Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #963, October 12, 2008
1. Puerto Rico: Teachers Vote on Union
2. Mexico: Cops Repress Teacher Demos
3. Haiti: DR Sends Aid, Deports Workers
4. Latin America: More Shocks From Global Crisis
5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, US policy
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Puerto Rico: Teachers Vote on Union
As of Oct. 7 Puerto Rico's teachers had been voting for a week on whether the Puerto Rican Teachers Union (SPM) should represent them. The island's 40,000 teachers were previously represented by the 42-year-old Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), but the Labor Relations Commission excluded the FMPR from running in the new election, even though 12,000 teachers had already endorsed the union as their bargaining agent. Earlier this year Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá's administration withdrew the union's certification because of its refusal to accept a ban on strikes by public employees in Law 45. The FMPR mounted a militant 10-day strike in late February and early March over wages, classroom size and health issues, winning several key demands [see Updates #932, 936, 937, 938].
The FMPR called on its supporters to vote against SPM representation. FMPR president Rafael Feliciano said on Oct. 7 that the union's polls showed the "no" vote winning broadly in the Morovis, Manatí, Juana Díaz, Florida, Santa Isabel, Villalba and Jayuya school districts; he said the "no" was narrowly ahead in Coamo, Ciales, Barceloneta and Orocovis districts and tied in Adjuntas. SPM director Aida Díaz called Feliciano a "Pinocchio." The voting is to continue until Oct. 16; 34,285 teachers are eligible to cast their ballots in 89 voting places.
The SPM is affiliated with the Teachers' Association (AM) and the US-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In an Oct. 6 press conference in New York, activists from the local FMPR Support Committee charged that the SEIU and its vice president, Dennis Rivera, had made an alliance with Gov. Acevedo Vilá and the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) to raid the FMPR. According to the Puerto Rican daily Primera Hora, SEIU leaders have said winning over the Puerto Rican teachers is part of a strategy to expand the SEIU into the rest of Latin America. (Primera Hora 10/6/08, 10/8/08, 10/9/08)
*2. Mexico: Cops Repress Teacher Demos
Several large operations by federal and local Mexican police from Oct. 7 to Oct. 9 broke up protests by striking teachers and their supporters in Morelos state, south of Mexico City, leaving dozens of people detained or injured. Morelos teachers have been on strike since Aug. 13 to protest the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a national plan promoted by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and national teachers union head Elba Esther Gordillo Morales [see Updates #959, 960, 962].
On Oct. 7 about 70 Morelos police agents used tear gas and nightsticks to break up a protest by some 200 teachers and residents of the Tres Marías community who were blocking a highway as part of a statewide day of actions. About 20 people were injured, and several were detained. Meanwhile, about 700 protesters blocked the nearby Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway for seven hours. Although the state police were reinforced with 400 agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), officials decided to end the blockade through negotiations: the protesters finally left when officials agreed to release the detained activists. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/8/08)
On Oct. 8 some 1,000 PFP agents and state police broke up a roadblock that residents and parents had maintained since Oct. 13 on the Cuautla-Puebla highway at the community of Amayuca near the border with Puebla state; the protesters were members of a local group called the Union of Towns in the Eastern Zone. The police operation included six helicopters, from which agents launched tear gas grenades at the crowd. The protesters held out for one hour, sometimes attacking the agents with rocks, clubs, fireworks and molotov cocktails. A total of 49 people were arrested and 20 were injured; cars were damaged and a tractor trailer was set on fire. The agents pursued the protesters into Amayuca, where they carried out house-to-house searches, beating protesters as they arrested them. (LJ 10/9/08)
Also on Oct. 8, police tried to end a road blockade on the Cuautla-Jojutla highway at Xoxocotla, Puente de Ixtla municipality, in the south of the state; residents had been blocking the road since Sept. 29. The operation failed to dislodge the protesters, who captured four agents but released them later. The police returned in the early morning of Oct. 9, but left when they didn't find any protesters; in this operation the PFP agents and state police were backed up by hundreds of soldiers in armored vehicles and Hummer trucks. The protesters resumed the blockade later in the morning. In the afternoon an operation of some 2,000 security forces finally broke up the protest after a two-hour battle which left 10 people injured, 16 protesters arrested and several cars damaged. (LJ 10/10/08)
Negotiations were continuing between the teachers and officials as of Oct. 10, but the state had suspended payment to the striking teachers and started hiring replacement workers. Officials said they were "working every day" so that the situation wouldn't escalate to the sort of uprising sparked by a teachers strike in neighboring Oaxaca in 2006. (LJ 10/11/08)
*3. Haiti: DR Sends Aid, Deports Workers
The Dominican Republic deported 691 people into Haiti at the border town of Belladère in the Central Plateau department from Sept. 4 to Sept. 30, according to the local Human Rights Committee, which is part of the Jeannot Succès Border Network. Witnesses say the deportees were imprisoned for two to five days before their repatriation.
Although figures were not yet available for other border areas, the Belladère report indicates that the Dominican Republic hasn't let up on its policy of removing Haitian immigrants; it deported 65,000 people to Haiti between September 2004 and June 2008. At the end of September Major Gen. José Aníbal Sanz Jiminian, head of the Dominican migration bureau, announced plans to deport Haitian street vendors, especially the ones selling telephone cards. "We will take action against these foreigners who live here illegally, and the products in their possession will be confiscated," he said.
The new deportations came as Haiti was struggling to recover after being hit by four major tropical storms in one month [see Updates #961, 962]. As of Sept. 11 the Dominican government had sent food, medicine, a medical team and three helicopters; the emergency assistance was valued at $565,000. The Dominican ambassador to Haiti said the aid was "testimony to the Dominican Republic's recognition of the courageous people of Haiti, who should always maintain their pride." (AlterPresse 10/7/08)
*4. Latin America: More Shocks From Global Crisis
Latin American markets continued to be shaken by a global financial crisis set off in September by bad mortgages in the US [see Updates #961, 962]. On Oct. 7 the stock exchange in Sao Paulo, Brazil, fell 4.66%, the Mexican market was down 3.97%, stocks in Santiago, Chile, fell 4.29%, and the market in Buenos Aires, Argentina, lost 2.72%. Latin American losses that day were smaller those in New York, where the Dow Jones lost 5.11%. (La Jornada 10/8/08 from Reuters, AFP, DPA and Notimex) But fallout from the global crisis is likely to get worse. Speaking in Durango on Oct. 6, Mexican Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcón said his department expected some 200,000 Mexicans now working in the US to come home during the next year; he denied the number would be in the millions. (LJ 10/7/08)
Despite the problems in Latin America, the US government's dramatic interventions to unfreeze its own credit markets have amused Latin American critics of US neoliberal economic policies. "How many times have [US officials] criticized me for nationalizing the phone company?" Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez asked during his weekly television program. "They say, 'The state shouldn't get involved in that.' But now they don't criticize [US president George W.] Bush for having nationalized...the biggest banks in the world. Comrade Bush, how are you?" (McClatchy Newspapers 10/7/08)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, US policy
Political and Social Crisis in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1521/1/
Bolivia: Back to the Trenches
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1519/68/
Bolivia: Water, Energy Everywhere - But Not for Locals
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1513/68/
Peru: cabinet shake-up in "Petrogate" scandal
http://ww4report.com/node/6152
Peru: Sendero resurgent in Apurimac Valley
http://ww4report.com/node/6153
Peru: disappearances in Ayacucho
http://ww4report.com/node/6131
Refugees in Ecuador: Plan Colombia and the Asylum Lottery
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1511/1/
Change Triumphs in Ecuador's Constitutional Referendum
http://nacla.org/node/5071
Colombia: Uribe decrees emergency powers in judicial strike http://ww4report.com/node/6151
Colombian guerillas linked to Mexican cartels?
http://ww4report.com/node/6150
Nicaragua: McCain served on board of terrorist-linked organization
http://ww4report.com/node/6116#comment-314052
Memories of the Meltdown: The Sky Is Falling on Mexico Too
http://nacla.org/node/5078
Study Makes Case for Legalizing Abortion in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1518/68/
Armoring NAFTA: The Battleground for Mexico's Future
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5544
Haiti's New PM and the Power of NGO's
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1517/68/
Bush Seen as Out of Touch on Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1512/68/
Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives to Transnational Mining
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1515/1/
Latin America: The War on Democracy - Documentary Online
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1514/1/
Bush Foreign Policy: From Dynasty to Legacy
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5577
The Biosafety Protocol and the Future of Biosafety
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5559
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Links but no Update for October 5, 2008
[Due to other commitments, we are unable to send out an Update this week. We'll be back next week. Below are links to stories from other sources.]
Argentina: farmers strike again
http://ww4report.com/node/6112
Argentina: The Crisis That Isn't
http://nacla.org/node/5068
President of Paraguay Turns Down Meeting with Sarah Palin
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1500/68/
Cooperation as Rebellion: Creating Sustainable Agriculture in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1505/1/
Brazil: rate of Amazon destruction increases
http://ww4report.com/node/6113
Bolivia: Evo bars DEA overflights
http://ww4report.com/node/6111
Bolivia in Dialogue: Between Hope and Civil War http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1507/1/
New Ecuadorian Constitution Approved by Strong Majority, President Correa
Claims "Historic Victory"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1499/1/
Colombian army chief accused of arming paramilitaries
http://ww4report.com/node/6107
Colombia: wave of violence and threats against popular leaders
http://ww4report.com/node/6108
Colombia: war refugees reach two-decade peak
http://ww4report.com/node/6110
Another Indigenous Leader Assassinated in Colombia http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1501/68/
Violence Against Activists in Colombia Grows
http://nacla.org/node/5072
Venezuelan State Oil Company's Growing Presence in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1504/68/
Venezuela: The New York Times' Real Feelings on Term Limits
http://nacla.org/node/5067
Photo Essay: Water Tribunal in Guatemala Condemns Goldcorp... Again http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1502/1/
Mexico: campesino self-immolation in Veracruz
http://ww4report.com/node/6114
Mexico: narco-killing spree shakes Tijuana
http://ww4report.com/node/6115
Chomsky: Latin American Unity
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1503/68/
Argentina: farmers strike again
http://ww4report.com/node/6112
Argentina: The Crisis That Isn't
http://nacla.org/node/5068
President of Paraguay Turns Down Meeting with Sarah Palin
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1500/68/
Cooperation as Rebellion: Creating Sustainable Agriculture in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1505/1/
Brazil: rate of Amazon destruction increases
http://ww4report.com/node/6113
Bolivia: Evo bars DEA overflights
http://ww4report.com/node/6111
Bolivia in Dialogue: Between Hope and Civil War http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1507/1/
New Ecuadorian Constitution Approved by Strong Majority, President Correa
Claims "Historic Victory"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1499/1/
Colombian army chief accused of arming paramilitaries
http://ww4report.com/node/6107
Colombia: wave of violence and threats against popular leaders
http://ww4report.com/node/6108
Colombia: war refugees reach two-decade peak
http://ww4report.com/node/6110
Another Indigenous Leader Assassinated in Colombia http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1501/68/
Violence Against Activists in Colombia Grows
http://nacla.org/node/5072
Venezuelan State Oil Company's Growing Presence in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1504/68/
Venezuela: The New York Times' Real Feelings on Term Limits
http://nacla.org/node/5067
Photo Essay: Water Tribunal in Guatemala Condemns Goldcorp... Again http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1502/1/
Mexico: campesino self-immolation in Veracruz
http://ww4report.com/node/6114
Mexico: narco-killing spree shakes Tijuana
http://ww4report.com/node/6115
Chomsky: Latin American Unity
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1503/68/
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
WNU #962: Latin American Leaders React to "Giant's Toppling"
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #962, September 28, 2008
1. Ecuador: Easy Win for New Constitution
2. Latin America: Reactions to "Giant's Toppling"
3. Mexico: Teacher Strikes Continue
4. Haiti: US Holds Up Deportations
5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Ecuador: Easy Win for New Constitution
According to exit polls, Ecuadoran voters overwhelmingly backed a proposal for a new Constitution in a referendum held Sept. 28. The Santiago Pérez Investigación y Estudios polling firm showed 66.4% of voters supporting the measure, while Cedatos-Gallup put the proportion at 70%. President Rafael Correa, who had called for the new charter, said the vote was a "new historic triumph" and led supporters in chanting: "The people united will never be defeated." The center-left president got the results while visiting his hometown, Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest and most prosperous city. Santiago Pérez's exit poll showed Guayaquil voters backing the new Constitution, despite fears by Correa's supporters that the city might become an opposition center in the same way that Santa Cruz has become a focus of opposition to Bolivian president Evo Morales, a Correa ally.
The new Constitution, Ecuador's 20th, allows presidents to run for two consecutive four-year terms, opening the possibility that Correa could govern until 2017; promotes a "social and solidarity-based" economic model to replace the current neoliberal policies; forbids the installation of foreign military bases like the US base at Manta; and grants soldiers the right to vote. (San Jose (California) Mercury News 9/28/08 from AP; El Universal (Caracas) 9/28/08 from AP)
*2. Latin America: Reactions to "Giant's Toppling"
Latin American leaders who came to New York the week of Sept. 22 for the annual opening session of the United Nations General Assembly suggested that the US and European countries should use economic models from the South to resolve the growing financial crisis in the North.
On Sept. 23 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner recalled the arguments US advisers had used to promote neoliberal policies during the 1990s: "that the market solved everything, that the state wasn't necessary, that support for state intervention was nostalgia from groups that hadn't understood how the economy had evolved." But now "the most formidable state intervention in memory was produced precisely in the place when they told us that the state wasn't necessary," she said, referring to a series of government bailouts of financial institutions in the US.
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva emphasized the need for changes in the way multilateral organizations work so that they can confront the dangers of financial speculation and lack of equality among nations. He offered examples from Latin America, such as the current efforts of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to support the government of elected Bolivian president Evo Morales. He noted that Brazil will be the site of the "first Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean." He said no countries would be treated like protectorates at the summit, which would be "based on [the different countries'] own perspectives." (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/24/08 from correspondent)
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías skipped the General Assembly, instead going to China on Sept. 23 for a three-day visit. "It's more important to be in Beijing than in New York," he remarked. In this visit to China--his fifth--Chávez met with Chinese president Hu Jintao, signed 12 economic agreements, including accords on the construction of refineries, and discussed the possible purchase of military aircraft. Venezuela now plans to increase its exports of crude oil to China from 364,000 barrels a day to 500,000 barrels a day in 2009; it currently exports 1.1 million barrels a day to the US. (LJ 9/24/08 from AFP, DPA, Xinhua, 9/25/08 from AFP, DPA, Reuters, Xinhua) Chávez had remarked on Sept. 21 that the "financial collapse of global capitalism" was affecting those countries "that are strongly hitched up to the US economy. We've started to unhitch ourselves." He added: "This doesn't mean we're invulnerable, because this is about the toppling of a giant." (LJ 9/22/08)
During the opening of the General Assembly, US president George W. Bush announced a new US economic plan for the hemisphere, the Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas Initiative. The US launched it with a meeting of leaders from the Americas on Sept. 24 in New York. The invitees were presidents Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Alvaro Uribe (Colombia), Oscar Arias (Costa Rica), Leonel Fernández (Dominican Republic), Antonio Saca (El Salvador), Alvaro Colom (Guatemala), Felipe Calderón (Mexico) and Martín Torrijos (Panama), along with Peruvian vice president Luis Giampietri and Canadian ambassador Michelle Wilson. In an opinion column, former Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz compared the new project to President John Kennedy's 1961 Alliance for Progress and President Bill Clinton's 1994 Free Trade Area for the Americas (FTAA), which "received its coup de grâce in Mar del Plata [Argentina] in the year 2005" [see Update #823]. (LJ 9/27/08 from AFP, DPA; Prensa Latina (English) 9/27/08)
*3. Mexico: Teacher Strikes Continue
Teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos, on strike since Aug. 13 [see Updates #959, 960], escalated their tactics on Sept. 22 by blocking access to state government offices in Cuernavaca, the state capital. Gov. Marco Antonio Adame Castillo, of the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN), responded by asking the federal government for 400 anti-riot agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP). Some 20,000 Morelos teachers have been trying to force Adame Castillo to cancel the state's participation in the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a national plan supported by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) head Elba Esther Gordillo. The teachers are members of Section 19 of the SNTE.
On Sept. 23, about 6,000 Morelos strikers joined thousands of teachers from other states for a march in the nearby Federal District (DF, Mexico City); the protest was sponsored by the Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), a rank-and-file caucus in the SNTE. Some 200 teachers from the DF, members of SNTE Section 9, caught the authorities off guard by occupying the headquarters of the federal government's Public Education Secretariat (SEP); they succeeded in blocking access for eight hours before being removed. On Sept. 24 Morelos teachers blocked four lanes of the Autopista del Sol turnpike and two lanes of the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, along with Cuernavaca's three main avenues: Morelos, Plan de Ayala and Emiliano Zapata. The blockades ended under pressure from motorists.
Also on Sept. 24, the Morelos Democratic Teachers Movement, which represents the strikers, began talks with state and federal officials. But negotiations remained at an impasse as of Sept. 27. The state government claimed 6,000 of the strikers were planning to return to the classroom on Sept. 29, while anger against the strike appeared to be growing among parents.
Teachers have also protested the ACE in other states. Some 13,000 teachers held escalating strikes for a month in Quintana Roo; on Sept. 22 they suspended their strike for 90 days, returning to work in exchange for some concessions from the state government.
In Puebla at least 5,000 teachers from SNTE Sections 23 and 51 protested for three hours on Sept. 23, calling the ACE a plan to privatize education. About 3,000 teachers marched in Guanajuato on the same day; their chants included: "She's not Mickey Mouse, she's not Topo Gigio [an Italian puppet mouse], she's that rat Gordillo." Some 900 teachers and parents marched in Tijuana, Baja California Norte; 500 teachers held a brief strike in Durango; Guerrero teachers walked out of the classroom and blocked state offices in Chilpancingo, the state capital.
Protests continued on Sept. 25 with a march by 15,000 Guerrero teachers and a four-hour occupation of SNTE Section 4's offices in Campeche by 300 dissident teachers. In Oaxaca, where a strike by SNTE Section 22 set off a popular uprising in 2006, some 70,000 teachers marched, declaring support for the Morelos teachers and rejecting President Calderón's economic program and any privatization of Mexico's oil monopoly, Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). (La Jornada 9/23/08, 9/24/08, 9/25/08, 9/27/08, 9/28/08)
*4. Haiti: US Holds Up Deportations
The US government is not currently scheduling any deportations to Haiti, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez said on Sept. 19. According to Gonzales, federal officials are evaluating conditions in the country, which was hit by four tropical storms in less than a month [see Update #961]. Some Congress members from south Florida, which has a large population of Haitian origin, said they were disappointed Haitians have not been granted temporary protected status (TPS), which allows immigrants to stay in the US for a limited time because of wars or environmental disasters in their home countries. But Gonzalez made it clear that the deportation of Haitians would continue: "When we feel it's appropriate to resume, we'll notify members of Congress." (AP 9/19/08)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti
Brazil: high court puts off key ruling on Amazon land rights
http://ww4report.com/node/6081
An Open Letter to the U.S. State Department Regarding Recent Violence in Bolivia http://nacla.org/node/5031
Information on Washington's Interference in Bolivian Affairs http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1488/1/
Peru: Interview with Political Prisoner Lori Berenson
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1497/1/
Uncontacted tribes flee Peruvian Amazon: evidence
http://ww4report.com/node/6088
Ecuador's Constitution Gives Rights to Nature
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1494/1/
Mexican diaspora gets bigger
http://ww4report.com/node/6080
Mexico: arrests in Independence Day massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/6079
Mexican Activists Turn Over Mexico City Man to Police in Sally Grace Eiler Murder Case http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/09/mexican-activists-turn-over-mexico-city-man-police-sally-grace-eile
Bad News From Haiti: U.S. Press Misses the Story
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1490/1/
McCain-Palin and Latin America
http://nacla.org/node/5035
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #962, September 28, 2008
1. Ecuador: Easy Win for New Constitution
2. Latin America: Reactions to "Giant's Toppling"
3. Mexico: Teacher Strikes Continue
4. Haiti: US Holds Up Deportations
5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Ecuador: Easy Win for New Constitution
According to exit polls, Ecuadoran voters overwhelmingly backed a proposal for a new Constitution in a referendum held Sept. 28. The Santiago Pérez Investigación y Estudios polling firm showed 66.4% of voters supporting the measure, while Cedatos-Gallup put the proportion at 70%. President Rafael Correa, who had called for the new charter, said the vote was a "new historic triumph" and led supporters in chanting: "The people united will never be defeated." The center-left president got the results while visiting his hometown, Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest and most prosperous city. Santiago Pérez's exit poll showed Guayaquil voters backing the new Constitution, despite fears by Correa's supporters that the city might become an opposition center in the same way that Santa Cruz has become a focus of opposition to Bolivian president Evo Morales, a Correa ally.
The new Constitution, Ecuador's 20th, allows presidents to run for two consecutive four-year terms, opening the possibility that Correa could govern until 2017; promotes a "social and solidarity-based" economic model to replace the current neoliberal policies; forbids the installation of foreign military bases like the US base at Manta; and grants soldiers the right to vote. (San Jose (California) Mercury News 9/28/08 from AP; El Universal (Caracas) 9/28/08 from AP)
*2. Latin America: Reactions to "Giant's Toppling"
Latin American leaders who came to New York the week of Sept. 22 for the annual opening session of the United Nations General Assembly suggested that the US and European countries should use economic models from the South to resolve the growing financial crisis in the North.
On Sept. 23 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner recalled the arguments US advisers had used to promote neoliberal policies during the 1990s: "that the market solved everything, that the state wasn't necessary, that support for state intervention was nostalgia from groups that hadn't understood how the economy had evolved." But now "the most formidable state intervention in memory was produced precisely in the place when they told us that the state wasn't necessary," she said, referring to a series of government bailouts of financial institutions in the US.
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva emphasized the need for changes in the way multilateral organizations work so that they can confront the dangers of financial speculation and lack of equality among nations. He offered examples from Latin America, such as the current efforts of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to support the government of elected Bolivian president Evo Morales. He noted that Brazil will be the site of the "first Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean." He said no countries would be treated like protectorates at the summit, which would be "based on [the different countries'] own perspectives." (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/24/08 from correspondent)
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías skipped the General Assembly, instead going to China on Sept. 23 for a three-day visit. "It's more important to be in Beijing than in New York," he remarked. In this visit to China--his fifth--Chávez met with Chinese president Hu Jintao, signed 12 economic agreements, including accords on the construction of refineries, and discussed the possible purchase of military aircraft. Venezuela now plans to increase its exports of crude oil to China from 364,000 barrels a day to 500,000 barrels a day in 2009; it currently exports 1.1 million barrels a day to the US. (LJ 9/24/08 from AFP, DPA, Xinhua, 9/25/08 from AFP, DPA, Reuters, Xinhua) Chávez had remarked on Sept. 21 that the "financial collapse of global capitalism" was affecting those countries "that are strongly hitched up to the US economy. We've started to unhitch ourselves." He added: "This doesn't mean we're invulnerable, because this is about the toppling of a giant." (LJ 9/22/08)
During the opening of the General Assembly, US president George W. Bush announced a new US economic plan for the hemisphere, the Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas Initiative. The US launched it with a meeting of leaders from the Americas on Sept. 24 in New York. The invitees were presidents Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Alvaro Uribe (Colombia), Oscar Arias (Costa Rica), Leonel Fernández (Dominican Republic), Antonio Saca (El Salvador), Alvaro Colom (Guatemala), Felipe Calderón (Mexico) and Martín Torrijos (Panama), along with Peruvian vice president Luis Giampietri and Canadian ambassador Michelle Wilson. In an opinion column, former Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz compared the new project to President John Kennedy's 1961 Alliance for Progress and President Bill Clinton's 1994 Free Trade Area for the Americas (FTAA), which "received its coup de grâce in Mar del Plata [Argentina] in the year 2005" [see Update #823]. (LJ 9/27/08 from AFP, DPA; Prensa Latina (English) 9/27/08)
*3. Mexico: Teacher Strikes Continue
Teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos, on strike since Aug. 13 [see Updates #959, 960], escalated their tactics on Sept. 22 by blocking access to state government offices in Cuernavaca, the state capital. Gov. Marco Antonio Adame Castillo, of the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN), responded by asking the federal government for 400 anti-riot agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP). Some 20,000 Morelos teachers have been trying to force Adame Castillo to cancel the state's participation in the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a national plan supported by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) head Elba Esther Gordillo. The teachers are members of Section 19 of the SNTE.
On Sept. 23, about 6,000 Morelos strikers joined thousands of teachers from other states for a march in the nearby Federal District (DF, Mexico City); the protest was sponsored by the Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), a rank-and-file caucus in the SNTE. Some 200 teachers from the DF, members of SNTE Section 9, caught the authorities off guard by occupying the headquarters of the federal government's Public Education Secretariat (SEP); they succeeded in blocking access for eight hours before being removed. On Sept. 24 Morelos teachers blocked four lanes of the Autopista del Sol turnpike and two lanes of the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, along with Cuernavaca's three main avenues: Morelos, Plan de Ayala and Emiliano Zapata. The blockades ended under pressure from motorists.
Also on Sept. 24, the Morelos Democratic Teachers Movement, which represents the strikers, began talks with state and federal officials. But negotiations remained at an impasse as of Sept. 27. The state government claimed 6,000 of the strikers were planning to return to the classroom on Sept. 29, while anger against the strike appeared to be growing among parents.
Teachers have also protested the ACE in other states. Some 13,000 teachers held escalating strikes for a month in Quintana Roo; on Sept. 22 they suspended their strike for 90 days, returning to work in exchange for some concessions from the state government.
In Puebla at least 5,000 teachers from SNTE Sections 23 and 51 protested for three hours on Sept. 23, calling the ACE a plan to privatize education. About 3,000 teachers marched in Guanajuato on the same day; their chants included: "She's not Mickey Mouse, she's not Topo Gigio [an Italian puppet mouse], she's that rat Gordillo." Some 900 teachers and parents marched in Tijuana, Baja California Norte; 500 teachers held a brief strike in Durango; Guerrero teachers walked out of the classroom and blocked state offices in Chilpancingo, the state capital.
Protests continued on Sept. 25 with a march by 15,000 Guerrero teachers and a four-hour occupation of SNTE Section 4's offices in Campeche by 300 dissident teachers. In Oaxaca, where a strike by SNTE Section 22 set off a popular uprising in 2006, some 70,000 teachers marched, declaring support for the Morelos teachers and rejecting President Calderón's economic program and any privatization of Mexico's oil monopoly, Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). (La Jornada 9/23/08, 9/24/08, 9/25/08, 9/27/08, 9/28/08)
*4. Haiti: US Holds Up Deportations
The US government is not currently scheduling any deportations to Haiti, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez said on Sept. 19. According to Gonzales, federal officials are evaluating conditions in the country, which was hit by four tropical storms in less than a month [see Update #961]. Some Congress members from south Florida, which has a large population of Haitian origin, said they were disappointed Haitians have not been granted temporary protected status (TPS), which allows immigrants to stay in the US for a limited time because of wars or environmental disasters in their home countries. But Gonzalez made it clear that the deportation of Haitians would continue: "When we feel it's appropriate to resume, we'll notify members of Congress." (AP 9/19/08)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti
Brazil: high court puts off key ruling on Amazon land rights
http://ww4report.com/node/6081
An Open Letter to the U.S. State Department Regarding Recent Violence in Bolivia http://nacla.org/node/5031
Information on Washington's Interference in Bolivian Affairs http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1488/1/
Peru: Interview with Political Prisoner Lori Berenson
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1497/1/
Uncontacted tribes flee Peruvian Amazon: evidence
http://ww4report.com/node/6088
Ecuador's Constitution Gives Rights to Nature
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1494/1/
Mexican diaspora gets bigger
http://ww4report.com/node/6080
Mexico: arrests in Independence Day massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/6079
Mexican Activists Turn Over Mexico City Man to Police in Sally Grace Eiler Murder Case http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/09/mexican-activists-turn-over-mexico-city-man-police-sally-grace-eile
Bad News From Haiti: U.S. Press Misses the Story
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1490/1/
McCain-Palin and Latin America
http://nacla.org/node/5035
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, September 22, 2008
WNU #961: Striking Colombian Cane Cutters Attacked
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #961, September 21, 2008
1. Colombia: Striking Cane Cutters Attacked
2. Latin America: Markets React to US Crisis
3. Haiti: New PM Faces Storm Aftermath
4. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Colombia: Striking Cane Cutters Attacked
On Sept. 15, at least 12,000 Colombian sugar cane cutters went on strike to protest the systematic violation of their labor rights and human rights. The workers cut sugar cane for 16 sugar mills in the Cauca river valley, primarily in the department of Valle del Cauca but also in the neighboring departments of Cauca, to the south, and Risaralda, to the northeast.
The same day the strike began, hundreds of agents from the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) of the Colombian National Police, together with army soldiers and private sugar company guards, attacked a group of striking cane cutters from the Incauca and Providencia sugar mills, injuring more than 100 workers, at least five of them seriously. Gildardo Nieves, from the Incauca mill, was badly wounded in the abdomen with a tear gas bomb which affected his vital organs. Four workers from the Providencia mill required medical treatment for open wounds and contusions to the eyes, face and torso.
The sugar workers called the strike to pressure the Association of Sugar Cane Growers, ASOCAÑA, to negotiate a list of demands presented to them by the cane cutters union on July 14. ASOCAÑA has refused to negotiate and instead took out paid ads on local radio and television stations, threatening layoffs in case of a strike and telling the community not to support or participate in the strike.
The sugar workers' union and human rights organizations grouped in the Campaña Prohibido Olvidar (Forgetting Is Prohibited Campaign) are demanding a full investigation into the Sept. 15 violence and an end to such attacks, respect for the labor and human rights of the sugar workers, and elimination of the current contracting system that forces sugar workers to endure 14-hour days and substandard wages. About 90% of the cane cutters in Valle del Cauca department are members of cooperatives which contract with the sugar companies; the government's Ministry of Social Protection claims that because the workers own the cooperatives, they don't have the right to bargain collectively or to strike. The workers want to end the contracting system and return to being hired directly by the sugar companies, as was the situation before 2000. Other demands include paid sick days and no reprisals against the strikers. (Communiqué from Movimiento de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Caña de Azúcar, Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Central Unitaria de Trabajadores CUT - Valle del Cauca, Asociación Nomadesc, Corporación Jurídica Utopía, Corporación Sembrar and other organizations belonging to the Campaña Prohibido Olvidar 9/15/08; El Diario del Otún (Pereira) 9/20/08; El Universal (Cartagena) 9/20/08 from Colprensa; El País (Cali) 9/20/08; see also: http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article1507 and
http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article1503
"We demand job stability; since the government of César Gaviria (1990-1994) we have been losing a percentage of our income because they kicked us out of the sugar companies, and now we have to pay social security and payroll taxes ourselves," said Azael Castro, a cane cutter for the Manuelita company. (El País (Cali) 9/20/08)
As of Sept. 20, the sugar strike was continuing; strikers were maintaining blockades at the entrances of the sugar mills, and production was halted. The news agency Colprensa reported that the strike had shut down four of Colombia's largest ethanol distilleries, causing ethanol shortages in the central area of the country. This in turn has led to a price increase for gasoline, which is sold mixed with ethanol.
Hundreds of family members of striking cane workers and other community supporters marched in the municipalities of El Cerrito and Pradera in Valle del Cauca on Sept. 19 to show their support for the workers' demands. The two municipalities are located between the Manuelita and Providencia sugar mills. (El Universal (Cartagena) 9/20/08 from Colprensa)
According to a report in the newspaper El Diario del Otún, published in Pereira, capital of Risaralda department, the strike so far involves more than 12,000 sugar workers and is affecting the Manuelita, Providencia, Pichichí, Cauca, Mayagüez, María Luisa and Central Tumaco plantations. The National Cane Cutters Union, which organized the strike, predicts that as of Sept. 23 more cane cutters will join in from the Risaralda, Ríopaila, Cabaña and La Carmelita plantations. (El Diario del Otún 9/20/08)
The workers and human rights groups are asking that messages be sent to Colombian officials supporting their demands; for details see the communiqué posted in English and Spanish at http://www.labournet.net/world/0809/colomb1.html. Send copies of all messages to Campaña Prohibido Olvidar at dhprohibidolvidar@yahoo.com and Asociación Nomadesc at accionjuridica.nomadesc@gmail.com . (Communiqué from Movimiento de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Caña de Azúcar, Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Central Unitaria de Trabajadores CUT - Valle del Cauca, Asociación Nomadesc, Corporación Jurídica Utopía, Corporación Sembrar and other organizations belonging to the Campaña Prohibido Olvidar 9/15/08)
*2. Latin America: Markets React to US Crisis
Latin American currencies rose dramatically on Sept. 19 after the US government proposed an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of US financial companies holding bad debt. The Brazilian real went up 3.5% to 1.8298 to the US dollar, its biggest gain in six years, while the Colombian peso jumped 6.7% to 2,050.9 per dollar--the peso's biggest advance in at least 13 years, according to the Bloomberg news service. The rise in the currencies followed four days of equally dramatic declines as markets reacted to a financial crisis in the US that included the collapse of the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. investment firm and a $85 billion bailout of the American International Group Inc. (AIG) insurance company. The real fell 4% from Sept. 15 to Sept. 18, while in Mexico City, stock prices on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV) fell 8.3% between Sept. 16 and Sept. 17. (Bloomberg 9/19/08; La Jornada (Mexico) 9/18/08, some from wire services)
The ups and downs in Latin American markets were in line with turmoil in markets around the world. In contrast to other financial crises over the past 15 years, this time the crisis started in the US and other rich countries, not in the emerging markets. In the current situation, the emerging markets, especially in Asia, represent the only areas in the world with strong growth. The US reacted to previous crises by demanding that countries like Mexico and Argentina impose the neoliberal economic policies widely known as the "Washington Consensus." Now the situation is reversed. Walter Molano, an emerging markets analyst for the Connecticut-based BCP Securities investment firm, called the US bailout plan "incompetent" and compared it to plans made in Argentina in the past. The US "needs something like the Washington Consensus for Latin America," he said. (Clarín (Buenos Aires) 9/21/08)
The US financial crisis is expected to have a strong effect on Mexico, whose economy is closely linked to the US economy. Appearing before Mexcian congressional committees on Sept. 17, Finance and Public Credit Secretary Agustín Carstens Carstens called the US financial crisis "the worst in a half century" and predicted that the Mexican economy wouldn't resume significant growth until the last quarter of 2009. Analysts noted that Mexico will be especially affected by the decline in the US building industry, since hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants work in construction and supplement the Mexican economy with remittances to their relatives. (LJ 9/17/08, 9/18/08)
In recent years most South American economies have tried to reduce their dependence on US investments and trade. In La Paz on Sept. 18, representatives of the Bolivian state petroleum company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), signed an agreement with the Russian Gazprom company and France's Total for exploration for natural gas in Bolivia's southeast region. The energy project, the country's largest since the nationalization of the petroleum industry in 2006, will involve an investment of $4.5 billion. President Evo Morales said that there was an understanding that cooperation will extend beyond exploration and exploitation to include industrialization. (LJ 9/19/08 from correspondent and wire services)
*3. Haiti: New PM Faces Storm Aftermath
On Sept. 5 the Haitian Senate voted 16-0 with one abstention to approve a cabinet proposed by incoming prime minister Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis. This ended a five-month period in which the country was gvoerned by a caretaker cabinet [see Update #957]. (AlterPresse 9/5/08; Haiti Support Group News Briefs 9/5/08 from Reuters)
The new cabinet faces devastation left by four tropical storms that hit the country from Aug. 16 to Sept. 7 [see Update #960]. More than 550 people died because of the storms, and Pierre-Louis said as many as 1 million Haitians might have been left homeless. As of Sept. 18 the authorities estimated that losses in the agricultural sector were more than $180 million. The country doesn't have the resources to deal with the situation, the prime minister said. "We need major support and it is time for the world to understand that." (AlterPresse 9/17/08, 9/18/08; Haiti Support Group 9/13/08 from BBC)
As of Sept. 15, the US government had promised $29.3 million in aid, including $800,000 from the Defense Department to pay for rescue equipment. The US has also given logistical support with helicopters and a ship, the USS Kearsarge. (AlterPresse 9/19/08)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico
Violence on Chile's 9-11 commemoration
http://ww4report.com/node/6029
Uruguay: The Politics of Recent History
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1477/1/
Bolivia: Opposition Accepts Morales's Call for Talks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1485/68/
The Machine Gun and The Meeting Table: Bolivian Crisis in a New South America http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1478/1/
Reactionary Rampage: The Paramilitary Massacre in Bolivia
http://nacla.org/node/5017
Bolivia: A Coup in the Making?
http://nacla.org/node/5016
Bolivia: Pando governor arrested; US turns up the heat
http://ww4report.com/node/6034
Bolivia: who controls Pando?
http://ww4report.com/node/6028
Bolivia: 18 dead in Pando, governor ordered arrested
http://ww4report.com/node/6023
Peru: Piura Votes, A Dangerous Precedent
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1479/1/
Peru: Buried But Not Forgotten on International Day of the Disappeared http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1486/1/
Bolivia: government regains control of gas lines
http://ww4report.com/node/6039
Colombia: sugar cane workers threatened
http://ww4report.com/node/6033
Denmark: pro-FARC t-shirt peddlers convicted
http://ww4report.com/node/6044
Action Alert: Help Stop US-Colombia FTA
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1480/68/
Cowboys and Indians of the Bolivarian Revolution
http://nacla.org/node/5017
Venezuela: Human Rights Watch delegation expelled
http://ww4report.com/node/6050
El Salvador: FMLN activists attacked
http://ww4report.com/node/6032
Mexico: Bloody Independence Eve Celebrations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1481/68/
Mexican army seizes $26 million in Sinaloa raid
http://ww4report.com/node/6049
Deadly repression of prison uprising in Tijuana
http://ww4report.com/node/6041
International arrests follow Independence Day terror in Mexico
http://ww4report.com/node/6040
Mexicans block rail line to demand justice in narco-killings
http://ww4report.com/node/6030
Mexico's "New Labor Culture": An Interview With Union Leader Benedicto Martínez
http://nacla.org/node/5015
Cross-Border Activists Escalate Fight Against "The Wall of Death"
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5521
Return of the Good Neighbor: From Cuba to Geneva
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5531
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #961, September 21, 2008
1. Colombia: Striking Cane Cutters Attacked
2. Latin America: Markets React to US Crisis
3. Haiti: New PM Faces Storm Aftermath
4. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Colombia: Striking Cane Cutters Attacked
On Sept. 15, at least 12,000 Colombian sugar cane cutters went on strike to protest the systematic violation of their labor rights and human rights. The workers cut sugar cane for 16 sugar mills in the Cauca river valley, primarily in the department of Valle del Cauca but also in the neighboring departments of Cauca, to the south, and Risaralda, to the northeast.
The same day the strike began, hundreds of agents from the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) of the Colombian National Police, together with army soldiers and private sugar company guards, attacked a group of striking cane cutters from the Incauca and Providencia sugar mills, injuring more than 100 workers, at least five of them seriously. Gildardo Nieves, from the Incauca mill, was badly wounded in the abdomen with a tear gas bomb which affected his vital organs. Four workers from the Providencia mill required medical treatment for open wounds and contusions to the eyes, face and torso.
The sugar workers called the strike to pressure the Association of Sugar Cane Growers, ASOCAÑA, to negotiate a list of demands presented to them by the cane cutters union on July 14. ASOCAÑA has refused to negotiate and instead took out paid ads on local radio and television stations, threatening layoffs in case of a strike and telling the community not to support or participate in the strike.
The sugar workers' union and human rights organizations grouped in the Campaña Prohibido Olvidar (Forgetting Is Prohibited Campaign) are demanding a full investigation into the Sept. 15 violence and an end to such attacks, respect for the labor and human rights of the sugar workers, and elimination of the current contracting system that forces sugar workers to endure 14-hour days and substandard wages. About 90% of the cane cutters in Valle del Cauca department are members of cooperatives which contract with the sugar companies; the government's Ministry of Social Protection claims that because the workers own the cooperatives, they don't have the right to bargain collectively or to strike. The workers want to end the contracting system and return to being hired directly by the sugar companies, as was the situation before 2000. Other demands include paid sick days and no reprisals against the strikers. (Communiqué from Movimiento de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Caña de Azúcar, Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Central Unitaria de Trabajadores CUT - Valle del Cauca, Asociación Nomadesc, Corporación Jurídica Utopía, Corporación Sembrar and other organizations belonging to the Campaña Prohibido Olvidar 9/15/08; El Diario del Otún (Pereira) 9/20/08; El Universal (Cartagena) 9/20/08 from Colprensa; El País (Cali) 9/20/08; see also: http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article1507 and
http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article1503
"We demand job stability; since the government of César Gaviria (1990-1994) we have been losing a percentage of our income because they kicked us out of the sugar companies, and now we have to pay social security and payroll taxes ourselves," said Azael Castro, a cane cutter for the Manuelita company. (El País (Cali) 9/20/08)
As of Sept. 20, the sugar strike was continuing; strikers were maintaining blockades at the entrances of the sugar mills, and production was halted. The news agency Colprensa reported that the strike had shut down four of Colombia's largest ethanol distilleries, causing ethanol shortages in the central area of the country. This in turn has led to a price increase for gasoline, which is sold mixed with ethanol.
Hundreds of family members of striking cane workers and other community supporters marched in the municipalities of El Cerrito and Pradera in Valle del Cauca on Sept. 19 to show their support for the workers' demands. The two municipalities are located between the Manuelita and Providencia sugar mills. (El Universal (Cartagena) 9/20/08 from Colprensa)
According to a report in the newspaper El Diario del Otún, published in Pereira, capital of Risaralda department, the strike so far involves more than 12,000 sugar workers and is affecting the Manuelita, Providencia, Pichichí, Cauca, Mayagüez, María Luisa and Central Tumaco plantations. The National Cane Cutters Union, which organized the strike, predicts that as of Sept. 23 more cane cutters will join in from the Risaralda, Ríopaila, Cabaña and La Carmelita plantations. (El Diario del Otún 9/20/08)
The workers and human rights groups are asking that messages be sent to Colombian officials supporting their demands; for details see the communiqué posted in English and Spanish at http://www.labournet.net/world/0809/colomb1.html. Send copies of all messages to Campaña Prohibido Olvidar at dhprohibidolvidar@yahoo.com and Asociación Nomadesc at accionjuridica.nomadesc@gmail.com . (Communiqué from Movimiento de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Caña de Azúcar, Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Central Unitaria de Trabajadores CUT - Valle del Cauca, Asociación Nomadesc, Corporación Jurídica Utopía, Corporación Sembrar and other organizations belonging to the Campaña Prohibido Olvidar 9/15/08)
*2. Latin America: Markets React to US Crisis
Latin American currencies rose dramatically on Sept. 19 after the US government proposed an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of US financial companies holding bad debt. The Brazilian real went up 3.5% to 1.8298 to the US dollar, its biggest gain in six years, while the Colombian peso jumped 6.7% to 2,050.9 per dollar--the peso's biggest advance in at least 13 years, according to the Bloomberg news service. The rise in the currencies followed four days of equally dramatic declines as markets reacted to a financial crisis in the US that included the collapse of the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. investment firm and a $85 billion bailout of the American International Group Inc. (AIG) insurance company. The real fell 4% from Sept. 15 to Sept. 18, while in Mexico City, stock prices on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV) fell 8.3% between Sept. 16 and Sept. 17. (Bloomberg 9/19/08; La Jornada (Mexico) 9/18/08, some from wire services)
The ups and downs in Latin American markets were in line with turmoil in markets around the world. In contrast to other financial crises over the past 15 years, this time the crisis started in the US and other rich countries, not in the emerging markets. In the current situation, the emerging markets, especially in Asia, represent the only areas in the world with strong growth. The US reacted to previous crises by demanding that countries like Mexico and Argentina impose the neoliberal economic policies widely known as the "Washington Consensus." Now the situation is reversed. Walter Molano, an emerging markets analyst for the Connecticut-based BCP Securities investment firm, called the US bailout plan "incompetent" and compared it to plans made in Argentina in the past. The US "needs something like the Washington Consensus for Latin America," he said. (Clarín (Buenos Aires) 9/21/08)
The US financial crisis is expected to have a strong effect on Mexico, whose economy is closely linked to the US economy. Appearing before Mexcian congressional committees on Sept. 17, Finance and Public Credit Secretary Agustín Carstens Carstens called the US financial crisis "the worst in a half century" and predicted that the Mexican economy wouldn't resume significant growth until the last quarter of 2009. Analysts noted that Mexico will be especially affected by the decline in the US building industry, since hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants work in construction and supplement the Mexican economy with remittances to their relatives. (LJ 9/17/08, 9/18/08)
In recent years most South American economies have tried to reduce their dependence on US investments and trade. In La Paz on Sept. 18, representatives of the Bolivian state petroleum company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), signed an agreement with the Russian Gazprom company and France's Total for exploration for natural gas in Bolivia's southeast region. The energy project, the country's largest since the nationalization of the petroleum industry in 2006, will involve an investment of $4.5 billion. President Evo Morales said that there was an understanding that cooperation will extend beyond exploration and exploitation to include industrialization. (LJ 9/19/08 from correspondent and wire services)
*3. Haiti: New PM Faces Storm Aftermath
On Sept. 5 the Haitian Senate voted 16-0 with one abstention to approve a cabinet proposed by incoming prime minister Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis. This ended a five-month period in which the country was gvoerned by a caretaker cabinet [see Update #957]. (AlterPresse 9/5/08; Haiti Support Group News Briefs 9/5/08 from Reuters)
The new cabinet faces devastation left by four tropical storms that hit the country from Aug. 16 to Sept. 7 [see Update #960]. More than 550 people died because of the storms, and Pierre-Louis said as many as 1 million Haitians might have been left homeless. As of Sept. 18 the authorities estimated that losses in the agricultural sector were more than $180 million. The country doesn't have the resources to deal with the situation, the prime minister said. "We need major support and it is time for the world to understand that." (AlterPresse 9/17/08, 9/18/08; Haiti Support Group 9/13/08 from BBC)
As of Sept. 15, the US government had promised $29.3 million in aid, including $800,000 from the Defense Department to pay for rescue equipment. The US has also given logistical support with helicopters and a ship, the USS Kearsarge. (AlterPresse 9/19/08)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico
Violence on Chile's 9-11 commemoration
http://ww4report.com/node/6029
Uruguay: The Politics of Recent History
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1477/1/
Bolivia: Opposition Accepts Morales's Call for Talks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1485/68/
The Machine Gun and The Meeting Table: Bolivian Crisis in a New South America http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1478/1/
Reactionary Rampage: The Paramilitary Massacre in Bolivia
http://nacla.org/node/5017
Bolivia: A Coup in the Making?
http://nacla.org/node/5016
Bolivia: Pando governor arrested; US turns up the heat
http://ww4report.com/node/6034
Bolivia: who controls Pando?
http://ww4report.com/node/6028
Bolivia: 18 dead in Pando, governor ordered arrested
http://ww4report.com/node/6023
Peru: Piura Votes, A Dangerous Precedent
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1479/1/
Peru: Buried But Not Forgotten on International Day of the Disappeared http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1486/1/
Bolivia: government regains control of gas lines
http://ww4report.com/node/6039
Colombia: sugar cane workers threatened
http://ww4report.com/node/6033
Denmark: pro-FARC t-shirt peddlers convicted
http://ww4report.com/node/6044
Action Alert: Help Stop US-Colombia FTA
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1480/68/
Cowboys and Indians of the Bolivarian Revolution
http://nacla.org/node/5017
Venezuela: Human Rights Watch delegation expelled
http://ww4report.com/node/6050
El Salvador: FMLN activists attacked
http://ww4report.com/node/6032
Mexico: Bloody Independence Eve Celebrations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1481/68/
Mexican army seizes $26 million in Sinaloa raid
http://ww4report.com/node/6049
Deadly repression of prison uprising in Tijuana
http://ww4report.com/node/6041
International arrests follow Independence Day terror in Mexico
http://ww4report.com/node/6040
Mexicans block rail line to demand justice in narco-killings
http://ww4report.com/node/6030
Mexico's "New Labor Culture": An Interview With Union Leader Benedicto Martínez
http://nacla.org/node/5015
Cross-Border Activists Escalate Fight Against "The Wall of Death"
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5521
Return of the Good Neighbor: From Cuba to Geneva
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5531
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, September 15, 2008
Links but no Update for September 14, 2008
[Due to other commitments, we are unable to send out an Update this week. We'll be back next week. Below are links to stories from other sources.]
P-MAS in Paraguay: Young Socialists Build a New Party from the Ground Up
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1460/1/
Bolivia: Violent Groups Take Over Human Rights Organization http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1466/1/
Bolivia: U.S. Ambassador Expelled for Allegedly Supporting Violent Opposition http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1469/1/
Bolivia: US Ambassador Expelled Amid "Civil War" Fears http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1464/68/
Bolivia: Escalating Tensions and Increased Violence Demonstrate Widening Rifts
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1465/68/
Bolivia: "Twenty Families Are Obstructing Governability" - Expert
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1463/68/
Bolivia: 18 dead in Pando, governor ordered arrested
http://ww4report.com/node/6023
Bolivia: US ambassador expelled amid "civil war" fears
http://ww4report.com/node/6008
Colombia: Oil Palms and Rights Abuses
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1461/68/
US boots Venezuelan ambassador
http://ww4report.com/node/6022
Venezuela boots US ambassador
http://ww4report.com/node/6021
Venezuela hosts Russian bombers —and Hezbollah?
http://ww4report.com/node/6013
Mexico reports no evidence of al-Qaeda links
http://ww4report.com/node/6017
A Tale of Three Marches: Mexico's Scattered Politics
http://nacla.org/node/4995
The Next Cuban Missile Crisis?
http://nacla.org/node/4999
Obama, Latin America, and FDR
http://nacla.org/node/4990
September 11th From Chile to Washington: Bush Follows in Pinochet's Footsteps
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1470/1/
Homeland Security admits to cost, time overruns in border fence
http://ww4report.com/node/6016
P-MAS in Paraguay: Young Socialists Build a New Party from the Ground Up
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1460/1/
Bolivia: Violent Groups Take Over Human Rights Organization http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1466/1/
Bolivia: U.S. Ambassador Expelled for Allegedly Supporting Violent Opposition http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1469/1/
Bolivia: US Ambassador Expelled Amid "Civil War" Fears http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1464/68/
Bolivia: Escalating Tensions and Increased Violence Demonstrate Widening Rifts
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1465/68/
Bolivia: "Twenty Families Are Obstructing Governability" - Expert
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1463/68/
Bolivia: 18 dead in Pando, governor ordered arrested
http://ww4report.com/node/6023
Bolivia: US ambassador expelled amid "civil war" fears
http://ww4report.com/node/6008
Colombia: Oil Palms and Rights Abuses
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1461/68/
US boots Venezuelan ambassador
http://ww4report.com/node/6022
Venezuela boots US ambassador
http://ww4report.com/node/6021
Venezuela hosts Russian bombers —and Hezbollah?
http://ww4report.com/node/6013
Mexico reports no evidence of al-Qaeda links
http://ww4report.com/node/6017
A Tale of Three Marches: Mexico's Scattered Politics
http://nacla.org/node/4995
The Next Cuban Missile Crisis?
http://nacla.org/node/4999
Obama, Latin America, and FDR
http://nacla.org/node/4990
September 11th From Chile to Washington: Bush Follows in Pinochet's Footsteps
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1470/1/
Homeland Security admits to cost, time overruns in border fence
http://ww4report.com/node/6016
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
WNU #960: Argentines Set Train on Fire
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #960, September 7, 2008
1. Argentina: Passengers Set Train on Fire
2. Mexico: President's Report Protested
3. In Other News: Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Argentina: Passengers Set Train on Fire
Infuriated by a delay in service, hundreds of Argentines attacked trains and facilities of the TCB company in two stations outside Buenos Aires on Sept. 4. Protests started when a commuter train broke down near the Castelar station west of the capital, stopping service to Buenos Aires. Hundreds of people trying to get to work threw stones at train company offices, blocked trains headed in the other direction, and set a conductor's cabin on fire. In the neighboring station of Merlo, passengers set an entire eight-car train on fire, along with a ticket machine. About 100 helmeted riot police arrived after an hour, dispersing the crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets; about 20 people were arrested.
Federal justice minister Aníbal Fernández and Buenos Aires province police chief Daniel Salcedo were quick to attribute the attacks to sabotage by militant groups, including two Trotskyist organiztions, the Workers Party (PO) and the Socialist Workers Movement (MST); and Quebracho ("ax breaker"), a militant group named for a South American tree with exceptionally hard wood. Government officials said they had videos of infiltrators, including José María Escobar, a PO member who was in the Castelar station passing out fliers against the "bullet train," a planned high-speed train strongly promoted by the center-left government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Government officials even implicated Project South, which is headed by renowned filmmaker Fernando "Pino" Solanas; his latest film, "The Next Station," is a documentary on the deterioration of the railroad system.
Some sources implied the incidents were connected to the reported sabotage of two high-voltage towers in Buenos Aires province and to forest fires in Córdoba province which the authorities said were set intentionally during the week.
The militants denied any responsibility. "It's a real disgrace that the national government is inventing a conspiracy against us," Solanas said. The MST announced it was planning a defamation suit against Justice Minister Fernández. While Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo suggested that PO and Quebracho were both involved, observers noted that the two groups have little in common. The PO is a national party which runs in elections; Quebracho, which describes itself as a "patriotic revolutionary movement" rather than leftist, rejects elections. This wasn't the first violent protest since the railroad lines were privatized in the 1990s under President Carlos Menem (1989-1999). In 2005, the cancellation of service in Haedo, near Castelar on the western outskirts of Buenos Aires, provoked incidents in which 21 people were injured and 87 arrested; the station and 15 train cars were set on fire. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/5/08 from AFP, Reuters, 9/6/08 from correspondent; Clarín (Buenos Aires) 9/4/08, 9/5/08)
Correction: In Update #941 we inadvertently called the MST the "Movement Toward Socialism."
*2. Mexico: President's Report Protested
Tens of thousands of Mexican workers, tradespeople, doctors and nurses, oil workers, telephone workers, miners, teachers, parents, students and campesinos demonstrated on Sept. 1 to protest the economic policies of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa as he presented Congress with the annual state of the union report. Until two years ago, the president read the report to the two houses of Congress in an elaborate televised ceremony; the tradition ended in 2006 when opposition legislators kept then-president Vicente Fox Quesada from giving his last report [see Update #866]. This year Governance Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo simply handed a copy of the report to congressional leaders; the event took eight minutes.
In the Federal District (DF, Mexico City), protesters held some 15 different marches, rallies and sit-ins at different places and times, creating some of the biggest traffic problems in the capital in years. In the southern part of the city, 300 members of the Francisco Villa Popular Front took over tollbooths on the highway to Puebla at 7am and let traffic pass for free for two hours; others from the group did the same on the highway to Cuernavaca; the organization then tied up traffic for three hours with a march of 500 people through the city toward the Zócalo, the main plaza. Also in the southern part of the capital, employees of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) blocked the Insurgentes Sur boulevard. At other end of the DF a group of 200 members of the Popular Movement occupied five lanes of a highway at 8am to oppose Calderón's energy policies and then marched to the Tlatelolco housing project. Flight attendants demonstrated in the city's international airport, and at 4pm thousands of unionists and campesinos held the biggest demonstration of the day--a march to the Zócalo from different parts of the downtown area to demand better living conditions.
Outside the capital, dissident teachers took over Education Secretariat and Social Security offices in various states; electricity workers leafleted; and telephone workers held a one-hour strike around the country. (Crónica de Hoy (Mexico City) 9/2/08; La Jornada 9/2/08, ___)
Teachers continued to hold protests and strikes to build opposition to the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a plan supported by President Calderón and National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) head Elba Esther Gordillo [see Update #959]. On Sept. 2 teachers and students blocked the Guerrero state legislature building in Chilpancingo and set up an encampment in front of the governor's office; teachers demonstrated in 11 cities in Campeche; and 100 teachers in Yucatán announced they were forming an independent union. (LJ 9/3/08) On Sept. 3 hundreds of teachers from SNTE Section 19 in Morelos occupied tollbooths on the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, letting vehicles pass for free; Morelos teachers had been on strike since Aug. 13 to protest the ACE. (LJ 9/4/08) Some 50,000 Morelos teachers and supporters marched in Cuernavaca on Sept. 5. (LJ 9/6/08)
*3. In Other News...
Although it caused no deaths, Cuban officials said on Aug. 31 that hurricane Gustav was the island's most destructive hurricane in 50 years, knocking out electricity on the Isla de la Juventud and in much of Pinar del Río province and La Habana province. Former president Fidel Castro estimated the economic impact at $3-4 billion. (La Jornada 9/1/08, 9/4/08 from correspondent)... As of Sept. 6 more than 500 people had reportedly died in Gonaïves, Haiti's third largest city, following the passage of tropical storm Hanna; deforestation has left the Gonaïves area vulnerable to flooding, and as many as 3,000 people died there in 2004 as a result of tropical storm Jeanne [see Updates #765, 768]. Hanna came less than a week after hurricane Gustav hit the country and caused some 77 deaths; flooding from tropical storm Kay left about 40 people dead earlier in August. (Haiti Support Group News Briefs 9/5/08, 9/6/08 from AFP)... On Aug. 29 Guatemalan interior minister Francisco Jiménez announced the capture of former legislative deputy Manuel Castillo at a luxurious residence he owned near the border with El Salvador. Castillo is accused of masterminding the murder of three Salvadoran deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) and their driver on Feb. 19, 2007 [see Updates #889, 891]. (Siglo Veintiuno (Guatemala) 8/29/08 from EFE)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba
The Winner in Argentina? Transgenic Soy
http://nacla.org/node/4973
Lugo Faces First Challenges: Coup Plots and the Multi-Ring
Political Circus of Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1449/1/
Bolivia Confirms Constitution Vote
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1451/68/
Interview with Former Bolivian Justice Minister Casimira
Rodríguez
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1458/1/
Radio: Residents from Ecuador's Amazon Challenge Chevron-Texaco http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1454/68/
Colombia: deadly car blast in Cali
http://ww4report.com/node/5987
Fugitive Colombian para-pol busted in Venezuela
http://ww4report.com/node/5986
Cauca: A Microcosm of Colombia, A Reflection of Our World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1452/1/
A Third Term in Office? Entrenching Colombian Authoritarianism http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1453/68/
Chávez to nationalize oil distro, move towards "Gas Revolution"
http://ww4report.com/node/5962
Venezuela refuses renewed Drug War cooperation
http://ww4report.com/node/5988
Venezuela: Creating an Endogenous Cooperative Culture
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1457/1/
Nicaragua recognizes South Ossetia, Abkhazia
http://ww4report.com/node/5985
Chiapas: one wounded as paras attack Zapatistas
http://ww4report.com/node/5990
Displaced People: NAFTA's Most Important Product
http://nacla.org/node/4980
Cuba: dissident punk rocker scores political win
http://ww4report.com/node/5963
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #960, September 7, 2008
1. Argentina: Passengers Set Train on Fire
2. Mexico: President's Report Protested
3. In Other News: Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Argentina: Passengers Set Train on Fire
Infuriated by a delay in service, hundreds of Argentines attacked trains and facilities of the TCB company in two stations outside Buenos Aires on Sept. 4. Protests started when a commuter train broke down near the Castelar station west of the capital, stopping service to Buenos Aires. Hundreds of people trying to get to work threw stones at train company offices, blocked trains headed in the other direction, and set a conductor's cabin on fire. In the neighboring station of Merlo, passengers set an entire eight-car train on fire, along with a ticket machine. About 100 helmeted riot police arrived after an hour, dispersing the crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets; about 20 people were arrested.
Federal justice minister Aníbal Fernández and Buenos Aires province police chief Daniel Salcedo were quick to attribute the attacks to sabotage by militant groups, including two Trotskyist organiztions, the Workers Party (PO) and the Socialist Workers Movement (MST); and Quebracho ("ax breaker"), a militant group named for a South American tree with exceptionally hard wood. Government officials said they had videos of infiltrators, including José María Escobar, a PO member who was in the Castelar station passing out fliers against the "bullet train," a planned high-speed train strongly promoted by the center-left government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Government officials even implicated Project South, which is headed by renowned filmmaker Fernando "Pino" Solanas; his latest film, "The Next Station," is a documentary on the deterioration of the railroad system.
Some sources implied the incidents were connected to the reported sabotage of two high-voltage towers in Buenos Aires province and to forest fires in Córdoba province which the authorities said were set intentionally during the week.
The militants denied any responsibility. "It's a real disgrace that the national government is inventing a conspiracy against us," Solanas said. The MST announced it was planning a defamation suit against Justice Minister Fernández. While Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo suggested that PO and Quebracho were both involved, observers noted that the two groups have little in common. The PO is a national party which runs in elections; Quebracho, which describes itself as a "patriotic revolutionary movement" rather than leftist, rejects elections. This wasn't the first violent protest since the railroad lines were privatized in the 1990s under President Carlos Menem (1989-1999). In 2005, the cancellation of service in Haedo, near Castelar on the western outskirts of Buenos Aires, provoked incidents in which 21 people were injured and 87 arrested; the station and 15 train cars were set on fire. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/5/08 from AFP, Reuters, 9/6/08 from correspondent; Clarín (Buenos Aires) 9/4/08, 9/5/08)
Correction: In Update #941 we inadvertently called the MST the "Movement Toward Socialism."
*2. Mexico: President's Report Protested
Tens of thousands of Mexican workers, tradespeople, doctors and nurses, oil workers, telephone workers, miners, teachers, parents, students and campesinos demonstrated on Sept. 1 to protest the economic policies of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa as he presented Congress with the annual state of the union report. Until two years ago, the president read the report to the two houses of Congress in an elaborate televised ceremony; the tradition ended in 2006 when opposition legislators kept then-president Vicente Fox Quesada from giving his last report [see Update #866]. This year Governance Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo simply handed a copy of the report to congressional leaders; the event took eight minutes.
In the Federal District (DF, Mexico City), protesters held some 15 different marches, rallies and sit-ins at different places and times, creating some of the biggest traffic problems in the capital in years. In the southern part of the city, 300 members of the Francisco Villa Popular Front took over tollbooths on the highway to Puebla at 7am and let traffic pass for free for two hours; others from the group did the same on the highway to Cuernavaca; the organization then tied up traffic for three hours with a march of 500 people through the city toward the Zócalo, the main plaza. Also in the southern part of the capital, employees of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) blocked the Insurgentes Sur boulevard. At other end of the DF a group of 200 members of the Popular Movement occupied five lanes of a highway at 8am to oppose Calderón's energy policies and then marched to the Tlatelolco housing project. Flight attendants demonstrated in the city's international airport, and at 4pm thousands of unionists and campesinos held the biggest demonstration of the day--a march to the Zócalo from different parts of the downtown area to demand better living conditions.
Outside the capital, dissident teachers took over Education Secretariat and Social Security offices in various states; electricity workers leafleted; and telephone workers held a one-hour strike around the country. (Crónica de Hoy (Mexico City) 9/2/08; La Jornada 9/2/08, ___)
Teachers continued to hold protests and strikes to build opposition to the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a plan supported by President Calderón and National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) head Elba Esther Gordillo [see Update #959]. On Sept. 2 teachers and students blocked the Guerrero state legislature building in Chilpancingo and set up an encampment in front of the governor's office; teachers demonstrated in 11 cities in Campeche; and 100 teachers in Yucatán announced they were forming an independent union. (LJ 9/3/08) On Sept. 3 hundreds of teachers from SNTE Section 19 in Morelos occupied tollbooths on the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, letting vehicles pass for free; Morelos teachers had been on strike since Aug. 13 to protest the ACE. (LJ 9/4/08) Some 50,000 Morelos teachers and supporters marched in Cuernavaca on Sept. 5. (LJ 9/6/08)
*3. In Other News...
Although it caused no deaths, Cuban officials said on Aug. 31 that hurricane Gustav was the island's most destructive hurricane in 50 years, knocking out electricity on the Isla de la Juventud and in much of Pinar del Río province and La Habana province. Former president Fidel Castro estimated the economic impact at $3-4 billion. (La Jornada 9/1/08, 9/4/08 from correspondent)... As of Sept. 6 more than 500 people had reportedly died in Gonaïves, Haiti's third largest city, following the passage of tropical storm Hanna; deforestation has left the Gonaïves area vulnerable to flooding, and as many as 3,000 people died there in 2004 as a result of tropical storm Jeanne [see Updates #765, 768]. Hanna came less than a week after hurricane Gustav hit the country and caused some 77 deaths; flooding from tropical storm Kay left about 40 people dead earlier in August. (Haiti Support Group News Briefs 9/5/08, 9/6/08 from AFP)... On Aug. 29 Guatemalan interior minister Francisco Jiménez announced the capture of former legislative deputy Manuel Castillo at a luxurious residence he owned near the border with El Salvador. Castillo is accused of masterminding the murder of three Salvadoran deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) and their driver on Feb. 19, 2007 [see Updates #889, 891]. (Siglo Veintiuno (Guatemala) 8/29/08 from EFE)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba
The Winner in Argentina? Transgenic Soy
http://nacla.org/node/4973
Lugo Faces First Challenges: Coup Plots and the Multi-Ring
Political Circus of Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1449/1/
Bolivia Confirms Constitution Vote
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1451/68/
Interview with Former Bolivian Justice Minister Casimira
Rodríguez
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1458/1/
Radio: Residents from Ecuador's Amazon Challenge Chevron-Texaco http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1454/68/
Colombia: deadly car blast in Cali
http://ww4report.com/node/5987
Fugitive Colombian para-pol busted in Venezuela
http://ww4report.com/node/5986
Cauca: A Microcosm of Colombia, A Reflection of Our World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1452/1/
A Third Term in Office? Entrenching Colombian Authoritarianism http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1453/68/
Chávez to nationalize oil distro, move towards "Gas Revolution"
http://ww4report.com/node/5962
Venezuela refuses renewed Drug War cooperation
http://ww4report.com/node/5988
Venezuela: Creating an Endogenous Cooperative Culture
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1457/1/
Nicaragua recognizes South Ossetia, Abkhazia
http://ww4report.com/node/5985
Chiapas: one wounded as paras attack Zapatistas
http://ww4report.com/node/5990
Displaced People: NAFTA's Most Important Product
http://nacla.org/node/4980
Cuba: dissident punk rocker scores political win
http://ww4report.com/node/5963
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, September 1, 2008
WNU #959: Brazilian Indigenous Win, Argentine Generals Lose
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #959, August 31, 2008
1. Brazil: Roraima Indigenous Win Round
2. Argentina: Two Coup Generals Get Life
3. Mexico: New Sentences in Atenco Case
4. Mexico: Morelos Teachers Strike
5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Brazil: Roraima Indigenous Win Round
On Aug. 27 Minister Carlos Ayres Britto of Brazil's Supreme Court issued a recommendation favoring indigenous people in the northwestern state of Roraima who seek to maintain the Raposa Serra do Sol (RSS) area as a continuous indigenous land. Ayres Britto's 105-page opinion needs to be confirmed by the other 10 members of the Supreme Court, and the final vote will be probably be delayed to the end of the year because another member of the court, Minister Carlos Alberto Menezes, has asked to review the case.
Located on the border with Guyana and Venezuela, the 6,000-square-mile Raposa Serra do Sol region is the traditional home of some 19,000 Ingaricó, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepang and Wapichana people. Indigenous people struggled for 30 years to have RSS recognized as indigenous land. Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made the formal recognition in an April 2005 decree and stipulated that non-indigenous occupants would be removed within a year. Some powerful rice growers refused to leave and organized sometimes violent resistance when the federal government finally began removing them in March 2008. The state government backed the rice growers and filed an injunction against the removals. Ayres ruled that "[t]he rice growers have no acquired right in relation to possession of the land" and that their "presence takes extensive areas of fertile soil" from the indigenous peoples.
The indigenous groups were represented by Joenia Batista de Carvalho, a Wapichana lawyer and the head of the Indigenous Council of Roraima's legal department. She is the first indigenous lawyer to argue an indigenous rights case before the Supreme Court. (Adital 8/29/08; Rainforest Foundation Update 8/29/08)
*2. Argentina: Two Coup Generals Get Life
On Aug. 28 a federal criminal court in the northwestern Argentine province of Tucumán sentenced former generals Antonio Domingo Bussi and Luciano Benjamín Menéndez to life in prison for the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of ex-senator Guillermo Vargas Aignasse in 1976, during the coup that started the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
Menéndez had already received a life sentence in a different case in Córdoba in July. Along with six other military officers and a civilian, he was found guilty in the kidnapping, torture and extrajudicial execution of four people in 1977. The court agreed to let the 82-year-old Bussi serve his sentence at home, at least until a further decision is made in early September. Bussi was the de facto governor of Tucumán during the military regime and served as elected governor 1995-1999 after the return of democracy [see Updates #702, 718, 950; #718 erroneously gives his elected term as 1991-1995]. Claiming he was in poor health, Bussi appeared before the court in a wheelchair with a plastic tube in his nose. He didn't express regret for the crime, but he cried during the Aug. 28 sentencing and said: "My physical sufferings don't allow me to confront this ultimate combat."
The decision to let Bussi serve his sentence at home produced clashes outside the courthouse between security forces and human rights and leftist groups, resulting in some injuries. (Adital 8/29/08; La Jornada (Mexico) 8/29/08 from correspondent)
*3. Mexico: New Sentences in Atenco Case
On Aug. 21 Alberto Cervantes Juárez, first criminal court judge in Texcoco for the central Mexican state of México, sentenced campesino leader Ignacio del Valle Medina to 45 years in prison for allegedly kidnapping state officials and state and federal police agents. Judge Cervantes Juárez sentenced 10 other campesino activists to 31 years, 10 months and 15 days on the same charges. He handed down the sentences in the Molino de Flores state prison in Texcoco; 500 state riot police guarded the prison to "protect" the judge. About 150 Atenco residents arrived at the prison later in the day to protest the sentences.
The 11 defendants are members of the Front of the Peoples in Defense of the Land (FPDT), a campesino movement that formed in 2001 and successfully opposed plans to build a new international airport on farmlands in and around San Salvador Atenco municipality northeast of Mexico City in México state. The charges arose out of a May 3-4, 2006 confrontation between police and FPDT members which resulted in the deaths of two protesters, 209 arrests and accusations that police agents systematically beat and sexually abused prisoners. Del Valle is already serving a sentence of 67 years and six months in another case, concerning the alleged detention of state government officials during protests in February and April 2006 [see Update #897]
.
Del Valle's attorney, Bárbara Zamora, called the new sentences "unjust," especially for Del Valle, "since it was demonstrated that he was never in the place of the actions." According to FPDT attorney Juan de Dios Hernández Monje, "the judge himself indicated to one of the family members that he didn't decide on the sentence but that the State of México Superior Court of Justice ordered it, which demonstrates that this is an eminently political question, not a juridical one." Many Mexican and international human rights groups and activists have signed on to a petition calling for the withdrawal of the sentences against Atenco activists; it can be accessed at http://www.contraimpunidad.blogspot.com/2008/08/contra-la-represinla-accin.html
(La Jornada 8/22/08; Indymedia (US) 8/27/08)
In other news, on Aug. 27 Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice voted 11-3 to uphold an April 2007 law in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) allowing voluntary abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy [see Update #896]. The Catholic Church and the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN) had sought to have the law declared unconstitutional. The court's decision, which opens the way for other state government to legalize abortion, became official on Aug. 28. (LJ 8/28/08, 8/29/08)
*4. Mexico: Morelos Teachers Strike
Most of the 23,000 school teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos went on strike on Aug. 13 to protest the local implementation of a national plan called the Alliance for Quality of Education (ACE). The teachers, in Local 19 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), say that the plan is oriented towards consumerism and the commercialization of education and that it was imposed in ways that violate their constitutional rights. ACE was created through an agreement between Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, longtime national president of the 1.5 million-member SNTE.
On Aug. 22 some 20,000 teachers marched through Cuernavaca, the state capital, announcing plans to continue the strike and to set up an encampment in a plaza. Teachers and parents also demonstrated in other Morelos communities. Some 900 education workers marched on the same day in Veracruz state, while more than 9,000 teachers held a two-hour strike in the eastern state of Quintana Roo. On Aug. 28 Morelos teachers stepped up their actions by occupying tollbooths on highways and letting cars pass without paying; the actions were continuing as of Aug. 30. Meanwhile, federal senators from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) called for Morelos governor Marco Antonio Adame to respond to the teachers' demands. (La Jornada 8/23/08, 8/24/08, 8/31/08; Mexican Labor News and Analysis, August 2008, Vol. 13, #8)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
Asunción's Bañados Neighborhood: The Power of Community in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1445/1/
Stiglitz Goes To Paraguay: Move Over Chicago, A Cambridge Boy's in Town
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1439/1/
Bolivia: Beef Producers' Boycott - Latest Opposition Strategy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1440/68/
Peru: Indigenous Occupations End With Victory in Congress
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1448/68/
Landowners Attack Venezuelan Indigenous Clamoring for Land Rights in Zulia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1444/68/
Honduras: Joining ALBA 'A Step Towards the Centre-Left,' Says President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1443/68/
Guatemala: The Forgotten Spirits of Rabinal
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1442/1/
Development and the Desert: Border Land Struggle Turns Bloody in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1446/1/
US Actions to Block Life-saving Funds to Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1441/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #959, August 31, 2008
1. Brazil: Roraima Indigenous Win Round
2. Argentina: Two Coup Generals Get Life
3. Mexico: New Sentences in Atenco Case
4. Mexico: Morelos Teachers Strike
5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Brazil: Roraima Indigenous Win Round
On Aug. 27 Minister Carlos Ayres Britto of Brazil's Supreme Court issued a recommendation favoring indigenous people in the northwestern state of Roraima who seek to maintain the Raposa Serra do Sol (RSS) area as a continuous indigenous land. Ayres Britto's 105-page opinion needs to be confirmed by the other 10 members of the Supreme Court, and the final vote will be probably be delayed to the end of the year because another member of the court, Minister Carlos Alberto Menezes, has asked to review the case.
Located on the border with Guyana and Venezuela, the 6,000-square-mile Raposa Serra do Sol region is the traditional home of some 19,000 Ingaricó, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepang and Wapichana people. Indigenous people struggled for 30 years to have RSS recognized as indigenous land. Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made the formal recognition in an April 2005 decree and stipulated that non-indigenous occupants would be removed within a year. Some powerful rice growers refused to leave and organized sometimes violent resistance when the federal government finally began removing them in March 2008. The state government backed the rice growers and filed an injunction against the removals. Ayres ruled that "[t]he rice growers have no acquired right in relation to possession of the land" and that their "presence takes extensive areas of fertile soil" from the indigenous peoples.
The indigenous groups were represented by Joenia Batista de Carvalho, a Wapichana lawyer and the head of the Indigenous Council of Roraima's legal department. She is the first indigenous lawyer to argue an indigenous rights case before the Supreme Court. (Adital 8/29/08; Rainforest Foundation Update 8/29/08)
*2. Argentina: Two Coup Generals Get Life
On Aug. 28 a federal criminal court in the northwestern Argentine province of Tucumán sentenced former generals Antonio Domingo Bussi and Luciano Benjamín Menéndez to life in prison for the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of ex-senator Guillermo Vargas Aignasse in 1976, during the coup that started the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
Menéndez had already received a life sentence in a different case in Córdoba in July. Along with six other military officers and a civilian, he was found guilty in the kidnapping, torture and extrajudicial execution of four people in 1977. The court agreed to let the 82-year-old Bussi serve his sentence at home, at least until a further decision is made in early September. Bussi was the de facto governor of Tucumán during the military regime and served as elected governor 1995-1999 after the return of democracy [see Updates #702, 718, 950; #718 erroneously gives his elected term as 1991-1995]. Claiming he was in poor health, Bussi appeared before the court in a wheelchair with a plastic tube in his nose. He didn't express regret for the crime, but he cried during the Aug. 28 sentencing and said: "My physical sufferings don't allow me to confront this ultimate combat."
The decision to let Bussi serve his sentence at home produced clashes outside the courthouse between security forces and human rights and leftist groups, resulting in some injuries. (Adital 8/29/08; La Jornada (Mexico) 8/29/08 from correspondent)
*3. Mexico: New Sentences in Atenco Case
On Aug. 21 Alberto Cervantes Juárez, first criminal court judge in Texcoco for the central Mexican state of México, sentenced campesino leader Ignacio del Valle Medina to 45 years in prison for allegedly kidnapping state officials and state and federal police agents. Judge Cervantes Juárez sentenced 10 other campesino activists to 31 years, 10 months and 15 days on the same charges. He handed down the sentences in the Molino de Flores state prison in Texcoco; 500 state riot police guarded the prison to "protect" the judge. About 150 Atenco residents arrived at the prison later in the day to protest the sentences.
The 11 defendants are members of the Front of the Peoples in Defense of the Land (FPDT), a campesino movement that formed in 2001 and successfully opposed plans to build a new international airport on farmlands in and around San Salvador Atenco municipality northeast of Mexico City in México state. The charges arose out of a May 3-4, 2006 confrontation between police and FPDT members which resulted in the deaths of two protesters, 209 arrests and accusations that police agents systematically beat and sexually abused prisoners. Del Valle is already serving a sentence of 67 years and six months in another case, concerning the alleged detention of state government officials during protests in February and April 2006 [see Update #897]
.
Del Valle's attorney, Bárbara Zamora, called the new sentences "unjust," especially for Del Valle, "since it was demonstrated that he was never in the place of the actions." According to FPDT attorney Juan de Dios Hernández Monje, "the judge himself indicated to one of the family members that he didn't decide on the sentence but that the State of México Superior Court of Justice ordered it, which demonstrates that this is an eminently political question, not a juridical one." Many Mexican and international human rights groups and activists have signed on to a petition calling for the withdrawal of the sentences against Atenco activists; it can be accessed at http://www.contraimpunidad.blogspot.com/2008/08/contra-la-represinla-accin.html
(La Jornada 8/22/08; Indymedia (US) 8/27/08)
In other news, on Aug. 27 Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice voted 11-3 to uphold an April 2007 law in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) allowing voluntary abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy [see Update #896]. The Catholic Church and the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN) had sought to have the law declared unconstitutional. The court's decision, which opens the way for other state government to legalize abortion, became official on Aug. 28. (LJ 8/28/08, 8/29/08)
*4. Mexico: Morelos Teachers Strike
Most of the 23,000 school teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos went on strike on Aug. 13 to protest the local implementation of a national plan called the Alliance for Quality of Education (ACE). The teachers, in Local 19 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), say that the plan is oriented towards consumerism and the commercialization of education and that it was imposed in ways that violate their constitutional rights. ACE was created through an agreement between Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, longtime national president of the 1.5 million-member SNTE.
On Aug. 22 some 20,000 teachers marched through Cuernavaca, the state capital, announcing plans to continue the strike and to set up an encampment in a plaza. Teachers and parents also demonstrated in other Morelos communities. Some 900 education workers marched on the same day in Veracruz state, while more than 9,000 teachers held a two-hour strike in the eastern state of Quintana Roo. On Aug. 28 Morelos teachers stepped up their actions by occupying tollbooths on highways and letting cars pass without paying; the actions were continuing as of Aug. 30. Meanwhile, federal senators from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) called for Morelos governor Marco Antonio Adame to respond to the teachers' demands. (La Jornada 8/23/08, 8/24/08, 8/31/08; Mexican Labor News and Analysis, August 2008, Vol. 13, #8)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
Asunción's Bañados Neighborhood: The Power of Community in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1445/1/
Stiglitz Goes To Paraguay: Move Over Chicago, A Cambridge Boy's in Town
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1439/1/
Bolivia: Beef Producers' Boycott - Latest Opposition Strategy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1440/68/
Peru: Indigenous Occupations End With Victory in Congress
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1448/68/
Landowners Attack Venezuelan Indigenous Clamoring for Land Rights in Zulia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1444/68/
Honduras: Joining ALBA 'A Step Towards the Centre-Left,' Says President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1443/68/
Guatemala: The Forgotten Spirits of Rabinal
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1442/1/
Development and the Desert: Border Land Struggle Turns Bloody in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1446/1/
US Actions to Block Life-saving Funds to Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1441/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
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