Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #975, January 18, 2009
1. Peru: Farmers Strike Over Water
2. Honduras: Teachers Sit In for Back Pay
3. Dominican Republic: Cops Kill Unionists
4. Cuba: Embargo to Remain for Now
5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico, 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. Peru: Farmers Strike Over Water
Peruvian agricultural producers ended three days of mobilizations on Jan. 17 after Enrique Málaga, president of the National Users Council of the Irrigation Districts of Peru (JNUDRP), met with Prime Minister Yehude Simon and Agriculture Minister Carlos Leyton. "The strike has been suspended in consideration of our having reached an agreement for approval of the General Law of Water, which we were demanding," Málaga told the media. "This law is going to be promulgated next week." Málaga indicated that the agreement also included the formation of a commission for the solution of small agricultural producers' debt problems. (24 Horas Libre (Peru) 1/17/09; Univision 1/17/09 from AFP)
JNUDRP, with a membership of 1.6 million, had begun an open-ended strike on Jan. 15, with campesinos using tree trunks, boulders and truck tires to block highways and railroads. In Zarumilla in the northern department of Tumbes, protesters held a sit-in at the international bridge between Peru and Ecuador, paralyzing commerce between the two countries. Picketers clashed with police at the Sullana-Talara highway in nearby Piura department; one protester, Alejandro Yarlequé, was injured. In Chiclayo in Lambayeque department, about 500 producers marched peacefully near the Pan American highway.
In the south, a group of campesinos blocked the railroad to the Machu Picchu archeological site, in Cusco department, as well as the highway to Abancay in neighboring Apurímac department, reportedly leaving some 400 tourists stranded. In the coastal department of Ica, producers blocked the Pan American highway at km 329. Further south, about 10,000 producers observed the strike in Arequipa department. Some 1,000 protesters kept trucks from transporting food, although they let passenger vehicles and trucks carrying other cargos drive through.
In addition to passage of the General Law of Water, JNUDRP was demanding the repeal of legislative decrees 1081 (which creates a National Water Resources System) and 1083; JNUDRP members say these decrees, passed last year, promote privatization of water and are part of the package of laws required for the Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish) with the US. [Producers and others mounted major protests against the TLC in June 2006, June 2007 and February 2008; see Updates #859, 905 and 936, where JNUDRP is referred to as the "National Council of Irrigation Users (JNUDR)"]. The government of President Alan García strenuously denied that the decrees would lead to privatization.
Water is a major issue in Peru because of its scarcity. Much of the country depends on glacial runoff for energy, and scientists predict that global warming will deplete this resource in 25 years. (Adital 1/15/09; 24 Horas Libre 1/15/09; Reuters 1/15/09; Correo (Peru) 1/16/09; Coordinadora Nacional de Radio 1/16/09)
Miners are planning to vote on Jan. 31 on a possible strike to protest the firing of 5,500 workers at units run by Gerdau SA, Renco Group Inc. and Volcan Compañía Minera SAA; they also want to press for passage of legislation on pensions and profit-sharing. (Bloomberg 1/13/09)
*2. Honduras: Teachers Sit In for Back Pay
On Jan. 13 Honduran teachers began a series of protests against the government's delays in paying salaries for some 2,600 teachers and its failure to pay full year-end bonuses. For the first phase of the mobilization, the unions representing the nation's 48,000 teachers called for "informational assemblies" throughout the country. The assembly held in the Hibueras de Comayagüela Institute in Tegucigalpa quickly turned into a demonstration. At 11 am the participants marched to the Education Secretariat. Entering the building, they chanted: "Out with [Education Minister Marlon] Brevé!" and "We want to be paid, we're hungry!" Ministry employees left their offices, and the teachers shut the doors to the building. Brevé accused the teachers of sedition and sent for the police. About 30 agents of the National Police with shields and nightsticks blocked the doors to keep more teachers from entering. After an all-night standoff, the agents removed the protesters at about 4 am on Jan. 14.
The teachers went on strike in August in 2006 and 2007 over pay issues [see Updates #863, 910], but this was the first protest they held during a vacation; classes are scheduled to resume on Feb. 2. Union leaders said they would continue with mobilizations during the vacation period, including takeovers of buildings, bridges and highways. (La Tribuna (Honduras) 1/14/09, __; El Heraldo (Honduras) 1/15/09)
*3. Dominican Republic: Cops Kill Unionists
Nine Dominican police agents, including two officers, should be tried for the Dec. 30 shooting deaths of five men in Santo Domingo's Mirador Sur section, according to a report that a special commission presented to National District attorney general Alejandro Moscoso Segarra on Jan. 15. The police had claimed that the five men died during an exchange of gunfire, but an autopsy report from the Forensic Pathology Institute found that four of the victims had been shot in the back. One of the four was shot in the back of the neck at close range, according to forensic physician Sergio Sarita, and the fifth victim was shot "in front while seated, lying down or on his knees." Attorney General Moscoso Segarra said he would decide in 48 hours whether to proceed with the case.
At least 500 people were killed by the Dominican police in 2008, according to a complaint filed with the Interamerican Human Rights Court (CIDH) of the Organization of American States (OAS) by a Dominican group, the Human Rights Commisison (CNDH). The group's president, Dr. Manuel Maria Mercedes, estimates that 75% of the victims were executed. (Soitu (Spain) 1/15/09 from EFE; Primicias (Dominican Republic) 1/17/09) On Jan. 17 journalists and community leaders in the northern city of Santiago de los Caballeros called on President Leonel Fernández to order the police to explain the deaths of some 40 people killed by police and criminals in the city. Some groups in Santiago have brought court cases against the national police chief, Maj. Gen. Rafael Guillermo Guzmán Fermín, for the large number of crimes committed since he has been in command. (El Nuevo Diario (Dominican Republic) 1/17/09)
Three of the victims of the Dec. 30 Mirador Sur incident were members of a leading union, the New Option National Transport Federation (FENATRANO). On Jan. 2 the union's secretary general, Juan Hubieres, charged that the National Police had a "criminal plan" to "exterminate" FENATRANO members; the next day Maj. Gen. Guzmán Fermín denied that there was a plot against either the union or Hubieres. (Latin American Herald Tribune 1/4/09; Listin Diario (San Domingo) 1/3/09; El Diario-La Prensa (New York) 1/3/09 from correspondent; 7 Días 1/4/09) In December more than 40 FENATRANO members staged a hunger strike to demand that the Office for Reordering Transport (Opret) not eliminate routes feeding the Metro system; on Dec. 15 the agency agreed to the union's demands. (Diario a Diario (Dominican Republic) 12/16/08)
*4. Cuba: Embargo to Remain for Now
The administration of Barack Obama, who is to be sworn in as US president on Jan. 20, will eliminate some current US sanctions against Cuba but "it is not time to lift" the 47-year-old US economic embargo, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, DC on Jan. 13. Her appearance before the committee was part of a process that is expected to win her a quick confirmation as the new administration's secretary of state. Clinton answered a number of questions orally and in writing about US relations with Latin America. The Obama administration "will return to a policy of vigorous involvement" in the region, she said.
"President-Elect Obama believes the Cuban-Americans especially can be important ambassadors for change in Cuba," Clinton wrote in answer to a written question from Richard Lugar (R-IN). "As such, [Obama] believes that it makes both moral and strategic sense to lift the restrictions on family visits and family cash remittances to Cuba. We do not currently have a timeline for the announcement of such a new policy..." Lugar also asked about a number of other issues, including the possibility of taking Cuba off the State Department's "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list; of increasing cooperation with Cuba in fighting drug trafficking; and of developing cooperation around "energy security and environmentally sustainable resource management." Clinton didn't go beyond indicating that the new administration "anticipate[s] a review of US policy regarding Cuba." (La Jornada (Mexico) 1/14/09 from correspondent; Steve Clemons, Huffington Post 1/16/09)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico, US policy
Paraguay: New Insurgent Group or Framing of Rural Activists?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1664/68/
Bolivia's Economy: Strong 2008 Performance, Uneasy Start to 2009 http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1661/68/
Bolivia turns to Brazil for drug war aid
http://ww4report.com/node/6680
Bolivia breaks ties with Israel over Gaza aggression
http://ww4report.com/node/6677
Water in Bolivia: Defeating the Multinationals Is Just the Start of the Problem
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1663/1/
Ecuador: New Mining Law Approved Amidst Rising Tension
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1666/68/
Ecuador Anti-Mining Blockades Met With Repression, National Mobilization Called for January 20
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1659/1/
Colombia: Secret Documents Show US Aware of Army Killings in 1990s
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1665/68/
Palestinian Government Open Letter to Chavez
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1662/68/
Did Venezuela's Opposition Meet with US Officials in Puerto Rico?
http://nacla.org/node/5415
Critics Respond to Human Rights Watch's Defense of Venezuela Report
http://nacla.org/node/5414
Youth Demand Transparency as El Salvador Prepares Municipal and Legislative Elections
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1660/1/
Plan Mexico and Central American Migration
http://nacla.org/node/5406
Autonomy Under Siege
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5742
Oaxaca: activist survives stabbing attack
http://ww4report.com/node/6685
Mexico: indigenous communities battle mega-tourism
http://ww4report.com/node/6684
Mexico reacts to ominous Pentagon report ùas pundits plug military aid
http://ww4report.com/node/6679
Obama Reaffirms Promise to Renegotiate NAFTA
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5784
Firing The Boss: An Interview with Chicago Factory Occupation Organizer
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1667/1/
WTO: Staying the Course in the Face of Mistakes
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5777
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, January 19, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
WNU #974: 600 Haitians Occupy Dominican Church
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #974, January 11, 2009
1. Dominican Republic: 600 Haitians Occupy Church
2. Haiti: US Rejects TPS Plea
3. Latin America: Gaza Protests Continue
4. Mexico: Cops Kill, Pentagon Frets
5. Colombia: CIA Knew About Army Para Ties
6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Latin America
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. Dominican Republic: 600 Haitians Occupy Church
On Jan. 6 Dominican soldiers removed some 600 Haitian immigrants without incident from the Nuestra Señora del Rosario church in the city of Dajabón, on the northwestern border with Haiti. The immigrants had occupied the church the day before after Dominican authorities denied them permission to return from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, where they had been living and working. Following lengthy negotiations with Father Regino Martínez, the Jesuit head of the Dominican human rights group Border Solidarity, the authorities allowed 75-80 of the Haitians to stay in the Dominican Republic. Escorted by soldiers, the other immigrants--including whole families carrying their belongings on their shoulders--walked to the neighboring Haitian city of Ouanaminthe.
Father Martínez and other human rights activists had met with immigration service director Gen. José Aníbal Sanz Jiminián on Dec. 18 to tell him that 1,696 Haitian workers planned to travel home for Christmas and return in January. But Dominican authorities denied reentry to about 600 of the workers and their family members on Jan. 4 on the grounds that they lacked documents. The immigrants spent the night in the church in Ouanaminthe and entered Dajabón the next day, Monday, Jan. 5; the border is open for Dajabón's market days on Mondays and Fridays. The immigrants then took over the Dajabón church, where they were welcomed by Martínez, who celebrated a mass with them.
Martínez said the northwestern area was now suffering a shortage of workers; undocumented Haitian immigrant are a large of the workforce in agriculture and construction. An official of the Immigration Directorate said Martínez could be charged with illegal trafficking of immigrants, but two bishops, Diómedes Espinal of the Mao-Monte Cristi diocese and auxiliary Santiago bishop Plinio Valentín Reynoso, backed the priest. (Univisión 1/7/09 from AP; Listin Diario (San Domingo) 1/6/2009, 1/8/2009; Prensa Latina 1/7/09; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 1/6/08 from EFE, 1/7/08 from AP; Latin America Herald Tribune 1/7/08, 1/8/09)
Dominican authorities said on Jan. 7 that they had deported 1,120 Haitians in the previous three days and had allowed at least 950 others with permits to enter the country. (LAHT 1/8/09)
*2. Haiti: US Rejects TPS Plea
On Dec. 19 US Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff wrote Haitian president René Préval that "[a]fter very careful consideration" he was rejecting the Haitian government's request for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for undocumented Haitians in the US. This would have allowed the immigrants to remain in the US until Haiti recovered from the two hurricanes and two tropical storms that hit in one month during the summer; the US granted TPS to many Central Americans after hurricane Mitch struck in 1998, and the designation has been renewed ever since. The US briefly suspended deportations to Haiti after the storms but resumed in December [see Update #970]. Homeland Security spokesperson Michael Keegan said 28 Haitians had been repatriated since the resumption.
The storms reportedly destroyed 15% of Haiti's gross domestic product (GDP). "That's the equivalent of eight to 10 hurricane Katrinas hitting the US in a month's period of time," Randy McGrorty, executive director Catholic Legal Services, told the Miami Herald. He said that "after eight years of dealing with this administration and their policy toward Haiti," he had to think one reason for the rejection was racism. (Miami Herald 1/6/09; South Florida Sun-Sentinel 1/7/09)
*3. Latin America: Gaza Protests Continue
On Jan. 6 the Venezuelan foreign ministry announced that it was expelling the Israeli ambassador, Shlomo Cohen, to express solidarity with the "heroic Palestinian people" after Israeli's Dec. 27 military assault on the Palestinian territory of Gaza [see Update #973]. Before the announcement, President Hugo Chávez Frías had described the Israeli military as "cowardly" and had called for Israeli president Shimon Peres and US president George W. Bush to be tried by the International Criminal Court for genocide.
Abraham Levy Benshimol, president of the Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations, said Chávez's remarks were unjust, fundamentally unreal and "worrisome" for the nearly 15,000 people in Venezuela's Jewish community. (La Jornada (Mexico) 1/7/09 from DPA, AFP, Reuters, PL; Adital 1/7/09; New York Times 1/8/09 from AP; Miami Herald 1/8/09 from McClatchy News Service) In Israel, the Communist Party sent Chávez a letter on Jan. 8 thanking him for his position. "We believe that yours is an example to imitate, not only for other Latin American governments," the letter said. "It must be the position of all the states in our region, the Middle East." (Press release 1/8/09 via MRzine.org)
On Jan. 8 Ecuadoran foreign minister Fander Falconi called Israeli military actions "flagrant violations" of international law and urged the United Nations (UN) to issue "a condemnation of Israel for crimes against humanity." The government saluted all demonstrations showing solidarity with the Palestinian people, Falconi said. (Xinhua 1/8/09)
As of Jan. 11, the largest Latin American demonstration against the assault was a march of some 20,000 people in Argentina on Jan. 6. "Zionist state, you're the terrorist," the crowd chanted as it moved from the Obelisk in downtown Buenos Aires to the Israeli embassy. The organizers included the Land and Housing Federation (FTV), the Socialist Workers Movement (MST), the Workers Party, the Communist Party, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Argentine Islamic Association. Alejandro Salomón, head of the Federation of Argentine Arab Entities (Fearab), called for the government to break relations with Israel. "We don't want any dealings with a state that has always voted against Argentina in its claim for the Malvinas," he said; the islands, known in English as the Falkland Islands, are also claimed by the United Kingdom. There were also smaller demonstrations in other cities on Jan. 6; about 100 people protested in the Plaza Independencia in Tucumán. (Miami Herald 1/8/09 from McClatchy News Service; La Gaceta Tucumán (Argentina) 1/7/09)
On Jan. 9 Fearab and the FTV launched a national solidarity campaign for humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The campaign will extend to Jan. 23, Fearab's Roberto Ahuad said at a press conference held at the office of the Federation of Popular Movements, which is headed by Luis D'Elía. (Télam (Argentina) 1/9/09) [D'Elia is a leader of the leftist Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA) and the FTV--a part of the piquetero (picketer) unemployed movement. He was also an official in the government of former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007).]
Hundreds of people marched from the Hemiciclo a Juárez to the US embassy in Mexico City on Jan. 10 to protest Israel's actions. "Palestine lives, the struggle continues," they chanted, throwing shoes at the building. The protest was organized by the Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Palestine and other organizations. (LJ 1/11/09)
*4. Mexico: Cops Kill, Pentagon Frets
Three undocumented immigrants were killed and eight others injured when state preventive police fired on a truck near San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas on the morning of Jan. 9. Police agents opened fire after the driver refused to stop the truck, which was carrying some 30 Chinese, Ecuadoran and Guatemalan immigrants entering from Guatemala in transit to the US. The agents continued to shoot during a 20-minute chase that ended with the truck crashing. All the injured and at least one of the dead had received bullet wounds; the driver and an immigrant smuggler escaped. Two of the agents were reportedly detained. (La Jornada 1/10/09)
Also on Jan. 9, some 4,000 people marched in Ocotlán in the western state of Jalisco to protest the killing of 21-year-old Fernando López Alejandre by municipal police on Jan. 1 and to demand the removal of Mayor Absalón García Ochoa, of the center-right National Action Party (PAN). Police chief Filiberto Ortiz Amador had been dismissed two days earlier. The agents shot López Alejandre, a bass player with the Arcadia Libre rock band, as he was driving with a friend. Residents say the police regularly harass youths. Both Mayor García Ochoa and former police chief Ortiz Amador are reportedly close to Jalisco governor Francisco Ramírez Acuña, a PAN leader. García Ochoa and Ortiz Amador were state security officials in May 2004 when state police violently repressed a demonstration in Guadalajara against a summit held there [see Updates #748, 749, 751]. (LJ 1/10/09)
In a Jan. 9 meeting with ambassadors and consuls in Mexico City, President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, also of the PAN, denied that there was chaos in Mexico and that "the civilian population was being massacred in the streets." He was apparently referring to fighting among drug cartels and between drug traffickers and the government. (LJ 1/10/09) More than 8,000 people have been killed in Mexico's drug wars over the past two years. A study by the US Joint Forces Command, a US military planning group, warns that the Mexican state may "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse" because of "sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels... Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone." (International Herald Tribune 1/9/09 from Reuters)
*5. Colombia: CIA Knew About Army Para Ties
On Jan. 8 the National Security Archive, a Washington, DC-based research group, released declassified US government documents showing that US diplomats and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew at least since 1994 that the Colombia security forces "employ death squad tactics in their counterinsurgency campaign," in the words of a 1994 CIA report. The military had a "history of assassinating leftwing civilians in guerrilla areas, cooperating with narcotics-related paramilitary groups in attacks against suspected guerrilla sympathizers and killing captured combatants," the CIA report said. The release of the documents came six days before Colombian president Alvaro Uribe was to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from US president George W. Bush. (Latin America Herald Tribune 1/9/09)
In other news, Diego Tobón, Colombia's ambassador to Moscow, has told the Italian press agency ANSA that Russia will extradite Yair Klein, a former Israeli colonel, to Colombia in March. Klein has been charged with aiding the Medellín drug cartel; he is also accused of training rightwing paramilitary groups [see Update #895]. (Colombia Reports 1/6/09)... On Jan. 7, the Colombian government authorized Senator Piedad Córdoba to participate in the release of six hostages from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The mission will be headed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). [President Uribe indicated previously that he didn't want Córdoba involved; see Update #972].
(LAHT 1/8/09)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Latin America
Argentina: GM Soy Wreaks Cultural and Economic Havoc in Jujuy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1656/1/
Between Law and Politics: The Continuing Struggle Against Impunity in Uruguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1654/1/
Peru: oil company poised to enter uncontacted tribes' territory
http://ww4report.com/node/6633
Peru: A Mining Town's Woes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1658/68/
Indigenous anti-mining protests hit Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1653/68/
Colombian drug lord shot dead in Spanish hospital
http://ww4report.com/node/6645
Venezuela breaks ties with Israel:
US Congress signs off on Gaza aggression as global outrage grows
http://ww4report.com/node/6650
Human Rights Watch Responds to Criticism of Venezuela Report
http://nacla.org/node/5369
El Salvador: Community Fights Private Waste Dump Construction
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1651/1/
Honduras: Stormy Economic Outlook for 2009
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1652/68/
Mexico: fishermen strike over fuel prices
http://ww4report.com/node/6644
Mexican cabinet report: US arms drug cartels
http://ww4report.com/node/6643
Mexico: narcos wage terror campaign against media
http://ww4report.com/node/6642
Video Interview with Eduardo Galeano: Latin American History and Politics
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1650/68/
Invasion of Gaza Met With Protests Throughout Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1657/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #974, January 11, 2009
1. Dominican Republic: 600 Haitians Occupy Church
2. Haiti: US Rejects TPS Plea
3. Latin America: Gaza Protests Continue
4. Mexico: Cops Kill, Pentagon Frets
5. Colombia: CIA Knew About Army Para Ties
6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Latin America
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. Dominican Republic: 600 Haitians Occupy Church
On Jan. 6 Dominican soldiers removed some 600 Haitian immigrants without incident from the Nuestra Señora del Rosario church in the city of Dajabón, on the northwestern border with Haiti. The immigrants had occupied the church the day before after Dominican authorities denied them permission to return from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, where they had been living and working. Following lengthy negotiations with Father Regino Martínez, the Jesuit head of the Dominican human rights group Border Solidarity, the authorities allowed 75-80 of the Haitians to stay in the Dominican Republic. Escorted by soldiers, the other immigrants--including whole families carrying their belongings on their shoulders--walked to the neighboring Haitian city of Ouanaminthe.
Father Martínez and other human rights activists had met with immigration service director Gen. José Aníbal Sanz Jiminián on Dec. 18 to tell him that 1,696 Haitian workers planned to travel home for Christmas and return in January. But Dominican authorities denied reentry to about 600 of the workers and their family members on Jan. 4 on the grounds that they lacked documents. The immigrants spent the night in the church in Ouanaminthe and entered Dajabón the next day, Monday, Jan. 5; the border is open for Dajabón's market days on Mondays and Fridays. The immigrants then took over the Dajabón church, where they were welcomed by Martínez, who celebrated a mass with them.
Martínez said the northwestern area was now suffering a shortage of workers; undocumented Haitian immigrant are a large of the workforce in agriculture and construction. An official of the Immigration Directorate said Martínez could be charged with illegal trafficking of immigrants, but two bishops, Diómedes Espinal of the Mao-Monte Cristi diocese and auxiliary Santiago bishop Plinio Valentín Reynoso, backed the priest. (Univisión 1/7/09 from AP; Listin Diario (San Domingo) 1/6/2009, 1/8/2009; Prensa Latina 1/7/09; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 1/6/08 from EFE, 1/7/08 from AP; Latin America Herald Tribune 1/7/08, 1/8/09)
Dominican authorities said on Jan. 7 that they had deported 1,120 Haitians in the previous three days and had allowed at least 950 others with permits to enter the country. (LAHT 1/8/09)
*2. Haiti: US Rejects TPS Plea
On Dec. 19 US Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff wrote Haitian president René Préval that "[a]fter very careful consideration" he was rejecting the Haitian government's request for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for undocumented Haitians in the US. This would have allowed the immigrants to remain in the US until Haiti recovered from the two hurricanes and two tropical storms that hit in one month during the summer; the US granted TPS to many Central Americans after hurricane Mitch struck in 1998, and the designation has been renewed ever since. The US briefly suspended deportations to Haiti after the storms but resumed in December [see Update #970]. Homeland Security spokesperson Michael Keegan said 28 Haitians had been repatriated since the resumption.
The storms reportedly destroyed 15% of Haiti's gross domestic product (GDP). "That's the equivalent of eight to 10 hurricane Katrinas hitting the US in a month's period of time," Randy McGrorty, executive director Catholic Legal Services, told the Miami Herald. He said that "after eight years of dealing with this administration and their policy toward Haiti," he had to think one reason for the rejection was racism. (Miami Herald 1/6/09; South Florida Sun-Sentinel 1/7/09)
*3. Latin America: Gaza Protests Continue
On Jan. 6 the Venezuelan foreign ministry announced that it was expelling the Israeli ambassador, Shlomo Cohen, to express solidarity with the "heroic Palestinian people" after Israeli's Dec. 27 military assault on the Palestinian territory of Gaza [see Update #973]. Before the announcement, President Hugo Chávez Frías had described the Israeli military as "cowardly" and had called for Israeli president Shimon Peres and US president George W. Bush to be tried by the International Criminal Court for genocide.
Abraham Levy Benshimol, president of the Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations, said Chávez's remarks were unjust, fundamentally unreal and "worrisome" for the nearly 15,000 people in Venezuela's Jewish community. (La Jornada (Mexico) 1/7/09 from DPA, AFP, Reuters, PL; Adital 1/7/09; New York Times 1/8/09 from AP; Miami Herald 1/8/09 from McClatchy News Service) In Israel, the Communist Party sent Chávez a letter on Jan. 8 thanking him for his position. "We believe that yours is an example to imitate, not only for other Latin American governments," the letter said. "It must be the position of all the states in our region, the Middle East." (Press release 1/8/09 via MRzine.org)
On Jan. 8 Ecuadoran foreign minister Fander Falconi called Israeli military actions "flagrant violations" of international law and urged the United Nations (UN) to issue "a condemnation of Israel for crimes against humanity." The government saluted all demonstrations showing solidarity with the Palestinian people, Falconi said. (Xinhua 1/8/09)
As of Jan. 11, the largest Latin American demonstration against the assault was a march of some 20,000 people in Argentina on Jan. 6. "Zionist state, you're the terrorist," the crowd chanted as it moved from the Obelisk in downtown Buenos Aires to the Israeli embassy. The organizers included the Land and Housing Federation (FTV), the Socialist Workers Movement (MST), the Workers Party, the Communist Party, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Argentine Islamic Association. Alejandro Salomón, head of the Federation of Argentine Arab Entities (Fearab), called for the government to break relations with Israel. "We don't want any dealings with a state that has always voted against Argentina in its claim for the Malvinas," he said; the islands, known in English as the Falkland Islands, are also claimed by the United Kingdom. There were also smaller demonstrations in other cities on Jan. 6; about 100 people protested in the Plaza Independencia in Tucumán. (Miami Herald 1/8/09 from McClatchy News Service; La Gaceta Tucumán (Argentina) 1/7/09)
On Jan. 9 Fearab and the FTV launched a national solidarity campaign for humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The campaign will extend to Jan. 23, Fearab's Roberto Ahuad said at a press conference held at the office of the Federation of Popular Movements, which is headed by Luis D'Elía. (Télam (Argentina) 1/9/09) [D'Elia is a leader of the leftist Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA) and the FTV--a part of the piquetero (picketer) unemployed movement. He was also an official in the government of former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007).]
Hundreds of people marched from the Hemiciclo a Juárez to the US embassy in Mexico City on Jan. 10 to protest Israel's actions. "Palestine lives, the struggle continues," they chanted, throwing shoes at the building. The protest was organized by the Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Palestine and other organizations. (LJ 1/11/09)
*4. Mexico: Cops Kill, Pentagon Frets
Three undocumented immigrants were killed and eight others injured when state preventive police fired on a truck near San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas on the morning of Jan. 9. Police agents opened fire after the driver refused to stop the truck, which was carrying some 30 Chinese, Ecuadoran and Guatemalan immigrants entering from Guatemala in transit to the US. The agents continued to shoot during a 20-minute chase that ended with the truck crashing. All the injured and at least one of the dead had received bullet wounds; the driver and an immigrant smuggler escaped. Two of the agents were reportedly detained. (La Jornada 1/10/09)
Also on Jan. 9, some 4,000 people marched in Ocotlán in the western state of Jalisco to protest the killing of 21-year-old Fernando López Alejandre by municipal police on Jan. 1 and to demand the removal of Mayor Absalón García Ochoa, of the center-right National Action Party (PAN). Police chief Filiberto Ortiz Amador had been dismissed two days earlier. The agents shot López Alejandre, a bass player with the Arcadia Libre rock band, as he was driving with a friend. Residents say the police regularly harass youths. Both Mayor García Ochoa and former police chief Ortiz Amador are reportedly close to Jalisco governor Francisco Ramírez Acuña, a PAN leader. García Ochoa and Ortiz Amador were state security officials in May 2004 when state police violently repressed a demonstration in Guadalajara against a summit held there [see Updates #748, 749, 751]. (LJ 1/10/09)
In a Jan. 9 meeting with ambassadors and consuls in Mexico City, President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, also of the PAN, denied that there was chaos in Mexico and that "the civilian population was being massacred in the streets." He was apparently referring to fighting among drug cartels and between drug traffickers and the government. (LJ 1/10/09) More than 8,000 people have been killed in Mexico's drug wars over the past two years. A study by the US Joint Forces Command, a US military planning group, warns that the Mexican state may "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse" because of "sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels... Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone." (International Herald Tribune 1/9/09 from Reuters)
*5. Colombia: CIA Knew About Army Para Ties
On Jan. 8 the National Security Archive, a Washington, DC-based research group, released declassified US government documents showing that US diplomats and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew at least since 1994 that the Colombia security forces "employ death squad tactics in their counterinsurgency campaign," in the words of a 1994 CIA report. The military had a "history of assassinating leftwing civilians in guerrilla areas, cooperating with narcotics-related paramilitary groups in attacks against suspected guerrilla sympathizers and killing captured combatants," the CIA report said. The release of the documents came six days before Colombian president Alvaro Uribe was to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from US president George W. Bush. (Latin America Herald Tribune 1/9/09)
In other news, Diego Tobón, Colombia's ambassador to Moscow, has told the Italian press agency ANSA that Russia will extradite Yair Klein, a former Israeli colonel, to Colombia in March. Klein has been charged with aiding the Medellín drug cartel; he is also accused of training rightwing paramilitary groups [see Update #895]. (Colombia Reports 1/6/09)... On Jan. 7, the Colombian government authorized Senator Piedad Córdoba to participate in the release of six hostages from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The mission will be headed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). [President Uribe indicated previously that he didn't want Córdoba involved; see Update #972].
(LAHT 1/8/09)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Latin America
Argentina: GM Soy Wreaks Cultural and Economic Havoc in Jujuy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1656/1/
Between Law and Politics: The Continuing Struggle Against Impunity in Uruguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1654/1/
Peru: oil company poised to enter uncontacted tribes' territory
http://ww4report.com/node/6633
Peru: A Mining Town's Woes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1658/68/
Indigenous anti-mining protests hit Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1653/68/
Colombian drug lord shot dead in Spanish hospital
http://ww4report.com/node/6645
Venezuela breaks ties with Israel:
US Congress signs off on Gaza aggression as global outrage grows
http://ww4report.com/node/6650
Human Rights Watch Responds to Criticism of Venezuela Report
http://nacla.org/node/5369
El Salvador: Community Fights Private Waste Dump Construction
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1651/1/
Honduras: Stormy Economic Outlook for 2009
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1652/68/
Mexico: fishermen strike over fuel prices
http://ww4report.com/node/6644
Mexican cabinet report: US arms drug cartels
http://ww4report.com/node/6643
Mexico: narcos wage terror campaign against media
http://ww4report.com/node/6642
Video Interview with Eduardo Galeano: Latin American History and Politics
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1650/68/
Invasion of Gaza Met With Protests Throughout Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1657/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, January 5, 2009
WNU #973: Latin America Reacts to Attack on Gaza
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #973, January 4, 2009
1. Latin America: Reactions to Attack on Gaza
2. Cuba: The Revolution Turns 50
3. Mexico: EZLN Celebrates 15 Years
4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Cuba, 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. Latin America: Reactions to Attack on Gaza
Latin American governments and organizations generally condemned a major assault on the Palestinian territory of Gaza by Israeli military forces that began with an air offensive on Dec. 27 and escalated into a ground attack on Jan. 3. There were also a number of street protests, which the media reported were mostly small.
The strongest condemnations came from leftist governments. Cuba's Communist government issued a statement on Dec. 27, at the beginning of the air campaign, calling the offensive an "act of genocide" and a "criminal military operation, the bloodiest one executed by Israel against the Palestinian people." It "takes place in the midst of an illegal blockade imposed by the Israeli government in the last 18 months against the Gaza Strip, directed at annihilating and subduing the Palestinian population--including children, women and the elderly--by hunger and disease." Cuba expressed its "unyielding solidarity with and support for this long-suffering and heroic people." (Declaración del Gobierno Revolucionario 12/27/08; Prensa Latina 12/28/08) [Israel is the only country that consistently votes with the US each year when the United Nations General Assembly condemns the US economic embargo of Cuba; see Update #966 for the 2008 vote.]
On Dec. 30 the Bolivian Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling the air strikes "crimes" that "represent a severe and massive violation of the International Humanitarian Law." The strikes "killed civilians under the excuse of responding to some militia attacks, and also they have as a military target civilian infrastructure like universities." (Xinhua 12/30/08) On Dec. 27 Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez called the Israeli assault "criminal." (El País (Spain) 12/30/08 from unidentified wire services)
Latin American countries with center-left governments seemed less inclined to place all the blame on the Israeli government. Israel says the assault is intended to stop rocket attacks by the rightwing Islamic group Hamas, which governs Gaza. Mercosur--a trade bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Venezuela in the process of admission--expressed its rejection of "the escalation of violence and intimidation occurring in the Gaza Strip" and "urged the parties to put an end to hostilities" and called for them to "return immediately to dialogue."
However, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva used stronger terms on Dec. 30 to criticize the United Nations (UN) and the US for failing to pass a resolution to stop the air campaign. "What is proven is that the UN doesn't have the courage to make a decision and to make peace in this place," he said. "And it doesn't have the courage because the US has the power of the veto [in the UN Security Council], so things don't happen." The Israel military actions were "disproportionate," he said.
The governments of Chile, Nicaragua and Peru officially condemned the bombardments.
Dec. 29 brought out protesters throughout the region. Some 50 people, mostly Venezuelans of Arab descent, demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy in Caracas, chanting in Arabic, spitting on a star of David and burning the Israeli and US flags. A little girl held up a drawing of bleeding children with the words: "No more massacre in Gaza." The protesters left Palestinian and Venezuelan flags hanging at the embassy door, along with a number of shoes--a reference to an Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US president George W. Bush at a Dec. 14 press conference.
In Argentina, organizations of people of Arabic origin, along with leftist parties and social movements, protested in front of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. "Israel out of Palestine," "Free Palestine" and "Peace for the Palestinians," they chanted, waving Palestinian flags and shoes. Brazilians of Arab descent protested near the Sao Paulo Art Museum; socialists protested in Chile; and the local Palestinian community protested in Colombia. (El País 12/30/08; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/31/08 from DPA, AFP, PL, Reuters; La Prensa (Panama) 12/29/08; Univisión 12/29/08 from AFP)
In Panama, some 200 people from social movements and unions protested in front of the Israeli embassy. Panama resident Khaled Salama, who is a member of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), called Israel a "terrorist state"; he urged "the world to judge these terrorists as war criminals," and demanded that the Israeli and US governments pay for "all the damage they've done" in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. In Panama, he added, there are 50 religions, and Muslims and Jews live and work together without major problems. Genaro López, director of the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (SUNTRACS), said Israel acts as it does "because it has the support of the US" and "an important economic power that backs it." (El Nuevo Diario (Nicaragua) 12/30/08 from AFP)
After the Israeli military began its ground offensive on Jan. 3, Mexico's center-right government called for a ceasefire by both sides. Mexico is currently a member of the UN Security Council, and the government pledged to participate "actively and constructively" to end the military escalation. (LJ 1/4/09) The government statement contrasted sharply with a Dec. 29 declaration by participants in the World Festival of Dignified Rage, a 10-day celebration by the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). "This crime [the Israeli assault] represents a dangerous increase in the permanent holocaust against the Palestinian people," they said, condemning the "complicit, hypocritical and unworthy silence of the world.... We declare our dignified rage against this genocide." (LJ 12/31/08)
On Dec. 29 an unnamed Israeli official indicated that his government wasn't worried about world reactions to the assault. "[T]he tone of the criticism is moderate, tempered and balanced," he said, "at least in the countries that count." (El País 12/30/08)
*2. Cuba: The Revolution Turns 50
Cuban president Raúl Castro Ruz led a subdued celebration on Jan. 1 for the 50th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. The ceremony took place in the eastern city of Santiago, where Castro's brother, former president Fidel Castro, declared victory over dictator Fulgencio Batista on Jan. 1, 1959. Raúl Castro reminded his listeners of his brother's warning on Nov. 19, 2005 that the US could never destroy Cuba's political system but Cubans themselves could. Raúl Castro said that to avoid this, future leaders must not "become soft with the siren songs of the enemy" and must "remain conscious that, in its essence, [the enemy] will never cease to be aggressive, domineering and treacherous."
Fidel Castro, who stepped down from the presidency for reasons of health in July 2006, published a brief message on Jan. 1: "On the occasion within a few hours of the 50th anniversary of the triumph, I congratulate our heroic people." Although he had been writing articles frequently in his retirement, this was his first public comment in two weeks. (La Jornada 1/2/09 from correspondent)
*3. Mexico: EZLN Celebrates 15 Years
On Dec. 26 supporters of Mexico's rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) began the "World Festival of Dignified Rage" in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City). The series of events marks 15 years since the mostly indigenous group took the world by surprise on Jan. 1, 1994 with the military occupation of four cities in the southeastern state of Chiapas. Some 2,500 people reportedly were participating in the festival, which moved to Oventic in Chiapas on Dec. 31 and then to the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, which the rebels occupied at the beginning of 1994. The festival is to run through Jan. 5. Speakers include representatives of the New York-based Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the Unemployed Workers Movement of Argentina and the Greek Alana Magazine; Argentine-born Mexican writer Adolfo Gilly; former Nicaraguan rebel leader Mónica Baltodano, now a leader of the opposition Movement for the Rescue of Sandinism; Uruguayan writer Raúl Zibechi; and Bolivian activist Oscar Olivera.
Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos, the EZLN spokesperson, made his first appearance at the event on Jan. 2 with a speech denouncing President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's militarized "war on drugs." He charged that Calderón "decided that instead of bread and circuses for the people, you had to give them violence...since the professional politicians are already providing the circuses, and bread is very expensive." He also criticized the violence of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which governs the DF. [A June 20 police operation in a DF discotheque resulted in 12 deaths, many of underage patrons; see Update #954] (La Jornada 12/31/08; LJ 1/3/09; Narco News 1/3/09)
Correction: This paragraph originally said that Marcos made his speech on Jan. 3 and that the source was LJ 1/4/08.
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Cuba, US Policy
Rancher to face charges in 2005 slaying of activist nun in Amazon
http://ww4report.com/node/6589
Peru: coca economy destroys rainforest
http://ww4report.com/node/6590
Inter-American court finds Colombia guilty in assassination
http://ww4report.com/node/6597
Financing Venezuela's Communal Councils
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1643/68/
Venezuela's ALBA in the face of the Global Economic Crisis
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1642/1/
Costa Rica: From 'Green' to Gold?
http://nacla.org/node/5357
Operation Disrupt Democracy in El Salvador
http://nacla.org/node/5363
United for Change in El Salvador: Video on 2009 Elections
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1646/1/
Mexico: bloody New Year despite arrest of kingpin
http://ww4report.com/node/6620
End the Embargo Against Cuba
http://nacla.org/node/5360
Video Interview: Edward S. Herman on Latin America and the US
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1648/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #973, January 4, 2009
1. Latin America: Reactions to Attack on Gaza
2. Cuba: The Revolution Turns 50
3. Mexico: EZLN Celebrates 15 Years
4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Cuba, 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. Latin America: Reactions to Attack on Gaza
Latin American governments and organizations generally condemned a major assault on the Palestinian territory of Gaza by Israeli military forces that began with an air offensive on Dec. 27 and escalated into a ground attack on Jan. 3. There were also a number of street protests, which the media reported were mostly small.
The strongest condemnations came from leftist governments. Cuba's Communist government issued a statement on Dec. 27, at the beginning of the air campaign, calling the offensive an "act of genocide" and a "criminal military operation, the bloodiest one executed by Israel against the Palestinian people." It "takes place in the midst of an illegal blockade imposed by the Israeli government in the last 18 months against the Gaza Strip, directed at annihilating and subduing the Palestinian population--including children, women and the elderly--by hunger and disease." Cuba expressed its "unyielding solidarity with and support for this long-suffering and heroic people." (Declaración del Gobierno Revolucionario 12/27/08; Prensa Latina 12/28/08) [Israel is the only country that consistently votes with the US each year when the United Nations General Assembly condemns the US economic embargo of Cuba; see Update #966 for the 2008 vote.]
On Dec. 30 the Bolivian Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling the air strikes "crimes" that "represent a severe and massive violation of the International Humanitarian Law." The strikes "killed civilians under the excuse of responding to some militia attacks, and also they have as a military target civilian infrastructure like universities." (Xinhua 12/30/08) On Dec. 27 Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez called the Israeli assault "criminal." (El País (Spain) 12/30/08 from unidentified wire services)
Latin American countries with center-left governments seemed less inclined to place all the blame on the Israeli government. Israel says the assault is intended to stop rocket attacks by the rightwing Islamic group Hamas, which governs Gaza. Mercosur--a trade bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Venezuela in the process of admission--expressed its rejection of "the escalation of violence and intimidation occurring in the Gaza Strip" and "urged the parties to put an end to hostilities" and called for them to "return immediately to dialogue."
However, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva used stronger terms on Dec. 30 to criticize the United Nations (UN) and the US for failing to pass a resolution to stop the air campaign. "What is proven is that the UN doesn't have the courage to make a decision and to make peace in this place," he said. "And it doesn't have the courage because the US has the power of the veto [in the UN Security Council], so things don't happen." The Israel military actions were "disproportionate," he said.
The governments of Chile, Nicaragua and Peru officially condemned the bombardments.
Dec. 29 brought out protesters throughout the region. Some 50 people, mostly Venezuelans of Arab descent, demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy in Caracas, chanting in Arabic, spitting on a star of David and burning the Israeli and US flags. A little girl held up a drawing of bleeding children with the words: "No more massacre in Gaza." The protesters left Palestinian and Venezuelan flags hanging at the embassy door, along with a number of shoes--a reference to an Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US president George W. Bush at a Dec. 14 press conference.
In Argentina, organizations of people of Arabic origin, along with leftist parties and social movements, protested in front of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. "Israel out of Palestine," "Free Palestine" and "Peace for the Palestinians," they chanted, waving Palestinian flags and shoes. Brazilians of Arab descent protested near the Sao Paulo Art Museum; socialists protested in Chile; and the local Palestinian community protested in Colombia. (El País 12/30/08; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/31/08 from DPA, AFP, PL, Reuters; La Prensa (Panama) 12/29/08; Univisión 12/29/08 from AFP)
In Panama, some 200 people from social movements and unions protested in front of the Israeli embassy. Panama resident Khaled Salama, who is a member of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), called Israel a "terrorist state"; he urged "the world to judge these terrorists as war criminals," and demanded that the Israeli and US governments pay for "all the damage they've done" in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. In Panama, he added, there are 50 religions, and Muslims and Jews live and work together without major problems. Genaro López, director of the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (SUNTRACS), said Israel acts as it does "because it has the support of the US" and "an important economic power that backs it." (El Nuevo Diario (Nicaragua) 12/30/08 from AFP)
After the Israeli military began its ground offensive on Jan. 3, Mexico's center-right government called for a ceasefire by both sides. Mexico is currently a member of the UN Security Council, and the government pledged to participate "actively and constructively" to end the military escalation. (LJ 1/4/09) The government statement contrasted sharply with a Dec. 29 declaration by participants in the World Festival of Dignified Rage, a 10-day celebration by the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). "This crime [the Israeli assault] represents a dangerous increase in the permanent holocaust against the Palestinian people," they said, condemning the "complicit, hypocritical and unworthy silence of the world.... We declare our dignified rage against this genocide." (LJ 12/31/08)
On Dec. 29 an unnamed Israeli official indicated that his government wasn't worried about world reactions to the assault. "[T]he tone of the criticism is moderate, tempered and balanced," he said, "at least in the countries that count." (El País 12/30/08)
*2. Cuba: The Revolution Turns 50
Cuban president Raúl Castro Ruz led a subdued celebration on Jan. 1 for the 50th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. The ceremony took place in the eastern city of Santiago, where Castro's brother, former president Fidel Castro, declared victory over dictator Fulgencio Batista on Jan. 1, 1959. Raúl Castro reminded his listeners of his brother's warning on Nov. 19, 2005 that the US could never destroy Cuba's political system but Cubans themselves could. Raúl Castro said that to avoid this, future leaders must not "become soft with the siren songs of the enemy" and must "remain conscious that, in its essence, [the enemy] will never cease to be aggressive, domineering and treacherous."
Fidel Castro, who stepped down from the presidency for reasons of health in July 2006, published a brief message on Jan. 1: "On the occasion within a few hours of the 50th anniversary of the triumph, I congratulate our heroic people." Although he had been writing articles frequently in his retirement, this was his first public comment in two weeks. (La Jornada 1/2/09 from correspondent)
*3. Mexico: EZLN Celebrates 15 Years
On Dec. 26 supporters of Mexico's rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) began the "World Festival of Dignified Rage" in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City). The series of events marks 15 years since the mostly indigenous group took the world by surprise on Jan. 1, 1994 with the military occupation of four cities in the southeastern state of Chiapas. Some 2,500 people reportedly were participating in the festival, which moved to Oventic in Chiapas on Dec. 31 and then to the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, which the rebels occupied at the beginning of 1994. The festival is to run through Jan. 5. Speakers include representatives of the New York-based Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the Unemployed Workers Movement of Argentina and the Greek Alana Magazine; Argentine-born Mexican writer Adolfo Gilly; former Nicaraguan rebel leader Mónica Baltodano, now a leader of the opposition Movement for the Rescue of Sandinism; Uruguayan writer Raúl Zibechi; and Bolivian activist Oscar Olivera.
Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos, the EZLN spokesperson, made his first appearance at the event on Jan. 2 with a speech denouncing President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's militarized "war on drugs." He charged that Calderón "decided that instead of bread and circuses for the people, you had to give them violence...since the professional politicians are already providing the circuses, and bread is very expensive." He also criticized the violence of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which governs the DF. [A June 20 police operation in a DF discotheque resulted in 12 deaths, many of underage patrons; see Update #954] (La Jornada 12/31/08; LJ 1/3/09; Narco News 1/3/09)
Correction: This paragraph originally said that Marcos made his speech on Jan. 3 and that the source was LJ 1/4/08.
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Cuba, US Policy
Rancher to face charges in 2005 slaying of activist nun in Amazon
http://ww4report.com/node/6589
Peru: coca economy destroys rainforest
http://ww4report.com/node/6590
Inter-American court finds Colombia guilty in assassination
http://ww4report.com/node/6597
Financing Venezuela's Communal Councils
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1643/68/
Venezuela's ALBA in the face of the Global Economic Crisis
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1642/1/
Costa Rica: From 'Green' to Gold?
http://nacla.org/node/5357
Operation Disrupt Democracy in El Salvador
http://nacla.org/node/5363
United for Change in El Salvador: Video on 2009 Elections
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1646/1/
Mexico: bloody New Year despite arrest of kingpin
http://ww4report.com/node/6620
End the Embargo Against Cuba
http://nacla.org/node/5360
Video Interview: Edward S. Herman on Latin America and the US
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1648/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, December 29, 2008
WNU #972: Brazil Signs Arms Deal With France
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #972, December 28, 2008
1. Brazil: Arms Deal Signed With France
2. Argentina: Rights Violators Stay in Jail
3. Bolivia: Literacy Campaign Ends
4. Colombia: Government Spying on Emails
5. El Salvador: Armed Groups With Plastic Guns?
6. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Trade
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. Brazil: Arms Deal Signed With France
French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a $12 billion strategic partnership agreement in Rio de Janeiro on Dec. 23, the second day of Sarkozy's official visit to Brazil. The two presidents also finalized nearly a dozen other agreements, covering space, nuclear energy, climate change, biodiversity, professional training and scientific and cultural cooperation. Sarkozy currently holds the rotating presidency of the 27-member European Union (EU), and his visit included the renewal on Dec. 22 of a strategic partnership agreement between Brazil and the EU. After the two-day official visit, Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, were planning a vacation at a Brazilian resort.
The strategic partnership agreement includes building four diesel Scorpène submarines and the development of a nuclear-powered submarine; the submarine sales are reportedly worth as much as $6.7 billion euros (about $9 billion). Part of the first diesel submarine is to be built in Cherbourg, France, but the work will be completed in a new facility in Sepetiba, west of Rio de Janeiro, along with the other diesel vessels. The first Scorpène is scheduled to be finished in 2016, with the nuclear submarine due in 2024. France will also aid in the manufacture of 50 EC-725 transport helicopters in Brazil by the Helibras company; the helicopter deal, reportedly worth 1.899 billion euros (some $2.64 billion), includes technology transfer from France.
Lula, a leader of the leftist Workers Party, insisted that Brazil's goal was to have "military capability, not meaning to attack anyone, but to defend oneself." The agreement reflects Brazil's major efforts to build up its military force, especially to protect its Amazon resources and its deepwater oilfields, which are located some 300 km from the coasts. The agreement also shows Brazil's determination to reduce its dependence on the US. In the last five years, Brazil has increased its purchases of US arms by 38%, but purchases from France have gone up by 175%.
French companies will benefit most from the deal; they are getting about 6 billion euros (some $8.45 billion), more than all of France's arms exports in 2007 (5.7 billion euros). But French analysts say France is also seeking a strong ally outside Europe and the US, one that is less "controversial" than China or Russia and more politically stable than India. Another of France's concerns is its status as the last European country with territory in South America. Lula and Sarkozy agreed to inaugurate a bridge over the Oyapock river in 2010 to increase trade between French Guiana, which borders Brazil and Suriname. (O Globo (Brazil) 12/24/08 from correspondent; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/24/08 from DPA, Reuters; Le Monde (Paris) 12/24/08 from correspondent; L'Humanité (Paris) 12/24/08)
*2. Argentina: Rights Violators Stay in Jail
On Dec. 22 the second chamber of Argentina's federal appeals court confirmed that "there is no medical examination that would justify" releasing Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla, the first president of the 1976-1983 military regime, from prison. The ruling upholds an Oct. 10 decision by federal judge Norberto Oyarbide removing Videla from house arrest and sending him to the Campo de Mayo Federal Prison under the supervision of the Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF). Videla is being held on charges that the military regime had a systematic plan to keep pregnant detainees in secret detention centers until they gave birth. The babies were then adopted by military or police families or their friends; the mothers were killed.
The appeals court's decision came the same day that the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo group announced that it had found another of the adopted children, making a total of 96 identified so far. There are estimates that 400 to 500 babies were adopted in this manner. A total of about 30,000 people disappeared during the seven years of the US-backed military regime.
Less than a week earlier, on Dec. 18, another federal appeals panel ordered the release of 14 people charged with human rights violations during the military regime at the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA) in Buenos Aires, including Capt. Alfredo Astiz ("The Blond Angel of Death"). The court based its decision on the fact that the accused were held more than three years without a conviction. Raúl Plee, the prosecutor in the case, agreed that the lengthy detention was contrary to Argentine law but asked the court to reconsider because of the likelihood that the men would try to escape. On Dec. 19, following a public outcry about the release, the court suspended its decision. As of Dec. 22, the suspects remained in prison and the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had decided to impeach the judges that ruled for the officers' release. (La Jornada 12/23/08 from correspondent, 12/20/08 from AFP; BBC 12/19/08; Clarín (Buenos Aires) 12/20/08)
*3. Bolivia: Literacy Campaign Ends
On Dec. 20 the government of Bolivian president Evo Morales announced that a three-year literacy campaign had concluded successfully, making Bolivia the third Latin American country to end illiteracy, after Cuba (1961) and Venezuela (2005). The government said the campaign had succeeded with 819,417 (99.5%) of the 824,101 people who had been identified as illiterate. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) considers that a country has eliminated illiteracy as a social phenomenon when the illiteracy rate falls below 3.9%. However, the correspondent from the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada reported that some of the program's graduates "scarcely learned to sign their names and recognize some letters."
The campaign employed Cuba's "Yes I Can" audiovisual method, which is used in 38 countries, including Mexico and Haiti, with variations for local languages and conditions. Cuba supplied 30,000 televisions for the campaign, and 130 Cuban advisers and 47 Venezuelan advisers trained the 46,457 Bolivian facilitators and 4,810 supervisors. Bolivian education minister Rafael Aguilar said the cost to Bolivia was 260 million bolivianos ($36.7 million). According to Cuba's ambassador to Bolivia, Rafael Dausá, 85% of the people who benefited from the campaign were women. But the organizers were disappointed that most Bolivians chose to learn to read in Spanish rather than in the two main indigenous languages; only 13,599 completed the course in Quechua and 24,629 in Aymara. (LJ 12/20/08 from correspondent; Adital 12/22/08 from Prensa Presidencial de Bolivia)
*4. Colombia: Government Spying on Emails
The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a US-based interfaith peace organization with an affiliate in Colombia, is charging that Colombian government agencies have intercepted more than 150 email accounts of nonviolent groups like the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, along with Colombian nongovernmental organizations. FOR says Colombia's police intelligence agency was intercepting groups' email from December 2006 until as recently as November 2008. In a letter to US ambassador William Brownfield, 14 US-based groups noted that in 2006 the US State Department gave the police intelligence agency a $5 million contract to provide "internet surveillance software." "As a result," the letter says, "US taxpayers were apparently paying for Colombian agencies to spy on legitimate US and Colombian humanitarian organizations."
The surveillance is especially dangerous for Colombian groups, since rightwing paramilitary squads, which often work closely with the police and the military, have a record of violence against human rights workers and labor organizers. The Colombian groups monitored were the Movement for Victims of States Crimes, the Colombian Network for Action on Free Trade, the Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective, and the Yira Castro human rights organization. (Prensa Rural (Colombia) 12/24/08)
In other news, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced in a Dec. 21 letter to the Colombians for Peace organization that it is planning to release six hostages unilaterally in the near future: three police agents, one soldier, former Meta governor Alan Jará and former legislative deputy Sigifredo López. The FARC said it intended to release the prisoners to opposition senator Piedad Córdoba. Rightwing president Alvaro Uribe announced on Dec. 22 that he wanted to avoid a "political spectacle" and that the hostages should be turned over to the International Red Cross. (Adital 12/22/08)
*5. El Salvador: Armed Groups With Plastic Guns?
On Dec. 14 the Salvadoran government's National Security Council (CNS) held a press conference to present evidence that at least 40 armed groups were active in the country, with a total of 400 members. The evidence included photographs of residents of the community of Dimas Rodríguez, near El Paisnal in San Salvador department, allegedly receiving "military training." Many of the residents are former rebels who demobilized in 1992 as part of a peace deal between the government and the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), now an established political party. Residents said the photographs were from a "cultural event" they have held annually for the past 15 years to commemorate the community's rebel origins; the event includes a march of people dressed as rebels and carrying plastic rifles bought from a street vendor in downtown San Salvador.
FMLN supporters and human rights groups suggested that the government's charges reflected concern that the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) would lose ground to the FMLN in Jan. 18 legislative elections and Mar. 15 presidential elections. Polls show FMLN presidential candidate Mauricio Funes well ahead of the ARENA candidate. (Servicio Informativo "alai amlatino" 12/22/08 from ContraPunto and Federación Internacional de Derechos Humanos (FIDH))
6. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Trade
Bolivia: plot to assassinate Evo Morales?
http://ww4report.com/node/6567
Mercenaries at Large in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1641/68/
Colombia claims hit against Sinaloa Cartel
http://ww4report.com/node/6566
Colombia and Venezuela: Testing the Propaganda Model
http://nacla.org/node/5344
Costa Rica: From 'Green' to Gold?
http://nacla.org/node/5357
Nicaragua: indigenous rainforest community wins title to ancestral lands
http://ww4report.com/node/6576
Mexico: presidential guard, beauty queen busted in narco wars
http://ww4report.com/node/6575
Mexico: Zihuatanejo police chief busted for protecting Sinaloa Cartel
http://ww4report.com/node/6568
Mexico: army pledges to hit back after decapitations
http://ww4report.com/node/6565
Lipan Apache to Obama: stop border wall construction
http://ww4report.com/node/6564
Free Trade, the Good Cop, and Other Myths
http://nacla.org/node/5347
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com
*******
N O T E
*******
This is the final edition of the hardcopy Weekly News Update on the Americas and Immigration News Briefs. We want to thank all the people who helped since 1991 in printing, mailing and distributing the publication, and we look forward to your support as we work to improve the electronic version.
If you have a ground mail subscription, please switch to a free subscription by sending your email address to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com with "subscribe" in the subject line. The Update and INB are also available online, with links to news sources, at:
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To subscribe to the email NY Activist Calendar, send a blank email to:
nycalendar-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Calendar is archived at:
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Issue #972, December 28, 2008
1. Brazil: Arms Deal Signed With France
2. Argentina: Rights Violators Stay in Jail
3. Bolivia: Literacy Campaign Ends
4. Colombia: Government Spying on Emails
5. El Salvador: Armed Groups With Plastic Guns?
6. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Trade
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. Brazil: Arms Deal Signed With France
French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a $12 billion strategic partnership agreement in Rio de Janeiro on Dec. 23, the second day of Sarkozy's official visit to Brazil. The two presidents also finalized nearly a dozen other agreements, covering space, nuclear energy, climate change, biodiversity, professional training and scientific and cultural cooperation. Sarkozy currently holds the rotating presidency of the 27-member European Union (EU), and his visit included the renewal on Dec. 22 of a strategic partnership agreement between Brazil and the EU. After the two-day official visit, Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, were planning a vacation at a Brazilian resort.
The strategic partnership agreement includes building four diesel Scorpène submarines and the development of a nuclear-powered submarine; the submarine sales are reportedly worth as much as $6.7 billion euros (about $9 billion). Part of the first diesel submarine is to be built in Cherbourg, France, but the work will be completed in a new facility in Sepetiba, west of Rio de Janeiro, along with the other diesel vessels. The first Scorpène is scheduled to be finished in 2016, with the nuclear submarine due in 2024. France will also aid in the manufacture of 50 EC-725 transport helicopters in Brazil by the Helibras company; the helicopter deal, reportedly worth 1.899 billion euros (some $2.64 billion), includes technology transfer from France.
Lula, a leader of the leftist Workers Party, insisted that Brazil's goal was to have "military capability, not meaning to attack anyone, but to defend oneself." The agreement reflects Brazil's major efforts to build up its military force, especially to protect its Amazon resources and its deepwater oilfields, which are located some 300 km from the coasts. The agreement also shows Brazil's determination to reduce its dependence on the US. In the last five years, Brazil has increased its purchases of US arms by 38%, but purchases from France have gone up by 175%.
French companies will benefit most from the deal; they are getting about 6 billion euros (some $8.45 billion), more than all of France's arms exports in 2007 (5.7 billion euros). But French analysts say France is also seeking a strong ally outside Europe and the US, one that is less "controversial" than China or Russia and more politically stable than India. Another of France's concerns is its status as the last European country with territory in South America. Lula and Sarkozy agreed to inaugurate a bridge over the Oyapock river in 2010 to increase trade between French Guiana, which borders Brazil and Suriname. (O Globo (Brazil) 12/24/08 from correspondent; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/24/08 from DPA, Reuters; Le Monde (Paris) 12/24/08 from correspondent; L'Humanité (Paris) 12/24/08)
*2. Argentina: Rights Violators Stay in Jail
On Dec. 22 the second chamber of Argentina's federal appeals court confirmed that "there is no medical examination that would justify" releasing Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla, the first president of the 1976-1983 military regime, from prison. The ruling upholds an Oct. 10 decision by federal judge Norberto Oyarbide removing Videla from house arrest and sending him to the Campo de Mayo Federal Prison under the supervision of the Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF). Videla is being held on charges that the military regime had a systematic plan to keep pregnant detainees in secret detention centers until they gave birth. The babies were then adopted by military or police families or their friends; the mothers were killed.
The appeals court's decision came the same day that the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo group announced that it had found another of the adopted children, making a total of 96 identified so far. There are estimates that 400 to 500 babies were adopted in this manner. A total of about 30,000 people disappeared during the seven years of the US-backed military regime.
Less than a week earlier, on Dec. 18, another federal appeals panel ordered the release of 14 people charged with human rights violations during the military regime at the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA) in Buenos Aires, including Capt. Alfredo Astiz ("The Blond Angel of Death"). The court based its decision on the fact that the accused were held more than three years without a conviction. Raúl Plee, the prosecutor in the case, agreed that the lengthy detention was contrary to Argentine law but asked the court to reconsider because of the likelihood that the men would try to escape. On Dec. 19, following a public outcry about the release, the court suspended its decision. As of Dec. 22, the suspects remained in prison and the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had decided to impeach the judges that ruled for the officers' release. (La Jornada 12/23/08 from correspondent, 12/20/08 from AFP; BBC 12/19/08; Clarín (Buenos Aires) 12/20/08)
*3. Bolivia: Literacy Campaign Ends
On Dec. 20 the government of Bolivian president Evo Morales announced that a three-year literacy campaign had concluded successfully, making Bolivia the third Latin American country to end illiteracy, after Cuba (1961) and Venezuela (2005). The government said the campaign had succeeded with 819,417 (99.5%) of the 824,101 people who had been identified as illiterate. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) considers that a country has eliminated illiteracy as a social phenomenon when the illiteracy rate falls below 3.9%. However, the correspondent from the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada reported that some of the program's graduates "scarcely learned to sign their names and recognize some letters."
The campaign employed Cuba's "Yes I Can" audiovisual method, which is used in 38 countries, including Mexico and Haiti, with variations for local languages and conditions. Cuba supplied 30,000 televisions for the campaign, and 130 Cuban advisers and 47 Venezuelan advisers trained the 46,457 Bolivian facilitators and 4,810 supervisors. Bolivian education minister Rafael Aguilar said the cost to Bolivia was 260 million bolivianos ($36.7 million). According to Cuba's ambassador to Bolivia, Rafael Dausá, 85% of the people who benefited from the campaign were women. But the organizers were disappointed that most Bolivians chose to learn to read in Spanish rather than in the two main indigenous languages; only 13,599 completed the course in Quechua and 24,629 in Aymara. (LJ 12/20/08 from correspondent; Adital 12/22/08 from Prensa Presidencial de Bolivia)
*4. Colombia: Government Spying on Emails
The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a US-based interfaith peace organization with an affiliate in Colombia, is charging that Colombian government agencies have intercepted more than 150 email accounts of nonviolent groups like the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, along with Colombian nongovernmental organizations. FOR says Colombia's police intelligence agency was intercepting groups' email from December 2006 until as recently as November 2008. In a letter to US ambassador William Brownfield, 14 US-based groups noted that in 2006 the US State Department gave the police intelligence agency a $5 million contract to provide "internet surveillance software." "As a result," the letter says, "US taxpayers were apparently paying for Colombian agencies to spy on legitimate US and Colombian humanitarian organizations."
The surveillance is especially dangerous for Colombian groups, since rightwing paramilitary squads, which often work closely with the police and the military, have a record of violence against human rights workers and labor organizers. The Colombian groups monitored were the Movement for Victims of States Crimes, the Colombian Network for Action on Free Trade, the Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective, and the Yira Castro human rights organization. (Prensa Rural (Colombia) 12/24/08)
In other news, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced in a Dec. 21 letter to the Colombians for Peace organization that it is planning to release six hostages unilaterally in the near future: three police agents, one soldier, former Meta governor Alan Jará and former legislative deputy Sigifredo López. The FARC said it intended to release the prisoners to opposition senator Piedad Córdoba. Rightwing president Alvaro Uribe announced on Dec. 22 that he wanted to avoid a "political spectacle" and that the hostages should be turned over to the International Red Cross. (Adital 12/22/08)
*5. El Salvador: Armed Groups With Plastic Guns?
On Dec. 14 the Salvadoran government's National Security Council (CNS) held a press conference to present evidence that at least 40 armed groups were active in the country, with a total of 400 members. The evidence included photographs of residents of the community of Dimas Rodríguez, near El Paisnal in San Salvador department, allegedly receiving "military training." Many of the residents are former rebels who demobilized in 1992 as part of a peace deal between the government and the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), now an established political party. Residents said the photographs were from a "cultural event" they have held annually for the past 15 years to commemorate the community's rebel origins; the event includes a march of people dressed as rebels and carrying plastic rifles bought from a street vendor in downtown San Salvador.
FMLN supporters and human rights groups suggested that the government's charges reflected concern that the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) would lose ground to the FMLN in Jan. 18 legislative elections and Mar. 15 presidential elections. Polls show FMLN presidential candidate Mauricio Funes well ahead of the ARENA candidate. (Servicio Informativo "alai amlatino" 12/22/08 from ContraPunto and Federación Internacional de Derechos Humanos (FIDH))
6. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Trade
Bolivia: plot to assassinate Evo Morales?
http://ww4report.com/node/6567
Mercenaries at Large in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1641/68/
Colombia claims hit against Sinaloa Cartel
http://ww4report.com/node/6566
Colombia and Venezuela: Testing the Propaganda Model
http://nacla.org/node/5344
Costa Rica: From 'Green' to Gold?
http://nacla.org/node/5357
Nicaragua: indigenous rainforest community wins title to ancestral lands
http://ww4report.com/node/6576
Mexico: presidential guard, beauty queen busted in narco wars
http://ww4report.com/node/6575
Mexico: Zihuatanejo police chief busted for protecting Sinaloa Cartel
http://ww4report.com/node/6568
Mexico: army pledges to hit back after decapitations
http://ww4report.com/node/6565
Lipan Apache to Obama: stop border wall construction
http://ww4report.com/node/6564
Free Trade, the Good Cop, and Other Myths
http://nacla.org/node/5347
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com
*******
N O T E
*******
This is the final edition of the hardcopy Weekly News Update on the Americas and Immigration News Briefs. We want to thank all the people who helped since 1991 in printing, mailing and distributing the publication, and we look forward to your support as we work to improve the electronic version.
If you have a ground mail subscription, please switch to a free subscription by sending your email address to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com with "subscribe" in the subject line. The Update and INB are also available online, with links to news sources, at:
http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com
To subscribe to the email NY Activist Calendar, send a blank email to:
nycalendar-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Calendar is archived at:
http://lists.riseup.org/www/arc/nycalendar
Sunday, December 21, 2008
WNU #971: No "Turning Point" for US and Cuba
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #971, December 21, 2008
1. Cuba: No "Turning Point" With US
2. Latin America: Brazil Hosts New Summit
3. Mexico: Miner Leader Still in Jail
4. Haiti: Reporter Threatened
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, 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. Cuba: No "Turning Point" With US
In an interview this month with the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada, Cuban National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcón said that Cuba isn't counting on a major shift in US policy towards Cuba when Barack Obama becomes US president on Jan. 20. Alarcón, who lived in New York 1966-1978 as Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, noted that "many of my friends...people of what was the American New Left in other times" had wept at Obama's victory celebration in Chicago on Nov. 4. "I understood their hope," he told reporter Blanche Petrich, but "I know that we can't expect a big turning point with respect to Cuba."
What Obama promised for Cuba was limited, Alcarcón said: "to eliminate the restrictions that [outgoing president George W.] Bush added to the ones that exist, limiting remittances and trips to the island by Cubans living in the US. Since these were executive decisions, Obama can annul them with another executive decision. Objectively speaking, this isn't either the end of the blockade [the US economic embargo on Cuban] or the end of an aggressive policy, but it's very good news for Cubans on both sides of the [Florida] Straits. It's something healthy. If he doesn't do it, forget it. He won't do anything."
Alcarcón acknowledged that there has been a change, "not a radical one, but things aren't the same." What is new about Obama, he noted, was "that he arrived at the presidency thanks to the action of millions of US citizens who don't form a political party, who don't have an organization or program. This force, amorphous, unorganized, but with the ability to win--how is it going to operate now? Will it exist afterwards?" The position of the US in the world has changed in any case, according to Alarcón: "To try to hold back the fall of the empire and impose US hegemony is no longer feasible. This madness took them to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to being isolated." (LJ 12/16/08)
*2. Latin America: Brazil Hosts New Summit
From Dec. 15 to Dec. 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries held overlapping meetings of several regional groups in Costa do Sauipe, a luxurious tourist complex near Salvador in the eastern Brazil state of Bahía. The overall intention was to increase regional cooperation and integration in response to a growing world economic crisis and the waning influence of the US.
The regional groups included: the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), a trade block in the Southern Cone made up of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay with Venezuela in the process of admission; the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a four-year-old combination of Mercosur with the Andean Community (CAN) trade bloc and other South American countries [see Update #777]; and the Rio Group, which was formed in 1986 as a successor to the Contadora Group and includes 23 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The main event was the Dec. 16-17 First Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean (CALC), the first to include all of Latin America and the Caribbean without the presence of leaders from Portugal, Spain or the US. The CALC was attended by 33 heads of state. The only leaders in the region who were absent were Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and El Salvador's Antonio Saca, both close US allies; the other main US ally, Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, participated.
The decisions made at the meeting were mostly symbolic, but the regional leaders considered them significant. UNASUR formalized the establishment of a regional defense council. The Rio Group voted on Dec. 16 to include Cuba, which had previously been excluded; Cuban president Raúl Castro was present for the summit, the first he had attended since replacing his brother Fidel Castro as head of state. The day also included a one-hour meeting between Castro and Mexican president Calderón, continuing a process of improving relations between the countries [see Update #966].
The summit was less united on economic issues. Left and center-left governments now dominate the region, but Calderón promoted "free-market" approaches, warning that leftist policies would cause foreign investment to dry up even more in the recession. The summit's final declaration didn't include Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez's proposal for a $5 bilion regional reserve fund, but it did approve a proposal he made with Bolivian president Evo Morales and Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa for a regional currency. It is to be called the sucre--the Spanish initials for Single System of Regional Compensation and also the name of Simón Bolívar's close collaborator, Antonio José de Sucre.
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the meeting's host, emphasized that Mercosur had now made preferential tariff agreements with India and the Southern Africa Customs Union, composed of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. Mercosur has also decided to offset a US decision in November to suspend some trade benefits for Bolivia worth about $21 million; this was meant to punish the country for its alleged failure to cooperate in the US-sponsored "war on drugs." Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said Mercosur would absorb duty-free up to $30 million in Bolivian exports next year.
In a sign of the region's growing independence, the leaders joked openly about outgoing US president George Bush and a Dec. 14 incident in which an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. The other leaders laughed when Lula threatened to throw Celso Amorim's large-size shoes at President Chávez if he spoke too long. Chávez, known for speaking past time limits, smiled and finished in five minutes. (La Jornada 12/17/08, _, _, _, 12/18/08 from correspondent; Bloomberg 12/17/08; Inter-Press Service 12/16/08; AFP 12/16/08)
*3. Mexico: Miner Leader Still in Jail
On Dec. 12 a judge in Mexico's Coahuila state ordered the release of Carlos Pavón Campos, political affairs secretary of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), on 5.611 million pesos bail (about $426,600). Pavón Campos had been held for eight days; he was arrested Dec. 4 on charges of defrauding union members [see Update #969]. On Dec. 15, it was reported that another SNTMMRM leader, Vigilance and Justice Council president Juan Linares Montúfar, had been denied bail on charges in a similar case. The union's general secretary, leader Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, is also charged; he fled to Vancouver in 2006 but continues to direct the union. The original charges reportedly included officials of the Scotiabank, but no action seems to have been taken against them. (La Jornada 12/13/08, 12/15/08)
SNTMMRM leaders see the charges as an effort to break the union. "The weight of the government, which has me and Juan Linares Montúfar...in jail, is the weight of the money of the owners of Grupo México and Altos Hornos [mining and metal companies], who are willing to pay whatever is necessary to get rid of the union," Pavón Campos told the media before his release. Along with a number of Mexican unions, the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF), the United Steel Workers (USW) and the Brazilian Metal Workers union (CNM/CUT) are supporting the SNTMMRM. (Mexican Labor News and Analysis, December 2008, Vol. 13, #12) The US-based Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR) is calling for letters to Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (Felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx ) and Labor Secretary Fernando Gómez Mont (fax +525 55 546 5350) demanding Linares Montúfar's release and an end to government interference in the union; send copies to minero_vivienda@prodigy.net.mx and ilcinfo@earthlink.net . (CLR labor action alert 12/20/08 via PilsenProle)
*4. Haiti: Reporter Threatened
On Dec. 10 a Haitian court sentenced journalist Joseph Guyler Delva to one month in prison for alleged defamation and public insults against former senator Rudolph Boulos. Delva and his lawyer were not present at the trial, since it had been postponed several times. As of Dec. 18 Delva was free pending an appeal. On Dec. 15 he wrote that over the previous three weeks he had received a number of death threats, including two that mentioned Boulos' name.
Delva is Secretary General of SOS Journalists and president of the Independent Commission to Support Investigations Into the Murders of Journalists (CIAPEAJ). In the fall of 2007 Delva wrote an article saying Boulos was holding his office illegally because of his dual Haitian-US citizenship; he also accused Boulos of involvement in the blocking of investigations into the April 2000 murder of radio journalist Jean Léopold Dominique. Delva received death threats and left the country for several weeks in November 2007 [see Updates #923, 926]. Amnesty International (AI) is asking for letters to President René García Préval (fax +509 2228 2244), Justice Minister Jean Joseph Exumé (fax +509 2245 0474) and National Police Director Mario Andresol (fax +509 2245 7374) calling for protection for Delva and a thorough and impartial investigation into the threats he has received; send copies to SOS Journalistes, sosjournalisteshaiti@hotmail.com . (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 12/11/08; Reporters sans Frontieres 12/12/08; AI urgent action 12/18/08 via Haiti Support Group)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Latin America: Summit Seeks Full Regional Integration
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1631/68/
Argentina: 50,000 March against Hunger
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1633/1/
Paraguay: Rural Associations Protest Land Occupations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1632/68/
Events Commemorate 40th Anniversary of Brazil's 'Coup Within the Coup D'etat'
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1629/1/
Bolivia hosts Andean indigenous summit
http://ww4report.com/node/6549
Bolivia: opposition radio station attacked
http://ww4report.com/node/6548
A Revolution Without Borders: Reappraising Bolivia's Crisis http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1630/1/
Ecuador Defaults on Foreign Debt
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1627/1/
Colombia: army kills indigenous leader
http://ww4report.com/node/6550
Colombia: A Day That Will Live in Infamy (Once Again)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1634/68/
More Than 100 Experts Question Human Rights Watch's Venezuela Report http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1635/68/
Nicaragua: '80s nostalgia in wake of contested elections
http://ww4report.com/node/6539
El Salvador's 2009 Election: United for Change
http://nacla.org/node/5329
Canadian Company Threatens El Salvador with Free Trade Lawsuit Over Mining Project http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1637/1/
Growing Bloodshed Rocks Guatemala
http://nacla.org/node/5323
Mexico: Calderón pledges "no negotiation" with cartels
http://ww4report.com/node/6553
Mexico: Ciudad Juárez civil strike to protest narco violence
http://ww4report.com/node/6531
Mexico: anti-kidnapping expert kidnapped
http://ww4report.com/node/6530
GM to idle Mexican plants
http://ww4report.com/node/6529
Protester halts border wall construction in El Paso
http://ww4report.com/node/6542
Cuba Matters
http://nacla.org/node/5319
Finding Common Ground in Crisis: Social Movements in South America and the US
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1636/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #971, December 21, 2008
1. Cuba: No "Turning Point" With US
2. Latin America: Brazil Hosts New Summit
3. Mexico: Miner Leader Still in Jail
4. Haiti: Reporter Threatened
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, 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. Cuba: No "Turning Point" With US
In an interview this month with the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada, Cuban National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcón said that Cuba isn't counting on a major shift in US policy towards Cuba when Barack Obama becomes US president on Jan. 20. Alarcón, who lived in New York 1966-1978 as Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, noted that "many of my friends...people of what was the American New Left in other times" had wept at Obama's victory celebration in Chicago on Nov. 4. "I understood their hope," he told reporter Blanche Petrich, but "I know that we can't expect a big turning point with respect to Cuba."
What Obama promised for Cuba was limited, Alcarcón said: "to eliminate the restrictions that [outgoing president George W.] Bush added to the ones that exist, limiting remittances and trips to the island by Cubans living in the US. Since these were executive decisions, Obama can annul them with another executive decision. Objectively speaking, this isn't either the end of the blockade [the US economic embargo on Cuban] or the end of an aggressive policy, but it's very good news for Cubans on both sides of the [Florida] Straits. It's something healthy. If he doesn't do it, forget it. He won't do anything."
Alcarcón acknowledged that there has been a change, "not a radical one, but things aren't the same." What is new about Obama, he noted, was "that he arrived at the presidency thanks to the action of millions of US citizens who don't form a political party, who don't have an organization or program. This force, amorphous, unorganized, but with the ability to win--how is it going to operate now? Will it exist afterwards?" The position of the US in the world has changed in any case, according to Alarcón: "To try to hold back the fall of the empire and impose US hegemony is no longer feasible. This madness took them to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to being isolated." (LJ 12/16/08)
*2. Latin America: Brazil Hosts New Summit
From Dec. 15 to Dec. 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries held overlapping meetings of several regional groups in Costa do Sauipe, a luxurious tourist complex near Salvador in the eastern Brazil state of Bahía. The overall intention was to increase regional cooperation and integration in response to a growing world economic crisis and the waning influence of the US.
The regional groups included: the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), a trade block in the Southern Cone made up of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay with Venezuela in the process of admission; the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a four-year-old combination of Mercosur with the Andean Community (CAN) trade bloc and other South American countries [see Update #777]; and the Rio Group, which was formed in 1986 as a successor to the Contadora Group and includes 23 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The main event was the Dec. 16-17 First Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean (CALC), the first to include all of Latin America and the Caribbean without the presence of leaders from Portugal, Spain or the US. The CALC was attended by 33 heads of state. The only leaders in the region who were absent were Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and El Salvador's Antonio Saca, both close US allies; the other main US ally, Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, participated.
The decisions made at the meeting were mostly symbolic, but the regional leaders considered them significant. UNASUR formalized the establishment of a regional defense council. The Rio Group voted on Dec. 16 to include Cuba, which had previously been excluded; Cuban president Raúl Castro was present for the summit, the first he had attended since replacing his brother Fidel Castro as head of state. The day also included a one-hour meeting between Castro and Mexican president Calderón, continuing a process of improving relations between the countries [see Update #966].
The summit was less united on economic issues. Left and center-left governments now dominate the region, but Calderón promoted "free-market" approaches, warning that leftist policies would cause foreign investment to dry up even more in the recession. The summit's final declaration didn't include Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez's proposal for a $5 bilion regional reserve fund, but it did approve a proposal he made with Bolivian president Evo Morales and Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa for a regional currency. It is to be called the sucre--the Spanish initials for Single System of Regional Compensation and also the name of Simón Bolívar's close collaborator, Antonio José de Sucre.
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the meeting's host, emphasized that Mercosur had now made preferential tariff agreements with India and the Southern Africa Customs Union, composed of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. Mercosur has also decided to offset a US decision in November to suspend some trade benefits for Bolivia worth about $21 million; this was meant to punish the country for its alleged failure to cooperate in the US-sponsored "war on drugs." Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said Mercosur would absorb duty-free up to $30 million in Bolivian exports next year.
In a sign of the region's growing independence, the leaders joked openly about outgoing US president George Bush and a Dec. 14 incident in which an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. The other leaders laughed when Lula threatened to throw Celso Amorim's large-size shoes at President Chávez if he spoke too long. Chávez, known for speaking past time limits, smiled and finished in five minutes. (La Jornada 12/17/08, _, _, _, 12/18/08 from correspondent; Bloomberg 12/17/08; Inter-Press Service 12/16/08; AFP 12/16/08)
*3. Mexico: Miner Leader Still in Jail
On Dec. 12 a judge in Mexico's Coahuila state ordered the release of Carlos Pavón Campos, political affairs secretary of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), on 5.611 million pesos bail (about $426,600). Pavón Campos had been held for eight days; he was arrested Dec. 4 on charges of defrauding union members [see Update #969]. On Dec. 15, it was reported that another SNTMMRM leader, Vigilance and Justice Council president Juan Linares Montúfar, had been denied bail on charges in a similar case. The union's general secretary, leader Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, is also charged; he fled to Vancouver in 2006 but continues to direct the union. The original charges reportedly included officials of the Scotiabank, but no action seems to have been taken against them. (La Jornada 12/13/08, 12/15/08)
SNTMMRM leaders see the charges as an effort to break the union. "The weight of the government, which has me and Juan Linares Montúfar...in jail, is the weight of the money of the owners of Grupo México and Altos Hornos [mining and metal companies], who are willing to pay whatever is necessary to get rid of the union," Pavón Campos told the media before his release. Along with a number of Mexican unions, the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF), the United Steel Workers (USW) and the Brazilian Metal Workers union (CNM/CUT) are supporting the SNTMMRM. (Mexican Labor News and Analysis, December 2008, Vol. 13, #12) The US-based Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR) is calling for letters to Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (Felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx ) and Labor Secretary Fernando Gómez Mont (fax +525 55 546 5350) demanding Linares Montúfar's release and an end to government interference in the union; send copies to minero_vivienda@prodigy.net.mx and ilcinfo@earthlink.net . (CLR labor action alert 12/20/08 via PilsenProle)
*4. Haiti: Reporter Threatened
On Dec. 10 a Haitian court sentenced journalist Joseph Guyler Delva to one month in prison for alleged defamation and public insults against former senator Rudolph Boulos. Delva and his lawyer were not present at the trial, since it had been postponed several times. As of Dec. 18 Delva was free pending an appeal. On Dec. 15 he wrote that over the previous three weeks he had received a number of death threats, including two that mentioned Boulos' name.
Delva is Secretary General of SOS Journalists and president of the Independent Commission to Support Investigations Into the Murders of Journalists (CIAPEAJ). In the fall of 2007 Delva wrote an article saying Boulos was holding his office illegally because of his dual Haitian-US citizenship; he also accused Boulos of involvement in the blocking of investigations into the April 2000 murder of radio journalist Jean Léopold Dominique. Delva received death threats and left the country for several weeks in November 2007 [see Updates #923, 926]. Amnesty International (AI) is asking for letters to President René García Préval (fax +509 2228 2244), Justice Minister Jean Joseph Exumé (fax +509 2245 0474) and National Police Director Mario Andresol (fax +509 2245 7374) calling for protection for Delva and a thorough and impartial investigation into the threats he has received; send copies to SOS Journalistes, sosjournalisteshaiti@hotmail.com . (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 12/11/08; Reporters sans Frontieres 12/12/08; AI urgent action 12/18/08 via Haiti Support Group)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Latin America: Summit Seeks Full Regional Integration
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1631/68/
Argentina: 50,000 March against Hunger
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1633/1/
Paraguay: Rural Associations Protest Land Occupations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1632/68/
Events Commemorate 40th Anniversary of Brazil's 'Coup Within the Coup D'etat'
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1629/1/
Bolivia hosts Andean indigenous summit
http://ww4report.com/node/6549
Bolivia: opposition radio station attacked
http://ww4report.com/node/6548
A Revolution Without Borders: Reappraising Bolivia's Crisis http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1630/1/
Ecuador Defaults on Foreign Debt
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1627/1/
Colombia: army kills indigenous leader
http://ww4report.com/node/6550
Colombia: A Day That Will Live in Infamy (Once Again)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1634/68/
More Than 100 Experts Question Human Rights Watch's Venezuela Report http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1635/68/
Nicaragua: '80s nostalgia in wake of contested elections
http://ww4report.com/node/6539
El Salvador's 2009 Election: United for Change
http://nacla.org/node/5329
Canadian Company Threatens El Salvador with Free Trade Lawsuit Over Mining Project http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1637/1/
Growing Bloodshed Rocks Guatemala
http://nacla.org/node/5323
Mexico: Calderón pledges "no negotiation" with cartels
http://ww4report.com/node/6553
Mexico: Ciudad Juárez civil strike to protest narco violence
http://ww4report.com/node/6531
Mexico: anti-kidnapping expert kidnapped
http://ww4report.com/node/6530
GM to idle Mexican plants
http://ww4report.com/node/6529
Protester halts border wall construction in El Paso
http://ww4report.com/node/6542
Cuba Matters
http://nacla.org/node/5319
Finding Common Ground in Crisis: Social Movements in South America and the US
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1636/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, December 15, 2008
WNU #970: Latin American Groups Mark Human Rights Day
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #970, December 14, 2008
1. Latin America: Groups Mark Human Rights Day
2. Argentina: Mass Graves Excavated
3. Haiti: US Resumes Deportations
4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, 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. Latin America: Groups Mark Human Rights Day
On Dec. 10 human rights organizations in Latin America celebrated the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by holding ceremonies, staging protests and issuing reports on the situation in their countries.
The Venezuelan Program of Education-Action in Human Rights (Provea) released its 20th Annual Report on the Human Rights Situation in Venezuela on Dec. 9. The report, which covers the period from October 2007 to September 2008, notes positive developments, including advances in education and in the right to nutrition; an increase in consumption by the poorest sectors; the creation of an office for the human rights of seniors; a decline in the repression of demonstrations; and a stronger commitment by the Attorney General's Office (FGR) to fight impunity for police agents. However, Provea reported that the number of people killed by security agencies or the armed forces had risen to 274, largely through executions. It also criticized the government of President Hugo Chávez for failing to slow the country's overall homicide rate, which Provea says rose 10.86% over the year before, to more than 10,000. It noted the high number of murders of campesinos and union members, which made Venezuela one of the most dangerous countries for unionists [see Updates #968, 969]. (Adital 12/10/08; El Universal (Caracas) 12/11/08)
Since Colombian president Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002, more than 14,000 people have died or disappeared for social or political reasons, not counting deaths in combat, according to statistics released by human rights organizations in Geneva on Dec. 9. The groups attributed 75% of the killings to the government. Unionists and human rights activists have had especially high murder rates, with 40 unionists murdered in the first eight months of 2008. Of the 2,700 unionists killed in the last 20 years, 480 died in 2002-2007 period. The groups said 75 human rights activists have been killed or disappeared under Uribe's government, and that 932 people were tortured during the period, including 731 that died. The government released a report on Dec. 10 that gave a more positive view of the statistics, noting that while 99 unionists were killed in 2002, the number had fallen to eight in 2007. (Adital 12/10/08)
Brazilian human rights organizations were planning to mark the Human Rights Declaration anniversary by holding their 11th National Human Rights Conference, from Dec. 15 to Dec. 18. The theme will be "Democracy, Development and Human Rights: Overcoming Inequalities." The conferences, which include government and nongovernmental organizations, started in 1996 and were held annually until 2004; since then, they have taken place every two years. The conference organizers held state and district conferences up to Sept. 15 to build for the national meeting. (Adital 12/10/08)
In Guatemala, the organizations in the Convergence for Human Rights organized a caravan that visited different sites in the capital to promote human rights demands. At the US embassy, Aura Elena Farfán, from the Association of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared, delivered a communiqué to Ambassador Stephen Macfarland calling for the right to migrate, the right to development and the right to self-determination of peoples. The caravan also planned to visit the Defense Ministry to demand that the military comply with President Alvaro Colom's order to turn over military archives. At the Chambers of Business and Industry, the protesters were planning to demand respect for labor rights, the payment of minimum wage and benefits, and the right to social security. Other activities that day included a Human Rights Festival in the Plaza Central organized by the Center for Legal Action in Human Rights (CALDH). (Adital 12/10/08 from Cerigua)
In Mexico the "All Rights for All" National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations called on the federal, state and local governments to work with human rights groups and to end what the group called a policy of criminalization of social protest. It rejected efforts to reinstate the death penalty. Members of the organization Children for Identity and Justice Against Forgetting and Silence (HIJOS Mexico) demonstrated at the government's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) offices to demand the release of political prisoners and the return of disappeared persons. (La Jornada (Mexico) 12/11/08)
*2. Argentina: Mass Graves Excavated
The Argentine government, the opposition and grassroots organizations all marked Dec. 10 as the 25th anniversary of the return of democratic rule after a bloody 1976-1983 military dictatorship. The Mothers (Founding Line) and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo--organizations of women demanding the return of youths disappeared during the dictatorship's "dirty war" against suspected leftists--demonstrated in the Plaza de Mayo to demand justice for the crimes of the period. "Let's look after democracy," said Tatí Almayda, one of the leaders of the movement. "And let's get justice now, also, because the perpetrators of genocide are dying of old age--and the mothers are too."
One day earlier, on Dec. 9, experts from the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) reported on their excavations in Pozo de Arana, a secret detention center used by the dictatorship from 1976 to 1977, or later, near La Plata in Buenos Aires province. They reported that they had found more than 10,000 charred bone fragments in four mass graves at the site, along with a wall apparently used for firing squads. The excavations, which were ordered last year by prosecutor Félix Crous, confirmed testimony by witnesses that the military executed detainees at the center and then incinerated and buried the remains. The EAAF has sent 38 bone samples to specialists in the US who worked on identifying the remains of victims of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
Former Buenos Aires province police investigations director Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz and his deputy, Ramón Camps, were responsible for Pozo de Arana; police agent Miguel Kearney was in direct command of the detention center. Camps died of cancer in 1994 without having spent a day in jail; Kearney is currently in detention and is being tried for his role at the center. Etchecolatz was sentenced to life in prison in September 2006, thanks in part to the testimony of a former detainee at the center, Jorge Julio López, who disappeared at the same time that Etchecolatz was convicted [see Updates #869, 881, 892, 917]. Among those presumed killed at the center were six students from a La Plata high school who were seized on Sept. 16, 1976 for participating in a protest over increased bus fares; they were the subject of a well-known film, "La Noche de los Lápices" ("The Night of the Pencils").
Also on Dec. 10, a court upheld preventive detention for Juan Carlos Rolón, who has been accused of the disappearance and death of journalist Rodolfo Walsh in 1977; Walsh was reportedly executed at the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA) in the city of Buenos Aires. (La Jornada 12/11/08 from Notimex, AFP, PL; El Diario (Mexico) 12/10/08 from AFP; El País (Spain) 12/11/08 from correspondent)
*3. Haiti: US Resumes Deportations
Haiti marked the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' 60th anniversary with an official ceremony organized by the United Nations at the Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty (FOKAL), a nongovernmental organization formerly headed by Prime Minster Michéle Duvivier Pierre-Louis. The event included the screening of a film, "The Dream of Water," as the opening of a human rights film festival. The Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (Pohdh) also organized activities to celebrate the anniversary. (AlterPresse 12/10/08)
Two days earlier, on Dec. 8, the US government acknowledged that it had resumed deporting Haitians. It suspended the deportations in September after Haiti was hit by two hurricanes and two tropical storms in one month, leaving at least 800 people dead [see Update #962]. "We determined that it was appropriate to resume based on the circumstances in Haiti," Nicole Navas, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said.
"We still have thousands of cubic meters of mud being removed from [the northwestern city of] Gonaïves," Haitian consul general in Miami told the Miami Herald. "There are still people in shelters, and of course people know children are suffering from malnutrition in Haiti." "Deportations at this time are simply inhumane, sending people to conditions of famine and disease," said Randolph McGrorty, executive director of Catholic Legal Services in Miami. The policy is "so cruel and misguided that I cannot explain it by any other way than to condemn the policy as racist." (Miami Herald 12/9/08)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, US policy
Brazil: high court upholds Amazon indigenous land rights
http://ww4report.com/node/6508
Bolivia: drought hits campesinos hard
http://ww4report.com/node/6502
DEA complicit in Bolivia coke trade: Evo
http://ww4report.com/node/6501
Evo Morales: DEA Complicit in Bolivia Drug Trade
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1624/68/
Ecuador announces default on "illegitimate" debt
http://ww4report.com/node/6515
Colombia extradites Valle Cartel kingpin
http://ww4report.com/node/6514
Colombia: survivors remember "Bananera Massacre"
http://ww4report.com/node/6500
Colombian Cane Cutters Score Victory, But Struggle of Afro-Colombians Continues http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1625/1/
Colombia: Social Conflict Replaces Warfare
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1623/1/
Indigenous Justice in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1618/1/
Colombia: "We Need a Popular Movement in Order to Win the Elections"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1622/68/
Colombian army's "numbers don't add up" in war on FARC
http://ww4report.com/node/6524
Colombia's "Capt. Nemo" on trial
http://ww4report.com/node/6523
No Justice for Guatemala Massacre Victims After 26 Years
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1621/68/
Mexico: narco-war death toll doubles '07; Juárez femicide breaks records
http://ww4report.com/node/6499
Mexico pledges to halve greenhouse emissions--with carbon-trading
http://ww4report.com/node/6513
Group Calls for Obama to Suspend CAFTA
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1617/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/news/feed
http://nacla.org/fromaroundtheweb/feed
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #970, December 14, 2008
1. Latin America: Groups Mark Human Rights Day
2. Argentina: Mass Graves Excavated
3. Haiti: US Resumes Deportations
4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, 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. Latin America: Groups Mark Human Rights Day
On Dec. 10 human rights organizations in Latin America celebrated the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by holding ceremonies, staging protests and issuing reports on the situation in their countries.
The Venezuelan Program of Education-Action in Human Rights (Provea) released its 20th Annual Report on the Human Rights Situation in Venezuela on Dec. 9. The report, which covers the period from October 2007 to September 2008, notes positive developments, including advances in education and in the right to nutrition; an increase in consumption by the poorest sectors; the creation of an office for the human rights of seniors; a decline in the repression of demonstrations; and a stronger commitment by the Attorney General's Office (FGR) to fight impunity for police agents. However, Provea reported that the number of people killed by security agencies or the armed forces had risen to 274, largely through executions. It also criticized the government of President Hugo Chávez for failing to slow the country's overall homicide rate, which Provea says rose 10.86% over the year before, to more than 10,000. It noted the high number of murders of campesinos and union members, which made Venezuela one of the most dangerous countries for unionists [see Updates #968, 969]. (Adital 12/10/08; El Universal (Caracas) 12/11/08)
Since Colombian president Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002, more than 14,000 people have died or disappeared for social or political reasons, not counting deaths in combat, according to statistics released by human rights organizations in Geneva on Dec. 9. The groups attributed 75% of the killings to the government. Unionists and human rights activists have had especially high murder rates, with 40 unionists murdered in the first eight months of 2008. Of the 2,700 unionists killed in the last 20 years, 480 died in 2002-2007 period. The groups said 75 human rights activists have been killed or disappeared under Uribe's government, and that 932 people were tortured during the period, including 731 that died. The government released a report on Dec. 10 that gave a more positive view of the statistics, noting that while 99 unionists were killed in 2002, the number had fallen to eight in 2007. (Adital 12/10/08)
Brazilian human rights organizations were planning to mark the Human Rights Declaration anniversary by holding their 11th National Human Rights Conference, from Dec. 15 to Dec. 18. The theme will be "Democracy, Development and Human Rights: Overcoming Inequalities." The conferences, which include government and nongovernmental organizations, started in 1996 and were held annually until 2004; since then, they have taken place every two years. The conference organizers held state and district conferences up to Sept. 15 to build for the national meeting. (Adital 12/10/08)
In Guatemala, the organizations in the Convergence for Human Rights organized a caravan that visited different sites in the capital to promote human rights demands. At the US embassy, Aura Elena Farfán, from the Association of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared, delivered a communiqué to Ambassador Stephen Macfarland calling for the right to migrate, the right to development and the right to self-determination of peoples. The caravan also planned to visit the Defense Ministry to demand that the military comply with President Alvaro Colom's order to turn over military archives. At the Chambers of Business and Industry, the protesters were planning to demand respect for labor rights, the payment of minimum wage and benefits, and the right to social security. Other activities that day included a Human Rights Festival in the Plaza Central organized by the Center for Legal Action in Human Rights (CALDH). (Adital 12/10/08 from Cerigua)
In Mexico the "All Rights for All" National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations called on the federal, state and local governments to work with human rights groups and to end what the group called a policy of criminalization of social protest. It rejected efforts to reinstate the death penalty. Members of the organization Children for Identity and Justice Against Forgetting and Silence (HIJOS Mexico) demonstrated at the government's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) offices to demand the release of political prisoners and the return of disappeared persons. (La Jornada (Mexico) 12/11/08)
*2. Argentina: Mass Graves Excavated
The Argentine government, the opposition and grassroots organizations all marked Dec. 10 as the 25th anniversary of the return of democratic rule after a bloody 1976-1983 military dictatorship. The Mothers (Founding Line) and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo--organizations of women demanding the return of youths disappeared during the dictatorship's "dirty war" against suspected leftists--demonstrated in the Plaza de Mayo to demand justice for the crimes of the period. "Let's look after democracy," said Tatí Almayda, one of the leaders of the movement. "And let's get justice now, also, because the perpetrators of genocide are dying of old age--and the mothers are too."
One day earlier, on Dec. 9, experts from the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) reported on their excavations in Pozo de Arana, a secret detention center used by the dictatorship from 1976 to 1977, or later, near La Plata in Buenos Aires province. They reported that they had found more than 10,000 charred bone fragments in four mass graves at the site, along with a wall apparently used for firing squads. The excavations, which were ordered last year by prosecutor Félix Crous, confirmed testimony by witnesses that the military executed detainees at the center and then incinerated and buried the remains. The EAAF has sent 38 bone samples to specialists in the US who worked on identifying the remains of victims of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
Former Buenos Aires province police investigations director Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz and his deputy, Ramón Camps, were responsible for Pozo de Arana; police agent Miguel Kearney was in direct command of the detention center. Camps died of cancer in 1994 without having spent a day in jail; Kearney is currently in detention and is being tried for his role at the center. Etchecolatz was sentenced to life in prison in September 2006, thanks in part to the testimony of a former detainee at the center, Jorge Julio López, who disappeared at the same time that Etchecolatz was convicted [see Updates #869, 881, 892, 917]. Among those presumed killed at the center were six students from a La Plata high school who were seized on Sept. 16, 1976 for participating in a protest over increased bus fares; they were the subject of a well-known film, "La Noche de los Lápices" ("The Night of the Pencils").
Also on Dec. 10, a court upheld preventive detention for Juan Carlos Rolón, who has been accused of the disappearance and death of journalist Rodolfo Walsh in 1977; Walsh was reportedly executed at the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA) in the city of Buenos Aires. (La Jornada 12/11/08 from Notimex, AFP, PL; El Diario (Mexico) 12/10/08 from AFP; El País (Spain) 12/11/08 from correspondent)
*3. Haiti: US Resumes Deportations
Haiti marked the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' 60th anniversary with an official ceremony organized by the United Nations at the Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty (FOKAL), a nongovernmental organization formerly headed by Prime Minster Michéle Duvivier Pierre-Louis. The event included the screening of a film, "The Dream of Water," as the opening of a human rights film festival. The Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (Pohdh) also organized activities to celebrate the anniversary. (AlterPresse 12/10/08)
Two days earlier, on Dec. 8, the US government acknowledged that it had resumed deporting Haitians. It suspended the deportations in September after Haiti was hit by two hurricanes and two tropical storms in one month, leaving at least 800 people dead [see Update #962]. "We determined that it was appropriate to resume based on the circumstances in Haiti," Nicole Navas, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said.
"We still have thousands of cubic meters of mud being removed from [the northwestern city of] Gonaïves," Haitian consul general in Miami told the Miami Herald. "There are still people in shelters, and of course people know children are suffering from malnutrition in Haiti." "Deportations at this time are simply inhumane, sending people to conditions of famine and disease," said Randolph McGrorty, executive director of Catholic Legal Services in Miami. The policy is "so cruel and misguided that I cannot explain it by any other way than to condemn the policy as racist." (Miami Herald 12/9/08)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, US policy
Brazil: high court upholds Amazon indigenous land rights
http://ww4report.com/node/6508
Bolivia: drought hits campesinos hard
http://ww4report.com/node/6502
DEA complicit in Bolivia coke trade: Evo
http://ww4report.com/node/6501
Evo Morales: DEA Complicit in Bolivia Drug Trade
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1624/68/
Ecuador announces default on "illegitimate" debt
http://ww4report.com/node/6515
Colombia extradites Valle Cartel kingpin
http://ww4report.com/node/6514
Colombia: survivors remember "Bananera Massacre"
http://ww4report.com/node/6500
Colombian Cane Cutters Score Victory, But Struggle of Afro-Colombians Continues http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1625/1/
Colombia: Social Conflict Replaces Warfare
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1623/1/
Indigenous Justice in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1618/1/
Colombia: "We Need a Popular Movement in Order to Win the Elections"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1622/68/
Colombian army's "numbers don't add up" in war on FARC
http://ww4report.com/node/6524
Colombia's "Capt. Nemo" on trial
http://ww4report.com/node/6523
No Justice for Guatemala Massacre Victims After 26 Years
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1621/68/
Mexico: narco-war death toll doubles '07; Juárez femicide breaks records
http://ww4report.com/node/6499
Mexico pledges to halve greenhouse emissions--with carbon-trading
http://ww4report.com/node/6513
Group Calls for Obama to Suspend CAFTA
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1617/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/news/feed
http://nacla.org/fromaroundtheweb/feed
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
WNU #969: US Crisis Squeezes Latin American Economies
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #969, December 7, 2008
1. Latin America: US Deficit Squeezes Credit
2. Argentina: Government Announces Stimulus
3. Mexico: Government Tries to Save Jobs
4. Mexico: Layoffs Up, Unionists Busted
5. Venezuela: Who Killed Aragua Unionists?
6. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, 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. Latin America: US Deficit Squeezes Credit
Efforts by the US to fight its own financial crisis may cut Latin American governments off from access to credit at a time when they need an estimated $250 billion for financing their 2009 budgets. The US has been issuing huge volumes of Treasury bonds and is running a fiscal deficit that could top $1 trillion next year. The Latin American Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (CLAAF)--a group of economists including former Argentine finance minister Roque Fernández and former Venezuelan central bank president Ruth de Krivoy--warns that the massive borrowing by the US government may "crowd out" Latin American and other emerging economies from the credit markets.
The drying up of credit comes as the region is already suffering from other effects of the global crisis, notably a decline of demand for exports. The CLAAF said existing funding through the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions is inadequate and that "unprecedented resources" are needed. (Financial Times (UK) 12/4/08)
*2. Argentina: Government Announces Stimulus
On Nov. 25 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced an economic stimulus package that includes tax breaks for Argentines who repatriate money they've sent abroad and invest it in infrastructure, real estate, agriculture, industry or government bonds; tax breaks for firms that create new jobs; an amnesty on unpaid taxes for the smallest employers if they give formal employment status to off-the-books workers; and a $21 billion public works plan intended to double the number of jobs in construction.
On Dec. 5 Fernández announced an additional $3.85 billion stimulus package meant to boost the economy with $1 billion in cheap credits for the automotive sector, $1.1 billion in other consumer credits, and a 5% cut in export duties for wheat and corn--although probably not for the soy producers, who staged a series of strikes earlier in the year when Fernández tried to increase their duties [see Update #955].
The Fernández government has also been moving to regain control of funds and companies that were nationalized under the neoliberal policies of previous governments, especially during the administration of former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999). In November the government finalized legislation to nationalize some $24 billion in private pension funds [see Update #965], and some of that money will be used to finance the infrastructure program. On Dec. 4 the Chamber of Deputies voted 152 to 84 to seize the country's largest airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, from the Spanish company Grupo Marsans; the airline was privatized 18 years ago.
Argentina enjoyed five years of strong growth after its dramatic economic collapse at the end of 2001, but now it seems to have been brought down by the world economic situation. The Center for Financial Investigations at Buenos Aires' Torcuato Di Tella University reports that consumer confidence dropped by 24% in November compared to the same period in 2007, while willingness to buy high-cost products like cars and refrigerators fell by 41%. (MercoPress (Montevideo) 11/26/08, 12/5/08; BBC 12/4/08)
*3. Mexico: Government Tries to Save Jobs
In a Dec. 5 interview with Bloomberg Television, Mexican Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz Mateos said the government will react to job losses from the global economic crisis by spending $12.5 billion on roads, ports, railroads and other projects in the first quarter of 2009. He said the government is also studying programs to prevent layoffs in manufacturing. "In manufacturing we'll suffer the most in terms of jobs because of lower demand for our exports," he said. Mexico is especially vulnerable to the recession in the US, which buys 80% of Mexico's exports. Ruiz Mateos expects Mexico to grow at 1.5-1.8% next year, but a central bank survey of analysts reported a median estimate of just 0.38%. (Bloomberg 12/5/08) [Mexico's growth rate was about 3.3% in 2007, less than half the rates for Argentina (8.6%) and Venezuela (8.5%)--see Update #926].
Many Mexican companies are wholly or partly owned by foreign-based transnationals. As the crisis intensifies and the demand for credit increases in the more industrialized countries, the Mexican subsidiaries have sent more and more of their capital back into the countries where the transnationals are based. According to a report by the Banco de México, Mexico's central bank, the Mexican companies sent $2.287 billion abroad in the first nine months of 2008, almost as much as the $2.619 billion they sent abroad in all of 2007. Reinvestment in Mexico by these companies dropped precipitously during the summer of 2008. They reinvested $2.19 billion in the first quarter and $2.610 billion in the second, but in the third quarter the number fell by 95% to $134 million. (La Jornada (Mexico) 12/1/08)
The same phenomenon has been occurring with Mexican business owners, who moved more than $19 billion out of Mexico from January through September to deposit in foreign bank accounts or to buy into foreign businesses. The outflow, which doesn't include money for buying real estate abroad, is a major cause of Mexico's balance of payments deficit, according to the Banco de México. It is 22% higher than the $15.560 billion direct investment that foreign capital made in Mexico during the same period. (LJ 12/3/08)
*4. Mexico: Layoffs Up, Unionists Busted
On Dec. 2 Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA), Mexico's main steelmaker, announced plans for laying off 8,500 contract workers in its Proyecto Fénix modernization project and 3,500 of its own employees. (La Jornada 12/3/08) In the two days after the layoff announcement, the Mexican government froze some funds belonging to the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), which represents AHMSA workers, and arrested two union leaders. Based on complaints that the union mishandled a $55 million miners' fund, the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) arrested the union's Vigilance and Justice Council president Juan Linares Montúfar on Dec. 3 and political affairs secretary Carlos Pavón Campos on Dec. 4.
The government said the complaints came from workers, but the union charged that the arrests are part of an anti-union drive by the government, AHMSA and the Grupo México mining company. Carrying the fight to the entire mining and metal industry, on Dec. 5 the SNTMMRM started open-ended strikes at mines belonging to Industrias Peñoles, the world's largest silver producer, to demand the union leaders' release and the unfreezing of the union's funds. The strike affected the Met Mex Peñoles plant in Torreón, Coahuila, and Peñoles mines in Fresnillo, Sombrerete (Sabinas), Zacatecas (Francisco I. Madero) and Concepción del Oro municipalities in Zacatecas state.
The SNTMMRM has been fighting the government since early 2006 when charges were filed against union general secretary Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, who fled to Canada. Walkouts since then--including a strike at Grupo México's giant Cananea copper mine since July 2007 [see Update #945]--have cost the mining companies more than $2.5 billion, according to the Mexican Mining Chamber of Commerce. (Bloomberg 12/5/08, LJ 12/6/08)
According to the Mártires de San Angel Textile Industry Workers Union (STMSAIT), the textile sector has lost 150,000 jobs in the past five years, and 3,286 companies have shut down, partly because of competition from China. The union's head, Fermín Lara Jiménez, was jailed on Aug. 15 on charges of fraud involving $40 million; this was based on a complaint from the national export bank, Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior (Bancomext). (LJ 12/7/08)
*5. Venezuela: Who Killed Aragua Unionists?
On Dec. 2 Venezuelan interior and justice minister Tarek El Aissami announced the arrest of Julio César Agrinzones (also given as "Arguinzones") Romero the night before on charges of killing three leftist Venezuelan unionists- -Richard Gallardo, Carlos Requena and Luis Hernández--the night of Nov. 27 in the city of Cagua, southwest of Caracas in Aragua state [see Update #968]. Although El Aissami said the government had not established who was behind the killing, he implied it was "over a job," hinting at internal conflicts in the pro-government National Workers Union (UNT), in which the victims were leaders.
Aragua union leaders rejected El Aissami's implication, saying that Agrinzones Romero was at work at the Pepsi Cola de Venezuela's plant in Villa de Cura in southern Aragua the night of the killing; Luis Hernández was president of the plant's union. Local unionists suspect the Colombian-owned Alpina food processing plant and state police under former governor Didalco Bolívar were involved in the murders. In a speech on Dec. 1 at the inauguration of the state's new governor, Rafael Isea, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez suggested that an unnamed "foreign-owned company against which they [the murdered union leaders] were fighting" was responsible.
On Dec. 2 some 7,000 workers from 17 unions protested and blocked roads in Aragua to demand a thorough investigation of the killings. (El Universal (Venezuela) 12/2/08; YVKE Mundial 12/2/08; El Carabobeño (Venezuela) 12/4/08; Venezuela Analysis (12/3/08)
Another Aragua unionist was murdered on Dec. 4. Simón Caldea, a leader of the Bolivarian Union of Industry and Construction Workers (UBT), was riding in a pickup truck on the Barbacoas-Camatagua highway when unknown persons in another vehicle shot repeatedly at the truck. Caldea was killed instantly, and two other unionists, Yagle Agrinzones and Héctor Mijares, were wounded. (El Nacional (Venezuela) 12/4/08; El Universal 12/4/08) [The sources did not mention any possible relation of Yagle Agrinzones to Julio César Agrinzones Romero.]
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, US policy
Bolivian opposition blasts report on Pando massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/6463
Zinc slump threatens Bolivian mining sector
http://ww4report.com/node/6464
Probe: Bolivian Peasant Killings an Anti-Gov. Massacre
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1616/68/
Peru removes army chief, ends 125-year dispute with Chile?
http://ww4report.com/node/6461
Texan firm wins deal for Peru gas plant
http://ww4report.com/node/6462
Peru: Leftist Leaders Targeted by Anti-Terror Police
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1613/68/
Ecuador backs Betancourt mission to free FARC hostages
http://ww4report.com/node/6465
Colombian consul recalled from Venezuela's restive Zulia state
http://ww4report.com/node/6466
Venezuela Proposes New Regional Currency During ALBA Summit http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1610/68/
Adentro Barrio Adentro: An American Medical Student in Venezuela http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1615/1/
Russian warship enters Panama Canal, first since World War II
http://ww4report.com/node/6460
US releases first tranche of Plan Mexico funds
http://ww4report.com/node/6451
Mexico: 13 killed in Sinaloa massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/6452
Mexico: home destroyed at contested Juárez barrio
http://ww4report.com/node/6453
Tijuana: army officers take over police force
http://ww4report.com/node/6439
Chiapas: Zapatistas to host "Festival of Dignified Rage"
http://ww4report.com/node/6454
Pain and Protest on the Day of the Butterflies: Violence Persists Against Women in Mexico http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1614/1/
The Presidential Transition and Latin America Policy: Optimism for Change Dims as Reality Sets In http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1612/1/
Dealing with Killers and Kidnappers: The High Cost of Free Trade http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1609/1/
Latin America and the U.S.: A New Policy Direction
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1611/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/news/feed
http://nacla.org/fromaroundtheweb/feed
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 #969, December 7, 2008
1. Latin America: US Deficit Squeezes Credit
2. Argentina: Government Announces Stimulus
3. Mexico: Government Tries to Save Jobs
4. Mexico: Layoffs Up, Unionists Busted
5. Venezuela: Who Killed Aragua Unionists?
6. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, 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. Latin America: US Deficit Squeezes Credit
Efforts by the US to fight its own financial crisis may cut Latin American governments off from access to credit at a time when they need an estimated $250 billion for financing their 2009 budgets. The US has been issuing huge volumes of Treasury bonds and is running a fiscal deficit that could top $1 trillion next year. The Latin American Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (CLAAF)--a group of economists including former Argentine finance minister Roque Fernández and former Venezuelan central bank president Ruth de Krivoy--warns that the massive borrowing by the US government may "crowd out" Latin American and other emerging economies from the credit markets.
The drying up of credit comes as the region is already suffering from other effects of the global crisis, notably a decline of demand for exports. The CLAAF said existing funding through the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions is inadequate and that "unprecedented resources" are needed. (Financial Times (UK) 12/4/08)
*2. Argentina: Government Announces Stimulus
On Nov. 25 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced an economic stimulus package that includes tax breaks for Argentines who repatriate money they've sent abroad and invest it in infrastructure, real estate, agriculture, industry or government bonds; tax breaks for firms that create new jobs; an amnesty on unpaid taxes for the smallest employers if they give formal employment status to off-the-books workers; and a $21 billion public works plan intended to double the number of jobs in construction.
On Dec. 5 Fernández announced an additional $3.85 billion stimulus package meant to boost the economy with $1 billion in cheap credits for the automotive sector, $1.1 billion in other consumer credits, and a 5% cut in export duties for wheat and corn--although probably not for the soy producers, who staged a series of strikes earlier in the year when Fernández tried to increase their duties [see Update #955].
The Fernández government has also been moving to regain control of funds and companies that were nationalized under the neoliberal policies of previous governments, especially during the administration of former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999). In November the government finalized legislation to nationalize some $24 billion in private pension funds [see Update #965], and some of that money will be used to finance the infrastructure program. On Dec. 4 the Chamber of Deputies voted 152 to 84 to seize the country's largest airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, from the Spanish company Grupo Marsans; the airline was privatized 18 years ago.
Argentina enjoyed five years of strong growth after its dramatic economic collapse at the end of 2001, but now it seems to have been brought down by the world economic situation. The Center for Financial Investigations at Buenos Aires' Torcuato Di Tella University reports that consumer confidence dropped by 24% in November compared to the same period in 2007, while willingness to buy high-cost products like cars and refrigerators fell by 41%. (MercoPress (Montevideo) 11/26/08, 12/5/08; BBC 12/4/08)
*3. Mexico: Government Tries to Save Jobs
In a Dec. 5 interview with Bloomberg Television, Mexican Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz Mateos said the government will react to job losses from the global economic crisis by spending $12.5 billion on roads, ports, railroads and other projects in the first quarter of 2009. He said the government is also studying programs to prevent layoffs in manufacturing. "In manufacturing we'll suffer the most in terms of jobs because of lower demand for our exports," he said. Mexico is especially vulnerable to the recession in the US, which buys 80% of Mexico's exports. Ruiz Mateos expects Mexico to grow at 1.5-1.8% next year, but a central bank survey of analysts reported a median estimate of just 0.38%. (Bloomberg 12/5/08) [Mexico's growth rate was about 3.3% in 2007, less than half the rates for Argentina (8.6%) and Venezuela (8.5%)--see Update #926].
Many Mexican companies are wholly or partly owned by foreign-based transnationals. As the crisis intensifies and the demand for credit increases in the more industrialized countries, the Mexican subsidiaries have sent more and more of their capital back into the countries where the transnationals are based. According to a report by the Banco de México, Mexico's central bank, the Mexican companies sent $2.287 billion abroad in the first nine months of 2008, almost as much as the $2.619 billion they sent abroad in all of 2007. Reinvestment in Mexico by these companies dropped precipitously during the summer of 2008. They reinvested $2.19 billion in the first quarter and $2.610 billion in the second, but in the third quarter the number fell by 95% to $134 million. (La Jornada (Mexico) 12/1/08)
The same phenomenon has been occurring with Mexican business owners, who moved more than $19 billion out of Mexico from January through September to deposit in foreign bank accounts or to buy into foreign businesses. The outflow, which doesn't include money for buying real estate abroad, is a major cause of Mexico's balance of payments deficit, according to the Banco de México. It is 22% higher than the $15.560 billion direct investment that foreign capital made in Mexico during the same period. (LJ 12/3/08)
*4. Mexico: Layoffs Up, Unionists Busted
On Dec. 2 Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA), Mexico's main steelmaker, announced plans for laying off 8,500 contract workers in its Proyecto Fénix modernization project and 3,500 of its own employees. (La Jornada 12/3/08) In the two days after the layoff announcement, the Mexican government froze some funds belonging to the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), which represents AHMSA workers, and arrested two union leaders. Based on complaints that the union mishandled a $55 million miners' fund, the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) arrested the union's Vigilance and Justice Council president Juan Linares Montúfar on Dec. 3 and political affairs secretary Carlos Pavón Campos on Dec. 4.
The government said the complaints came from workers, but the union charged that the arrests are part of an anti-union drive by the government, AHMSA and the Grupo México mining company. Carrying the fight to the entire mining and metal industry, on Dec. 5 the SNTMMRM started open-ended strikes at mines belonging to Industrias Peñoles, the world's largest silver producer, to demand the union leaders' release and the unfreezing of the union's funds. The strike affected the Met Mex Peñoles plant in Torreón, Coahuila, and Peñoles mines in Fresnillo, Sombrerete (Sabinas), Zacatecas (Francisco I. Madero) and Concepción del Oro municipalities in Zacatecas state.
The SNTMMRM has been fighting the government since early 2006 when charges were filed against union general secretary Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, who fled to Canada. Walkouts since then--including a strike at Grupo México's giant Cananea copper mine since July 2007 [see Update #945]--have cost the mining companies more than $2.5 billion, according to the Mexican Mining Chamber of Commerce. (Bloomberg 12/5/08, LJ 12/6/08)
According to the Mártires de San Angel Textile Industry Workers Union (STMSAIT), the textile sector has lost 150,000 jobs in the past five years, and 3,286 companies have shut down, partly because of competition from China. The union's head, Fermín Lara Jiménez, was jailed on Aug. 15 on charges of fraud involving $40 million; this was based on a complaint from the national export bank, Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior (Bancomext). (LJ 12/7/08)
*5. Venezuela: Who Killed Aragua Unionists?
On Dec. 2 Venezuelan interior and justice minister Tarek El Aissami announced the arrest of Julio César Agrinzones (also given as "Arguinzones") Romero the night before on charges of killing three leftist Venezuelan unionists- -Richard Gallardo, Carlos Requena and Luis Hernández--the night of Nov. 27 in the city of Cagua, southwest of Caracas in Aragua state [see Update #968]. Although El Aissami said the government had not established who was behind the killing, he implied it was "over a job," hinting at internal conflicts in the pro-government National Workers Union (UNT), in which the victims were leaders.
Aragua union leaders rejected El Aissami's implication, saying that Agrinzones Romero was at work at the Pepsi Cola de Venezuela's plant in Villa de Cura in southern Aragua the night of the killing; Luis Hernández was president of the plant's union. Local unionists suspect the Colombian-owned Alpina food processing plant and state police under former governor Didalco Bolívar were involved in the murders. In a speech on Dec. 1 at the inauguration of the state's new governor, Rafael Isea, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez suggested that an unnamed "foreign-owned company against which they [the murdered union leaders] were fighting" was responsible.
On Dec. 2 some 7,000 workers from 17 unions protested and blocked roads in Aragua to demand a thorough investigation of the killings. (El Universal (Venezuela) 12/2/08; YVKE Mundial 12/2/08; El Carabobeño (Venezuela) 12/4/08; Venezuela Analysis (12/3/08)
Another Aragua unionist was murdered on Dec. 4. Simón Caldea, a leader of the Bolivarian Union of Industry and Construction Workers (UBT), was riding in a pickup truck on the Barbacoas-Camatagua highway when unknown persons in another vehicle shot repeatedly at the truck. Caldea was killed instantly, and two other unionists, Yagle Agrinzones and Héctor Mijares, were wounded. (El Nacional (Venezuela) 12/4/08; El Universal 12/4/08) [The sources did not mention any possible relation of Yagle Agrinzones to Julio César Agrinzones Romero.]
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, US policy
Bolivian opposition blasts report on Pando massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/6463
Zinc slump threatens Bolivian mining sector
http://ww4report.com/node/6464
Probe: Bolivian Peasant Killings an Anti-Gov. Massacre
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1616/68/
Peru removes army chief, ends 125-year dispute with Chile?
http://ww4report.com/node/6461
Texan firm wins deal for Peru gas plant
http://ww4report.com/node/6462
Peru: Leftist Leaders Targeted by Anti-Terror Police
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1613/68/
Ecuador backs Betancourt mission to free FARC hostages
http://ww4report.com/node/6465
Colombian consul recalled from Venezuela's restive Zulia state
http://ww4report.com/node/6466
Venezuela Proposes New Regional Currency During ALBA Summit http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1610/68/
Adentro Barrio Adentro: An American Medical Student in Venezuela http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1615/1/
Russian warship enters Panama Canal, first since World War II
http://ww4report.com/node/6460
US releases first tranche of Plan Mexico funds
http://ww4report.com/node/6451
Mexico: 13 killed in Sinaloa massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/6452
Mexico: home destroyed at contested Juárez barrio
http://ww4report.com/node/6453
Tijuana: army officers take over police force
http://ww4report.com/node/6439
Chiapas: Zapatistas to host "Festival of Dignified Rage"
http://ww4report.com/node/6454
Pain and Protest on the Day of the Butterflies: Violence Persists Against Women in Mexico http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1614/1/
The Presidential Transition and Latin America Policy: Optimism for Change Dims as Reality Sets In http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1612/1/
Dealing with Killers and Kidnappers: The High Cost of Free Trade http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1609/1/
Latin America and the U.S.: A New Policy Direction
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1611/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/news/feed
http://nacla.org/fromaroundtheweb/feed
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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