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
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Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
Showing posts with label Panama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Panama. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Monday, February 2, 2015
WNU #1253: Indigenous Panamanians Set Deadline on Dam
Issue #1253, February 1, 2015
1. Panama: Ngöbe-Buglé Set Deadline to Stop Dam
2. Chile: Two Found Guilty in Horman Murder Case
3. Dominican Republic: Thousands to Become Stateless
4. Haiti: President Gives Reporters Xmas Present
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, 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. Panama: Ngöbe-Buglé Set Deadline to Stop Dam
Panamanian officials and leaders of the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group were scheduled to meet on Feb. 2 to discuss the controversial Barro Blanco hydroelectric project, which is being built on the Tabasará river in the western province of Chiriquí [see Update #1214]. Ngöbe-Buglé representatives are calling for the cancellation of the dam and say there will be forceful actions if the government doesn’t agree to their demand by Feb. 15. President Juan Carlos Varela has named a committee to represent the government in the talks; it is headed by Vice President Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado, who is also the foreign relations minister, and includes security minister Rodolfo Aguilera, governance minister Milton Henríquez, labor minister Luis Ernesto Carles and environmental minister Mirei Endara. Some members of the committee held a preliminary meeting with indigenous leaders on Jan. 29, and the government’s technical commission was studying the area around the dam on Jan. 31.
Ngöbe-Buglé activists have demonstrated repeatedly against the Barro Blanco project since 2011, charging that it endangers an archeological site and will displace 2,000 or more indigenous people in the Ngöbe-Buglé comarca (designated indigenous territory). The government of former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) failed to hold a required consultation with the communities, according to the activists, who claim the administration had interests in common with Generadora del Istmo, S.A. (GENISA), the Honduran-owned company building the dam. Indigenous protesters have maintained an encampment at the dam’s site since February 2014, according to Silvia Carrera, the Ngöbe-Buglé comarca’s official leader (cacica). Speaking at a forum in Natá, Coclé province, on Jan. 24, Carrera warned that the government needs to “dialogue with the people of Barro Blanco and the affected communities…before people take to the streets the way it happened in 2011 and 2012.” (La Estrella de Panamá 1/25/15, 1/30/15; Intercontinental Cry 1/27/15 from Servindi; Hora Cero (Panama) 2/1/15)
In related news, former president Martinelli fled to the US on Jan. 29, one day after Panama’s Supreme Court initiated a corruption investigation against him. He flew to Florida from Guatemala, where he was attending a session of the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN). “I fear for my life and my family,” he said. “I’m the target of a political persecution.” He claimed current President Varela “would do the impossible to end” him and his party and is “inventing charges” against him. Varela, who took office last July 1, was Martinelli’s vice president, but he ran against Martinelli’s candidate in the 2014 elections. Martinelli said he had no plans to return to Panama. Meanwhile, thousands marched in Panama City on Jan. 29 chanting slogans against the former president and demanding an end to impunity and jail time for corrupt politicians. (PanAM Post 1/30/15 from La Prensa (Panama))
*2. Chile: Two Found Guilty in Horman Murder Case
Retired Chilean army colonel Pedro Espinoza and former Chilean air force intelligence agent Rafael González Berdugo have been convicted in the murder of US journalist Charles Horman and US graduate student Frank Teruggi during the days after the Sept. 11, 1973 military coup that overthrew leftist president Salvador Allende Gossens [see Update #1226]. Judge Jorge Zepeda sentenced Espinoza--formerly an officer in the now-defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) who has been described as the right-hand man of DINA head Manuel Contreras—to seven years in prison for the two murders. González Berdugo was sentenced to two years of police surveillance as an accomplice in Harmon’s murder. Judge Zepeda ruled in the case on Jan. 9 but the decision wasn’t announced until Jan. 28. Last summer the judge officially ruled that “US military intelligence services played a fundamental role in the murders” by supplying information to the Chilean military. (El Ciudadano (Chile) 1/31/15)
In other news, on Jan. 28 Chile’s Senate approved a law authorizing civil unions for same-sex couples. The Chamber of Deputies had passed the law on Jan. 20 in an 86-23 vote, with two abstentions. The legislation ensures members of same-sex couples rights to receive pensions, enroll in health plans and inherit property from one another; it also provides them with greater standing in child custody cases. President Michelle Bachelet says her long-term goal is full same-sex marriage rights, a position supported by 46% of the population and opposed by 42%, according to a 2013 poll by the US-based Pew Research Center. Same-sex marriage is recognized in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and parts of Mexico; civil unions are recognized in Colombia and Ecuador. Chile tends to be conservative on social issues; divorce wasn’t legalized until 2004, all abortions remain illegal, and sodomy was punishable with prison until 1999. (TeleSUR English 1/21/15; Jamaica Observer 1/28/15 from AFP)
Chile’s Congress has also been working on removing laws and practices imposed during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The Chamber of Deputies voted on Jan. 20 to eliminate the “binominal” electoral formula established by Pinochet’s 1980 Constitution, a formula which opponents say has made it possible for the right to control half the seats in Congress while getting just over a third of the votes; the legislation had already won approval in the Senate. The new proportional voting system should make it easier for smaller parties to compete; the new law also expands the Chamber from 120 to 155 seats and the Senate from 38 to 50 seats. (TeleSUR English 1/21/15; Latin American Herald Tribune 1/20/15)
Legislation that President Bachelet calls the first phase of rolling back the Pinochet-era education system passed the Senate on Jan. 22 and the Chamber of Deputies on Jan. 26. The dictatorship’s highly privatized system was the target of massive student protests from 2011 through 2013; several of the student leaders at that time are now members of Congress [see Update #1219]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 1/23/15 from correspondent; Reuters 1/27/15)
*3. Dominican Republic: Thousands to Become Stateless
Tens of thousands of Dominicans born to undocumented immigrants were set to become stateless when a deadline to regularize their status passed on Feb. 1, according to the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI). “Even if these people are able to stay in the Dominican Republic after the deadline expires, their futures are woefully uncertain,” AI Americas director Erika Guevara Rosas said in a statement. The people at risk are mostly Haitian descendants who were affected by Decision 168-13, a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal (TC) in September 2013 declaring that no one born to undocumented immigrant parents since 1929 was a citizen. Their situation was supposed to be remedied by Law 169/14, which was passed in May 2014 to set up a process for people to regularize their status [see Update #1221]. AI says the law’s implementation has been inadequate.
The Interior Ministry reported that as of Jan. 9, only 5,345 people had applied for regularization--just 5% of the 110,000 people AI believes should be eligible. The Dominican government has put the number of eligible people at 20,000 and claims it has done its best to help people file their claims. Immigration director José Ricardo Taveras told the El Caribe news site that the government had set up more than 20 offices to handle regularization requests and had launched a big publicity campaign. But the media reported long lines at the offices, and AI charged that even people “who should have been able to have their Dominican nationality returned in a quick procedure have been waiting for months.” “The simple fact is that when the vast majority of these people were born, the Dominican law at the time recognized them as citizens,” Guevara Rosas said. “Stripping them of this right and then creating impossible administrative hurdles to stay in the country is a violation of their human rights.” (AI statement 2/1/15; Terra Argentina 2/1/15 from Reuters)
On Jan. 28 AI reported that the Dominican authorities had deported 51 people to Haiti the day before. The group included 30 children, ages seven to 13, born in the Dominican Republic, along with seven mothers of the children and 14 other adults. They were traveling in two minivans to San Juan de la Maguana, in the western province of San Juan, where they expected to register for the regularization. However, according to AI the vehicles were stopped at a military checkpoint a few kilometers from the city. Officers told the passengers that they had to go to an immigration office in Elias Piña, near the border with Haiti, to get passes before entering San Juan. After arriving at Elias Piña, the entire group was deported to Haiti. The Dominican Interior Ministry claimed it had authorized their reentry, but as of Jan. 28 they were still in Haiti. AI noted the special vulnerability of the Dominican-born children, who were not Haitian citizens and were now in effect stateless. (lainformacion.com 1/28/15 from EFE Verde)
*4. Haiti: President Gives Reporters Xmas Present
The government of Haitian president Michel Joseph Martelly presented a group of reporters with cash gifts during a reception on Dec. 23, according to an open letter published on Jan. 26 by the management of the Radio Kiskeya radio station. Reporters with press credentials for presidential functions were given “envelopes containing 50,000 gourdes [about US$1,065] and 40,000 gourdes [about US$852] respectively,” the station wrote. Recipients said President Martelly had offered them what he called “a little gift whose small size they shouldn’t take offense at,” and then referred them to his spokesperson, Lucien Jura, and Esther Fatal, head of the Communication Office of the Presidency; the two officials gave the journalists the envelopes.
Radio Kiskeya said three of its reporters accepted the cash; they were “severely disciplined,” according to the letter, which didn’t reveal their names or the names of other reporters who accepted the “gifts.” “This isn’t the first time journalists have received bribes,” Franck Séguy, a professor at the State University of Haiti (UEH) and a former journalist himself, told the Haitian news site AlterPresse, although the practice “has never been discussed in the press.” He said a major cause was the fact that Haitian journalists aren’t paid enough to live in dignity and are allowed to “supplement their salary elsewhere.” (Radio Kiskeya 1/26/15; Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch, Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1/27/15; AlterPresse 1/29/15)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, US/immigration
Roads are encroaching deeper into the Amazon rainforest, study says (Latin America)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5201-roads-are-encroaching-deeper-into-the-amazon-rainforest-study-says-
US Further Isolated as CELAC Rejects Regional Intervention (Latin America)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11178
Argentina: Societies in Movement or Politics as Usual?
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Argentina-Societies-in-Movement-or-Politics-as-Usual-20150127-0029.html
Chile’s LGBT movement wins historic victory with approval of civil unions
http://wagingnonviolence.org/2015/01/chiles-lgbt-movement-wins-historic-victory-approval-civil-unions/
In Memoriam: Pedro Lemebel's Chronicles of the Pinochet Dictatorship (Chile)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/5204-in-memoriam-pedro-lemebels-chronicles-of-the-pinochet-dictatorship
German Couple Kidnapped, Shot Dead in Paraguay; Guerrilla Group Suspected
http://latindispatch.com/2015/01/30/german-couple-kidnapped-shot-dead-in-paraguay-guerrilla-group-suspected/
The Power of the Spectacle: Evo Morales’ Inauguration in Tiwanaku, Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/5199-the-power-of-the-spectacle-evo-morales-inauguration-in-tiwanaku-bolivia
Ex-Colombian Intelligence Chief Surrenders to Authorities
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Ex-Colombian-Intelligence-Chief-Surrenders-to-Authorities-20150131-0008.html
Venezuela to nuke New York... Not!
http://ww4report.com/node/13937
Venezuela approves use of force against protesters
http://ww4report.com/node/13944
Panama: Vice President and Ministers to Meet Ngäbe Buglé Before Indigenous Ultimatum
https://intercontinentalcry.org/panama-vice-president-ministers-meet-ngabe-bugle-indigenous-ultimatum/
Ayotzinapa Calls for Mexico’s Transformation
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14537
More Femicide Victims Identified from Border Graveyard (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/more-femicide-victims-identified-from-border-graveyard/
Cuban President: Return of Guantanamo Bay Needed to Normalize Relations
http://latindispatch.com/2015/01/29/cuban-president-return-of-guantanamo-bay-needed-to-normalize-relations/
Raúl Castro demands that US return Guantánamo base to Cuba
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5205-raul-castro-demands-that-us-return-guantanamo-base-to-cuba-
Is the Absence of Parliament Clearing the Way for Lamothe to Run for President? (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/is-the-absence-of-parliament-clearing-the-way-for-lamothe-to-run-for-president
Journalists Denounce Attempts by Haitian Government to Silence Criticism
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/journalists-denounce-attempts-by-haitian-government-to-silence-criticism
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/
1. Panama: Ngöbe-Buglé Set Deadline to Stop Dam
2. Chile: Two Found Guilty in Horman Murder Case
3. Dominican Republic: Thousands to Become Stateless
4. Haiti: President Gives Reporters Xmas Present
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, 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. Panama: Ngöbe-Buglé Set Deadline to Stop Dam
Panamanian officials and leaders of the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group were scheduled to meet on Feb. 2 to discuss the controversial Barro Blanco hydroelectric project, which is being built on the Tabasará river in the western province of Chiriquí [see Update #1214]. Ngöbe-Buglé representatives are calling for the cancellation of the dam and say there will be forceful actions if the government doesn’t agree to their demand by Feb. 15. President Juan Carlos Varela has named a committee to represent the government in the talks; it is headed by Vice President Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado, who is also the foreign relations minister, and includes security minister Rodolfo Aguilera, governance minister Milton Henríquez, labor minister Luis Ernesto Carles and environmental minister Mirei Endara. Some members of the committee held a preliminary meeting with indigenous leaders on Jan. 29, and the government’s technical commission was studying the area around the dam on Jan. 31.
Ngöbe-Buglé activists have demonstrated repeatedly against the Barro Blanco project since 2011, charging that it endangers an archeological site and will displace 2,000 or more indigenous people in the Ngöbe-Buglé comarca (designated indigenous territory). The government of former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) failed to hold a required consultation with the communities, according to the activists, who claim the administration had interests in common with Generadora del Istmo, S.A. (GENISA), the Honduran-owned company building the dam. Indigenous protesters have maintained an encampment at the dam’s site since February 2014, according to Silvia Carrera, the Ngöbe-Buglé comarca’s official leader (cacica). Speaking at a forum in Natá, Coclé province, on Jan. 24, Carrera warned that the government needs to “dialogue with the people of Barro Blanco and the affected communities…before people take to the streets the way it happened in 2011 and 2012.” (La Estrella de Panamá 1/25/15, 1/30/15; Intercontinental Cry 1/27/15 from Servindi; Hora Cero (Panama) 2/1/15)
In related news, former president Martinelli fled to the US on Jan. 29, one day after Panama’s Supreme Court initiated a corruption investigation against him. He flew to Florida from Guatemala, where he was attending a session of the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN). “I fear for my life and my family,” he said. “I’m the target of a political persecution.” He claimed current President Varela “would do the impossible to end” him and his party and is “inventing charges” against him. Varela, who took office last July 1, was Martinelli’s vice president, but he ran against Martinelli’s candidate in the 2014 elections. Martinelli said he had no plans to return to Panama. Meanwhile, thousands marched in Panama City on Jan. 29 chanting slogans against the former president and demanding an end to impunity and jail time for corrupt politicians. (PanAM Post 1/30/15 from La Prensa (Panama))
*2. Chile: Two Found Guilty in Horman Murder Case
Retired Chilean army colonel Pedro Espinoza and former Chilean air force intelligence agent Rafael González Berdugo have been convicted in the murder of US journalist Charles Horman and US graduate student Frank Teruggi during the days after the Sept. 11, 1973 military coup that overthrew leftist president Salvador Allende Gossens [see Update #1226]. Judge Jorge Zepeda sentenced Espinoza--formerly an officer in the now-defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) who has been described as the right-hand man of DINA head Manuel Contreras—to seven years in prison for the two murders. González Berdugo was sentenced to two years of police surveillance as an accomplice in Harmon’s murder. Judge Zepeda ruled in the case on Jan. 9 but the decision wasn’t announced until Jan. 28. Last summer the judge officially ruled that “US military intelligence services played a fundamental role in the murders” by supplying information to the Chilean military. (El Ciudadano (Chile) 1/31/15)
In other news, on Jan. 28 Chile’s Senate approved a law authorizing civil unions for same-sex couples. The Chamber of Deputies had passed the law on Jan. 20 in an 86-23 vote, with two abstentions. The legislation ensures members of same-sex couples rights to receive pensions, enroll in health plans and inherit property from one another; it also provides them with greater standing in child custody cases. President Michelle Bachelet says her long-term goal is full same-sex marriage rights, a position supported by 46% of the population and opposed by 42%, according to a 2013 poll by the US-based Pew Research Center. Same-sex marriage is recognized in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and parts of Mexico; civil unions are recognized in Colombia and Ecuador. Chile tends to be conservative on social issues; divorce wasn’t legalized until 2004, all abortions remain illegal, and sodomy was punishable with prison until 1999. (TeleSUR English 1/21/15; Jamaica Observer 1/28/15 from AFP)
Chile’s Congress has also been working on removing laws and practices imposed during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The Chamber of Deputies voted on Jan. 20 to eliminate the “binominal” electoral formula established by Pinochet’s 1980 Constitution, a formula which opponents say has made it possible for the right to control half the seats in Congress while getting just over a third of the votes; the legislation had already won approval in the Senate. The new proportional voting system should make it easier for smaller parties to compete; the new law also expands the Chamber from 120 to 155 seats and the Senate from 38 to 50 seats. (TeleSUR English 1/21/15; Latin American Herald Tribune 1/20/15)
Legislation that President Bachelet calls the first phase of rolling back the Pinochet-era education system passed the Senate on Jan. 22 and the Chamber of Deputies on Jan. 26. The dictatorship’s highly privatized system was the target of massive student protests from 2011 through 2013; several of the student leaders at that time are now members of Congress [see Update #1219]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 1/23/15 from correspondent; Reuters 1/27/15)
*3. Dominican Republic: Thousands to Become Stateless
Tens of thousands of Dominicans born to undocumented immigrants were set to become stateless when a deadline to regularize their status passed on Feb. 1, according to the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI). “Even if these people are able to stay in the Dominican Republic after the deadline expires, their futures are woefully uncertain,” AI Americas director Erika Guevara Rosas said in a statement. The people at risk are mostly Haitian descendants who were affected by Decision 168-13, a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal (TC) in September 2013 declaring that no one born to undocumented immigrant parents since 1929 was a citizen. Their situation was supposed to be remedied by Law 169/14, which was passed in May 2014 to set up a process for people to regularize their status [see Update #1221]. AI says the law’s implementation has been inadequate.
The Interior Ministry reported that as of Jan. 9, only 5,345 people had applied for regularization--just 5% of the 110,000 people AI believes should be eligible. The Dominican government has put the number of eligible people at 20,000 and claims it has done its best to help people file their claims. Immigration director José Ricardo Taveras told the El Caribe news site that the government had set up more than 20 offices to handle regularization requests and had launched a big publicity campaign. But the media reported long lines at the offices, and AI charged that even people “who should have been able to have their Dominican nationality returned in a quick procedure have been waiting for months.” “The simple fact is that when the vast majority of these people were born, the Dominican law at the time recognized them as citizens,” Guevara Rosas said. “Stripping them of this right and then creating impossible administrative hurdles to stay in the country is a violation of their human rights.” (AI statement 2/1/15; Terra Argentina 2/1/15 from Reuters)
On Jan. 28 AI reported that the Dominican authorities had deported 51 people to Haiti the day before. The group included 30 children, ages seven to 13, born in the Dominican Republic, along with seven mothers of the children and 14 other adults. They were traveling in two minivans to San Juan de la Maguana, in the western province of San Juan, where they expected to register for the regularization. However, according to AI the vehicles were stopped at a military checkpoint a few kilometers from the city. Officers told the passengers that they had to go to an immigration office in Elias Piña, near the border with Haiti, to get passes before entering San Juan. After arriving at Elias Piña, the entire group was deported to Haiti. The Dominican Interior Ministry claimed it had authorized their reentry, but as of Jan. 28 they were still in Haiti. AI noted the special vulnerability of the Dominican-born children, who were not Haitian citizens and were now in effect stateless. (lainformacion.com 1/28/15 from EFE Verde)
*4. Haiti: President Gives Reporters Xmas Present
The government of Haitian president Michel Joseph Martelly presented a group of reporters with cash gifts during a reception on Dec. 23, according to an open letter published on Jan. 26 by the management of the Radio Kiskeya radio station. Reporters with press credentials for presidential functions were given “envelopes containing 50,000 gourdes [about US$1,065] and 40,000 gourdes [about US$852] respectively,” the station wrote. Recipients said President Martelly had offered them what he called “a little gift whose small size they shouldn’t take offense at,” and then referred them to his spokesperson, Lucien Jura, and Esther Fatal, head of the Communication Office of the Presidency; the two officials gave the journalists the envelopes.
Radio Kiskeya said three of its reporters accepted the cash; they were “severely disciplined,” according to the letter, which didn’t reveal their names or the names of other reporters who accepted the “gifts.” “This isn’t the first time journalists have received bribes,” Franck Séguy, a professor at the State University of Haiti (UEH) and a former journalist himself, told the Haitian news site AlterPresse, although the practice “has never been discussed in the press.” He said a major cause was the fact that Haitian journalists aren’t paid enough to live in dignity and are allowed to “supplement their salary elsewhere.” (Radio Kiskeya 1/26/15; Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch, Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1/27/15; AlterPresse 1/29/15)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, US/immigration
Roads are encroaching deeper into the Amazon rainforest, study says (Latin America)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5201-roads-are-encroaching-deeper-into-the-amazon-rainforest-study-says-
US Further Isolated as CELAC Rejects Regional Intervention (Latin America)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11178
Argentina: Societies in Movement or Politics as Usual?
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Argentina-Societies-in-Movement-or-Politics-as-Usual-20150127-0029.html
Chile’s LGBT movement wins historic victory with approval of civil unions
http://wagingnonviolence.org/2015/01/chiles-lgbt-movement-wins-historic-victory-approval-civil-unions/
In Memoriam: Pedro Lemebel's Chronicles of the Pinochet Dictatorship (Chile)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/5204-in-memoriam-pedro-lemebels-chronicles-of-the-pinochet-dictatorship
German Couple Kidnapped, Shot Dead in Paraguay; Guerrilla Group Suspected
http://latindispatch.com/2015/01/30/german-couple-kidnapped-shot-dead-in-paraguay-guerrilla-group-suspected/
The Power of the Spectacle: Evo Morales’ Inauguration in Tiwanaku, Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/5199-the-power-of-the-spectacle-evo-morales-inauguration-in-tiwanaku-bolivia
Ex-Colombian Intelligence Chief Surrenders to Authorities
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Ex-Colombian-Intelligence-Chief-Surrenders-to-Authorities-20150131-0008.html
Venezuela to nuke New York... Not!
http://ww4report.com/node/13937
Venezuela approves use of force against protesters
http://ww4report.com/node/13944
Panama: Vice President and Ministers to Meet Ngäbe Buglé Before Indigenous Ultimatum
https://intercontinentalcry.org/panama-vice-president-ministers-meet-ngabe-bugle-indigenous-ultimatum/
Ayotzinapa Calls for Mexico’s Transformation
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14537
More Femicide Victims Identified from Border Graveyard (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/more-femicide-victims-identified-from-border-graveyard/
Cuban President: Return of Guantanamo Bay Needed to Normalize Relations
http://latindispatch.com/2015/01/29/cuban-president-return-of-guantanamo-bay-needed-to-normalize-relations/
Raúl Castro demands that US return Guantánamo base to Cuba
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5205-raul-castro-demands-that-us-return-guantanamo-base-to-cuba-
Is the Absence of Parliament Clearing the Way for Lamothe to Run for President? (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/is-the-absence-of-parliament-clearing-the-way-for-lamothe-to-run-for-president
Journalists Denounce Attempts by Haitian Government to Silence Criticism
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/journalists-denounce-attempts-by-haitian-government-to-silence-criticism
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/
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
WNU #1247: Panamanians Remember US Invasion
Issue #1247, December 21, 2014
1. Panama: Victims Remember US Invasion
2. Cuba: US Agrees to Normalize Relations
3. Cuba: Leftists, US Firms Praise New Policy
4. Cuba: USAID Head Quits After Latest Scandal
5. Venezuela: US Imposes Sanctions on Officials
6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, US/immigration
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. Panama: Victims Remember US Invasion
Victims and survivors of the 1989 invasion of Panama by the US held a public ceremony on Dec. 20 to mark the 25th anniversary of the start of the military action. As they have for 25 years, the ceremony’s participants called for the US government to acknowledge the damage from the invasion, indemnify the victims and their survivors, and reveal the location of mass graves where some of the dead were buried. “There were bodies that were thrown in the sea, and there are bodies scattered in different places, so we can never finally offer them a tribute,” Trinidad Ayola, whose husband died defending an airport, told the AFP wire service. “Without justice there can’t be peace or reconciliation, and we can’t turn the page.” President Juan Carlos Varela attended the ceremony, announcing that the government would form a commission to consider the families’ demands, including the declaration of Dec. 20 as a national day of mourning. He is the first Panamanian president to attend the annual commemoration.
Codenamed “Operation Just Cause,” the invasion was ordered by then-president George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) and overseen by armed forces head Gen. Colin Powell. The stated goal was to capture Panamanian military leader Manuel Antonio Noriega, a longtime asset of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in order to restore democracy and end cocaine trafficking through Panama. Others have suggested that Bush invaded because Noriega refused to help the US attack the government of Nicaragua, then headed by the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), and because he wouldn’t renegotiate the Torrijos-Carter treaty, in which the US agreed to return control of the Panama Canal to Panama in 1999. After serving out a prison sentence in the US, Noriega was extradited to Panama in 2011 and remains in prison there.
According to official sources, 314 Panamanian soldiers and 23 US soldiers died in the invasion. The Panamanian government says some 200 civilians were killed, but Panamanian human rights organizations estimate that more than a thousand died. US bombing caused widespread damage in the country, setting off fires in Panama City’s impoverished El Chorrillo neighborhood that destroyed some 4,000 homes.
Panamanians may not have been the only victims of the invasion. Writing in TomDispatch on Dec. 21, New York University history professor Greg Grandin concluded that the success of “Just Cause”--both in achieving its military goals and in influencing US public opinion--encouraged US leaders to larger and even bloodier military interventions. “[T]he invasion of Panama was the forgotten warm-up for the first Gulf War, which took place a little over a year later,” according to Grandin. “The road to Baghdad, in other words, ran through Panama City. It was George H.W. Bush’s invasion of that small, poor country 25 years ago that inaugurated the age of preemptive unilateralism, using ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ as both justifications for war and a branding opportunity.” (El Siglo (Panama) 12/18/14 from AFP; Fox News Latino 12/21/14; TomDispatch 12/21/14)
*2. Cuba: US Agrees to Normalize Relations
In a surprise move, Cuban president Raúl Castro and US president Barack Obama announced in separate television appearances on Dec. 17 that their two countries were now working to renew diplomatic relations, which the US broke off nearly 54 years earlier, in January 1961, under former president Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961). The two countries were releasing a total of 58 prisoners in the agreement, officials said, and the US will loosen some restrictions on contacts with Cuba by US residents; however, the US government’s 52-year-old embargo against trade with Cuba will remain in effect.
The accord was worked out in 18 months of secret discussions and meetings, apparently with some mediation from Argentine-born Catholic pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio). President Castro said the agreement “in no way means that the heart of the matter has been resolved,” but he added that “the progress made in our exchanges proves that it is possible to find solutions to many problems.” President Obama described the previous US policy towards Cuba as “an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests” and said the accord will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas.”
As part of the agreement Cuba released US citizen Alan Gross, who had been serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba since 2011 for his work there as a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) [see Update #1241]. At the same time the US released Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino, three of the “Cuban Five,” a group of Cuban agents that US courts convicted in 2001 of espionage-related activities; the other two agents, René González and Fernando González, were released earlier after serving their sentences [see Update #1211]. Cuban officials said Gross, who was unwell, was freed for humanitarian reasons. Apparently the three Cubans were not exchanged for Gross but for a US spy who had been imprisoned in Cuba for nearly 20 years. The Cuban government also agreed to release 53 Cubans that the US had described as “political prisoners.” (New York Times 12/18/14)
Cuban and US officials refused to name the US spy who was released, but unidentified former US intelligence agents told the media they were certain the spy was Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a Cuban cryptologist who was arrested in 1995 and was serving a 25-year sentence for revealing Cuban secret codes to the US. Reportedly his actions helped lead US intelligence to the exposure of a number of important Cuban agents in the US: the Cuban Five, Ana Belén Montes [see Update #664], Walter Kendall Myers and Gwendolyn Myers. Although officials said the spy was freed and sent to the US as part of the deal, as of Dec. 19 Sarraff Trujillo’s relatives said they hadn’t heard from him and were concerned for his safety. (Los Angeles Times 12/18/14; NYT 12/19/14 from AP)
The US government is to ease restrictions on different categories of travel to Cuba by US residents--for family visits, official visits, and journalistic, professional, educational and religious activities, and public performance--and travelers will also be able to bring back $400 worth of goods, including up to $100 in tobacco and alcohol products. However, private tourism will still be forbidden. Banking connections will be increased, and US residents will be able to send family members in Cuba $2,000 every three months, up from $500 at present. The US State Department has been instructed to “re-evaluate” its 22-year-old listing of Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” a designation which has been questioned even by establishment groups like the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. The US president lacks the authority to end the trade embargo, which Congress has mandated through various laws, but on Dec. 17 Obama asked for an “honest and serious debate about lifting” it. (Boston Globe 12/17/14; NYT 12/18/14; US Today 12/19/14)
*3. Cuba: Leftists, US Firms Praise New Policy
US president Barack Obama’s Dec. 17 announcement that the US would restore diplomatic relations with Cuba was “an historic triumph for the society and the government of the island,” the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada asserted in an editorial the next day. “[T]he hostility converted into Washington’s government policy has arrived at its end—although the repeal of the blockade laws is still pending—and this occurred without Havana’s having made any concession in its political and economic model.” The paper added that the policy change demonstrated “the correctness of the position of the Latin American governments, which advocated for decades for an end to the official US hostility to Cuba.” (LJ 12/18/14)
The change won praise from Latin American leaders on both the left and the right. “For us, social fighters, today is an historic day,” center-left Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said at conference of South American countries in Argentina. “We imagined we would never see this moment.” Venezuela’s leftist president Nicolás Maduro, attending the same conference, called the move an “historic victory for the Cuban people…. [W]e have to recognize the gesture from President Barack Obama, a courageous and necessary gesture.” Center-right Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos expressed his hope that the new policy would lead to attaining “the dream of having a continent where there is total peace.” (Washington Post 12/18/14 from correspondents)
The response in the US was generally favorable, despite heavy media coverage of opponents of the policy change like Cuban-American senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ). A poll by Zogby Analytics found 56% of US voters in favor of the new policy and only 27% opposed. Among Latino voters, 70% supported the policy and 21% opposed it.
Support seemed to be especially strong among US business groups hoping to take advantage of the new relationship. “We deeply believe that an open dialogue and commercial exchange between the US and Cuban private sectors will bring shared benefits, and the steps announced today will go a long way in allowing opportunities for free enterprise to flourish,” US Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donahue said on Dec. 17. Some US corporations did more than just support the move. Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc., personal care product maker Colgate-Palmolive Company and the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies have each spent tens of thousands of dollars lobbying for an end to the embargo. The liquor company Bacardi Limited and the Swedish-owned General Cigar Company have also been lobbying, while Carnival Cruise Lines, Marriott Hotels & Resorts, the Coca Cola Company and heavy equipment manufacturer John Deere have all expressed interest in doing business in Cuba. (The Hill 12/17/14; Fortune 12/18/14; LJ 12/20/14 from correspondent)
*4. Cuba: USAID Head Quits After Latest Scandal
On Dec. 17, less than a week after the Associated Press (AP) wire service reported on a failed effort by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to co-opt Cuban hip-hop artists, agency administrator Rajiv Shah announced that he was leaving his post in February. Shah’s announcement came the same day as news that the US was moving towards normalizing relations with Cuba and that the Cuban government had released imprisoned USAID contractor Alan Gross. Shah didn’t give a reason for his resignation but said he had “mixed emotions.” In a statement released that day US president Barack Obama said Shah, who has headed the USAID since December 2009, “has been at the center of my administration’s efforts to advance our global development agenda.” (Bellingham (WA) Herald 12/17/14 from AP)
According to a Dec. 11 AP article, documents obtained by the wire service show that from 2009 to 2011 USAID “secretly infiltrated Cuba's underground hip-hop movement, recruiting unwitting rappers to spark a youth movement against the government.” The program, which the AP describes as “amateurish and profoundly unsuccessful,” was run through Washington, DC-based private contractor Creative Associates International and employed the services of Serbian rock promoter Rajko Bozic, who claims to have been part of the Serbian student movement that helped remove Slobodan Milosevic from power in 2000. The project’s contractors ended up “putting themselves and their targets at risk” and “compromising Cuba's vibrant hip-hop culture,” AP investigative reporters concluded. (AP 12/11/14)
AP reported earlier this year on two other failed USAID “democracy promotion” projects, also contracted through Creative Associates: the ZunZuneo “Cuban Twitter” program and an effort to build an anti-government youth movement. All three projects were carried out during Shah’s tenure as USAID administrator, although they appear to have started before he took over [see Updates #1215, 1230].
Shah, a former executive with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, preceded his resignation with a visit to Haiti over the weekend of Dec. 19. There he signed a partnership agreement with the healthcare nonprofit Partners in Health’s Haitian branch, Zanmi Lasante; he reportedly also met with Partners in Health co-founder Paul Farmer, who was the Obama’s administration’s first choice to head USAID. (Devex 12/17/14) Like the Cuban programs, USAID projects for Haiti have experienced a number of failures under Shah. The “New Settlement Program,” for example, was supposed to build 4,000 houses by 2012 to replace homes lost in the earthquake that struck southern Haiti in January 2010; the cost was to be about $53 million. Only about 816 houses had been built when USAID’s inspector general issued a report in April 2014, but the program’s cost had soared to $90 million. According to a Nov. 20 news item by the DC-based nonprofit Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), 750 of the houses are so badly constructed that they will need millions of dollars of repairs. (CEPR 11/20/14; Fiscal Times 12/9/14)
*5. Venezuela: US Imposes Sanctions on Officials
On Dec. 18 US president Barack Obama signed a bill into law that will impose sanctions on those Venezuela officials that the US government decides were involved in repressing demonstrators during rightwing protests last spring. The measure, which Congress passed the week before, would deny visas to the officials and freeze any assets they may hold in the US. Diplomats in Venezuela said dozens of officials could be affected, although the US is not expected to publish their names. A total of 43 people were reportedly killed in the three months of demonstrations, including government supporters, government opponents and security agents.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro noted that Obama signed the bill just one day after announcing plans to normalize relations with Cuba following a half-century of sanctions. “These are the contradictions of an empire that seeks to impose its domination by whatever means, underestimating the power and conscience of our fatherland,” Maduro wrote in his Twitter account on Dec. 18. In a New York Times op-ed National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello Rondón noted the “unfortunate coincidence” that Congress passed the sanctions bill “just as scores of people demonstrating against police brutality were being arrested on the streets of New York and other cities” and “a Senate report revealed the extent of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency” [see Update #1246]. (NYT 12/19/14; Reuters 12/19/14)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, US/immigration
Climate Justice: Uniting Struggles Across Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/5156-climate-justice-uniting-struggles-across-latin-america
The Torture Consensus in U.S. Democracy (Latin America)
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/19/torture-consensus-us-democracy
Argentina: Dock Workers End Strike at Major Grain Port
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Argentina-Dock-Workers-End-Strike-at-Major-Grain-Port------------20141219-0037.html
Argentina: Mining Corporations vs. Democracy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/5155-argentina-mining-corporations-vs-democracy
PEC 215: No Vote by Special Commission of Brazilian House
https://intercontinentalcry.org/pec-215-no-vote-by-special-commission-of-brazilian-house-26664/
Gratitude for the Defense of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil
https://intercontinentalcry.org/gratitude-defense-rights-indigenous-peoples-brazil/
Denunciation of the Suppression of Rights and Attempts to End the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil
https://intercontinentalcry.org/denunciation-suppression-rights-attempts-end-indigenous-peoples-brazil/
Peru: campesino family scores win against mine
http://ww4report.com/node/13834
An Open Letter from Boaventura de Sousa Santos to Ecuadorian President Correa on Kicking the CONAIE Indigenous Movement Out of its Headquarters
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/5150-an-open-letter-from-boaventura-de-sousa-santos-to-ecuadorian-president-correa-on-kicking-the-conaie-indigenous-movement-out-of-its-headquarters
CONAIE Indigenous Organization Evicted from Headquarters by Ecuadorian Government
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/5152-conaie-indigenous-organization-evicted-from-headquarters-by-ecuadorian-government
Ecuador: Correa acts against CONAIE
http://ww4report.com/node/13833
Colombia: FARC declare ceasefire —amid fighting
http://ww4report.com/node/13831
Colombia: corrupt cops caught in crackdown
http://ww4report.com/node/13830
Beyond Ayotzinapa: How U.S. Intervention in Colombia Paved the Way for Mexico’s Human Rights Crisis
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/5153-beyond-ayotzinapa-how-us-intervention-in-colombia-paved-the-way-for-mexicos-human-rights-crisis
Venezuela sanctions highlight US hypocrisy on human rights
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5157-venezuela-sanctions-highlight-us-hypocrisy-on-human-rights
Tomgram: Greg Grandin, How the Iraq War Began in Panama
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175937/tomgram%3A_greg_grandin%2C_how_the_iraq_war_began_in_panama
The Struggle for Indigenous Land and Autonomy in Honduras
https://intercontinentalcry.org/the-struggle-for-indigenous-land-and-autonomy-in-honduras-26652/
Mining interests in Guatemala challenged by indigenous direct democracy
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/mining-interests-guatemala-challenged-indigenous-direct-democracy/
Unearthing the Truth: Mexican State Violence Beyond Ayotzinapa
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/22/unearthing-truth-mexican-state-violence-beyond-ayotzinapa
The Revolution of Lupe Reyes (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-revolution-of-lupe-reyes/
Collapse of Oil Prices, Fall in Peso Exacerbate Mexican Crisis
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=231#1780
Mining Water in Sonora: Grupo México’s “Irregular” Water Permits in the Sonora, Yaqui, and San Pedro River Basins (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/13998
Making Mining Dreams Come True in Mexico
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14055
Mining, Megaprojects, and Metrosexuals in Sonora (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14062
Atento Workers Seeking Democratic Union Lose Election Re-run (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=231#1781
#Fergazinapa: Liberating Our Outrage, Remapping Our Action (Mexico/US)
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/16/fergazinapa-liberating-our-outrage-remapping-our-action
Report on "Solidarity from the Ground Up: an Organizers' Tri-national Exchange" (Mexico/US/Canada)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=231#1785
Do Cubans Really Want U.S.-Style Internet Freedom?
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/20/do-cubans-really-want-us-style-internet-freedom
Raúl Castro: The New Opening With the USA (Cuba)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5158-raul-castro-the-new-opening-with-the-usa
The Fight against Migrant Family Detention Continues (US/immigration)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14131
Migrant Deaths and Displacement Soar in 2014(US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/migrant-deaths-and-displacement-soar-in-2014/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://alainet.org/index.phtml.en
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/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
1. Panama: Victims Remember US Invasion
2. Cuba: US Agrees to Normalize Relations
3. Cuba: Leftists, US Firms Praise New Policy
4. Cuba: USAID Head Quits After Latest Scandal
5. Venezuela: US Imposes Sanctions on Officials
6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, US/immigration
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. Panama: Victims Remember US Invasion
Victims and survivors of the 1989 invasion of Panama by the US held a public ceremony on Dec. 20 to mark the 25th anniversary of the start of the military action. As they have for 25 years, the ceremony’s participants called for the US government to acknowledge the damage from the invasion, indemnify the victims and their survivors, and reveal the location of mass graves where some of the dead were buried. “There were bodies that were thrown in the sea, and there are bodies scattered in different places, so we can never finally offer them a tribute,” Trinidad Ayola, whose husband died defending an airport, told the AFP wire service. “Without justice there can’t be peace or reconciliation, and we can’t turn the page.” President Juan Carlos Varela attended the ceremony, announcing that the government would form a commission to consider the families’ demands, including the declaration of Dec. 20 as a national day of mourning. He is the first Panamanian president to attend the annual commemoration.
Codenamed “Operation Just Cause,” the invasion was ordered by then-president George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) and overseen by armed forces head Gen. Colin Powell. The stated goal was to capture Panamanian military leader Manuel Antonio Noriega, a longtime asset of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in order to restore democracy and end cocaine trafficking through Panama. Others have suggested that Bush invaded because Noriega refused to help the US attack the government of Nicaragua, then headed by the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), and because he wouldn’t renegotiate the Torrijos-Carter treaty, in which the US agreed to return control of the Panama Canal to Panama in 1999. After serving out a prison sentence in the US, Noriega was extradited to Panama in 2011 and remains in prison there.
According to official sources, 314 Panamanian soldiers and 23 US soldiers died in the invasion. The Panamanian government says some 200 civilians were killed, but Panamanian human rights organizations estimate that more than a thousand died. US bombing caused widespread damage in the country, setting off fires in Panama City’s impoverished El Chorrillo neighborhood that destroyed some 4,000 homes.
Panamanians may not have been the only victims of the invasion. Writing in TomDispatch on Dec. 21, New York University history professor Greg Grandin concluded that the success of “Just Cause”--both in achieving its military goals and in influencing US public opinion--encouraged US leaders to larger and even bloodier military interventions. “[T]he invasion of Panama was the forgotten warm-up for the first Gulf War, which took place a little over a year later,” according to Grandin. “The road to Baghdad, in other words, ran through Panama City. It was George H.W. Bush’s invasion of that small, poor country 25 years ago that inaugurated the age of preemptive unilateralism, using ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ as both justifications for war and a branding opportunity.” (El Siglo (Panama) 12/18/14 from AFP; Fox News Latino 12/21/14; TomDispatch 12/21/14)
*2. Cuba: US Agrees to Normalize Relations
In a surprise move, Cuban president Raúl Castro and US president Barack Obama announced in separate television appearances on Dec. 17 that their two countries were now working to renew diplomatic relations, which the US broke off nearly 54 years earlier, in January 1961, under former president Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961). The two countries were releasing a total of 58 prisoners in the agreement, officials said, and the US will loosen some restrictions on contacts with Cuba by US residents; however, the US government’s 52-year-old embargo against trade with Cuba will remain in effect.
The accord was worked out in 18 months of secret discussions and meetings, apparently with some mediation from Argentine-born Catholic pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio). President Castro said the agreement “in no way means that the heart of the matter has been resolved,” but he added that “the progress made in our exchanges proves that it is possible to find solutions to many problems.” President Obama described the previous US policy towards Cuba as “an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests” and said the accord will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas.”
As part of the agreement Cuba released US citizen Alan Gross, who had been serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba since 2011 for his work there as a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) [see Update #1241]. At the same time the US released Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino, three of the “Cuban Five,” a group of Cuban agents that US courts convicted in 2001 of espionage-related activities; the other two agents, René González and Fernando González, were released earlier after serving their sentences [see Update #1211]. Cuban officials said Gross, who was unwell, was freed for humanitarian reasons. Apparently the three Cubans were not exchanged for Gross but for a US spy who had been imprisoned in Cuba for nearly 20 years. The Cuban government also agreed to release 53 Cubans that the US had described as “political prisoners.” (New York Times 12/18/14)
Cuban and US officials refused to name the US spy who was released, but unidentified former US intelligence agents told the media they were certain the spy was Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a Cuban cryptologist who was arrested in 1995 and was serving a 25-year sentence for revealing Cuban secret codes to the US. Reportedly his actions helped lead US intelligence to the exposure of a number of important Cuban agents in the US: the Cuban Five, Ana Belén Montes [see Update #664], Walter Kendall Myers and Gwendolyn Myers. Although officials said the spy was freed and sent to the US as part of the deal, as of Dec. 19 Sarraff Trujillo’s relatives said they hadn’t heard from him and were concerned for his safety. (Los Angeles Times 12/18/14; NYT 12/19/14 from AP)
The US government is to ease restrictions on different categories of travel to Cuba by US residents--for family visits, official visits, and journalistic, professional, educational and religious activities, and public performance--and travelers will also be able to bring back $400 worth of goods, including up to $100 in tobacco and alcohol products. However, private tourism will still be forbidden. Banking connections will be increased, and US residents will be able to send family members in Cuba $2,000 every three months, up from $500 at present. The US State Department has been instructed to “re-evaluate” its 22-year-old listing of Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” a designation which has been questioned even by establishment groups like the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. The US president lacks the authority to end the trade embargo, which Congress has mandated through various laws, but on Dec. 17 Obama asked for an “honest and serious debate about lifting” it. (Boston Globe 12/17/14; NYT 12/18/14; US Today 12/19/14)
*3. Cuba: Leftists, US Firms Praise New Policy
US president Barack Obama’s Dec. 17 announcement that the US would restore diplomatic relations with Cuba was “an historic triumph for the society and the government of the island,” the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada asserted in an editorial the next day. “[T]he hostility converted into Washington’s government policy has arrived at its end—although the repeal of the blockade laws is still pending—and this occurred without Havana’s having made any concession in its political and economic model.” The paper added that the policy change demonstrated “the correctness of the position of the Latin American governments, which advocated for decades for an end to the official US hostility to Cuba.” (LJ 12/18/14)
The change won praise from Latin American leaders on both the left and the right. “For us, social fighters, today is an historic day,” center-left Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said at conference of South American countries in Argentina. “We imagined we would never see this moment.” Venezuela’s leftist president Nicolás Maduro, attending the same conference, called the move an “historic victory for the Cuban people…. [W]e have to recognize the gesture from President Barack Obama, a courageous and necessary gesture.” Center-right Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos expressed his hope that the new policy would lead to attaining “the dream of having a continent where there is total peace.” (Washington Post 12/18/14 from correspondents)
The response in the US was generally favorable, despite heavy media coverage of opponents of the policy change like Cuban-American senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ). A poll by Zogby Analytics found 56% of US voters in favor of the new policy and only 27% opposed. Among Latino voters, 70% supported the policy and 21% opposed it.
Support seemed to be especially strong among US business groups hoping to take advantage of the new relationship. “We deeply believe that an open dialogue and commercial exchange between the US and Cuban private sectors will bring shared benefits, and the steps announced today will go a long way in allowing opportunities for free enterprise to flourish,” US Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donahue said on Dec. 17. Some US corporations did more than just support the move. Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc., personal care product maker Colgate-Palmolive Company and the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies have each spent tens of thousands of dollars lobbying for an end to the embargo. The liquor company Bacardi Limited and the Swedish-owned General Cigar Company have also been lobbying, while Carnival Cruise Lines, Marriott Hotels & Resorts, the Coca Cola Company and heavy equipment manufacturer John Deere have all expressed interest in doing business in Cuba. (The Hill 12/17/14; Fortune 12/18/14; LJ 12/20/14 from correspondent)
*4. Cuba: USAID Head Quits After Latest Scandal
On Dec. 17, less than a week after the Associated Press (AP) wire service reported on a failed effort by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to co-opt Cuban hip-hop artists, agency administrator Rajiv Shah announced that he was leaving his post in February. Shah’s announcement came the same day as news that the US was moving towards normalizing relations with Cuba and that the Cuban government had released imprisoned USAID contractor Alan Gross. Shah didn’t give a reason for his resignation but said he had “mixed emotions.” In a statement released that day US president Barack Obama said Shah, who has headed the USAID since December 2009, “has been at the center of my administration’s efforts to advance our global development agenda.” (Bellingham (WA) Herald 12/17/14 from AP)
According to a Dec. 11 AP article, documents obtained by the wire service show that from 2009 to 2011 USAID “secretly infiltrated Cuba's underground hip-hop movement, recruiting unwitting rappers to spark a youth movement against the government.” The program, which the AP describes as “amateurish and profoundly unsuccessful,” was run through Washington, DC-based private contractor Creative Associates International and employed the services of Serbian rock promoter Rajko Bozic, who claims to have been part of the Serbian student movement that helped remove Slobodan Milosevic from power in 2000. The project’s contractors ended up “putting themselves and their targets at risk” and “compromising Cuba's vibrant hip-hop culture,” AP investigative reporters concluded. (AP 12/11/14)
AP reported earlier this year on two other failed USAID “democracy promotion” projects, also contracted through Creative Associates: the ZunZuneo “Cuban Twitter” program and an effort to build an anti-government youth movement. All three projects were carried out during Shah’s tenure as USAID administrator, although they appear to have started before he took over [see Updates #1215, 1230].
Shah, a former executive with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, preceded his resignation with a visit to Haiti over the weekend of Dec. 19. There he signed a partnership agreement with the healthcare nonprofit Partners in Health’s Haitian branch, Zanmi Lasante; he reportedly also met with Partners in Health co-founder Paul Farmer, who was the Obama’s administration’s first choice to head USAID. (Devex 12/17/14) Like the Cuban programs, USAID projects for Haiti have experienced a number of failures under Shah. The “New Settlement Program,” for example, was supposed to build 4,000 houses by 2012 to replace homes lost in the earthquake that struck southern Haiti in January 2010; the cost was to be about $53 million. Only about 816 houses had been built when USAID’s inspector general issued a report in April 2014, but the program’s cost had soared to $90 million. According to a Nov. 20 news item by the DC-based nonprofit Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), 750 of the houses are so badly constructed that they will need millions of dollars of repairs. (CEPR 11/20/14; Fiscal Times 12/9/14)
*5. Venezuela: US Imposes Sanctions on Officials
On Dec. 18 US president Barack Obama signed a bill into law that will impose sanctions on those Venezuela officials that the US government decides were involved in repressing demonstrators during rightwing protests last spring. The measure, which Congress passed the week before, would deny visas to the officials and freeze any assets they may hold in the US. Diplomats in Venezuela said dozens of officials could be affected, although the US is not expected to publish their names. A total of 43 people were reportedly killed in the three months of demonstrations, including government supporters, government opponents and security agents.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro noted that Obama signed the bill just one day after announcing plans to normalize relations with Cuba following a half-century of sanctions. “These are the contradictions of an empire that seeks to impose its domination by whatever means, underestimating the power and conscience of our fatherland,” Maduro wrote in his Twitter account on Dec. 18. In a New York Times op-ed National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello Rondón noted the “unfortunate coincidence” that Congress passed the sanctions bill “just as scores of people demonstrating against police brutality were being arrested on the streets of New York and other cities” and “a Senate report revealed the extent of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency” [see Update #1246]. (NYT 12/19/14; Reuters 12/19/14)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, US/immigration
Climate Justice: Uniting Struggles Across Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/5156-climate-justice-uniting-struggles-across-latin-america
The Torture Consensus in U.S. Democracy (Latin America)
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/19/torture-consensus-us-democracy
Argentina: Dock Workers End Strike at Major Grain Port
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Argentina-Dock-Workers-End-Strike-at-Major-Grain-Port------------20141219-0037.html
Argentina: Mining Corporations vs. Democracy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/5155-argentina-mining-corporations-vs-democracy
PEC 215: No Vote by Special Commission of Brazilian House
https://intercontinentalcry.org/pec-215-no-vote-by-special-commission-of-brazilian-house-26664/
Gratitude for the Defense of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil
https://intercontinentalcry.org/gratitude-defense-rights-indigenous-peoples-brazil/
Denunciation of the Suppression of Rights and Attempts to End the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil
https://intercontinentalcry.org/denunciation-suppression-rights-attempts-end-indigenous-peoples-brazil/
Peru: campesino family scores win against mine
http://ww4report.com/node/13834
An Open Letter from Boaventura de Sousa Santos to Ecuadorian President Correa on Kicking the CONAIE Indigenous Movement Out of its Headquarters
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/5150-an-open-letter-from-boaventura-de-sousa-santos-to-ecuadorian-president-correa-on-kicking-the-conaie-indigenous-movement-out-of-its-headquarters
CONAIE Indigenous Organization Evicted from Headquarters by Ecuadorian Government
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/5152-conaie-indigenous-organization-evicted-from-headquarters-by-ecuadorian-government
Ecuador: Correa acts against CONAIE
http://ww4report.com/node/13833
Colombia: FARC declare ceasefire —amid fighting
http://ww4report.com/node/13831
Colombia: corrupt cops caught in crackdown
http://ww4report.com/node/13830
Beyond Ayotzinapa: How U.S. Intervention in Colombia Paved the Way for Mexico’s Human Rights Crisis
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/5153-beyond-ayotzinapa-how-us-intervention-in-colombia-paved-the-way-for-mexicos-human-rights-crisis
Venezuela sanctions highlight US hypocrisy on human rights
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5157-venezuela-sanctions-highlight-us-hypocrisy-on-human-rights
Tomgram: Greg Grandin, How the Iraq War Began in Panama
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175937/tomgram%3A_greg_grandin%2C_how_the_iraq_war_began_in_panama
The Struggle for Indigenous Land and Autonomy in Honduras
https://intercontinentalcry.org/the-struggle-for-indigenous-land-and-autonomy-in-honduras-26652/
Mining interests in Guatemala challenged by indigenous direct democracy
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/mining-interests-guatemala-challenged-indigenous-direct-democracy/
Unearthing the Truth: Mexican State Violence Beyond Ayotzinapa
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/22/unearthing-truth-mexican-state-violence-beyond-ayotzinapa
The Revolution of Lupe Reyes (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-revolution-of-lupe-reyes/
Collapse of Oil Prices, Fall in Peso Exacerbate Mexican Crisis
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=231#1780
Mining Water in Sonora: Grupo México’s “Irregular” Water Permits in the Sonora, Yaqui, and San Pedro River Basins (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/13998
Making Mining Dreams Come True in Mexico
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14055
Mining, Megaprojects, and Metrosexuals in Sonora (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14062
Atento Workers Seeking Democratic Union Lose Election Re-run (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=231#1781
#Fergazinapa: Liberating Our Outrage, Remapping Our Action (Mexico/US)
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/16/fergazinapa-liberating-our-outrage-remapping-our-action
Report on "Solidarity from the Ground Up: an Organizers' Tri-national Exchange" (Mexico/US/Canada)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=231#1785
Do Cubans Really Want U.S.-Style Internet Freedom?
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/20/do-cubans-really-want-us-style-internet-freedom
Raúl Castro: The New Opening With the USA (Cuba)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5158-raul-castro-the-new-opening-with-the-usa
The Fight against Migrant Family Detention Continues (US/immigration)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14131
Migrant Deaths and Displacement Soar in 2014(US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/migrant-deaths-and-displacement-soar-in-2014/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://alainet.org/index.phtml.en
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/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
WNU #1214: Paraguayans Hold First General Strike in 20 Years
Issue #1214, March 30, 2014
1. Paraguay: Workers and Campesinos Hold General Strike
2. Panama: Ngöbe-Buglé Step Up Fight Against Dam
3. Mexico: Bidding Set to Start on Energy Sector
4. Cuba: New Law Expands Foreign Investment
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, US/immigration
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. Paraguay: Workers and Campesinos Hold General Strike
Starting on the evening of Mar. 25, thousands of Paraguayan unionists, campesinos and students participated in a 24-hour general strike to protest the economic policies of President Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara. Union sources said the action shut down transportation, schools and most businesses in Asunción. This was the country’s first general strike in 20 years, and the first major demonstration against the government since President Cartes’ inauguration last August. Cartes, a member of the rightwing Colorado Party, was elected in April 2013; the previous elected president, the left-leaning former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, was removed from office by Congress in a de facto coup on June 22, 2012, one year before the end of his term [see Update #1135].
The general strike was sponsored by a broad range of organizations, including the Classist Union Current (CSC), the Organization of Education Workers of Paraguay-National Union (OTEP-SN), the National Campesino Federation (FNC) and the leftist Paraguay Pyahurã Party (PPP). It was scheduled to coincide with the Poor Campesinos’ March, an event campesino groups have held for 21 years to press for agrarian reform. The campesinos were also demanding controls over the prices of staple products and an end to an agricultural system based on large estates. Unionists were calling for a 25% increase in the minimum wage and were protesting the Public-Private Alliance Law, a proposal by Cartes that opponents see as a way to privatize public infrastructure, such as water treatment plants, Asunción’s international airport and toll highways from the capital to Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. Cartes had raised the minimum wage by 10% in February, from 1,658,232 to 1,824,005 guaranís a month (about US$373 to about US$410), but he acted without consulting union leaders, who dismissed the raise as inadequate.
The general strike opened with a music festival at the Plaza de la Democracia in Asunción the evening of Mar. 25 and a gathering of campesinos in front of the city’s cathedral. The government mobilized 26,000 agents of the National Police to monitor the strike and guard presidential offices and the Congress building, but there appeared to be no reports of violence. (Adital (Brazil) 3/26/14; InfoBAE (Argentina) 3/26/14; Mercopress (Uruguay) 3/27/14)
*2. Panama: Ngöbe-Buglé Step Up Fight Against Dam
Silvia Carrera, the traditional leader (cacica) of Panama’s indigenous Ngöbe-Buglé, announced on Mar. 30 that she would present an appeal the next day to the Supreme Court of Justice concerning land expropriated for the controversial Barro Blanco dam [see Update #1180]. She said this would be part of a legal action against Law 18. Passed on Mar. 26, 2013, the law allows the Public Services Authority (ASEP) to expropriate, evict and indemnify the population living beside the Tabasará river in the western province of Chiriquí, where the dam is being built. According to Ngöbe-Buglé activists, some 3,000 people will be relocated because of the project, which is now said to be 64% complete.
The Ngöbe-Buglé have been protesting the construction of the dam for the past two years. They insist that since the project is in their own designated territory (comarca), construction should not have been started without first holding a referendum of the indigenous group’s members. In a television interview on Feb. 11, Silvia Carrera charged that the government of rightwing Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli had failed to respond to indigenous concerns because it has interests in common with Generadora del Istmo, S.A. (GENISA), the Honduran-owned company building the dam. Martinelli responded by charging that the Ngöbe-Buglé were playing electoral politics.
Meanwhile, protesters have set up barricades and a camp at the dam’s construction site in an effort to block the work. The Apr. 10 Movement, an indigenous community group that is independent of the traditional leadership, announced it would publicize information on attacks on human rights and environmental damage in the territory with the goal of stopping the dam. (Adital (Brazil) 3/27/14; Prensa Latina 3/30/14)
*3. Mexico: Bidding Set to Start on Energy Sector
After 75 years of state control over oil and gas production, the Mexican government is planning to open up about two-thirds of its reserves to bidding by private companies, according to information that Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly, passed on to potential bidders on Mar. 28. This is the first indication of what can be expected from President Enrique Peña Nieto’s controversial “energy reform” program. Changes to the Constitution enabling the program were passed by Congress and a majority of states in December, over strong opposition from grassroots organizations and parties on the left; doubts about contracting out oil and gas exploitation increased following fraud allegations against a major PEMEX contractor, Oceanografía SA de CV [see Update #1212].
PEMEX estimates that Mexico has reserves of oil and gas totaling some 112.8 billion barrels, but more than half (about 60.2 billion barrels) is in unconventional sources such as shale gas. PEMEX is asking for control over about 31% of the total, but most of this would be in proven reserves that can be exploited by conventional means. Outside contractors would be bidding largely for shale deposits and oil reserves deep in the Gulf of Mexico; PEMEX is seeking just 15% of the shale reserves, for example. However, private contractors will continue to be involved in PEMEX’s operations, as they are now.
The government claims that the program will increase production from 2.5 million to 6 million barrels a day. Martí Batres, president of the newly formed center-left National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party, called the production goal irrational. “This will also produce more greenhouse gases, global warming and other environmental consequences,” he said. (Reuters 3/26/14; La Jornada (Mexico) 3/29/14; Mexican Labor News & Analysis, March 2014)
In other news, two activists, Ignacio García Maldonado and Emanuel López Martínez, were shot dead on the early morning of Mar. 29 while they were driving near Ciudad de las Canteras in the southern state of Oaxaca. García Maldonado belonged to the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), a leading force in a movement that paralyzed much of the state for months in 2006 [see Update #1054]. The two men had been involved in peace talks between two communities in the Sierra Sur region, Santiago Amoltepec and San Mateo Yucutindoo, and they were traveling in a vehicle borrowed from the Human Rights Advocacy of the Human Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca (DDHPO), apparently as part of this work. Oaxaca attorney general Joaquín Carrillo Ruiz promised a speedy investigation of the double murder. (LJ 3/30/14)
*4. Cuba: New Law Expands Foreign Investment
In a four-hour extraordinary session on Mar. 29 attended by President Raúl Castro Ruz, the 612 deputies in Cuba’s unicameral National Assembly of Popular Power voted unanimously to approve a new law governing foreign investment. Replacing a measure put in place in 1995 under then-president Fidel Castro, the Foreign Investment Law will allow foreign companies to operate in Cuba independently, rather than in joint ventures with state enterprises, according to a report in the Cuban daily Juventud Rebelde published shortly before the legislation was passed. Most foreign companies will be required to pay a 15% tax on profits, half the current rate, the article said, and they will enjoy a tax moratorium for the first eight years of their operations in Cuba. Rates may be higher for companies that exploit natural resources, such as nickel or fossil fuel.
The new policy includes guarantees that foreign property won’t be nationalized, as happened after the 1959 Revolution, except when national interests are involved, and in these cases the owners will receive compensation.
Vice President Marino Murillo, who is in charge of the economic sector, told the National Assembly that the country needs to have its gross domestic product (GDP) reach a 7% annual rate of growth, with accumulation or investment rates of 20%, and that this will only be possible with outside investment. The new investment will be oriented toward priority sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, wholesale trade, industry, tourism, construction, energy, mines and transportation, according to Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca. The law will allow investment by Cubans living abroad, but Malmierca noted that the Cuban American community based in Miami would still be restricted from investing because of the US government’s trade embargo against Cuba.
The new law is to go into effect in 90 days. It follows other moves by the Cuban government since September 2010 to build up the private sector at the expense of state enterprises [see Update #1128]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 3/29/14 from AP, AFP, DPA, 3/30/14 from Reuters, AP, AFP, DPA)
Correction: Following our source, in Update #1212 identified, Catholic University of Chile assistant professor Juan Luis García as “García Juan Luis.”
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, US/immigration
Argentina’s Desaparecidos on the 1976 Coup Anniversary (Interview With Camilo Juárez)
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/3/29/argentina%E2%80%99s-desaparecidos-1976-coup-anniversary-interview-camilo-ju%C3%A1rez
The Bolivian Transportation Sector, Regional Integration and the Environment
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/the-bolivian-transportation-sector-regional-integration-and-the-environment
Peru: Senselessness in the VRAE Region
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/4763-peru-senselessness-in-the-vrae-region
Peru to loosen oversight on energy projects
http://ww4report.com/node/13103
Peru: artisanal miners block highways again
http://ww4report.com/node/13102
COP Out? Peru Pulling the Plug on Environmental Oversight in View of COP 20
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4765-cop-out-peru-pulling-the-plug-on-environmental-oversight-in-view-of-cop-20
Colombia: Peace Talks Fail to Stop Human Rights Abuses Ahead of UN Review
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/4769-colombia-peace-talks-fail-to-stop-human-rights-abuses-ahead-of-un-review
One-Third of Colombia’s Newly-Elected Senators Have Paramilitary Ties
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4762-one-third-of-colombias-newly-elected-senators-have-paramilitary-ties
UNASUR Urges Peace in Venezuela, US “Prepared” to Use Sanctions
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10546
Venezuela: Wayúu protest militarization
http://ww4report.com/node/13104
Venezuela arrests generals accused in coup plot
http://ww4report.com/node/13101
Venezuelan Human Rights Experts Call for End to “Media Distortion” of Protests and State Response
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4767-venezuelan-human-rights-experts-call-for-end-to-media-distortion-of-protests-and-state-response
The “Cubanization” of U.S. Policy Towards Venezuela
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/the-cubanization-of-us-policy-towards-venezuela
Venezuela: When Some of the Most Important News Comes in the Form of Corrections
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/venezuela-when-some-of-the-most-important-news-comes-in-the-form-of-corrections
Honduras: Is it possible to defend human rights where rights have died?
http://alainet.org/active/72447
Death, Child Deportation Continue on the Migrant Trail (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/death-child-deportation-continue-on-the-migrant-trail/
Mexican President Praises, but Many Protest Energy Reform on Anniversary of Expropriation of the Foreign Oil Industry
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=222#1688
Impact of Energy Reform Now Clear: Two-thirds of Oil Reserves Auctioned Off
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=222#1689
A New Gas Pipeline for Texas-Tamaulipas (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/a-new-gas-pipeline-for-texas-tamaulipas/
U.S. Radiation Leak Concerns Mexicans
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/u-s-radiation-leak-concerns-mexicans/
Living Legacy of Machismo: Rape Victim Charged for Self-Defense in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4761-living-legacy-of-machismo-rape-victim-charged-for-self-defense-in-mexico
Michoacán cartel boss 'killed' —again! (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/13098
Michoacán: cannibalization of 'community police'? (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/13106
Border crossings refocus immigration debate on families (US/immigration)
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/border-crossings-refocus-immigration-debate-families/
Turning the tide: inside a Texas city’s struggle to stop deportations (US/immigration)
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/turning-tide-inside-texas-citys-struggle-stop-deportations/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
1. Paraguay: Workers and Campesinos Hold General Strike
2. Panama: Ngöbe-Buglé Step Up Fight Against Dam
3. Mexico: Bidding Set to Start on Energy Sector
4. Cuba: New Law Expands Foreign Investment
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, US/immigration
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. Paraguay: Workers and Campesinos Hold General Strike
Starting on the evening of Mar. 25, thousands of Paraguayan unionists, campesinos and students participated in a 24-hour general strike to protest the economic policies of President Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara. Union sources said the action shut down transportation, schools and most businesses in Asunción. This was the country’s first general strike in 20 years, and the first major demonstration against the government since President Cartes’ inauguration last August. Cartes, a member of the rightwing Colorado Party, was elected in April 2013; the previous elected president, the left-leaning former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, was removed from office by Congress in a de facto coup on June 22, 2012, one year before the end of his term [see Update #1135].
The general strike was sponsored by a broad range of organizations, including the Classist Union Current (CSC), the Organization of Education Workers of Paraguay-National Union (OTEP-SN), the National Campesino Federation (FNC) and the leftist Paraguay Pyahurã Party (PPP). It was scheduled to coincide with the Poor Campesinos’ March, an event campesino groups have held for 21 years to press for agrarian reform. The campesinos were also demanding controls over the prices of staple products and an end to an agricultural system based on large estates. Unionists were calling for a 25% increase in the minimum wage and were protesting the Public-Private Alliance Law, a proposal by Cartes that opponents see as a way to privatize public infrastructure, such as water treatment plants, Asunción’s international airport and toll highways from the capital to Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. Cartes had raised the minimum wage by 10% in February, from 1,658,232 to 1,824,005 guaranís a month (about US$373 to about US$410), but he acted without consulting union leaders, who dismissed the raise as inadequate.
The general strike opened with a music festival at the Plaza de la Democracia in Asunción the evening of Mar. 25 and a gathering of campesinos in front of the city’s cathedral. The government mobilized 26,000 agents of the National Police to monitor the strike and guard presidential offices and the Congress building, but there appeared to be no reports of violence. (Adital (Brazil) 3/26/14; InfoBAE (Argentina) 3/26/14; Mercopress (Uruguay) 3/27/14)
*2. Panama: Ngöbe-Buglé Step Up Fight Against Dam
Silvia Carrera, the traditional leader (cacica) of Panama’s indigenous Ngöbe-Buglé, announced on Mar. 30 that she would present an appeal the next day to the Supreme Court of Justice concerning land expropriated for the controversial Barro Blanco dam [see Update #1180]. She said this would be part of a legal action against Law 18. Passed on Mar. 26, 2013, the law allows the Public Services Authority (ASEP) to expropriate, evict and indemnify the population living beside the Tabasará river in the western province of Chiriquí, where the dam is being built. According to Ngöbe-Buglé activists, some 3,000 people will be relocated because of the project, which is now said to be 64% complete.
The Ngöbe-Buglé have been protesting the construction of the dam for the past two years. They insist that since the project is in their own designated territory (comarca), construction should not have been started without first holding a referendum of the indigenous group’s members. In a television interview on Feb. 11, Silvia Carrera charged that the government of rightwing Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli had failed to respond to indigenous concerns because it has interests in common with Generadora del Istmo, S.A. (GENISA), the Honduran-owned company building the dam. Martinelli responded by charging that the Ngöbe-Buglé were playing electoral politics.
Meanwhile, protesters have set up barricades and a camp at the dam’s construction site in an effort to block the work. The Apr. 10 Movement, an indigenous community group that is independent of the traditional leadership, announced it would publicize information on attacks on human rights and environmental damage in the territory with the goal of stopping the dam. (Adital (Brazil) 3/27/14; Prensa Latina 3/30/14)
*3. Mexico: Bidding Set to Start on Energy Sector
After 75 years of state control over oil and gas production, the Mexican government is planning to open up about two-thirds of its reserves to bidding by private companies, according to information that Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly, passed on to potential bidders on Mar. 28. This is the first indication of what can be expected from President Enrique Peña Nieto’s controversial “energy reform” program. Changes to the Constitution enabling the program were passed by Congress and a majority of states in December, over strong opposition from grassroots organizations and parties on the left; doubts about contracting out oil and gas exploitation increased following fraud allegations against a major PEMEX contractor, Oceanografía SA de CV [see Update #1212].
PEMEX estimates that Mexico has reserves of oil and gas totaling some 112.8 billion barrels, but more than half (about 60.2 billion barrels) is in unconventional sources such as shale gas. PEMEX is asking for control over about 31% of the total, but most of this would be in proven reserves that can be exploited by conventional means. Outside contractors would be bidding largely for shale deposits and oil reserves deep in the Gulf of Mexico; PEMEX is seeking just 15% of the shale reserves, for example. However, private contractors will continue to be involved in PEMEX’s operations, as they are now.
The government claims that the program will increase production from 2.5 million to 6 million barrels a day. Martí Batres, president of the newly formed center-left National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party, called the production goal irrational. “This will also produce more greenhouse gases, global warming and other environmental consequences,” he said. (Reuters 3/26/14; La Jornada (Mexico) 3/29/14; Mexican Labor News & Analysis, March 2014)
In other news, two activists, Ignacio García Maldonado and Emanuel López Martínez, were shot dead on the early morning of Mar. 29 while they were driving near Ciudad de las Canteras in the southern state of Oaxaca. García Maldonado belonged to the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), a leading force in a movement that paralyzed much of the state for months in 2006 [see Update #1054]. The two men had been involved in peace talks between two communities in the Sierra Sur region, Santiago Amoltepec and San Mateo Yucutindoo, and they were traveling in a vehicle borrowed from the Human Rights Advocacy of the Human Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca (DDHPO), apparently as part of this work. Oaxaca attorney general Joaquín Carrillo Ruiz promised a speedy investigation of the double murder. (LJ 3/30/14)
*4. Cuba: New Law Expands Foreign Investment
In a four-hour extraordinary session on Mar. 29 attended by President Raúl Castro Ruz, the 612 deputies in Cuba’s unicameral National Assembly of Popular Power voted unanimously to approve a new law governing foreign investment. Replacing a measure put in place in 1995 under then-president Fidel Castro, the Foreign Investment Law will allow foreign companies to operate in Cuba independently, rather than in joint ventures with state enterprises, according to a report in the Cuban daily Juventud Rebelde published shortly before the legislation was passed. Most foreign companies will be required to pay a 15% tax on profits, half the current rate, the article said, and they will enjoy a tax moratorium for the first eight years of their operations in Cuba. Rates may be higher for companies that exploit natural resources, such as nickel or fossil fuel.
The new policy includes guarantees that foreign property won’t be nationalized, as happened after the 1959 Revolution, except when national interests are involved, and in these cases the owners will receive compensation.
Vice President Marino Murillo, who is in charge of the economic sector, told the National Assembly that the country needs to have its gross domestic product (GDP) reach a 7% annual rate of growth, with accumulation or investment rates of 20%, and that this will only be possible with outside investment. The new investment will be oriented toward priority sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, wholesale trade, industry, tourism, construction, energy, mines and transportation, according to Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca. The law will allow investment by Cubans living abroad, but Malmierca noted that the Cuban American community based in Miami would still be restricted from investing because of the US government’s trade embargo against Cuba.
The new law is to go into effect in 90 days. It follows other moves by the Cuban government since September 2010 to build up the private sector at the expense of state enterprises [see Update #1128]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 3/29/14 from AP, AFP, DPA, 3/30/14 from Reuters, AP, AFP, DPA)
Correction: Following our source, in Update #1212 identified, Catholic University of Chile assistant professor Juan Luis García as “García Juan Luis.”
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, US/immigration
Argentina’s Desaparecidos on the 1976 Coup Anniversary (Interview With Camilo Juárez)
http://nacla.org/blog/2014/3/29/argentina%E2%80%99s-desaparecidos-1976-coup-anniversary-interview-camilo-ju%C3%A1rez
The Bolivian Transportation Sector, Regional Integration and the Environment
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/the-bolivian-transportation-sector-regional-integration-and-the-environment
Peru: Senselessness in the VRAE Region
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/4763-peru-senselessness-in-the-vrae-region
Peru to loosen oversight on energy projects
http://ww4report.com/node/13103
Peru: artisanal miners block highways again
http://ww4report.com/node/13102
COP Out? Peru Pulling the Plug on Environmental Oversight in View of COP 20
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4765-cop-out-peru-pulling-the-plug-on-environmental-oversight-in-view-of-cop-20
Colombia: Peace Talks Fail to Stop Human Rights Abuses Ahead of UN Review
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/4769-colombia-peace-talks-fail-to-stop-human-rights-abuses-ahead-of-un-review
One-Third of Colombia’s Newly-Elected Senators Have Paramilitary Ties
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4762-one-third-of-colombias-newly-elected-senators-have-paramilitary-ties
UNASUR Urges Peace in Venezuela, US “Prepared” to Use Sanctions
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10546
Venezuela: Wayúu protest militarization
http://ww4report.com/node/13104
Venezuela arrests generals accused in coup plot
http://ww4report.com/node/13101
Venezuelan Human Rights Experts Call for End to “Media Distortion” of Protests and State Response
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4767-venezuelan-human-rights-experts-call-for-end-to-media-distortion-of-protests-and-state-response
The “Cubanization” of U.S. Policy Towards Venezuela
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/the-cubanization-of-us-policy-towards-venezuela
Venezuela: When Some of the Most Important News Comes in the Form of Corrections
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/venezuela-when-some-of-the-most-important-news-comes-in-the-form-of-corrections
Honduras: Is it possible to defend human rights where rights have died?
http://alainet.org/active/72447
Death, Child Deportation Continue on the Migrant Trail (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/death-child-deportation-continue-on-the-migrant-trail/
Mexican President Praises, but Many Protest Energy Reform on Anniversary of Expropriation of the Foreign Oil Industry
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=222#1688
Impact of Energy Reform Now Clear: Two-thirds of Oil Reserves Auctioned Off
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=222#1689
A New Gas Pipeline for Texas-Tamaulipas (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/a-new-gas-pipeline-for-texas-tamaulipas/
U.S. Radiation Leak Concerns Mexicans
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/u-s-radiation-leak-concerns-mexicans/
Living Legacy of Machismo: Rape Victim Charged for Self-Defense in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/4761-living-legacy-of-machismo-rape-victim-charged-for-self-defense-in-mexico
Michoacán cartel boss 'killed' —again! (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/13098
Michoacán: cannibalization of 'community police'? (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/13106
Border crossings refocus immigration debate on families (US/immigration)
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/border-crossings-refocus-immigration-debate-families/
Turning the tide: inside a Texas city’s struggle to stop deportations (US/immigration)
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/turning-tide-inside-texas-citys-struggle-stop-deportations/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
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