaparral, New México.
Heidi Frayre’s father, Rafael Barraza Bocanegra, confessed to murdering her mother, Rubí Marisol Frayre Escobedo, in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, in 2008, but a Chihuahua court ordered him released. Marisela Escobedo then devoted herself to caring for her granddaughter and to seeking justice for her daughter. She was gunned down last Dec. 16 while protesting in front of the main government office in the city of Chihuahua. After her husband’s lumber store was set on fire and her brother-in-law was kidnapped on the day of her funeral, Dec. 18 [see Update #1061], Escobedo’s brother and her two sons fled with Heidi Frayre to Texas, where they applied for asylum for themselves and their niece.
US immigration authorities released Escobedo’s brother and one of her sons pending a decision on their asylum claims but decided to hold Heidi and Juan Manuel Frayre. Luis Benjamin Lara Escobedo, director of protection for the Mexican Consulate in Houston, spoke with the child in late January. “She wanted to know when she could go back and play with her toys,” Lara, who is not related to the family, told the Houston Chronicle. (Houston Chronicle 2/2/11; El Paso Times (Spanish) 2/10/11)
Three relatives of another slain activist, Josefina Reyes, were kidnapped by armed men in Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, east of Ciudad Juárez, on Feb. 7. Reyes’ sister Malena, her brother Elías and Elías' wife, Luisa Ornelas, were traveling in a truck with Reyes’ mother, Sara Salazar, and Reyes’ small daughter. The armed men seized Ornelas and Malena and Elías Reyes and then drove off, leaving Salazar and the child by the side of the road.
Josefina Reyes was shot dead on Jan. 3, 2010; her brother Rubén was killed on Aug. 18. Amnesty International (AI) says Josefina Reyes was “active in protests against violence in the area being carried out by organized criminals and human rights violations committed by the military.” She participated in an August 2009 Forum on Militarization and Repression in Ciudad Juárez. AI called for Mexican authorities to “take urgent steps to find [the three kidnapping victims] while providing protection for [the] rest of the family." (AI 2/10/11)
Four Reyes Salazar family members began a hunger strike in front of the state prosecutor’s Ciudad Juárez office on Feb. 9 to demand that state and federal authorities work actively to rescue their kidnapped relatives. They warned that if the three were abandoned in a deserted area they might die from the cold wave hitting the region. The hunger strikers, who were being guarded by two state police patrol cars, said they planned to emigrate from Ciudad Juárez once their missing relatives were returned. (El Universal (Mexico) 2/10/11)
*3. Mexico: WikiLeaks Cables Treat “Drug War,” FARC Links
The left-of-center Mexican daily La Jornada announced on Feb. 10 that it had received some 3,000 US diplomatic cables from Sunshine Press Productions, which is presided over by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The cables deal with Mexican issues and provide “a window on the background and the tone of the bilateral relation between Mexico and the US,” La Jornada’s editors wrote. The paper said it “has taken on the task of reading, systematizing and treating [the material] journalistically.” (LJ 2/10/11)
The first article in the paper’s WikiLeaks series dealt with some 100 cables from the US consulate in Monterrey, in the northern state of Nuevo León, from 2007 into 2010. The cables, written by Consul Luis Moreno and his successor, Bruce Williamson, show growing doubts over the efficacy of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s effort to control drug trafficking in the northern states by bringing in the military. A Feb. 26, 2010 confidential cable describes metropolitan Monterrey as “Zeta territory,” referring to the Los Zetas drug gang. “Zeta influence here is longstanding and widespread throughout local and state government,” Williamson wrote. The consulate’s sources said former Nuevo León governor Natividad González Parás (2003-2009) was involved with another drug trafficking organization, the Sinaloa cartel.
The consulate was also concerned with the heavy arms being used by the drug traffickers, some of them with markings for US military equipment, including an M26 A2 fragmentation grenade thrown in an attack against the Monterrey station of the Televisa television network, along with 21 other grenades found in a gang’s arsenal. Apparently the grenades were part of a 1990 shipment from the US to the Salvadoran military, which the US was then backing against the rebel Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN). (LJ 2/10/11)
In response to the article, former governor González Parás denied charges that he was involved with the Sinaloa cartel. The current US consul in Monterrey, Nace Crawford, said that the cables from his predecessor were informal reports that do not reflect the policy of the US. (Prensa Latina 2/11/11)
On Feb. 13 La Jornada wrote about a Mar. 28, 2008 secret cable on alleged links between the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and leftist and criminal groups in Mexico. Media stories about FARC connections in Mexico picked up after four Mexicans, three of them students, were killed in a Mar. 1, 2008, bombing raid by the Colombian military against a FARC camp inside Ecuadorian territory. The Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) started an investigation of the four dead Mexicans and the one surviving Mexican, Lucía Morett Alvarez, on Mar. 3. Morett and the victims’ relatives said the students had been in Ecuador for a “Bolivarian Congress,” a meeting of Latin American leftists, and had decided to visit the FARC camp to observe it [see Update #939].
According to the cable, officials of Mexico’s Center for Investigations and National Security (CISEN) thought that in fact “[m]ost of the students attending the Bolivarian Congress in Quito shortly before the attack on the FARC camp were clearly political tourists.” A US agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), investigated charges that the FARC was supplying weapons to drug cartels or Mexican rebel groups like the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). These charges too did not hold up. “[T]here is no evidence that the FARC is supplying guns or ordnance to Mexican drug cartels, the EPR or any other groups in Mexico,” the ATF concluded, according to the cable. (LJ 2/13/11)
*4. Guatemala: Cable Claims Zetas Are Taking Over the North
Some 100 members of Los Zetas, a Mexican drug gang, had settled in the north central Guatemalan city of Cobán, capital of Alta Verapaz department, by early 2009 and were enjoying protection from “corrupt” police who were reportedly “allied with traffickers,” according to a Feb. 6, 2009 confidential diplomatic cable by US ambassador Stephen McFarland. The cable was one of about 3,000 US diplomatic cables from the WikiLeaks organization that were given to the Mexican daily La Jornada because they dealt with issues relating to Mexico. The Los Zetas gang grew out of a group of Mexican Special Forces soldiers, some of them reportedly trained in counterinsurgency by the US military.
The report was based on an investigation in Cobán by two US officials, who found that “some judges and prosecutors are too frightened to do their jobs properly; others are in league with the traffickers.” The police “sometimes even provide…escort” to the traffickers, the investigators said. One source told an investigator that “immigration authorities are helping the Zetas obtain Guatemalan passports and other documents to normalize their status in the country. The Zetas also are believed to operate a training camp in the area.” Another source “said Zetas freely use the airport, even during daylight hours.”
McFarland concluded the cable with a warning that the Guatemalan government had already lost control in six of the country’s 22 departments: “Zacapa and Izabal fepartments, as well as parts of Jutiapa, Chiquimula, San Marcos, and Petén departments.” “Without outside intervention, Cobán will join the growing list of areas lost to narcotraffickers,” McFarland wrote, without specifying what he meant by “outside intervention.” (LJ 2/13/11)
*5. Haiti: US Liberals Push for Aristide’s Return
On Feb. 7 Haiti’s Immigration and Emigration Service issued a diplomatic passport for former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004), who has lived in exile in South Africa since he was forced from office in 2004. The passport is good for five years, with an expiration date of Feb. 6, 2016. Aristide’s US lawyer, Ira Kurzban, arrived in Haiti several days earlier to pick up the document for his client. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 2/7/11)
It was not clear whether the US government would take steps to block the former president’s return. At a Feb. 9 news briefing in Washington, DC, State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley said the US “would hate to see” anything that might cause problems with Haiti’s presidential and legislative elections, now scheduled for Mar. 20 [see Update #1065]. “I think that we would be concerned that if former president Aristide returns to Haiti before the election, it would prove to be an unfortunate distraction,” he said. “The people of Haiti should be evaluating the two candidates that will participate in the runoff, and that I think that should be their focus.” (Voice of America 2/9/11)
A spokesperson for Aristide’s Lavalas Family (FL) party, Félix Ansyto, denounced the State Department position as “an intimidation maneuver.” “It’s not up to the US to know what’s going to disturb or not disturb the country,” he added. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 2/11/11) But Ira Kurzban seemed more optimistic about the US government, which flew Aristide out of the country in 2004, during the presidency of George W. Bush (2001-2009), a conservative Republican. Asked by Haiti’s Radio Métropole about relations with France and the US, Kurzban said that the new governments of these countries had a different view of the situation, presumably referring to current US president Barack Obama, a moderate Democrat. (Radio Métropole 2/11/11)
In fact, US liberals linked to the Democratic Party have been pushing for Aristide’s return. A number of liberal celebrities, including actor Harry Belafonte, civil rights veteran Rev. Jesse Jackson and film director Oliver Stone, signed a full-page ad, “Return Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti,” that ran in the Miami Herald on Jan. 23. Another signer was Dr. Paul Farmer, who serves as the deputy to United Nations special envoy for Haiti Bill Clinton, a former US president (1993-2001) and the husband of current secretary of state Hillary Clinton. (San Franciso Bay View 1/23/11)
An opinion piece in the British daily Guardian said that the current US policy on Haiti was also “meeting…resistance” from an important group of Democratic legislators, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). The CBC “forced then-President Bill Clinton to restore Aristide to the presidency in 1994,” according to the article. (Guardian 2/2/11) [The US returned Aristide to office in October 1994 after 20,000 US troops had occupied Haiti and Aristide had agreed to follow a neoliberal economic plan.]
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
International Speculation Culprit in Rising Food Prices
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3968
Bolivia: protests over food prices
http://ww4report.com/node/9476
Hundreds Protest against Ecuadorian Indigenous Leader’s Arrest
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2901-hundreds-protest-against-ecuadorian-indigenous-leaders-arrest-
Ecuador: Serious Concern Over the Misuse of Terrorism Charges
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2896-ecuador-serious-concern-over-the-misuse-of-terrorism-charges
Colombia’s FARC Releases Politician Taken In 2009 As Gesture Of Peace
http://latindispatch.com/2011/02/10/colombias-farc-releases-politician-taken-in-2009-as-gesture-of-peace/
Increasingly Broad Social Movements Fight Mining in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2897-increasingly-broad-social-movements-fight-mining-in-colombia
Liliany Obando: Political Prisoner in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2899-liliany-obando-political-prisoner-in-colombia-
January Reports Indicate Dismal Times Ahead for Colombia's 7,500 Political Prisoners
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2900-january-reports-indicate-dismal-times-ahead-for-colombias-7500-political-prisoners
As Egypt Attacks Press, teleSUR Staff in Cairo Detained, Threatened and Released (Venezuela)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5990
Venezuelan Workers March in Support of Government, Push for New Labor Law
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5992
February 2011 12:44 Central American Nations Seek 'Plan Central America'
http://insightcrime.org/insight-latest-news/item/545-central-american-nations-seek-plan-central-america
Democracy There, Democracy Here: Honduras
http://www.thenation.com/blog/158345/democracy-there-democracy-here-honduras
Labor Resistance in Post-Coup Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2898-labor-resistance-in-post-coup-honduras
Surviving the Sexist Genocide in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2903-surviving-the-sexist-genocide-in-guatemala
Don Samuel Ruíz, bishop who brokered Zapatista peace talks, dead at 86
http://ww4report.com/node/9463
Mexico - Don Samuel Ruiz García: From the People, Below and to the Left
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2902-mexico-don-samuel-ruiz-garcia-from-the-people-below-and-to-the-left
Three Teenagers Killed In Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; Two U.S. Citizens
http://latindispatch.com/2011/02/08/three-teenagers-killed-in-ciudad-juarez-mexico-two-u-s-citizens/
Virtual Warfare Escalates on U.S.-Mexico Border
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54388
US army high official invokes "insurgency" in Mexico
http://ww4report.com/node/9462
States of Exception—Haiti’s IDP Camps
http://www.monthlyreview.org/110201kaussen.php
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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Showing posts with label Martinique. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martinique. Show all posts
Monday, February 14, 2011
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
WNU #992: Puerto Ricans Protest Layoffs
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #992, June 7, 2009
1. Puerto Rico: Thousands Protest Layoffs
2. Guatemala: Campesinos Block Roads, Demand Land
3. Peru: Groups Condemn Killing of Protesters
4. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Puerto Rico: Thousands Protest Layoffs
In one of the largest demonstrations in recent Puerto Rican history, tens of thousands of people marched in front of the Capitol building in San Juan on June 5 to protest plans by Gov. Luis Fortuño of the conservative New Progressive Party (PNP) to lay off about 30,000 government workers and to privatize some public services. Estimates of participation ranged from 50,000 to 100,000. Many public employees attended despite veiled threats of reprisals if they were absent from work on June 5; supervisors had been drawing up lists of people who planned to take the day off.
Fortuño, who was elected by a wide margin last November [see Update #967], faces a growing movement against his economic policies. The Broad Front of Solidarity and Struggle (FASyL), a coalition of 22 unions, brought out an estimated 30,000 workers to protest the government’s policies during this year’s May 1 march for International Workers’ Day [see Update #988]. For the June 5 mobilization the FASyL was joined by a broad range of groups, including student and women’s organizations, environmental and religious groups, and the main opposition parties. Participants included Héctor Ferrer, president of the centrist Popular Democratic Party (PPD); Juan Dalmau, secretary general of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP); actors René Monclova and Ineabelle Colón; and Denise Quiñones, Miss Universe 2001. The coalition’s spokesperson was Methodist bishop Juan Vera, while the Catholic Conference of Bishops issued a press release in solidarity with laid-off workers.
The organizers called the protest a “National Assembly of the People”; the demonstration became a mass meeting which adopted a declaration including demands from the various constituent groups. The protesters said they would continue the struggle with educational events and Assemblies of the People in each of the island’s 78 municipalities.
Fortuño says Puerto Rico is facing a $3.2 billion deficit this year, largely because of the US economic crisis, and that this can only be reduced through layoffs and cutbacks. The layoffs started with an announcement in late May by Carlos García, president of the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico (GDB, BGF in Spanish), that 10,400 employees would be let go. (Univision 6/5/09 from AP; Primera Hora (Puerto Rico) 6/5/09, __, __; La Opinión (Los Angeles) 6/6/09 from EFE)
*2. Guatemala: Campesinos Block Roads, Demand Land
Thousands of Guatemalan campesinos blocked roads at seven or more sites on June 4 in a nationwide protest organized by the Committee for Campesino Development (Codeca) to demand that the government carry out agrarian reform, provide agricultural products for about 25,000 campesinos, buy land for cultivation and forgive debts that some campesinos incurred by taking out bank loans to buy land. Codeca spokesperson Mauro Bay said the campesinos had been making these requests of President Alvaro Colom’s government since Feb. 5, 2008 but had received no response. Presidential spokesperson Fernando Barillas said the government had offered to meet with Codeca leaders about the demands but Codeca had turned down the offer.
Campesinos blocked roads in at least seven departments: Mazatenango and Retalhuleu in the south, Suchitepéquez in the southwest, Totonicapán and Quetzaltenango in the west, and Alta Verapaz and Petén in the north. Some 500 campesinos blocked a bridge in El Zarco, Retalhuleu. A caravan of motorcyclists tried to break through, but campesinos with clubs blocked them; agents from the National Civil Police (PNC) were then called in. About 3,000 farmers from three communities in Suchitepéquez blocked the Pacific highway at a place known as Cocales. In Cuatro Caminos, Totonicapán, 800 local people cut off the road with rocks and boards, creating a 6 km line of vehicles and infuriating motorists. In Quetzaltenango, residents of five villages in Colomba municipality closed off a highway leading to the Mexico border, and many passengers walked kilometers to transfer to other buses.
Five Codeca leaders met with Agricultural Affairs Secretary Juan Alfredo de León in Guatemala City during the day. In the afternoon they agreed to suspend the actions and continue the dialogue on June 16. (Prensa Latina 6/4/09; ADN (Spain) 6/4/09 from EFE; Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 6/4/09, 6/5/09)
*3. Peru: Groups Condemn Killing of Protesters
On June 5 Peru’s largest labor confederation, the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), condemned what it called “the slaughter ordered by the government of President Alan García,” referring to the deaths of at least 20 police agents and indigenous protesters earlier that day when police tried to break up a demonstration blocking a road in Bagua province in the northern region of Amazonas. The CGTP called for Congress to repeal the decrees on drilling, mining and land rights that Amazonian indigenous groups had been protesting since Apr. 9. The labor group had held a one-day national strike on May 26 to support the demands of the Amazonian indigenous group leading the protests, the Inter-Ethnic Association for Development of the Peruvian Forest (Aidesep) [see Update #991]. (CGTP press release 6/5/09)
A June 5 statement by the Andean Coordinating Committee of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) said “56 days of peaceful indigenous struggle and of supposed dialogues and negotiations…ended in the usual bullets, the same bullets as in more than 500 years of oppression.” The group, including organizations in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, called for indigenous people to hold sit-ins in front of Peruvian embassies and for United Nations (UN) agencies and international organizations like Amnesty International (AI) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) to “send missions immediately to Peru to stop this violence and to see that indigenous rights are respected.” (CAOI statement 6/5/09 via Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales)
Colombian human rights and grassroots organizations planned a demonstration at the Peruvian embassy in Bogotá for the afternoon of June 8. Indigenous and other organizations in Mexico were to send an open letter to President García demanding the "cancellation of the international accords—like the FTA [Free Trade Agreement, TLC in Spanish]—that bring violence to the life of the Peruvian indigenous peoples.” The decrees the indigenous people oppose are part of a package intended to bring Peru into compliance with an FTA with the US that went into effect this year. On June 8 the London-based nonprofit Survival International called for petroleum companies to suspend their operations in the Amazon region until the situation is resolved. Peruvian organizations are planning a march in Lima on June 11 in solidarity with the indigenous protesters. (Adital 6/8/09)
Meanwhile, the Peruvian government may be using the events as a pretext for cracking down on opposition legislators in the Congress, which is dominated by García’s social democratic Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP). On June 6 Elizabeth León, vice president of the Congress’s Ethics Commission, said the commission would investigate whether there were grounds to take action against Congress members who had supported Alberto Pizango Chota, the Aidesep president. Pizango reportedly went into hiding after the June killings. (24 Horas Libre (Peru) 6/7/09)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
The Rainforest’s Cry: Amazon Uprising and Opposing Perspectives of Development in Peru
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1888/1/
Peru: protesters seize Camisea pipeline valves, pledge to resist army
http://ww4report.com/node/7400
Peru: 25 dead as National Police attack Amazon road blockade
http://ww4report.com/node/7406
50 Days of Protest and One Massacre in the Peruvian Amazon
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1895/1/
Peru: dozens decamp in jungle jailbreak
http://ww4report.com/node/7398
Peru: Amazon uprising spreads
http://ww4report.com/node/7411
Colombia biofuel production linked to human rights violations
http://ww4report.com/node/7405
Colombia: ex-senator sentenced in Uribe bribery scheme
http://ww4report.com/node/7404
Colombian para operative sentenced in Texas
http://ww4report.com/node/7403
Colombia to train Baja California state police
http://ww4report.com/node/7407
Colombia’s Fascist Attack on Academic Freedom
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1887/1/
Colombians Build Support for a Constitutional Referendum for Water
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1885/1/
Álvaro Uribe, Otra Vez? Colombia's Re-election Debate
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1889/68/
El Salvador Inaugurates its First Leftist Government
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1894/68/
Interview: Members of University Front of Roque Dalton from the National University of El Salvador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1891/1/
The Struggle Against Impunity in Guatemala Continues: 31st Anniversary of the Panzós Massacre
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1893/68/
Guatemala's "Twitter Revolution"
https://nacla.org/node/5874
Obama's Choice: Human Rights First or Plan Mexico
https://nacla.org/node/5866
OAS Opens Doors to Cuba Without Conditions
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1892/68/
Father Gérard Jean-Juste: The People's Priest (1946-2009)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1890/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources: http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request.
Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #992, June 7, 2009
1. Puerto Rico: Thousands Protest Layoffs
2. Guatemala: Campesinos Block Roads, Demand Land
3. Peru: Groups Condemn Killing of Protesters
4. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Puerto Rico: Thousands Protest Layoffs
In one of the largest demonstrations in recent Puerto Rican history, tens of thousands of people marched in front of the Capitol building in San Juan on June 5 to protest plans by Gov. Luis Fortuño of the conservative New Progressive Party (PNP) to lay off about 30,000 government workers and to privatize some public services. Estimates of participation ranged from 50,000 to 100,000. Many public employees attended despite veiled threats of reprisals if they were absent from work on June 5; supervisors had been drawing up lists of people who planned to take the day off.
Fortuño, who was elected by a wide margin last November [see Update #967], faces a growing movement against his economic policies. The Broad Front of Solidarity and Struggle (FASyL), a coalition of 22 unions, brought out an estimated 30,000 workers to protest the government’s policies during this year’s May 1 march for International Workers’ Day [see Update #988]. For the June 5 mobilization the FASyL was joined by a broad range of groups, including student and women’s organizations, environmental and religious groups, and the main opposition parties. Participants included Héctor Ferrer, president of the centrist Popular Democratic Party (PPD); Juan Dalmau, secretary general of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP); actors René Monclova and Ineabelle Colón; and Denise Quiñones, Miss Universe 2001. The coalition’s spokesperson was Methodist bishop Juan Vera, while the Catholic Conference of Bishops issued a press release in solidarity with laid-off workers.
The organizers called the protest a “National Assembly of the People”; the demonstration became a mass meeting which adopted a declaration including demands from the various constituent groups. The protesters said they would continue the struggle with educational events and Assemblies of the People in each of the island’s 78 municipalities.
Fortuño says Puerto Rico is facing a $3.2 billion deficit this year, largely because of the US economic crisis, and that this can only be reduced through layoffs and cutbacks. The layoffs started with an announcement in late May by Carlos García, president of the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico (GDB, BGF in Spanish), that 10,400 employees would be let go. (Univision 6/5/09 from AP; Primera Hora (Puerto Rico) 6/5/09, __, __; La Opinión (Los Angeles) 6/6/09 from EFE)
*2. Guatemala: Campesinos Block Roads, Demand Land
Thousands of Guatemalan campesinos blocked roads at seven or more sites on June 4 in a nationwide protest organized by the Committee for Campesino Development (Codeca) to demand that the government carry out agrarian reform, provide agricultural products for about 25,000 campesinos, buy land for cultivation and forgive debts that some campesinos incurred by taking out bank loans to buy land. Codeca spokesperson Mauro Bay said the campesinos had been making these requests of President Alvaro Colom’s government since Feb. 5, 2008 but had received no response. Presidential spokesperson Fernando Barillas said the government had offered to meet with Codeca leaders about the demands but Codeca had turned down the offer.
Campesinos blocked roads in at least seven departments: Mazatenango and Retalhuleu in the south, Suchitepéquez in the southwest, Totonicapán and Quetzaltenango in the west, and Alta Verapaz and Petén in the north. Some 500 campesinos blocked a bridge in El Zarco, Retalhuleu. A caravan of motorcyclists tried to break through, but campesinos with clubs blocked them; agents from the National Civil Police (PNC) were then called in. About 3,000 farmers from three communities in Suchitepéquez blocked the Pacific highway at a place known as Cocales. In Cuatro Caminos, Totonicapán, 800 local people cut off the road with rocks and boards, creating a 6 km line of vehicles and infuriating motorists. In Quetzaltenango, residents of five villages in Colomba municipality closed off a highway leading to the Mexico border, and many passengers walked kilometers to transfer to other buses.
Five Codeca leaders met with Agricultural Affairs Secretary Juan Alfredo de León in Guatemala City during the day. In the afternoon they agreed to suspend the actions and continue the dialogue on June 16. (Prensa Latina 6/4/09; ADN (Spain) 6/4/09 from EFE; Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 6/4/09, 6/5/09)
*3. Peru: Groups Condemn Killing of Protesters
On June 5 Peru’s largest labor confederation, the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), condemned what it called “the slaughter ordered by the government of President Alan García,” referring to the deaths of at least 20 police agents and indigenous protesters earlier that day when police tried to break up a demonstration blocking a road in Bagua province in the northern region of Amazonas. The CGTP called for Congress to repeal the decrees on drilling, mining and land rights that Amazonian indigenous groups had been protesting since Apr. 9. The labor group had held a one-day national strike on May 26 to support the demands of the Amazonian indigenous group leading the protests, the Inter-Ethnic Association for Development of the Peruvian Forest (Aidesep) [see Update #991]. (CGTP press release 6/5/09)
A June 5 statement by the Andean Coordinating Committee of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) said “56 days of peaceful indigenous struggle and of supposed dialogues and negotiations…ended in the usual bullets, the same bullets as in more than 500 years of oppression.” The group, including organizations in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, called for indigenous people to hold sit-ins in front of Peruvian embassies and for United Nations (UN) agencies and international organizations like Amnesty International (AI) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) to “send missions immediately to Peru to stop this violence and to see that indigenous rights are respected.” (CAOI statement 6/5/09 via Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales)
Colombian human rights and grassroots organizations planned a demonstration at the Peruvian embassy in Bogotá for the afternoon of June 8. Indigenous and other organizations in Mexico were to send an open letter to President García demanding the "cancellation of the international accords—like the FTA [Free Trade Agreement, TLC in Spanish]—that bring violence to the life of the Peruvian indigenous peoples.” The decrees the indigenous people oppose are part of a package intended to bring Peru into compliance with an FTA with the US that went into effect this year. On June 8 the London-based nonprofit Survival International called for petroleum companies to suspend their operations in the Amazon region until the situation is resolved. Peruvian organizations are planning a march in Lima on June 11 in solidarity with the indigenous protesters. (Adital 6/8/09)
Meanwhile, the Peruvian government may be using the events as a pretext for cracking down on opposition legislators in the Congress, which is dominated by García’s social democratic Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP). On June 6 Elizabeth León, vice president of the Congress’s Ethics Commission, said the commission would investigate whether there were grounds to take action against Congress members who had supported Alberto Pizango Chota, the Aidesep president. Pizango reportedly went into hiding after the June killings. (24 Horas Libre (Peru) 6/7/09)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
The Rainforest’s Cry: Amazon Uprising and Opposing Perspectives of Development in Peru
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1888/1/
Peru: protesters seize Camisea pipeline valves, pledge to resist army
http://ww4report.com/node/7400
Peru: 25 dead as National Police attack Amazon road blockade
http://ww4report.com/node/7406
50 Days of Protest and One Massacre in the Peruvian Amazon
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1895/1/
Peru: dozens decamp in jungle jailbreak
http://ww4report.com/node/7398
Peru: Amazon uprising spreads
http://ww4report.com/node/7411
Colombia biofuel production linked to human rights violations
http://ww4report.com/node/7405
Colombia: ex-senator sentenced in Uribe bribery scheme
http://ww4report.com/node/7404
Colombian para operative sentenced in Texas
http://ww4report.com/node/7403
Colombia to train Baja California state police
http://ww4report.com/node/7407
Colombia’s Fascist Attack on Academic Freedom
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1887/1/
Colombians Build Support for a Constitutional Referendum for Water
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1885/1/
Álvaro Uribe, Otra Vez? Colombia's Re-election Debate
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1889/68/
El Salvador Inaugurates its First Leftist Government
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1894/68/
Interview: Members of University Front of Roque Dalton from the National University of El Salvador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1891/1/
The Struggle Against Impunity in Guatemala Continues: 31st Anniversary of the Panzós Massacre
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1893/68/
Guatemala's "Twitter Revolution"
https://nacla.org/node/5874
Obama's Choice: Human Rights First or Plan Mexico
https://nacla.org/node/5866
OAS Opens Doors to Cuba Without Conditions
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1892/68/
Father Gérard Jean-Juste: The People's Priest (1946-2009)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1890/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources: http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request.
Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
WNU #983: Martinique Accord Signed, Strike Suspended
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #983, March 22, 2009
1. Martinique: Accord Signed, Strike Suspended
2. Mexico: Does the US Own Banamex?
3. Mexico: Indigenous Protests in Oaxaca
4. Haiti: Lavalas Marches, Students Protest
5. Guatemala: US Knew About 1980s Abuses
6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Martinique: Accord Signed, Strike Suspended
On Mar. 14 the French government and the government of the French Caribbean department of Martinique signed an accord with the Feb. 5 Collective ending a general strike that had paralyzed the department since Feb. 5. The accord, which the parties had agreed to on Mar. 11, meets a principal demand of the strikers: a raise of 200 euros a month (about $253) for low-wage workers, with smaller raises for other workers. Major business owners had agreed earlier to bring down prices on some 400 basic items by 20% one month after stores reopen. Negotiations are to continue until Mar. 27 on 87 additional points, including pensions and water and agricultural issues. The Feb. 5 Collective, a coalition of unions and grassroots organizations that led the strike, agreed to a “suspension of the conflict” but “reserves the right to start the movement up again,” said the collective’s president, Michel Monrose. The accord was called an “exit from the crisis” rather than an “end to the conflict.”
Some 20,000 people marched on Mar. 14 in the departmental capital, Fort-de-France, and other parts of Martinique to celebrate the accord, chanting: “We are marching towards victory.” The settlement is similar to the accord won on Mar. 4 by a 44-day general strike in the nearby overseas department of Guadeloupe, which helped trigger the strike in Martinique and similar protests in the overseas department of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean [see Update #982].
Unions and left parties in European France said they were in part inspired by the example of the overseas departments as they planned a massive one-day general strike on Mar. 19 to protest the French government’s pro-business response to the world economic crisis. “The victory of the women and men of Guadeloupe calls for more victories” was the title of the call for the Mar. 19 mobilization by major left and social democratic parties, including the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Socialist Party (PS). (Le Monde (France) 3/16/09 from correspondent; Nouvel Observateur (France) 3/17/09 from Reuters; Life on the Left blog on 3/18/09 via MRzine; “Appel unitaire pour le 19 mars : la victoire des Guadeloupéennes et des Guadeloupéens en appelle d’autres,” on the NPA website, undated).
*2. Mexico: Does the US Own Banamex?
On Mar. 19 Mexico’s Finance and Public Credit Secretariat (SHCP) ruled that due to the current economic crisis, exceptions could be made to a law banning foreign governments from owning Mexican banks. The SHCP indicated that the 20-year- old article 13 of the Law of Credit Institutions should be revised. Although the ruling didn’t mention any banks by name, the question arose because of the US government’s continuing efforts—at a cost of $45 billion since October—to prop up the mammoth US-based Citigroup banking group, which owns Banamex, Mexico’s second largest bank. In a partial nationalization, the US bought preferred shares in Citigroup last fall. In February US officials said they would convert up to $25 billion of the preferred shares to common stock, which would give the US government a stake of as much as 36% in the banking group and therefore in its subsidiaries.
Banamex itself was nationalized by the Mexican government in 1982, along with the rest of the banking system, in response to a major debt crisis. The government reprivatized the system in the early1990s, but the banks were bailed out again through the Fund for Bank Savings Protection (FOBAPROA) after an economic collapse at the end of 1994, the year the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect [see Update #547]. Most of Mexico’s banks are now foreign-owned. Citigroup bought Banamex in May 2001 for $12.5 billion [see Update #590]. (Reuters 3/19/09; La Jornada (Mexico) 3/20/09)
Economy Secretary Gerardo Ruiz Mateos announced on Mar. 16 that Mexico was raising tariffs on the importation of 90 industrial and agricultural products from the US. The move was in retaliation for the US government’s suspension of a NAFTA-mandated program allowing Mexican truckers to carry out some operations inside the US. The 90 products accounted for $2.40 billion in 2007, representing 1.7% of Mexico’s imports. Almost 70% of the products traded between Mexico and the US are shipped by truck. (LJ 3/17/09)
*3. Mexico: Indigenous Protests in Oaxaca
About 25,000 members of the indigenous Movement of Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT) marched in Oaxaca city in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on Mar. 18 to demand that the state government start talks on incidents of violence against the Triqui and others over the past two years. The protesters tied up traffic as they marched from the Monumento a La Madre along the Cerro del Fortín highway to the city’s main plaza.
The incidents the protesters cited included the disappearance on July 5, 2007 of Triqui sisters Virginia and Daniela Ortiz Ramírez; 46 murders in the part of the state where the Triqui live; the disappearances of Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Cruz Sánchez, members of the rebel Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), in May 2007, and of Lauro Juárez, an indigenous Chatino who supported the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) , in December 2007; and the continued imprisonment of eight residents of San Agustín Loxicha by the federal government on charges of belonging to the EPR [see Updates #547, 907, 919]. State officials met with MULT leaders to discuss the cases. (La Jornada 3/19/98)
On Mar. 20 about 150 residents of San José El Progreso and Magdalena Ocotlán in Oaxaca used rocks and cables to block the entrance to the Cuzcatlán mine, owned by the Canadian company Fortuna Silver Mines. The Coordinating Committee in Defense of the Natural Resources and Our Mother Earth of Ocotlán Valley organized the protest to demand that the federal Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat cancel the permit for the mine, which is not yet in operation. According to Agustín Ríos Cruz, a spokesperson for the group, local residents have suffered from the contamination of local rivers by metals like mercury and copper or chemicals like cyanide and arsenic; residents report that 20 farm animals have died. The company denies the charges. (LJ 3/21/09)
*4. Haiti: Lavalas Marches, Students Protest
Former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Haiti on Mar. 9 along with a large group of private investors for a 24-hour visit they said was aimed at increasing international aid for the country; Haiti was hit by two hurricanes and two major tropical storms last summer [see Updates #962 ]. Supporters of the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996 and 2001-2004) held demonstrations to call for Clinton’s help in arranging for Aristide, who has lived in South Africa since being removed from office in February 2004, to return to Haiti. The demonstrators were at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in the north of Port-au-Prince when Clinton and Ban arrived; FL supporters also gathered in front of the presidential palace in the center of the capital as the visitors met with President René Préval. Tens of thousands of people took part in the actions, according to the pro-FL Agence Haïtienne de Presse (AHP) press agency.
LF supporters said they wanted to show their appreciation to Clinton for restoring Aristide to power after he was overthrown in a 1991 coup by army officers linked to the US; Clinton ordered a US military intervention in 1994 and returned Aristide to office. Clinton, whose wife Hillary Clinton is now US secretary of state, told the demonstrators: “Your future can be better than your past.” René Civil, one of the organizers of the demonstrations, took this to mean that “Aristide’s return is the future,” but he admitted that Clinton hadn’t responded directly. (AlterPresse 3/9/09; Radio Métropole (Haiti) 3/11/09; AHP 3/9/09, 3/10/09)
A final date for Aristide’s return to Haiti has not yet been determined, South African foreign affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told South Africa’s National Assembly on Mar. 13. "The South African government continues to provide accommodation and services to former president Jean Bertrand Aristide equivalent to those provided to a South African cabinet minister until conditions in Haiti permit the return of the former president and his family," she said. "The monthly costs related to his accommodation, transport, office support staff and security are similar to the cost associated to a South African cabinet minister." Aristide has been made an honorary research fellow at the University of South Africa, and in 2007 he received a doctorate in African languages. (The Times (New Zealand) 3/13/09 from South African Press Association SAPA)
In February students at the Superior Teachers College (ENS) in Port-au-Prince, the country’s only teachers college, started protesting curriculum changes; protesters said administrators had eliminated math and science classes to focus on school management. On Feb. 26 about 100 students from the ENS occupied the offices of the rector of the State University of Haiti (UEH) to push their demands for restoring basic science to the curriculum. Professors were also reportedly involved in the occupation. On Mar. 4 a confrontation broke out between police and protesters, with students hurling rocks at police vehicles and smashing windshields. The local tax office, the Carrefour branch of the General Directorate of Taxes (DIG), was unable to operate because its computer network is connected to the rector’s office. (Haiti Support Group News Briefs 2/17/09 from AP; AlterPresse 3/4/09; Radio Métropole (Haiti) 3/5/09)
*5. Guatemala: US Knew About 1980s Abuses
The National Security Archive (NSA), a Washington, DC-based nonprofit institute, posted declassified US government documents on its website on Mar. 18 that it says show the US government knew US-backed Guatemalan officials were behind the disappearance of thousands of people during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war. "Government security services have employed assassination to eliminate persons suspected of involvement with the guerrillas or who are otherwise leftwing in orientation," a 1984 State Department report said. "The government is obviously rounding up people connected with the extreme leftwing labor movement for interrogation," then-US ambassador Frederic Chapin wrote in a 1984 cable.
The NSA obtained the documents from the U.S. State Department under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). State Department spokesperson Fred Lash told the Associated Press that he was unaware of the declassified documents and could not immediately comment. More than 200,000 people, mostly Mayan civilians, died in the 36-year conflict. (Miami Herald 3/19/09 from AP)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico
Brazil: Supreme Court rules Raposa-Serra do Sol indigenous territory
http://ww4report.com/node/7052
Bolivia: Morales initiates land reform; ranchers pledge resistance
http://ww4report.com/node/7041
Bolivia seeks State Department approval for Czech aircraft sale
http://ww4report.com/node/7043
Bolivia: Total gas operation illegal
http://ww4report.com/node/7042
Bolivia’s Rocky Road to Decolonization: Corruption, Expropriation and Justice
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1764/1/
Peru: Few Benefits from Boom for Poorest Mining Districts
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1773/68/
Peru: Spying on Social Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1768/68/
Ecuador: The Logic of Development Clashes with Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1772/1/
An Open Letter to Rafael Correa
http://nacla.org/node/5617
Colombia: DEA claims blow against FARC "narco-terrorist" network
http://ww4report.com/node/7054
Colombia: Supreme Court approves new probe of para-linked general
http://ww4report.com/node/7053
Lands cleansed by paramilitaries returned to Afro-Colombians
http://ww4report.com/node/7061
Peru: Colombian state oil company set to enter uncontacted tribal lands
http://ww4report.com/node/7062
Venezuela: Chávez sends army to seize airports, seaports
http://ww4report.com/node/7060
Sixth Circuit upholds judgment against Salvadoran ex-military commander
http://ww4report.com/node/7039
FMLN Wins Presidency
http://nacla.org/node/5619
El Salvador: Crisis, Poverty Huge Challenges for Leftist President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1770/68/
El Salvador: Voting in Rebel Territory
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1771/1/
FMLN Victory El Salvador - Funes: "We Have Signed a New Accord on Peace and Reconciliation"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1769/1/
VIDEO: Historic Power Shift in El Salvador
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3425&updaterx=2009-03-19+10%3A24%3A51
Narco-imbroglio mires NAFTA trade
http://ww4report.com/node/7056
Mexico claims blows against Gulf, Sinaloa cartels
http://ww4report.com/node/7055
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #983, March 22, 2009
1. Martinique: Accord Signed, Strike Suspended
2. Mexico: Does the US Own Banamex?
3. Mexico: Indigenous Protests in Oaxaca
4. Haiti: Lavalas Marches, Students Protest
5. Guatemala: US Knew About 1980s Abuses
6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Martinique: Accord Signed, Strike Suspended
On Mar. 14 the French government and the government of the French Caribbean department of Martinique signed an accord with the Feb. 5 Collective ending a general strike that had paralyzed the department since Feb. 5. The accord, which the parties had agreed to on Mar. 11, meets a principal demand of the strikers: a raise of 200 euros a month (about $253) for low-wage workers, with smaller raises for other workers. Major business owners had agreed earlier to bring down prices on some 400 basic items by 20% one month after stores reopen. Negotiations are to continue until Mar. 27 on 87 additional points, including pensions and water and agricultural issues. The Feb. 5 Collective, a coalition of unions and grassroots organizations that led the strike, agreed to a “suspension of the conflict” but “reserves the right to start the movement up again,” said the collective’s president, Michel Monrose. The accord was called an “exit from the crisis” rather than an “end to the conflict.”
Some 20,000 people marched on Mar. 14 in the departmental capital, Fort-de-France, and other parts of Martinique to celebrate the accord, chanting: “We are marching towards victory.” The settlement is similar to the accord won on Mar. 4 by a 44-day general strike in the nearby overseas department of Guadeloupe, which helped trigger the strike in Martinique and similar protests in the overseas department of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean [see Update #982].
Unions and left parties in European France said they were in part inspired by the example of the overseas departments as they planned a massive one-day general strike on Mar. 19 to protest the French government’s pro-business response to the world economic crisis. “The victory of the women and men of Guadeloupe calls for more victories” was the title of the call for the Mar. 19 mobilization by major left and social democratic parties, including the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Socialist Party (PS). (Le Monde (France) 3/16/09 from correspondent; Nouvel Observateur (France) 3/17/09 from Reuters; Life on the Left blog on 3/18/09 via MRzine; “Appel unitaire pour le 19 mars : la victoire des Guadeloupéennes et des Guadeloupéens en appelle d’autres,” on the NPA website, undated).
*2. Mexico: Does the US Own Banamex?
On Mar. 19 Mexico’s Finance and Public Credit Secretariat (SHCP) ruled that due to the current economic crisis, exceptions could be made to a law banning foreign governments from owning Mexican banks. The SHCP indicated that the 20-year- old article 13 of the Law of Credit Institutions should be revised. Although the ruling didn’t mention any banks by name, the question arose because of the US government’s continuing efforts—at a cost of $45 billion since October—to prop up the mammoth US-based Citigroup banking group, which owns Banamex, Mexico’s second largest bank. In a partial nationalization, the US bought preferred shares in Citigroup last fall. In February US officials said they would convert up to $25 billion of the preferred shares to common stock, which would give the US government a stake of as much as 36% in the banking group and therefore in its subsidiaries.
Banamex itself was nationalized by the Mexican government in 1982, along with the rest of the banking system, in response to a major debt crisis. The government reprivatized the system in the early1990s, but the banks were bailed out again through the Fund for Bank Savings Protection (FOBAPROA) after an economic collapse at the end of 1994, the year the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect [see Update #547]. Most of Mexico’s banks are now foreign-owned. Citigroup bought Banamex in May 2001 for $12.5 billion [see Update #590]. (Reuters 3/19/09; La Jornada (Mexico) 3/20/09)
Economy Secretary Gerardo Ruiz Mateos announced on Mar. 16 that Mexico was raising tariffs on the importation of 90 industrial and agricultural products from the US. The move was in retaliation for the US government’s suspension of a NAFTA-mandated program allowing Mexican truckers to carry out some operations inside the US. The 90 products accounted for $2.40 billion in 2007, representing 1.7% of Mexico’s imports. Almost 70% of the products traded between Mexico and the US are shipped by truck. (LJ 3/17/09)
*3. Mexico: Indigenous Protests in Oaxaca
About 25,000 members of the indigenous Movement of Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT) marched in Oaxaca city in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on Mar. 18 to demand that the state government start talks on incidents of violence against the Triqui and others over the past two years. The protesters tied up traffic as they marched from the Monumento a La Madre along the Cerro del Fortín highway to the city’s main plaza.
The incidents the protesters cited included the disappearance on July 5, 2007 of Triqui sisters Virginia and Daniela Ortiz Ramírez; 46 murders in the part of the state where the Triqui live; the disappearances of Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Cruz Sánchez, members of the rebel Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), in May 2007, and of Lauro Juárez, an indigenous Chatino who supported the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) , in December 2007; and the continued imprisonment of eight residents of San Agustín Loxicha by the federal government on charges of belonging to the EPR [see Updates #547, 907, 919]. State officials met with MULT leaders to discuss the cases. (La Jornada 3/19/98)
On Mar. 20 about 150 residents of San José El Progreso and Magdalena Ocotlán in Oaxaca used rocks and cables to block the entrance to the Cuzcatlán mine, owned by the Canadian company Fortuna Silver Mines. The Coordinating Committee in Defense of the Natural Resources and Our Mother Earth of Ocotlán Valley organized the protest to demand that the federal Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat cancel the permit for the mine, which is not yet in operation. According to Agustín Ríos Cruz, a spokesperson for the group, local residents have suffered from the contamination of local rivers by metals like mercury and copper or chemicals like cyanide and arsenic; residents report that 20 farm animals have died. The company denies the charges. (LJ 3/21/09)
*4. Haiti: Lavalas Marches, Students Protest
Former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Haiti on Mar. 9 along with a large group of private investors for a 24-hour visit they said was aimed at increasing international aid for the country; Haiti was hit by two hurricanes and two major tropical storms last summer [see Updates #962 ]. Supporters of the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996 and 2001-2004) held demonstrations to call for Clinton’s help in arranging for Aristide, who has lived in South Africa since being removed from office in February 2004, to return to Haiti. The demonstrators were at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in the north of Port-au-Prince when Clinton and Ban arrived; FL supporters also gathered in front of the presidential palace in the center of the capital as the visitors met with President René Préval. Tens of thousands of people took part in the actions, according to the pro-FL Agence Haïtienne de Presse (AHP) press agency.
LF supporters said they wanted to show their appreciation to Clinton for restoring Aristide to power after he was overthrown in a 1991 coup by army officers linked to the US; Clinton ordered a US military intervention in 1994 and returned Aristide to office. Clinton, whose wife Hillary Clinton is now US secretary of state, told the demonstrators: “Your future can be better than your past.” René Civil, one of the organizers of the demonstrations, took this to mean that “Aristide’s return is the future,” but he admitted that Clinton hadn’t responded directly. (AlterPresse 3/9/09; Radio Métropole (Haiti) 3/11/09; AHP 3/9/09, 3/10/09)
A final date for Aristide’s return to Haiti has not yet been determined, South African foreign affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told South Africa’s National Assembly on Mar. 13. "The South African government continues to provide accommodation and services to former president Jean Bertrand Aristide equivalent to those provided to a South African cabinet minister until conditions in Haiti permit the return of the former president and his family," she said. "The monthly costs related to his accommodation, transport, office support staff and security are similar to the cost associated to a South African cabinet minister." Aristide has been made an honorary research fellow at the University of South Africa, and in 2007 he received a doctorate in African languages. (The Times (New Zealand) 3/13/09 from South African Press Association SAPA)
In February students at the Superior Teachers College (ENS) in Port-au-Prince, the country’s only teachers college, started protesting curriculum changes; protesters said administrators had eliminated math and science classes to focus on school management. On Feb. 26 about 100 students from the ENS occupied the offices of the rector of the State University of Haiti (UEH) to push their demands for restoring basic science to the curriculum. Professors were also reportedly involved in the occupation. On Mar. 4 a confrontation broke out between police and protesters, with students hurling rocks at police vehicles and smashing windshields. The local tax office, the Carrefour branch of the General Directorate of Taxes (DIG), was unable to operate because its computer network is connected to the rector’s office. (Haiti Support Group News Briefs 2/17/09 from AP; AlterPresse 3/4/09; Radio Métropole (Haiti) 3/5/09)
*5. Guatemala: US Knew About 1980s Abuses
The National Security Archive (NSA), a Washington, DC-based nonprofit institute, posted declassified US government documents on its website on Mar. 18 that it says show the US government knew US-backed Guatemalan officials were behind the disappearance of thousands of people during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war. "Government security services have employed assassination to eliminate persons suspected of involvement with the guerrillas or who are otherwise leftwing in orientation," a 1984 State Department report said. "The government is obviously rounding up people connected with the extreme leftwing labor movement for interrogation," then-US ambassador Frederic Chapin wrote in a 1984 cable.
The NSA obtained the documents from the U.S. State Department under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). State Department spokesperson Fred Lash told the Associated Press that he was unaware of the declassified documents and could not immediately comment. More than 200,000 people, mostly Mayan civilians, died in the 36-year conflict. (Miami Herald 3/19/09 from AP)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico
Brazil: Supreme Court rules Raposa-Serra do Sol indigenous territory
http://ww4report.com/node/7052
Bolivia: Morales initiates land reform; ranchers pledge resistance
http://ww4report.com/node/7041
Bolivia seeks State Department approval for Czech aircraft sale
http://ww4report.com/node/7043
Bolivia: Total gas operation illegal
http://ww4report.com/node/7042
Bolivia’s Rocky Road to Decolonization: Corruption, Expropriation and Justice
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1764/1/
Peru: Few Benefits from Boom for Poorest Mining Districts
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1773/68/
Peru: Spying on Social Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1768/68/
Ecuador: The Logic of Development Clashes with Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1772/1/
An Open Letter to Rafael Correa
http://nacla.org/node/5617
Colombia: DEA claims blow against FARC "narco-terrorist" network
http://ww4report.com/node/7054
Colombia: Supreme Court approves new probe of para-linked general
http://ww4report.com/node/7053
Lands cleansed by paramilitaries returned to Afro-Colombians
http://ww4report.com/node/7061
Peru: Colombian state oil company set to enter uncontacted tribal lands
http://ww4report.com/node/7062
Venezuela: Chávez sends army to seize airports, seaports
http://ww4report.com/node/7060
Sixth Circuit upholds judgment against Salvadoran ex-military commander
http://ww4report.com/node/7039
FMLN Wins Presidency
http://nacla.org/node/5619
El Salvador: Crisis, Poverty Huge Challenges for Leftist President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1770/68/
El Salvador: Voting in Rebel Territory
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1771/1/
FMLN Victory El Salvador - Funes: "We Have Signed a New Accord on Peace and Reconciliation"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1769/1/
VIDEO: Historic Power Shift in El Salvador
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3425&updaterx=2009-03-19+10%3A24%3A51
Narco-imbroglio mires NAFTA trade
http://ww4report.com/node/7056
Mexico claims blows against Gulf, Sinaloa cartels
http://ww4report.com/node/7055
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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