Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1012, November 15, 2009
1. Mexico: Nationwide Actions Protest Layoffs
2. Honduras: More Candidates Join Election Boycott
3. Panama: Students Protest “US Bases”
4. Dominican Republic: One Dead in New Blackout Protests
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Global Warming, Terror Threats
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. Mexico: Nationwide Actions Protest Layoffs
Tens of thousands of unionists, campesinos, students, and members of grassroots organizations and left and center-left parties demonstrated in Mexico’s Federal District (DF, Mexico City) and more than 20 of the country’s 31 states on Nov. 11 to express solidarity with some 44,000 electrical workers laid off when President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa abruptly liquidated the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) the night of Oct. 10 [see Updates #1007, 1008, 1009].
Mexico City was paralyzed as members of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), which represents the LFC workers, led marches from five different points in the city starting early in the morning of Nov. 11. Miners, telephone and transportation workers, and employees and students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), which suspended classes for the day, joined the protesters as they moved around the city, rallying at various government buildings. Adding to the disruption of traffic, protesters blocked major arteries in the states surrounding the capital.
The actions outside the city were sometimes violent. There were 10 arrests and a number of injuries as protesters and agents of the Federal Police (PF) confronted each other near Tlalnepantla, México state, north of Mexico City on the México-Querétaro highway. Shots were fired; the government blamed the protesters, who said that they were unarmed and that the police had shot in the air. Protesters also blocked roads in Ecatepec de Morelos and Nezahualcóyotl. Some 400 SME members massed on the Peñón-Texcoco turnpike, joined by students and teachers from the Chapingo Autonomous University and by activists from the Front of the Peoples in Defense of the Land (FPDT), a campesino organization based in San Salvador Atenco, México state. The protesters took over the tollbooth and let cars drive on the turnpike without paying. Other activists opened up the México-Pachuca turnpike to traffic at Pirámides. PF agents used tear gas and anti-riot equipment to disperse protesters blocking the entrances to the city from Puebla state and Cuernavaca, Morelos, in the east and south. Residents of Mexico City’s Xochimilco and Tlalpan boroughs who had been blocking the Cuernavaca highway regrouped and hurled rocks at the police.
At the end of 12 hours of actions, many of the protesters went into the capital to join a march and rally in the central Zócalo plaza. More than 200,000 people participated in the closing demonstration, according to the SME; the DF police put the number at 60,000. Two well-known activist bishops, Samuel Ruiz García, former bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, and Raúl Vera López, bishop of Saltillo, Coahuila, sent solidarity messages.
In the southeastern state of Chiapas solidarity actions also targeted recent tax hikes and the arrests of farmer leaders accused of having links with armed groups. In the southern state of Oaxaca, an estimated 70,000 school teachers carried out a one-day strike, and the leftist Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) took over the offices of the Federal Electrical Commission (CFE), the country’s larger publicly owned electrical company, into which the LFC is being merged. In the north, hundreds of telephone workers, leftists and social activists held public marches in Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juárez, in Chihuahua state. (Frontera NorteSur (FNS) 11/12/09 via MexiData.info; Latin American Herald Tribune 11/11/09 from EFE; La Jornada (Mexico) 11/12/09, __)
An editorial in the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada called Nov. 11 “a day without precedent in the history of the country’s popular causes,” an action which brought together “the different sectors of the opposition—the parties, the unions, the social organizations.” The paper called this “the possible birth of a broad bloc antagonistic to the political-business-alliance that holds the country’s power (public and private).” SME general secretary Martín Esparza Flores raised the possibility of planning a national general strike. He noted that in 2010 Mexico will celebrate the bicentennial of its war of independence from Spain and the centennial of the revolution against the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship: “And as before, we will defeat the transnationals, the dictatorship, tyranny and violations of the Constitution. It’s time for the people to organize.” (LJ 11/12/09, __; FNS 11/12/09)
On Nov. 12 Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcón discounted the ability of the SME and its supporters to mount a general strike. He said that 24,149 laid-off LFC workers, 54.2% of the total workforce, had already signed up for the governemt's severance package; in the government’s view, workers lose the ability to challenge their termination if they accept the severance agreement. On Nov. 14, the deadline for signing with the government, reporters found a low turnout at the centers where the former employees could file their papers. One young worker arrived with his wife, who needed treatment for a kidney ailment, and their two children. “I’m coming here against my will, from necessity,” he told a reporter. “I support the compañeros all the way, I’m a unionist and I’ll put up with blows, insults and what have you...but not my children.” (LJ 12/13/09, 12/15/09)
In other news, in Oaxaca on Nov. 9 federal magistrate Javier Leonel Santiago Martínez ruled that evidence the federal government had presented against APPO activist Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno for the murder of New York-based independent journalist Brad Will was “false” and “prefabricated.” Will was shot during a demonstration against Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz on Oct. 27, 2006; activists and Will’s friends and family have insisted that he was killed by Ruiz’s supporters, not by APPO activists [see Update #964]. Magistrate Santiago ordered district judge Rosa Ileana Ortega Pérez to free Martínez Moreno within 48 hours. The government can appeal, and the activist’s attorney, Gilberto López, said he didn’t expect his client to be released immediately. (EFE 11/9/09; Milenio (Mexico) 11/9/09)
*2. Honduras: More Candidates Join Election Boycott
In a press conference in Managua, Nicaragua, on Nov. 13, the mayor of San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ second largest city, confirmed that he was no longer running for another term in general elections scheduled for Nov. 29. “The people don’t believe in this process, because these are elections where absolutely nothing is going to get elected,” Mayor Rodolfo Padilla Sunceri said. A member of the center-right Liberal Party (PL), Padilla joined a growing number of candidates who have withdrawn from the race in order to protest the control of the process by a de facto government put in place after a military coup removed President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales from office on June 28 [see Update #1011]. Padilla was the frontrunner in polls taken before the coup. The Nov. 29 general elections are intended to elect the president, the 128 members of the National Congress, 20 deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), and members of the country’s municipal governments.
Independent presidential candidate Carlos H. Reyes officially withdrew from the race on Nov. 9. A former unionist with strong links to the grassroots movement against the coup, Reyes was third in a field of six candidates, according to polls. The frontrunner is Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo of the rightwing National Party (PN); Liberal candidate Elvin Santos trails him by 15-20%, according to political analyst Gustavo Irías. Santos is badly damaged by a split in the PL between supporters of President Zelaya and supporters of de facto president Roberto Micheletti Bain; both are members of the party.
The mayoral candidates boycotting the election include Heber Iván Gómez Mendoza, PL candidate in Morolica, Choluteca department; Luis Alberto Posadas Alfar, an independent candidate in Danlí, El Paraíso; and Gladys Gloria Ebanks Campell, an independent candidate on Roatán island, Islas de la Bahía department. The small leftist Democratic Unification (UD) is badly split, with presidential candidate César Ham planning to continue in the race while many other candidates want to withdraw; the party will lose its place on the ballot and government matching funds if too many candidates drop out. The Party of Innovation and Social Democratic Unity (PINU) is also split. The leadership supports the coup, but many candidates for Congress oppose it and may withdraw, so that this party too could lose its ballot position. (EFE 11/13/09; Comun-Noticias 11/13/09 via Honduras Laboral blog; La Jornada 11/14/09 from correspondent)
During the night of Nov. 12 an explosive device was detonated in a Tegucigalpa residential neighborhood without causing any damage or injuries. The police and the media originally said an airplane flew over the city and dropped a bomb on a location where ballots were being stored for the Nov. 29 elections, even though no damage was reported there. The airplane turned to be a commercial flight from Guatemala. Later an RPG-1 grenade-launching device was discovered in the area, and the military announced that unidentified persons had attempted to hit the storehouse but had overshot it. “We have preliminary information about some actions which people who are from the left are carrying out,” Armed Forces head Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez said at a Nov. 13 press conference. "We know where these artifacts come from,” said Gen. Miguel Ángel García Padgett, the army’s commander. “[T]hey cross over the border and are artifacts of Russian or Chinese origin, and they are precisely the ones used by people of a leftist tendency.”
Unionist Juan Barahona, a coordinator of the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d’Etat, insisted that the opposition’s strategy was a nonviolent boycott of the elections. “The people don’t have the ability to do these things [bombings]. Here the only ones who have this ability are the police and the Armed Forces.” He charged that the military had used similar tactics in its campaign against the left in the 1980s. “They are the ones responsible; they’re generating an environment so that later they can generate the repression they’ve got planned and can consolidate the coup,” he said.
The Front has been focused on printing up and distributing handbills and posters calling on people to boycott the voting. (EFE 11/13/09 via ADN.es; LJ 11/14/09; Adital (Brazil) 11/13/09)
*3. Panama: Students Protest “US Bases”
Students from the Student Revolutionary Front (FER-29) and the University Popular Bloc closed off one of Panama City’s main arteries for more than an hour on Nov. 11 to protest what they said were plans to open US military bases in Panama. Police agents dispersed the demonstrators with water cannons and tear gas and arrested 16 students, most of them from the Arts and Trades College. On Nov. 12 Governance and Justice Minister José Raúl Mulino told reporters that the four bases the students were protesting would be “100% Panamanian.” They are to be under the control of the Air-Navy Service (SENAN) and the National Border Service (Senafront) as part of the agencies’ effort to control the transport of narcotics through Panama, he said. “They are not military bases.”
According to Mulina, the government is opening up the first of the bases on Chapera island before Nov. 30. The others are to be in Darién province, near the border with Colombia, and in the La Perlas archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. According to the Venezuelan-based TeleSUR television network, on Oct. 20 Mulina had referred to two bases the US would set up in Panama, but in his Nov. 12 statement the minister clarified that while the bases would be Panamanian, they were part of the Mérida Initiative, a US-funded operation to fight the drug trade in Mexico and Central America. The US military had as many as 100 bases in Panama before the US withdrawal from the Panama Canal was completed in 1999. (EFE 11/11/09; ABC.com (Paraguay) 11/12/09 from ANSA; TeleSUR 11/13/09, some from EFE) [Many activists in Mexico and the US oppose the Mérida Initiative, calling it “Plan Mexico,” on the model of the US-sponsored Plan Colombia; see Update #987.]
*4. Dominican Republic: One Dead in New Blackout Protests
One person was killed and one wounded in the early morning of Nov. 11 during protests over power outages in the community of Canca, Licey al Medio municipality, in the northern Dominican province of Santiago. Police spokesperson Jesús Cordero Paredes told the Spanish EFE news service that masked protesters had been blocking a highway with tree trunks and burning tires at 3am when Ramón Martín Medina Rivas and Emilio José Vargas drove up to the barricade in a truck carrying plantains and other farm products to be sold in the Santiago market. The protesters fired on the truck, killing Medina and wounding Vargas, according to the police.
Víctor Bretón, a spokesperson for the Broad Front of Popular Struggle (FALPO), condemned the killing and denied that members of his grassroots coalition were involved. The demonstrations had started on Nov. 10 over repeated blackouts and a number of local grievances, including the construction of a sports stadium. Working-class neighborhoods in the provincial capital, Santiago de los 30 Caballeros, the country’s second largest city, have reported 12-hour blackouts, while outages are said to have lasted up to 20 hours in the northwest of the country. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which approved a de $1.7 billion credit program for the Dominican Republic on Nov. 9, has called for restructuring the electrical sector. (EFE 11/11/09) [The sector was privatized in the 1990s. At least two other people have died in protests over blackouts in the Dominican Republic this year; see Update #998.]
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Global Warming, Terror Threats
New DNA Law in Argentina Will Help Find the Missing Grandchildren
https://nacla.org/node/6247
Brazil claims progress against Amazon destruction
http://ww4report.com/node/7939
Evo Morales: US has military designs on Bolivia's hydrocarbons
http://ww4report.com/node/7946
Peru: oil majors eye Amazon
http://ww4report.com/node/7945
World indigenous leaders condemn Peru's Amazon repression
http://ww4report.com/node/7944
Colombia: Cauca militarized after deadly FARC attack
http://ww4report.com/node/7936
Colombia, Venezuela in new border incident as tensions mount
http://ww4report.com/node/7948
Venezuela: Chávez faces off with governor of militarized Táchira
http://ww4report.com/node/7935
Venezuelan blackouts: corporate media gloat —Chávez ignores lessons?
http://ww4report.com/node/7947
El Salvador Devastated by Hurricane Ida - Support People to People Disaster Relief Via CISPES
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2209/68/
Emergency aid for El Salvador
http://ww4report.com/node/7927
Honduras: US seeks "happy end" —at cost of democracy?
http://ww4report.com/node/7934
Academics and Experts on Latin America Call on Obama to Denounce Human Rights Abuses by Honduran Dictatorship
https://nacla.org/node/6244
Honduran Resistance Calls for Deepening of Democracy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2201/1/
Video Documentary: Honduran Voices
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2205/1/
U.S. State Department Sells Out Honduran Democracy for Senate Confirmations
http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/11/us-state-department-sells-out-honduran.html
Honduras Revisited
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6565
President Zelaya to President Obama: Walk the Talk
http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/2009/11/president-zelaya-to-president-obama.html
Electrical Workers of Mexico Take on Calderon Government
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2200/1/
UN peacekeepers for northern Mexico?
http://ww4report.com/node/7950
From Greenland to Andes, signs mount of climate shift
http://ww4report.com/node/7938
Manufacturing a Terror Threat in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2208/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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, November 17, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
WNU #1011: Honduran Resistance Rejects “Afghanistan-Style” Elections
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1011, November 8, 2009
1. Honduras: Resistance Rejects “Afghanistan-Style” Elections
2. Honduras: US and Latin America Split Over Elections
3. In Other News: Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, Biodiversity, Indigenous, Economy, Media
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. Honduras: Resistance Rejects “Afghanistan-Style” Elections
As of the evening of Nov. 7 talks in Tegucigalpa between representatives of Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales and de facto president Roberto Micheletti Bain had failed to revive the Tegucigalpa/San José Accord, an agreement the two sides signed on Oct. 30, a little more than one week earlier. Members of a Verification Commission established by the agreement had tried to salvage the accord by having the two sides meet again on Nov. 7.
Zelaya’s representatives apparently signed the Oct. 30 agreement on the understanding that the National Congress would return Zelaya to the presidency--from which he was removed by a June 28 military coup backed by the Congress and Supreme Court--and that he would then form a multi-party Government of Unity and National Reconciliation. The agreement stipulated that the new government would be in place by the end of Nov. 5 [see Update #1010]. But the Congress, which is in recess until general elections scheduled for Nov. 29, failed to reconvene, and Micheletti proceeded to name a multi-party cabinet which Zelaya refused to recognize. Micheletti’s new cabinet had the same ministers as the old de facto government in key ministries: foreign relations, finance, agriculture, defense, security and the presidency. (Honduras Coup 2009 blog 11/8/09; El Día (Spain) 11/8/09 from EFE; La Jornada (Mexico) 11/7/09 from correspondent)
On Nov. 3 the US government, which had brokered the Tegucigalpa/San José Accord, abruptly dropped its commitment not to recognize the Nov. 29 elections if Zelaya wasn’t returned to office. During an interview with the CNN en Español television network, US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs Thomas Shannon was asked whether the US would recognize the elections without Zelaya’s restitution. “The future of Honduran democracy is in the hands of the Hondurans,” Shannon replied. The interviewer then asked more explicitly: “The US, whatever may happen, in the process will recognize whatever happens on Nov. 29?” Shannon answered: “Yes, exactly.” (El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 11/4/09)
“I don’t want Afghanistan-style elections for my country,” Zelaya told the opposition Radio Globo station on Nov. 6, referring to the reelection of US-backed Afghani president Hamid Karzai in August balloting marred by reports of widespread fraud. The grassroots movement against the coup is calling for a boycott of the elections. Some resistance activists want to go further. “It’s not just about not going to vote,” indigenous leader Salvador Zúñiga said on Nov. 6. “The same way they took away our ballot box on June 28, we have to take theirs away from them.” The June 28 coup prevented Zelaya’s government from holding a nonbinding referendum that day to ask Hondurans whether they wanted to vote in the Nov. 29 elections on a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the 1982 Constitution.
“From now on,” Zúñiga said, “it’s going to be forbidden for politicians to come into our neighborhoods and communities, and we’re going to forbid them to set up the voting places.” (LJ 11/7/09)
*2. Honduras: US and Latin America Split Over Elections
The rapid failure of an Oct. 30 accord between Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and the country’s de facto government “leaves egg on the faces of US and regional diplomats who had engineered the deal,” according to an analysis piece by the Reuters news service. (Reuters 11/6/09)
The agreement’s collapse also increases the distance between the government of US president Barack Obama—which is now in effect siding with the de facto regime--and most governments in Latin America and the Caribbean. On Nov. 6 the 12-member Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) demanded Zelaya’s “immediate restitution,” as did foreign ministers at a meeting of the Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean (CALC) in Jamaica the same day.
Even diplomats and leaders who maintain good relations with the US implicitly criticized the US position. “The measures in the accord are clear and were subscribed to by the free will of the parties,” Organization of American States (OAS) general secretary José Miguel Insulza said on Nov. 5 after de facto president Roberto Micheletti named a “unity government” not backed by Zelaya. “I expect [these measures] to be fulfilled without more subterfuges, in order to reestablish democracy, institutional legitimacy and coexistence among the Hondurans.” “[N]aturally, the person who was elected by the Honduran people to exercise the function of the president of the republic should preside” over the unity government, Insulza said in Washington. (Prensa Latina 11/6/09; Adital 11/6/09; LJ 11/7/09)
In an interview with CNN en Español on 11/7/09, former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006), the highest-ranking member of the accord’s Verification Commission, was equally clear that Micheletti had violated the agreement when he named his own “unity government.” Asked who should head the Government of Unity and National Reconciliation, Lagos answered: “[T]he logic of this accord is that in the event that Zelaya Rosales was installed as president…there would be a national unity cabinet.” “When we met with Mr. Micheletti and he said what he was doing [naming a unity cabinet], we told him that this wasn’t what was agreed to and that he couldn’t do it.”
Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, generally a supporter of the US and a leader in the negotiations that led to the accord, distanced himself from the de facto government on Nov. 7: “They are looking, by means of delaying tactics, to pass the time until the elections come, risking that the future government will not be recognized by some countries," he said. (Honduras Coup 2009 blog 11/8/09; El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula) 11/8/09; El Día (Spain) 11/8/09 from EFE)
In the US, Congress members from the Republican Party are supporting the Obama administration’s new position. But criticism is coming from forces that usually side with the Democratic president. “If the Obama administration chooses to recognize the election without Zelaya first being reinstated, it will find itself at odds with the rest of Latin America,” a Los Angeles Times editorial warned on Nov. 5. “That would be a setback for democracy and for the United States.” (LAT 11/5/09) “An election run by the coup plotters won’t be credible to Hondurans—and it shouldn’t be to anyone else,” the editors of the New York Times wrote on Nov. 7. (NYT 11/7/09)
At the same time, other forces on the liberal side seem to pushing for the US to recognize the Nov. 29 elections. The “pragmatic middle ground” might be for the US and the OAS to recognize the elections “under protest of how they came about,” according to Shelley A. McConnell, an assistant professor of government at St. Lawrence University and a former analyst for the Carter Center, a prestigious election-monitoring organization founded by liberal former US president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). “You don’t punish the next guy,” she told the New York Times. (NYT 11/7/09) [The frontrunner in the Honduran presidential race is Profirio (“Pepe”) Lobo of the center-right National Party (PN); he and his party backed the June 28 coup.]
*3. In Other News: Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
The Mexican government announced in mid-October that it had approved 35 requests to test-plant genetically modified (GM) corn. The announcement said the testing would be strictly monitored and would be confined to closed areas. Environmental activists and campesinos have staged protests in recent years to demand a total ban on GM corn, which they say could threaten the country’s 200 existing varieties of corn. (Xinhua 10/21/09) … The United Nations General Assembly voted on Oct. 28 to condemn the US embargo on trade with Cuba that has been in effect since 1962. This is the 18th time the General Assembly has supported a nonbinding resolution against the embargo. The vote was 187-3 with two abstentions; last year’s tally was 185-3 with one abstention [see Update #966]. The US, Israel and Palau voted against the resolution; the Marshall Islands and Micronesia abstained. (Reuters 10/28/09) … On Nov. 7 Haiti’s Chamber of Deputies voted 52-0 with two abstentions to confirm Planning and External Cooperation Minister Jean-Max Bellerive as the next prime minister. The Senate had approved him the day before. Bellerive will replace Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, who was voted out of office by the Senate on Oct. 30 [see Update #1011]. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 11/8/09)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, Biodiversity, Indigenous, Economy, Media
Argentina's last dictator stands trial in rights absues
http://ww4report.com/node/7911
Argentina: Kraft Firings Feed Protests
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6484
Hope and Disappointment in Uruguay's Elections
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2193/1/
Paraguay: military shake-up amid coup rumblings
http://ww4report.com/node/7915
Peru: indigenous people face off with Hunt Oil in rainforest
http://ww4report.com/node/7917
Peru: Hunt Oil Contract to Reignite Amazon Uprising?
https://nacla.org/node/6231
Peru: US Oil Company Threatened with Eviction from Amazon
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2194/68/
Ecuador: The Battle for Natural Resources Intensifies
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6521
U.S. Military Documents Show Colombia Base Agreement Poses Threat to Region
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2198/68/
Authorized’ Minga in Colombia? The Challenges of Popular Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2196/1/
Colombia: court rules against US bases plan as more details revealed
http://ww4report.com/node/7923
Border violence, US base plans escalate tensions between Bogotá and Caracas
http://ww4report.com/node/7910
Venezeula: isolated Amazon people die in "swine flu" epidemic
http://ww4report.com/node/7914
Suspects Arrested in Murder of Venezuelan Indigenous, but Chief’s Detention Fuels Conflict
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2190/68/
Constitutional Reform Cuts Both Ways in Central America: The Right Pushes Back
https://nacla.org/node/6235
Clandestine Graves Re-emerge in El Salvador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2192/68/
My Thoughts on Honduras--Robert White
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6544
Nothing resolved in Honduras
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4431
Honduras: US and coupsters pull bait-and-switch on Zelaya?
http://ww4report.com/node/7906
The Real Winner in Honduras: The United States?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2191/1/
Unilateral "Unity Government" Announced in Honduras; Deal "Dead"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2199/68/
President Obama's Credibility on the Line in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2197/68/
Honduras: political deal "dead"; bogus "unity government" declared
http://ww4report.com/node/7922
Mexico: campesino leader killed in Sonora massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/7909
Mexico: extraditions to US reach record high
http://ww4report.com/node/7901
International Tribunal on Trade Union Freedom Condemns Mexican Presidency
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23010
The Case of the Cuban Five
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6509
Biodiversity Report
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6513
Indigenous Uranium Forum Denounces Mining, Militarization, and Hate Crimes in Indian Country
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6547
Facing Economic Crisis, Citizen Organizations in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Mexico Fight Back Against Structural Adjustment
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6556
Inter American Press Association: free speech under attack across hemisphere
http://ww4report.com/node/7918
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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 #1011, November 8, 2009
1. Honduras: Resistance Rejects “Afghanistan-Style” Elections
2. Honduras: US and Latin America Split Over Elections
3. In Other News: Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, Biodiversity, Indigenous, Economy, Media
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. Honduras: Resistance Rejects “Afghanistan-Style” Elections
As of the evening of Nov. 7 talks in Tegucigalpa between representatives of Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales and de facto president Roberto Micheletti Bain had failed to revive the Tegucigalpa/San José Accord, an agreement the two sides signed on Oct. 30, a little more than one week earlier. Members of a Verification Commission established by the agreement had tried to salvage the accord by having the two sides meet again on Nov. 7.
Zelaya’s representatives apparently signed the Oct. 30 agreement on the understanding that the National Congress would return Zelaya to the presidency--from which he was removed by a June 28 military coup backed by the Congress and Supreme Court--and that he would then form a multi-party Government of Unity and National Reconciliation. The agreement stipulated that the new government would be in place by the end of Nov. 5 [see Update #1010]. But the Congress, which is in recess until general elections scheduled for Nov. 29, failed to reconvene, and Micheletti proceeded to name a multi-party cabinet which Zelaya refused to recognize. Micheletti’s new cabinet had the same ministers as the old de facto government in key ministries: foreign relations, finance, agriculture, defense, security and the presidency. (Honduras Coup 2009 blog 11/8/09; El Día (Spain) 11/8/09 from EFE; La Jornada (Mexico) 11/7/09 from correspondent)
On Nov. 3 the US government, which had brokered the Tegucigalpa/San José Accord, abruptly dropped its commitment not to recognize the Nov. 29 elections if Zelaya wasn’t returned to office. During an interview with the CNN en Español television network, US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs Thomas Shannon was asked whether the US would recognize the elections without Zelaya’s restitution. “The future of Honduran democracy is in the hands of the Hondurans,” Shannon replied. The interviewer then asked more explicitly: “The US, whatever may happen, in the process will recognize whatever happens on Nov. 29?” Shannon answered: “Yes, exactly.” (El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 11/4/09)
“I don’t want Afghanistan-style elections for my country,” Zelaya told the opposition Radio Globo station on Nov. 6, referring to the reelection of US-backed Afghani president Hamid Karzai in August balloting marred by reports of widespread fraud. The grassroots movement against the coup is calling for a boycott of the elections. Some resistance activists want to go further. “It’s not just about not going to vote,” indigenous leader Salvador Zúñiga said on Nov. 6. “The same way they took away our ballot box on June 28, we have to take theirs away from them.” The June 28 coup prevented Zelaya’s government from holding a nonbinding referendum that day to ask Hondurans whether they wanted to vote in the Nov. 29 elections on a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the 1982 Constitution.
“From now on,” Zúñiga said, “it’s going to be forbidden for politicians to come into our neighborhoods and communities, and we’re going to forbid them to set up the voting places.” (LJ 11/7/09)
*2. Honduras: US and Latin America Split Over Elections
The rapid failure of an Oct. 30 accord between Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and the country’s de facto government “leaves egg on the faces of US and regional diplomats who had engineered the deal,” according to an analysis piece by the Reuters news service. (Reuters 11/6/09)
The agreement’s collapse also increases the distance between the government of US president Barack Obama—which is now in effect siding with the de facto regime--and most governments in Latin America and the Caribbean. On Nov. 6 the 12-member Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) demanded Zelaya’s “immediate restitution,” as did foreign ministers at a meeting of the Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean (CALC) in Jamaica the same day.
Even diplomats and leaders who maintain good relations with the US implicitly criticized the US position. “The measures in the accord are clear and were subscribed to by the free will of the parties,” Organization of American States (OAS) general secretary José Miguel Insulza said on Nov. 5 after de facto president Roberto Micheletti named a “unity government” not backed by Zelaya. “I expect [these measures] to be fulfilled without more subterfuges, in order to reestablish democracy, institutional legitimacy and coexistence among the Hondurans.” “[N]aturally, the person who was elected by the Honduran people to exercise the function of the president of the republic should preside” over the unity government, Insulza said in Washington. (Prensa Latina 11/6/09; Adital 11/6/09; LJ 11/7/09)
In an interview with CNN en Español on 11/7/09, former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006), the highest-ranking member of the accord’s Verification Commission, was equally clear that Micheletti had violated the agreement when he named his own “unity government.” Asked who should head the Government of Unity and National Reconciliation, Lagos answered: “[T]he logic of this accord is that in the event that Zelaya Rosales was installed as president…there would be a national unity cabinet.” “When we met with Mr. Micheletti and he said what he was doing [naming a unity cabinet], we told him that this wasn’t what was agreed to and that he couldn’t do it.”
Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, generally a supporter of the US and a leader in the negotiations that led to the accord, distanced himself from the de facto government on Nov. 7: “They are looking, by means of delaying tactics, to pass the time until the elections come, risking that the future government will not be recognized by some countries," he said. (Honduras Coup 2009 blog 11/8/09; El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula) 11/8/09; El Día (Spain) 11/8/09 from EFE)
In the US, Congress members from the Republican Party are supporting the Obama administration’s new position. But criticism is coming from forces that usually side with the Democratic president. “If the Obama administration chooses to recognize the election without Zelaya first being reinstated, it will find itself at odds with the rest of Latin America,” a Los Angeles Times editorial warned on Nov. 5. “That would be a setback for democracy and for the United States.” (LAT 11/5/09) “An election run by the coup plotters won’t be credible to Hondurans—and it shouldn’t be to anyone else,” the editors of the New York Times wrote on Nov. 7. (NYT 11/7/09)
At the same time, other forces on the liberal side seem to pushing for the US to recognize the Nov. 29 elections. The “pragmatic middle ground” might be for the US and the OAS to recognize the elections “under protest of how they came about,” according to Shelley A. McConnell, an assistant professor of government at St. Lawrence University and a former analyst for the Carter Center, a prestigious election-monitoring organization founded by liberal former US president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). “You don’t punish the next guy,” she told the New York Times. (NYT 11/7/09) [The frontrunner in the Honduran presidential race is Profirio (“Pepe”) Lobo of the center-right National Party (PN); he and his party backed the June 28 coup.]
*3. In Other News: Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
The Mexican government announced in mid-October that it had approved 35 requests to test-plant genetically modified (GM) corn. The announcement said the testing would be strictly monitored and would be confined to closed areas. Environmental activists and campesinos have staged protests in recent years to demand a total ban on GM corn, which they say could threaten the country’s 200 existing varieties of corn. (Xinhua 10/21/09) … The United Nations General Assembly voted on Oct. 28 to condemn the US embargo on trade with Cuba that has been in effect since 1962. This is the 18th time the General Assembly has supported a nonbinding resolution against the embargo. The vote was 187-3 with two abstentions; last year’s tally was 185-3 with one abstention [see Update #966]. The US, Israel and Palau voted against the resolution; the Marshall Islands and Micronesia abstained. (Reuters 10/28/09) … On Nov. 7 Haiti’s Chamber of Deputies voted 52-0 with two abstentions to confirm Planning and External Cooperation Minister Jean-Max Bellerive as the next prime minister. The Senate had approved him the day before. Bellerive will replace Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, who was voted out of office by the Senate on Oct. 30 [see Update #1011]. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 11/8/09)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, Biodiversity, Indigenous, Economy, Media
Argentina's last dictator stands trial in rights absues
http://ww4report.com/node/7911
Argentina: Kraft Firings Feed Protests
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6484
Hope and Disappointment in Uruguay's Elections
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2193/1/
Paraguay: military shake-up amid coup rumblings
http://ww4report.com/node/7915
Peru: indigenous people face off with Hunt Oil in rainforest
http://ww4report.com/node/7917
Peru: Hunt Oil Contract to Reignite Amazon Uprising?
https://nacla.org/node/6231
Peru: US Oil Company Threatened with Eviction from Amazon
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2194/68/
Ecuador: The Battle for Natural Resources Intensifies
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6521
U.S. Military Documents Show Colombia Base Agreement Poses Threat to Region
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2198/68/
Authorized’ Minga in Colombia? The Challenges of Popular Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2196/1/
Colombia: court rules against US bases plan as more details revealed
http://ww4report.com/node/7923
Border violence, US base plans escalate tensions between Bogotá and Caracas
http://ww4report.com/node/7910
Venezeula: isolated Amazon people die in "swine flu" epidemic
http://ww4report.com/node/7914
Suspects Arrested in Murder of Venezuelan Indigenous, but Chief’s Detention Fuels Conflict
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2190/68/
Constitutional Reform Cuts Both Ways in Central America: The Right Pushes Back
https://nacla.org/node/6235
Clandestine Graves Re-emerge in El Salvador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2192/68/
My Thoughts on Honduras--Robert White
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6544
Nothing resolved in Honduras
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4431
Honduras: US and coupsters pull bait-and-switch on Zelaya?
http://ww4report.com/node/7906
The Real Winner in Honduras: The United States?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2191/1/
Unilateral "Unity Government" Announced in Honduras; Deal "Dead"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2199/68/
President Obama's Credibility on the Line in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2197/68/
Honduras: political deal "dead"; bogus "unity government" declared
http://ww4report.com/node/7922
Mexico: campesino leader killed in Sonora massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/7909
Mexico: extraditions to US reach record high
http://ww4report.com/node/7901
International Tribunal on Trade Union Freedom Condemns Mexican Presidency
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23010
The Case of the Cuban Five
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6509
Biodiversity Report
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6513
Indigenous Uranium Forum Denounces Mining, Militarization, and Hate Crimes in Indian Country
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6547
Facing Economic Crisis, Citizen Organizations in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Mexico Fight Back Against Structural Adjustment
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6556
Inter American Press Association: free speech under attack across hemisphere
http://ww4report.com/node/7918
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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, November 3, 2009
WNU #1010: “Popular Victory” in Honduras?
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1010, November 1, 2009
1. Honduras: “Reactionary Accord” or “Popular Victory”?
2. Honduras: US Officials Finally Act
3. Mexico: Labor Rights Tribunal Is “Scandalized”
4. Haiti: UN Force Renewed, Labor Rights Certified
5. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Honduras: “Reactionary Accord” or “Popular Victory”?
On Nov. 1 Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales expressed optimism about an agreement his representatives signed with the country’s de facto government on Oct. 30 to end a political crisis that began with a military coup on June 28. At the same time, he warned against possible “manipulation” by de facto president Roberto Micheletti. “[W]e need to stay alert until compliance [with the accord] is accomplished,” he told the Venezuela-based TeleSUR television network.
Under the agreement, the two sides and the Organization of American States (OAS) were to name a Verification Commission by Nov. 2 to make sure the accord is carried out. The two sides were then to form a multi-party Government of Unity and National Reconciliation by Nov. 5 and proceed with the scheduled Nov. 29 general elections. The agreement does not explicitly restore Zelaya to the presidency but calls on the National Congress to “return the incumbency of the Executive Power to its state previous to June 28” until the end of Zelaya’s term on Jan. 27.
The members of the Verification Commission were already named by Nov. 1. OAS general secretary José Miguel Insulza, a Chilean diplomat, appointed former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) and current US labor secretary Hilda Solis. Zelaya designated Arturo Reina Idiáquez, a former university rector who represents Honduras at the United Nations, and Micheletti appointed Arturo Corrales, a member of his negotiating team.
Zelaya told TeleSUR on Nov. 1 that under the agreement Congress needs to return him to power by Nov. 5, since the Government of Unity and National Reconciliation is scheduled to be installed that day. The OAS, which still hasn’t lifted the sanctions it imposed on Honduras after the coup, may also impose a different deadline: in an OAS meeting on Oct. 30, Bolivian representative José Pinelo proposed that the organization hold a special assembly in Tegucigalpa on Nov. 16 to reconsider the sanctions--if the agreement had been complied with. (Vos el Soberano blog 11/1/09 from TeleSUR, 11/1/09 from EFE; Honduras Coup 2009 11/1/09)
On Oct. 30 the National Front of Resistance to the Coup d’Etat, the trade union and grassroots coalition which coordinated nonviolent actions against the coup, issued a statement on the Oct. 30 agreement calling the restoration of Zelaya to office “a popular victory over the petty interests of the coup-making oligarchy.” The victory had been “obtained through more than four months of struggle and sacrifice by the people,” which “despite savage repression” had been able to become “an irrepressible social force.” Although Zelaya had agreed in the accord to “renounce” any efforts to rewrite the 1982 Constitution through a Constituent Assembly, the statement called constitutional revision an “aspiration that cannot be renounced” and for which “we will go on struggling in the streets.” (El Frente Nacional de Resistencia contra el Golpe de Estado blog 10/30/09)
Groups to the left of the National Front weren’t as optimistic. On Oct. 31 the Trostkyist Central American Socialist Party (PSOC) denounced the agreement as a “reactionary accord with a taste of treason.” It criticized the “bureaucratic vices” of the National Front’s leadership, which it said had “committed many errors in the more than 100 days of resistance.” (El SOCA website 10/31/09 via Vos el Soberano)
An editorial in the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada praised the “admirable demonstrations of popular resistance within Honduras,” which, along with “international isolation,” had “cornered” the coup regime. But it noted the accord’s "questionable elements," such as the inclusion of the coup’s perpetrators in the government of national reconciliation. The “formal conclusion of the political crisis” is something positive, the editors wrote, but “the international community should be careful that [the accord] isn’t used as a pretext to give accreditation to the failed coup and to leave unpunished the crimes against humanity committed during the last four months.” (LJ 11/1/09)
*2. Honduras: US Officials Finally Act
There is little question that the US was the main force behind the Oct. 30 agreement between the de facto Honduran government and representatives of deposed president Manuel Zeleya. Talks to end the crisis were deadlocked as of Oct. 23, after 16 days of negotiations [see Update #1009]. A delegation from the US headed by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon joined the talks in Tegucigalpa on Oct. 28, and an agreement was signed just two days later.
Until Oct. 28 the administration of US president Barack Obama had publicly let Latin Americans take the lead in negotiations, claiming the US wanted to avoid “intervention.” “Not all countries have the same weight, especially in relation to Honduras,” Michael Shifter, vice president of the Washington, DC-based nonprofit Inter-American Dialogues, told the BBC network, referring to longstanding US economic, political and military ties to the country. “Who knows what would have happened if the [US] delegation had arrived earlier?” asked Eduardo Enrique Reina, the Honduran ambassador to the US appointed by Zelaya in July. (BBC 10/30/09 via Vos el Soberano)
Various US interests had been stepping up pressure on the Obama administration for a solution. On Oct. 27, just as the State Department delegation was about to leave for Tegucigalpa, seven trade associations--including the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the National Council of Textile Organizations and the National Retail Federation--sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton a letter on the crisis. "We are increasingly concerned that with the continued uncertainty regarding the political situation…the US-Honduran textile complex--one of the most vibrant in the Western Hemisphere--is in danger of being permanently damaged," the associations said. Imports of textiles and apparel from Honduras dropped by 38% in June, July and August this year, according to the letter, and exports of US textile products to Honduras fell by 38% in August, September and October, a $165 million loss. (The Hill (Washington, DC) 10/28/09) Honduras is a major center for the maquiladora industry, the tax-exempt assembly of products like apparel chiefly for export [see Updates #1005, 1006].
Meanwhile, US supporters of the coup were experiencing setbacks in their efforts to claim that the coup was legal and backed by a majority of Hondurans.
Several legal experts had already dismissed an August report by the Law Library of Congress claiming that Zelaya’s removal was constitutional [see Update #1009]. On Oct. 27 Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to Librarian of Congress James Billington calling the report “misleading to the Congress and the public” and charging that it “contains factual errors and is based on a flawed legal analysis.” They asked for the Law Library to issue a corrected version including other views. The report had been requested by a Republican, Rep. Aaron Schock of Illinois, and Republican Congress members promptly charged Kerry and Berman with censorship. (The Hill 10/27/09; Miami Herald 11/1/09)
In late October the CID Gallup polling organization released the results of a survey it conducted Oct. 13-19 among 1,420 Hondurans over 18; the company put the margin of error at 2.8%. Some 42% of those interviewed recognized Zelaya as their president, as against 36% for de facto president Roberto Micheletti; 18% recognized no president. Those surveyed were split over whether it was necessary for Zelaya to be returned to office—with 49% against and 47% in factor—but 60% said that Zelaya had always or almost always done “what is good for the people,” while 59% said Micheletti had rarely or never done this. (La Nación (Paraguay) 10/28/09 from AP; Honduras Coup 2009 10/31/09). The latest poll followed the same pattern as the three other polls that have been taken in Honduras since the coup [see Update #1009].
*3. Mexico: Labor Rights Tribunal Is “Scandalized”
The International Tribunal on Freedom of Association, a new body investigating violations of the right to unionize, held its opening sessions on Oct. 26 and 26 in Mexico City. Created by more than 30 Mexican and foreign civil society organizations, the tribunal includes 16 authors, academics and labor and human rights activists from eight different countries. They heard testimony and received documents from 16 cases brought by trade unions alleging that the Mexican government had violated International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 87, on freedom of association and the right to organize, and Convention 98, on the right to collective bargaining.
The complainants included the National Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), a rank-and-file caucus in Mexico’s largest union, the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE). Mexican teacher Gerardo Cruz described how CNTE offices “were occupied, damaged and ransacked" by goons from the SNTE executive committee on the day of a local union election. Another focus was on the government’s Oct. 10 liquidation of the state-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) and the dismissal of some LFC 43,000 workers in what many consider an effort to break the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), one of the country’s oldest and strongest independent unions [see Update #1008]. The Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) was invited to the public hearings but failed send a representative.
The tribunal is to issue verdicts in April 2010 after hearing other cases, but it made a preliminary declaration at the conclusion of the first two sessions. “We are concerned, surprised and even scandalized by the gravity of labor rights violations and the violence against workers that is occurring in Mexico," the members wrote. (Inter Press Service 10/29/09)
At an impromptu rally outside the Mexico City offices of the Federal Reconciliation and Arbitration Council (JFCA) on Oct. 31, SME general secretary Martín Esparza Flores told thousands of union members about plans to fight the LFC liquidation with legal challenges and a possible national solidarity strike by other unions. On Nov. 2 the SME leadership was to announce a financial plan for the laid-off workers, who have now gone for four weeks without a paycheck. The government is pushing for the workers to sign up for a severance package, which would mean giving up the right to challenge their termination. As of Oct. 31, 18,500 laid-off workers, about 42% of the total, had signed up, according to the STPS. SME spokesperson Fernando Amezcua questioned the number, saying 30,000 workers, about 70% of the work force, had filed the challenges called for by the union. (La Jornada 11/1/09)
As an extra incentive, on Oct. 18 the government announced that it would provide jobless electrical workers with scholarships of 5,387 pesos (about $405.11) a month for retraining if they sign up for the severance package by Nov. 14. The scholarships are to cover up to three months of classes in fields such as computer work, automobile repair and refrigeration. There will also be classes in English. (CNN Expansion 10/18/09; LJ 10/19/09)
*4. Haiti: UN Force Renewed, Labor Rights Certified
On Oct. 13 the United Nations (UN) Security Council approved a one-year extension of the mandate for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member military and police force that has occupied Haiti under Brazilian leadership since June 2004. The main change in the mandate is a slight reduction in the number of soldiers from 7,000 a 6,940, with the number of police agents increasing from 2,000 to 2,211. (Adital 10/15/09)
According to Radio Jamaica on Oct. 20, US president Barack Obama has certified Haiti as having fulfilled workers' rights criteria. The country was required to establish an independent labor ombudsperson’s office and a program operated by the International Labor Organization (ILO) to assess compliance with basic labor rights in Haitian factories. Some local producers also had to participate in the ILO program. The labor rights certification means that Haiti will continue to be covered by HOPE II, US trade legislation which gives duty-free access to the US market for some apparel products and other articles assembled in the country, including brassieres, luggage headgear and sleepwear. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, called the certification a sign that Haiti was ready for business. (Radio Jamaica 10/20/09)
Former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), now a special UN envoy to Haiti, has joined with US and Brazilian business interests to promote the development of assembly plants (maquiladoras) in Haiti that would benefit from the HOPE II legislation [see Update #1007].
On Oct. 30 the Haitian Senate passed a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, with 18 of the 27 members in favor of the motion. Pierre-Louis is now required to resign, and President René Préval will have to appoint a new prime minister. The motivation for Pierre-Louis’ removal, which was promoted by senators from President Préval’s Lespwa (Hope) party, is not clear, although critics said she had failed to move quickly to revive the economy during her 14 months on the job. The president is expected to nominate Planning and External Cooperation Minister Jean-Max Bellerive to replace her.
Both the UN and the US expressed concern that a new prime minister should take office as soon as possible. “The international community wants stability, predictability, and a government favorable to Bill Clinton's business investment project,” University of Virginia professor Robert Fatton told the Miami Herald. “Whether it's Michèle Pierre-Louis or not is irrelevant” to major players like Canada, France and the US. (Miami Herald 10/29/09; AlterPresse 10/30/09, __, __)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico
Peruvian Cardinal Does Not Want Rebel Priest as President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2184/68/
Ecuador: The Battle for Natural Resources Deepens
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6521
Ecuador: Oil Giant Is Gone, Legal and Environmental Mess Remains
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2183/68/
The Continuity of Immunity for Tío Sam in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2181/1/
International Criminal Court warns Colombia on paramilitaries
http://ww4report.com/node/7880
US signs military base plan with Colombia
http://ww4report.com/node/7879
Coca-Cola: Off the Hook for Colombia Terror
http://ww4report.com/node/7887
Venezuela: Colombian incursions, espionage charged
http://ww4report.com/node/7881
Venezuelan Labor Between Chavez and the Golpistas
http://ww4report.com/node/7884
Venezuela: Demarcation Without Land
http://ww4report.com/node/7885
"No Pago" Confronts Microfinance in Nicaragua
https://nacla.org/node/6180
Obama shouldn't cave in to the far right on Honduras
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-200910280801mctnewsservbc-honduras-progressive,0,601045.story
Video: 100 Days of Resistance in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2185/68/
Clock ticking in Honduras
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4400
Honduras: deal announced, but coupsters admit it's bogus
http://ww4report.com/node/7882
Honduras: Solution or Stall?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091116/grandin
Agreement to End Honduran Coup Marks Victory and Challenge
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2189/68/
The Hidden Side of Mexico's Drug War
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2187/68/
Mexican Political Prisoners Gloria Arenas and Jacobo Silva Released
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2188/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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 #1010, November 1, 2009
1. Honduras: “Reactionary Accord” or “Popular Victory”?
2. Honduras: US Officials Finally Act
3. Mexico: Labor Rights Tribunal Is “Scandalized”
4. Haiti: UN Force Renewed, Labor Rights Certified
5. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Honduras: “Reactionary Accord” or “Popular Victory”?
On Nov. 1 Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales expressed optimism about an agreement his representatives signed with the country’s de facto government on Oct. 30 to end a political crisis that began with a military coup on June 28. At the same time, he warned against possible “manipulation” by de facto president Roberto Micheletti. “[W]e need to stay alert until compliance [with the accord] is accomplished,” he told the Venezuela-based TeleSUR television network.
Under the agreement, the two sides and the Organization of American States (OAS) were to name a Verification Commission by Nov. 2 to make sure the accord is carried out. The two sides were then to form a multi-party Government of Unity and National Reconciliation by Nov. 5 and proceed with the scheduled Nov. 29 general elections. The agreement does not explicitly restore Zelaya to the presidency but calls on the National Congress to “return the incumbency of the Executive Power to its state previous to June 28” until the end of Zelaya’s term on Jan. 27.
The members of the Verification Commission were already named by Nov. 1. OAS general secretary José Miguel Insulza, a Chilean diplomat, appointed former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) and current US labor secretary Hilda Solis. Zelaya designated Arturo Reina Idiáquez, a former university rector who represents Honduras at the United Nations, and Micheletti appointed Arturo Corrales, a member of his negotiating team.
Zelaya told TeleSUR on Nov. 1 that under the agreement Congress needs to return him to power by Nov. 5, since the Government of Unity and National Reconciliation is scheduled to be installed that day. The OAS, which still hasn’t lifted the sanctions it imposed on Honduras after the coup, may also impose a different deadline: in an OAS meeting on Oct. 30, Bolivian representative José Pinelo proposed that the organization hold a special assembly in Tegucigalpa on Nov. 16 to reconsider the sanctions--if the agreement had been complied with. (Vos el Soberano blog 11/1/09 from TeleSUR, 11/1/09 from EFE; Honduras Coup 2009 11/1/09)
On Oct. 30 the National Front of Resistance to the Coup d’Etat, the trade union and grassroots coalition which coordinated nonviolent actions against the coup, issued a statement on the Oct. 30 agreement calling the restoration of Zelaya to office “a popular victory over the petty interests of the coup-making oligarchy.” The victory had been “obtained through more than four months of struggle and sacrifice by the people,” which “despite savage repression” had been able to become “an irrepressible social force.” Although Zelaya had agreed in the accord to “renounce” any efforts to rewrite the 1982 Constitution through a Constituent Assembly, the statement called constitutional revision an “aspiration that cannot be renounced” and for which “we will go on struggling in the streets.” (El Frente Nacional de Resistencia contra el Golpe de Estado blog 10/30/09)
Groups to the left of the National Front weren’t as optimistic. On Oct. 31 the Trostkyist Central American Socialist Party (PSOC) denounced the agreement as a “reactionary accord with a taste of treason.” It criticized the “bureaucratic vices” of the National Front’s leadership, which it said had “committed many errors in the more than 100 days of resistance.” (El SOCA website 10/31/09 via Vos el Soberano)
An editorial in the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada praised the “admirable demonstrations of popular resistance within Honduras,” which, along with “international isolation,” had “cornered” the coup regime. But it noted the accord’s "questionable elements," such as the inclusion of the coup’s perpetrators in the government of national reconciliation. The “formal conclusion of the political crisis” is something positive, the editors wrote, but “the international community should be careful that [the accord] isn’t used as a pretext to give accreditation to the failed coup and to leave unpunished the crimes against humanity committed during the last four months.” (LJ 11/1/09)
*2. Honduras: US Officials Finally Act
There is little question that the US was the main force behind the Oct. 30 agreement between the de facto Honduran government and representatives of deposed president Manuel Zeleya. Talks to end the crisis were deadlocked as of Oct. 23, after 16 days of negotiations [see Update #1009]. A delegation from the US headed by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon joined the talks in Tegucigalpa on Oct. 28, and an agreement was signed just two days later.
Until Oct. 28 the administration of US president Barack Obama had publicly let Latin Americans take the lead in negotiations, claiming the US wanted to avoid “intervention.” “Not all countries have the same weight, especially in relation to Honduras,” Michael Shifter, vice president of the Washington, DC-based nonprofit Inter-American Dialogues, told the BBC network, referring to longstanding US economic, political and military ties to the country. “Who knows what would have happened if the [US] delegation had arrived earlier?” asked Eduardo Enrique Reina, the Honduran ambassador to the US appointed by Zelaya in July. (BBC 10/30/09 via Vos el Soberano)
Various US interests had been stepping up pressure on the Obama administration for a solution. On Oct. 27, just as the State Department delegation was about to leave for Tegucigalpa, seven trade associations--including the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the National Council of Textile Organizations and the National Retail Federation--sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton a letter on the crisis. "We are increasingly concerned that with the continued uncertainty regarding the political situation…the US-Honduran textile complex--one of the most vibrant in the Western Hemisphere--is in danger of being permanently damaged," the associations said. Imports of textiles and apparel from Honduras dropped by 38% in June, July and August this year, according to the letter, and exports of US textile products to Honduras fell by 38% in August, September and October, a $165 million loss. (The Hill (Washington, DC) 10/28/09) Honduras is a major center for the maquiladora industry, the tax-exempt assembly of products like apparel chiefly for export [see Updates #1005, 1006].
Meanwhile, US supporters of the coup were experiencing setbacks in their efforts to claim that the coup was legal and backed by a majority of Hondurans.
Several legal experts had already dismissed an August report by the Law Library of Congress claiming that Zelaya’s removal was constitutional [see Update #1009]. On Oct. 27 Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to Librarian of Congress James Billington calling the report “misleading to the Congress and the public” and charging that it “contains factual errors and is based on a flawed legal analysis.” They asked for the Law Library to issue a corrected version including other views. The report had been requested by a Republican, Rep. Aaron Schock of Illinois, and Republican Congress members promptly charged Kerry and Berman with censorship. (The Hill 10/27/09; Miami Herald 11/1/09)
In late October the CID Gallup polling organization released the results of a survey it conducted Oct. 13-19 among 1,420 Hondurans over 18; the company put the margin of error at 2.8%. Some 42% of those interviewed recognized Zelaya as their president, as against 36% for de facto president Roberto Micheletti; 18% recognized no president. Those surveyed were split over whether it was necessary for Zelaya to be returned to office—with 49% against and 47% in factor—but 60% said that Zelaya had always or almost always done “what is good for the people,” while 59% said Micheletti had rarely or never done this. (La Nación (Paraguay) 10/28/09 from AP; Honduras Coup 2009 10/31/09). The latest poll followed the same pattern as the three other polls that have been taken in Honduras since the coup [see Update #1009].
*3. Mexico: Labor Rights Tribunal Is “Scandalized”
The International Tribunal on Freedom of Association, a new body investigating violations of the right to unionize, held its opening sessions on Oct. 26 and 26 in Mexico City. Created by more than 30 Mexican and foreign civil society organizations, the tribunal includes 16 authors, academics and labor and human rights activists from eight different countries. They heard testimony and received documents from 16 cases brought by trade unions alleging that the Mexican government had violated International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 87, on freedom of association and the right to organize, and Convention 98, on the right to collective bargaining.
The complainants included the National Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), a rank-and-file caucus in Mexico’s largest union, the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE). Mexican teacher Gerardo Cruz described how CNTE offices “were occupied, damaged and ransacked" by goons from the SNTE executive committee on the day of a local union election. Another focus was on the government’s Oct. 10 liquidation of the state-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) and the dismissal of some LFC 43,000 workers in what many consider an effort to break the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), one of the country’s oldest and strongest independent unions [see Update #1008]. The Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) was invited to the public hearings but failed send a representative.
The tribunal is to issue verdicts in April 2010 after hearing other cases, but it made a preliminary declaration at the conclusion of the first two sessions. “We are concerned, surprised and even scandalized by the gravity of labor rights violations and the violence against workers that is occurring in Mexico," the members wrote. (Inter Press Service 10/29/09)
At an impromptu rally outside the Mexico City offices of the Federal Reconciliation and Arbitration Council (JFCA) on Oct. 31, SME general secretary Martín Esparza Flores told thousands of union members about plans to fight the LFC liquidation with legal challenges and a possible national solidarity strike by other unions. On Nov. 2 the SME leadership was to announce a financial plan for the laid-off workers, who have now gone for four weeks without a paycheck. The government is pushing for the workers to sign up for a severance package, which would mean giving up the right to challenge their termination. As of Oct. 31, 18,500 laid-off workers, about 42% of the total, had signed up, according to the STPS. SME spokesperson Fernando Amezcua questioned the number, saying 30,000 workers, about 70% of the work force, had filed the challenges called for by the union. (La Jornada 11/1/09)
As an extra incentive, on Oct. 18 the government announced that it would provide jobless electrical workers with scholarships of 5,387 pesos (about $405.11) a month for retraining if they sign up for the severance package by Nov. 14. The scholarships are to cover up to three months of classes in fields such as computer work, automobile repair and refrigeration. There will also be classes in English. (CNN Expansion 10/18/09; LJ 10/19/09)
*4. Haiti: UN Force Renewed, Labor Rights Certified
On Oct. 13 the United Nations (UN) Security Council approved a one-year extension of the mandate for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member military and police force that has occupied Haiti under Brazilian leadership since June 2004. The main change in the mandate is a slight reduction in the number of soldiers from 7,000 a 6,940, with the number of police agents increasing from 2,000 to 2,211. (Adital 10/15/09)
According to Radio Jamaica on Oct. 20, US president Barack Obama has certified Haiti as having fulfilled workers' rights criteria. The country was required to establish an independent labor ombudsperson’s office and a program operated by the International Labor Organization (ILO) to assess compliance with basic labor rights in Haitian factories. Some local producers also had to participate in the ILO program. The labor rights certification means that Haiti will continue to be covered by HOPE II, US trade legislation which gives duty-free access to the US market for some apparel products and other articles assembled in the country, including brassieres, luggage headgear and sleepwear. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, called the certification a sign that Haiti was ready for business. (Radio Jamaica 10/20/09)
Former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), now a special UN envoy to Haiti, has joined with US and Brazilian business interests to promote the development of assembly plants (maquiladoras) in Haiti that would benefit from the HOPE II legislation [see Update #1007].
On Oct. 30 the Haitian Senate passed a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, with 18 of the 27 members in favor of the motion. Pierre-Louis is now required to resign, and President René Préval will have to appoint a new prime minister. The motivation for Pierre-Louis’ removal, which was promoted by senators from President Préval’s Lespwa (Hope) party, is not clear, although critics said she had failed to move quickly to revive the economy during her 14 months on the job. The president is expected to nominate Planning and External Cooperation Minister Jean-Max Bellerive to replace her.
Both the UN and the US expressed concern that a new prime minister should take office as soon as possible. “The international community wants stability, predictability, and a government favorable to Bill Clinton's business investment project,” University of Virginia professor Robert Fatton told the Miami Herald. “Whether it's Michèle Pierre-Louis or not is irrelevant” to major players like Canada, France and the US. (Miami Herald 10/29/09; AlterPresse 10/30/09, __, __)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico
Peruvian Cardinal Does Not Want Rebel Priest as President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2184/68/
Ecuador: The Battle for Natural Resources Deepens
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6521
Ecuador: Oil Giant Is Gone, Legal and Environmental Mess Remains
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2183/68/
The Continuity of Immunity for Tío Sam in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2181/1/
International Criminal Court warns Colombia on paramilitaries
http://ww4report.com/node/7880
US signs military base plan with Colombia
http://ww4report.com/node/7879
Coca-Cola: Off the Hook for Colombia Terror
http://ww4report.com/node/7887
Venezuela: Colombian incursions, espionage charged
http://ww4report.com/node/7881
Venezuelan Labor Between Chavez and the Golpistas
http://ww4report.com/node/7884
Venezuela: Demarcation Without Land
http://ww4report.com/node/7885
"No Pago" Confronts Microfinance in Nicaragua
https://nacla.org/node/6180
Obama shouldn't cave in to the far right on Honduras
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-200910280801mctnewsservbc-honduras-progressive,0,601045.story
Video: 100 Days of Resistance in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2185/68/
Clock ticking in Honduras
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4400
Honduras: deal announced, but coupsters admit it's bogus
http://ww4report.com/node/7882
Honduras: Solution or Stall?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091116/grandin
Agreement to End Honduran Coup Marks Victory and Challenge
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2189/68/
The Hidden Side of Mexico's Drug War
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2187/68/
Mexican Political Prisoners Gloria Arenas and Jacobo Silva Released
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2188/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
WNU #1009: Honduran Talks Stall, Election in Doubt
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1009, October 25, 2009
1. Honduras: Talks Stall, Election in Doubt
2. Honduras: Poll Shows Growing Opposition to Coup
3. Honduras: Was the Coup Legal?
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, 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. Honduras: Talks Stall, Election in Doubt
On Oct. 23 negotiators for deposed Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales gave up on talks to end a four-month political crisis in Honduras. The negotiations had been “worn down” by the intransigence of de facto president Roberto Micheletti Bain’s government, Zelaya representative Mayra Mejía announced in Tegucigalpa.
Zelaya had already given up key points in the talks, which began on Oct. 7 with the support of the Organization of American States (OAS). His concessions included acceptance of a government of national reconciliation and the renunciation of calls for a national constituent assembly to rewrite the 1982 Constitution, a demand still strongly supported by grassroots organizations. But Micheletti’s representatives refused to negotiate seriously on Zelaya’s return to office before the scheduled Nov. 29 general elections, according to Zelaya’s representatives. Zelaya, who was deposed by a military coup on June 28, ends his four-year term on Jan. 27.
The de facto government’s intransigence was “a second coup d’état,” Zelaya said in an interview with the British network BBC on Oct. 25. He also charged that the military was subjecting him to “psychological torture” by playing loud music through the night outside the Brazilian embassy, where the deposed president has been living since slipping back into the country on Sept. 21. Supporters say the soldiers have also been shining stadium lights into the building. But in a interview with opposition radio station Radio Globo the same day, Zelaya said he still expected a solution: "I cannot give details of how this will be achieved, but Honduras cannot remain in this situation.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/24/09 from AFP, DPA, Reuters; Europa Press 10/25/09 via Yahoo; Bloomberg 10/23/09; Xinhua 10/26/09)
The de facto government apparently hopes to end the crisis by getting the US to recognize the results of the November elections. There is pressure for this in US governing circles. In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Oct. 17, former US secretary of state James A. Baker III (1989-1992) argued that “a free and fair election in Honduras would go a long way toward resolving the constitutional crisis there.” The US government should support the elections, he said, just as the administration of President George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) backed elections in Nicaragua under the leftist Sandinista government in 1990. (WP 10/17/09)
However, on Oct. 23, the Carter Center—an influential election-monitoring organization founded by former US president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)—indicated that it wouldn’t observe the November elections unless the coup was reversed. (LJ 10/24/09 from AFP, DPA, Reuters)
Honduran opponents of the coup are calling for an election boycott. Independent presidential candidate Carlos H. Reyes and legislative deputy César Ham, presidential candidate of the small leftist Democratic Unification (UD), announced on Sept. 9 that they would refuse to participate in elections held under the coup regime [see Update #1004]. Most candidates of the two traditional parties, the National Party (PN) and the Liberal Party (PL), continue to campaign, but on Oct. 24 some 300 Liberal candidates for the National Congress and municipal posts, announced that they would boycott the election. Both Zelaya and Micheletti are members of the generally conservative PL.
The Nov. 29 elections are mandated to fill 2,896 positions, including the presidency, all 128 deputies in the National Congress, 20 deputies to represent Honduras in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), 298 mayors and some 2,000 municipal officials. (El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula) 10/24/09)
*2. Honduras: Poll Shows Growing Opposition to Coup
On Oct. 23 the Washington, DC-based polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner released the results of a survey involving face-to-face interviews held Oct. 9-13 with 621 randomly selected Hondurans; the firm didn’t give the margin of error. According to the survey, 60% of Hondurans disapproved of the June 28 removal of President Manuel Zelaya from office, while only 38% approved. Some 19% rated Zelaya’s performance in office as “excellent” and another 48% as “good”; the poll showed 57% personally disapproving of Roberto Micheletti, de facto president since Zelaya’s overthrow, while 28% approved.
The pretext for the coup was a claim that Zelaya’s purpose in calling for a constituent assembly was to end the Constitution’s ban on second terms for presidents. According to the survey, Hondurans favor allowing re-election by a solid 55% to 43%, while 54% support holding a constituent assembly as a solution to the current crisis, with 43% opposed. While the Honduran right depicts Zelaya’s supporters as backers of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías, only 10% of Hondurans feel “warm” towards Chávez, while 83% have a negative impression, according to the survey. (Greenberg press release 10/23/09; Honduras Coup 2009 blog 10/24/09; Bloomberg 10/23/09)
The Greenberg poll, although based on a relatively small sampling, gives results similar to those from the two other polls published since the coup: a survey by the Costa Rican-based CID Gallup firm in early July and a poll the Tegucigalpa firm Consultants in Investigation of Markets and Public Opinion (COIMER & OP) conducted Aug. 23-29. The July CID Gallup survey showed a plurality of 46% opposing the coup, while the August COIMER & OP poll showed 52.7% against Zelaya’s removal, with only 17.4% supporting it (the rest didn’t answer). If the surveys are correct, opposition to the coup has grown steadily over the past four months, with a large majority now rejecting Zelaya’s removal. (Daily Kos 7/12/09; Narco News 10/6/09; Honduras Coup 2009 blog 10/7/09)
The coup regime regularly claims broad support. At the beginning of October, de facto president Micheletti told the ACAN-EFE news service that polls his government had taken showed that “87%, 90% say they are in agreement with” a state of siege he declared at the end of September. (ACAN-EFE 10/2/09) There are no reports indicating that the de facto government ever made these polls public.
*3. Honduras: Was the Coup Legal?
A number of legal experts have challenged an August report by the US Law Library of Congress claiming that the June 28 overthrow of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was in accordance with Honduras’ 1982 Constitution. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) requested the report from the library and released it on Sept. 24, incorrectly attributing it to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS). It has been cited regularly since then by US supporters of the de facto Honduran government.
Critics of the 10-page report include some 13 deputies from the Honduran National Congress. In an Oct. 12 letter to the US Congress, the legislators said the study “is contradictory and suffers from a series of errors and biases that disqualify it as a correct and objective analysis of what has happened in our country.” They also noted that the only legal expert consulted by the study’s author, Senior Foreign Law Specialist Norma C. Gutierrez, was former Supreme Court justice Guillermo Pérez-Cadalso Arias, a coup supporter “who in Honduras is not considered an academic authority on the subject of constitutional law.” In an Oct. 22 opinion piece on the Forbes magazine website, Argentine attorney Viviana Krsticevic and Juan Méndez, a former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, CIDH in Spanish), dismissed the report’s “[d]ubious legal reasoning” and its “thinly sourced analysis” that “gets many…basic facts wrong.”
The report argues that although the Constitution only gives the Honduran Congress the power to “disapprove” of a president, the legislators can interpret the Constitution to extend this power to removing the president from office. The report ignores a May 7, 2003 Honduran Supreme Court ruling that Congress cannot interpret the Constitution. The report’s arguments doesn't pass the "straight-face test," Notre Dame University law professor Doug Cassel said at an Oct. 22 briefing at Capitol Hill in DC. The nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) had organized a meeting with the Law Library of Congress for that morning to discuss the report, but author Gutierrez and her assistant became "suddenly unavailable" the night before, according to WOLA’s Vicki Gass. At the meeting, the Law Library representatives agreed to produce a “frequently asked questions” document, Gass said, but not a retraction. (Schock press release 9/24/09; letter from Honduran deputies 10/12/09; Forbes 10/22/09; Honduras Coup 2009 10/16/09; Inter Press Service 10/22/09)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Community on the Airwaves: End to Dictatorship Media Law in Argentina
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2166/1/
Presidential Elections in Uruguay: Former Guerrilla vs Neoliberal
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2177/1/
The Neoliberal Crusade For Resources on Indigenous Lands in the Peruvian Amazon
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2167/1/
Peru: Gov't Seeks Legal Shield for Security Forces
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2163/68/
Colombia: Sexual Violence as Weapon of War
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2168/68/
Colombian vice president investigated over paramilitary ties
http://ww4report.com/node/7850
Honduras: Zelaya's Delegates Urge OAS to Unblock Talks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2170/68/
The Plot Thickens: Honduran Coup Regime and Landowning Elites Enlist the Support of Foreign Paramilitaries
https://nacla.org/node/6171
US State Department Officials Signal Moves Towards Recognizing November Elections in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2175/68/
Nickel for Your Life: Q'eqchi' Communities Take on Mining Companies in Guatemala
https://nacla.org/node/6177
The Truth Under the Earth: The Relationship Between Genocide and Femicide in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2174/1/
Guatemala intercepts narco-sub in 10-ton coke haul
http://ww4report.com/node/7858
Mexican Electrical Workers Union Fights for Its Life
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/labotz191009.html
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica, I
http://www.counterpunch.org/ross10192009.html
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica, II
http://www.counterpunch.org/ross10202009.html
Mexico's Union Bust Reveals Flaws in NAFTA
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6519
Justice Department nets 300 in raids on Michoacán's bloody "Familia"
http://ww4report.com/node/7859
Latest Chapter in the Case of the Cuban Five: U.S. Justice as a Political Weapon
https://nacla.org/node/6166
Terrorist released from immigration custody (it's OK, he's Cuban)
http://ww4report.com/node/7864
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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 #1009, October 25, 2009
1. Honduras: Talks Stall, Election in Doubt
2. Honduras: Poll Shows Growing Opposition to Coup
3. Honduras: Was the Coup Legal?
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, 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. Honduras: Talks Stall, Election in Doubt
On Oct. 23 negotiators for deposed Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales gave up on talks to end a four-month political crisis in Honduras. The negotiations had been “worn down” by the intransigence of de facto president Roberto Micheletti Bain’s government, Zelaya representative Mayra Mejía announced in Tegucigalpa.
Zelaya had already given up key points in the talks, which began on Oct. 7 with the support of the Organization of American States (OAS). His concessions included acceptance of a government of national reconciliation and the renunciation of calls for a national constituent assembly to rewrite the 1982 Constitution, a demand still strongly supported by grassroots organizations. But Micheletti’s representatives refused to negotiate seriously on Zelaya’s return to office before the scheduled Nov. 29 general elections, according to Zelaya’s representatives. Zelaya, who was deposed by a military coup on June 28, ends his four-year term on Jan. 27.
The de facto government’s intransigence was “a second coup d’état,” Zelaya said in an interview with the British network BBC on Oct. 25. He also charged that the military was subjecting him to “psychological torture” by playing loud music through the night outside the Brazilian embassy, where the deposed president has been living since slipping back into the country on Sept. 21. Supporters say the soldiers have also been shining stadium lights into the building. But in a interview with opposition radio station Radio Globo the same day, Zelaya said he still expected a solution: "I cannot give details of how this will be achieved, but Honduras cannot remain in this situation.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/24/09 from AFP, DPA, Reuters; Europa Press 10/25/09 via Yahoo; Bloomberg 10/23/09; Xinhua 10/26/09)
The de facto government apparently hopes to end the crisis by getting the US to recognize the results of the November elections. There is pressure for this in US governing circles. In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Oct. 17, former US secretary of state James A. Baker III (1989-1992) argued that “a free and fair election in Honduras would go a long way toward resolving the constitutional crisis there.” The US government should support the elections, he said, just as the administration of President George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) backed elections in Nicaragua under the leftist Sandinista government in 1990. (WP 10/17/09)
However, on Oct. 23, the Carter Center—an influential election-monitoring organization founded by former US president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)—indicated that it wouldn’t observe the November elections unless the coup was reversed. (LJ 10/24/09 from AFP, DPA, Reuters)
Honduran opponents of the coup are calling for an election boycott. Independent presidential candidate Carlos H. Reyes and legislative deputy César Ham, presidential candidate of the small leftist Democratic Unification (UD), announced on Sept. 9 that they would refuse to participate in elections held under the coup regime [see Update #1004]. Most candidates of the two traditional parties, the National Party (PN) and the Liberal Party (PL), continue to campaign, but on Oct. 24 some 300 Liberal candidates for the National Congress and municipal posts, announced that they would boycott the election. Both Zelaya and Micheletti are members of the generally conservative PL.
The Nov. 29 elections are mandated to fill 2,896 positions, including the presidency, all 128 deputies in the National Congress, 20 deputies to represent Honduras in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), 298 mayors and some 2,000 municipal officials. (El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula) 10/24/09)
*2. Honduras: Poll Shows Growing Opposition to Coup
On Oct. 23 the Washington, DC-based polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner released the results of a survey involving face-to-face interviews held Oct. 9-13 with 621 randomly selected Hondurans; the firm didn’t give the margin of error. According to the survey, 60% of Hondurans disapproved of the June 28 removal of President Manuel Zelaya from office, while only 38% approved. Some 19% rated Zelaya’s performance in office as “excellent” and another 48% as “good”; the poll showed 57% personally disapproving of Roberto Micheletti, de facto president since Zelaya’s overthrow, while 28% approved.
The pretext for the coup was a claim that Zelaya’s purpose in calling for a constituent assembly was to end the Constitution’s ban on second terms for presidents. According to the survey, Hondurans favor allowing re-election by a solid 55% to 43%, while 54% support holding a constituent assembly as a solution to the current crisis, with 43% opposed. While the Honduran right depicts Zelaya’s supporters as backers of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías, only 10% of Hondurans feel “warm” towards Chávez, while 83% have a negative impression, according to the survey. (Greenberg press release 10/23/09; Honduras Coup 2009 blog 10/24/09; Bloomberg 10/23/09)
The Greenberg poll, although based on a relatively small sampling, gives results similar to those from the two other polls published since the coup: a survey by the Costa Rican-based CID Gallup firm in early July and a poll the Tegucigalpa firm Consultants in Investigation of Markets and Public Opinion (COIMER & OP) conducted Aug. 23-29. The July CID Gallup survey showed a plurality of 46% opposing the coup, while the August COIMER & OP poll showed 52.7% against Zelaya’s removal, with only 17.4% supporting it (the rest didn’t answer). If the surveys are correct, opposition to the coup has grown steadily over the past four months, with a large majority now rejecting Zelaya’s removal. (Daily Kos 7/12/09; Narco News 10/6/09; Honduras Coup 2009 blog 10/7/09)
The coup regime regularly claims broad support. At the beginning of October, de facto president Micheletti told the ACAN-EFE news service that polls his government had taken showed that “87%, 90% say they are in agreement with” a state of siege he declared at the end of September. (ACAN-EFE 10/2/09) There are no reports indicating that the de facto government ever made these polls public.
*3. Honduras: Was the Coup Legal?
A number of legal experts have challenged an August report by the US Law Library of Congress claiming that the June 28 overthrow of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was in accordance with Honduras’ 1982 Constitution. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) requested the report from the library and released it on Sept. 24, incorrectly attributing it to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS). It has been cited regularly since then by US supporters of the de facto Honduran government.
Critics of the 10-page report include some 13 deputies from the Honduran National Congress. In an Oct. 12 letter to the US Congress, the legislators said the study “is contradictory and suffers from a series of errors and biases that disqualify it as a correct and objective analysis of what has happened in our country.” They also noted that the only legal expert consulted by the study’s author, Senior Foreign Law Specialist Norma C. Gutierrez, was former Supreme Court justice Guillermo Pérez-Cadalso Arias, a coup supporter “who in Honduras is not considered an academic authority on the subject of constitutional law.” In an Oct. 22 opinion piece on the Forbes magazine website, Argentine attorney Viviana Krsticevic and Juan Méndez, a former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, CIDH in Spanish), dismissed the report’s “[d]ubious legal reasoning” and its “thinly sourced analysis” that “gets many…basic facts wrong.”
The report argues that although the Constitution only gives the Honduran Congress the power to “disapprove” of a president, the legislators can interpret the Constitution to extend this power to removing the president from office. The report ignores a May 7, 2003 Honduran Supreme Court ruling that Congress cannot interpret the Constitution. The report’s arguments doesn't pass the "straight-face test," Notre Dame University law professor Doug Cassel said at an Oct. 22 briefing at Capitol Hill in DC. The nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) had organized a meeting with the Law Library of Congress for that morning to discuss the report, but author Gutierrez and her assistant became "suddenly unavailable" the night before, according to WOLA’s Vicki Gass. At the meeting, the Law Library representatives agreed to produce a “frequently asked questions” document, Gass said, but not a retraction. (Schock press release 9/24/09; letter from Honduran deputies 10/12/09; Forbes 10/22/09; Honduras Coup 2009 10/16/09; Inter Press Service 10/22/09)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Community on the Airwaves: End to Dictatorship Media Law in Argentina
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2166/1/
Presidential Elections in Uruguay: Former Guerrilla vs Neoliberal
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2177/1/
The Neoliberal Crusade For Resources on Indigenous Lands in the Peruvian Amazon
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2167/1/
Peru: Gov't Seeks Legal Shield for Security Forces
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2163/68/
Colombia: Sexual Violence as Weapon of War
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2168/68/
Colombian vice president investigated over paramilitary ties
http://ww4report.com/node/7850
Honduras: Zelaya's Delegates Urge OAS to Unblock Talks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2170/68/
The Plot Thickens: Honduran Coup Regime and Landowning Elites Enlist the Support of Foreign Paramilitaries
https://nacla.org/node/6171
US State Department Officials Signal Moves Towards Recognizing November Elections in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2175/68/
Nickel for Your Life: Q'eqchi' Communities Take on Mining Companies in Guatemala
https://nacla.org/node/6177
The Truth Under the Earth: The Relationship Between Genocide and Femicide in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2174/1/
Guatemala intercepts narco-sub in 10-ton coke haul
http://ww4report.com/node/7858
Mexican Electrical Workers Union Fights for Its Life
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/labotz191009.html
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica, I
http://www.counterpunch.org/ross10192009.html
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica, II
http://www.counterpunch.org/ross10202009.html
Mexico's Union Bust Reveals Flaws in NAFTA
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6519
Justice Department nets 300 in raids on Michoacán's bloody "Familia"
http://ww4report.com/node/7859
Latest Chapter in the Case of the Cuban Five: U.S. Justice as a Political Weapon
https://nacla.org/node/6166
Terrorist released from immigration custody (it's OK, he's Cuban)
http://ww4report.com/node/7864
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
WNU #1008: Indigenous People Mark Oct. 12 With Protests
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1008, October 18, 2009
1. Latin America: Indigenous People Mark Oct. 12 With Protests
2. Mexico: Marchers Back Electrical Workers Union
3. Mexico: UN Reports on Attacks Against Rights Activists
4. Puerto Rico: General Strike Protests Layoffs
5. Links to alternative sources on: Trade, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Latin America: Indigenous Mark Oct. 12 With Protests
On Oct. 12 tens of thousands of indigenous people in the region marked 517 years since the arrival of European colonizer Christopher Columbus by protesting around current issues such as the seizure of traditional lands by businesses and the damage to the environment from mining and oil drilling.
In Santiago, Chile, thousands of people marched along Bernardo O'Higgins Avenue in the historic center and rallied in a nearby plaza as speakers denounced “the Spanish invasion” of the past and the repression of Mapuche activists by the current government [see Updates #979, 985]. The Mapuche are the country’s largest indigenous group, and Mapuche activists and their supporters have carried out civil disobedience to reclaim land they say was stolen from them in southern Chile. Mapuche speaker Manuel Calfío stressed that Santiago’s Mapuche residents supported the demands of their brothers and sisters in the south.
In Bolivia Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous president, called Oct. 12 a “day of mourning…not a day of celebration,” although Foreign Minister David Choquehuenca and legislators attended a Spanish Heritage Day ceremony at the Spanish embassy.
In Quito, an Ecuadorian indigenous leader, Lourdes Tibian, told the Ecuavisa television network that “the conditions of the indigenous peoples since the Spanish invasion haven’t changed at all down to the present.” The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the main indigenous umbrella group, led nationwide protests from Aug. 27 to Oct. 5 over the autonomy of bilingual education and revisions to the water and mining laws; one person was killed in the Amazon region in the demonstrations. CONAIE and the government of President Rafael Correa are now in negotiations over the issues. (Univision 10/12/09 from AP)
Some 25,000 indigenous Colombians started a march on Oct. 12 from several towns and cities in the southwestern Valle del Cauca department that was to culminate in a demonstration of some 40,000 in the departmental capital, Cali. The main focus was on the environment, Feliciano Valencia, a leader of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), told reporters; the protest was called the “World Minga for the Liberation of Mother Earth and Against Global Warming.” “There has to be a very strong call to humanity, because life is at risk,” he said. (“Minga” comes from a Quechua word for collective work.) The marchers also protested the economic policies of President Alvaro Uribe and attacks on indigenous communities by leftist rebels, rightwing paramilitaries and drug traffickers despite the communities’ insistence that they are neutral in the conflicts [see Update #997].
The minga was promoting a “congress of the peoples” that the indigenous organizations are planning for next year, CRIC adviser Marcos Cueitia said. The congress, whose date and location are not yet set, will include “indigenous communities, Afro Colombian [communities], labor unions, campesinos, NGOs [nonprofit organizations], grassroots organizations. The goal is a country with a project that’s different from war, aggression and death.” (Agence France Presse 10/13/09; El Extra (Fort Worth, TX) 10/16/09 from Notimex; El Tiempo (Colombia) 10/15/09).
Several thousand indigenous activists, environmentalists, campesinos and students held protests across Panama demanding respect for their land rights and rejecting energy projects that they said fail to respect the autonomy of indigenous people and cause forced evictions. Indigenous protesters closed the border with Costa Rica for several hours in the morning at the Sixaola border crossing. In Panama City, indigenous leader Cecilio Guerra, who burned a Spanish flag close to the presidential palace, told reporters that over 21 hydroelectric concessions and nine mining projects are affecting indigenous communities. Representatives of the Ngobe-Buglé peoples and other campesinos sought a meeting with rightwing president Ricardo Martinelli, but the government would only allow six people in the delegation. The indigenous activists refused to accept this condition and waited outside the presidential palace for more than three hours before dispersing. (AFP 10/13/09; Servicio Informativo "Alai-amlatina" 10/15/09)
In Guatemala, 19-year-old protester Imer Boror was killed and two other protesters were wounded as Mayan indigenous people blocked entry points into Guatemala City to demonstrate against the government's mining policies. The killing, which took place on El Caminero Boulevard, in Mixco municipality, 22 km south of the capital, was part of a day of protests that an indigenous leader, Juana Mulul, called a "defense of Mother Earth and our territory." After Boror’s death, President Alvar Colom agreed to appoint a commission to meet with indigenous leaders. Aparicio Pérez of the Farmers Union Committee (CUC) said representatives would ask the government to annul mining, hydroelectric and cement concessions because "multinational companies are taking over natural resources, which have long been the source of life for rural families" [see Updates #999, 1003].
According to government statistics, 42% of Guatemala's 12 million inhabitants are indigenous; others estimate that over 60% are indigenous. (AFP 10/13/09; Adital 10/13/09; World War 4 Report 10/18/09)
*2. Mexico: Marchers Back Electrical Workers Union
At least 150,000 Mexicans joined a march from the Angel of Independence in downtown Mexico City to the central Zócalo Plaza in the late afternoon of Oct. 15 to protest the Oct. 10 seizure by Mexican soldiers and federal police of facilities of the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC). Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s center-right administration decreed the liquidation of the company and terminated its employees as the security forces were occupying the plants [see Update #1007]. The number of workers laid off is now said to be more than 43,000.
The Oct. 15 demonstration was so large that protesters were already waiting in the mammoth Zócalo while marchers were still setting off from the starting point more than two miles away. The Angel of Independence circle was packed at the beginning of the march, and many demonstrators, including former Mexico City mayor and 2006 presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, started from other locations—the nearby statue of Diana the Hunter and points along the Paseo de la Reforma boulevard. The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), a 95-year-old independent union which represents the LFC’s active workers and about 23,000 retirees, estimated that more than 350,000 people took part in the protest; police put the number at about 150,000.
The speakers included leaders of various unions and legislative deputy Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, who in his long career has led the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and is now in the small leftist Workers Party (PT). They called for rescinding the LFC’s liquidation and expressed solidarity with the SME. The federal government says the company had to be closed because it was inefficient and lost too much money, but SME general secretary Martín Esparza Flores charges that President Calderón’s goal was to break the union and to pave the way for privatization of the LFC. According to the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada, the average pay for LFC workers was 6,000 pesos a month (about $455). (LJ 10/16/09; Agence France Presse 10/16/09)
During talks after the protest, the government offered to negotiate over finding employment for the workers if they would accept the liquidation, but at departmental assemblies on Oct. 17 the union leaders announced that they would continue their strategy of legal challenges and demonstrations. (LJ 10/18/09)
On Oct. 14 the United Steelworkers (USW), the largest industrial union in North America, expressed solidarity with the SME, which has called for support from unions in Mexico and other countries. “The actions of the Mexican government in using federal forces to take over the public utility, dismissing the workers and thereby effectively disbanding their union is an outrageous act of union busting,” USW international president Leo Gerard said. (USW press release 10/14/09)
*3. Mexico: UN Reports on Attacks Against Rights Activists
The Mexico Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) presented a report in Mexico City on Oct. 13 on the dangers facing human rights activists in Mexico. According to the report, “Defending Human Rights: Caught Between Commitment and Risk,” the OHCHR found 128 cases of aggression against activists from January 2006 to August 2009, including 10 murders. OHCHR staff visited 10 of Mexico's 32 states to compile the report, interviewing non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights defenders, victims of aggression, journalists and government authorities.
Noemí Ramírez, head of the nongovernmental Mexican Academy for Human Rights, told the Inter Press Service (IPS) that the situation of human rights defenders is "worrying." She laid much of the blame on the government of President Felipe Calderón of the center-right National Action Party (PAN). Violence has risen in the country since Calderón launched a massive “war on drugs” after taking office in December 2006. "The government has vilified the work of rights defenders,” she said. “There has been a serious deterioration in the situation under the present administration."
Incidents involving violence against human rights defenders include the murder of Raúl Lucas and Manuel Ponce, leaders of the Organization for the Future of the Mixteca Indigenous Peoples, whose bodies were found Feb. 21 in the southern state of Guerrero. They had been tortured and executed; the crimes remain unpunished. In the same month, the Tlachilollan Mountain Human Rights Center closed one of its offices in Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero, because of threats, intimidation and persecution of activists for indigenous peoples' rights. (IPS 10/14/09)
*4. Puerto Rico: General Strike Protests Layoffs
A one-day general strike protesting plans to lay off 16,970 of Puerto Rico’s 180,000 public employees in November shut down all state-owned enterprises and the island’s schools and colleges on Oct. 15; most private businesses reportedly remained open remained open, and ports and airports were said to be functioning normally. There were protests throughout Puerto Rico, with tens of thousands of people converging on San Juan's Plaza Las Américas, the biggest shopping mall in the Caribbean. Hundreds of trucks drove slowly around the Milla de Oro area honking their horns, while some employees of the companies along the way gathered at doors and windows to show their support for the protest. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” office worker Yadira de León told the Associated Press news service. “I support it because the situation is difficult [for the laid-off workers], but I have to work.” De León’s 11-year-old daughter was with her because the schools were closed.
Organizers said more than 100,000 people had participated in the San Juan demonstration, while the police declined to give an estimate. The general strike was backed by all the island’s main labor organizations, including the General Workers Union (UGT) and the All Puerto Rico for Puerto Rico Coalition. Economists said the Oct. 15 strike would cost the economy at least $32 million.
If Gov. Luis Fortuño goes ahead with the November layoffs, the total job losses for the year will be above 21,000. The government laid off 7,816 employees in May but had to hire more than 3,000 temporary teachers and assistants when the school year started in August. Fortuño says the job cuts, expected to save $386 million, are necessary because the government faces a $3.2 billion deficit this year due to the world economic crisis, but economists say the cuts will prolong the recession. Union leaders accuse Fortuño of planning to privatize government services [see Update #1006]. (El Diario-La Prensa (New York) 10/15/09 from AP; Univision 10/15/09; Latin American Herald Tribune 10/16/09 from EFE)
In New York, with the largest community of people of Puerto Rican descent outside the island, labor unions and other groups held a press conference on the steps of City Hall on Oct. 15 to support the demands of the strikers. In the late afternoon, as many as 200 activists gathered in a heavy rain outside the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration office in midtown for a lively solidarity rally organized by the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights and other grassroots organizations. After the rally, protesters carried out a “huevazo,” hurling eggs at a poster with Gov. Fortuño’s picture. (Terra (Spain) 10/15/09 from EFE; eyewitness report)
Protests continued after Oct. 15. Members of the National Hostosian Independence Movement (MINH) demonstrated against the governor when he appeared at a ceremony at the Julita Ross amphitheater in Toa Baja on Oct. 17. The labor unions said on Oct. 16 that they planned to continue the struggle until they had overturned Law 7, which permits the layoffs. Methodist bishop Juan Vera, a spokesperson for protest organizers, warned that there may be another general strike. “The people are tired of so much abuse,” he told the Cuban news service Prensa Latina. (ED-LP 10/18/09 from AP; PL 10/16/09)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Trade, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico
South American Countries Sign Articles of Agreement of BANCOSUR
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2156/68/
ALBA sanctions Honduras, moves towards new currency
http://ww4report.com/node/7840
Brazil Emerges as a Military Power
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6494?utm_source=streamsend&utm_medium=email&utm_content=6655371&utm_campaign=Brazil%20Emerges%20as%20a%20Military%20Power
Rio de Janeiro: 12 dead, chopper down as favela wars escalate
http://ww4report.com/node/7839
Peru: Gov't Seeks Legal Shield for Security Forces
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2163/68/
Colombia: army officer detained in massacre of indigenous people
http://ww4report.com/node/7836
Bogotá: kidnapping charges for student protesters?
http://ww4report.com/node/7837
Venezuelan Yukpa Indigenous Community Attacked, Two Murdered Following Land Grants
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2161/1/
Hugo Chávez: Iran aids Venezuela uranium exploration
http://ww4report.com/node/7838
Multipolar Machinations: Chávez Endeavors to 'Sow the Oil' with Russia and China
https://nacla.org/node/6159
The Property Waiver Regime: US Continues Punishing Land Reform in Nicaragua
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2158/1/
Honduras: Talks Seek Solution to 102-Day Crisis
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2155/68/
Honduran Accords Hung Up on Zelaya's Reinstatement
http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/10/honduran-accords-hung-up-on-zelayas.html
Honduras De Facto Regime Opens Fire in Poor Neighborhoods: Youth and union members targeted by coup violence
http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/10/honduras-de-facto-regime-opens-fire-in.html
Honduran Congressional Opinion, Part 2
http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/2009/10/honduran-congressional-opinion-part-2.html
The Young Honduran Revolution
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2159/1/
Honduras: cocaine flights surge in wake of coup
http://ww4report.com/node/7822
Guatemala: one dead in anti-mine protests
http://ww4report.com/node/7841
Mexico Revs up War on Workers; Obama Shrugs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-faux/mexico-revs-up-war-on-wor_b_317924.html
A Spanish Company and National Action Party Members Hope to Exploit Luz y Fuerza's Fiber Optic Network
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/10/privatization-behind-calderons-attack-electricians-union
Mexico: Disappeared Anti-Mining Activist is Back Fighting
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2157/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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 #1008, October 18, 2009
1. Latin America: Indigenous People Mark Oct. 12 With Protests
2. Mexico: Marchers Back Electrical Workers Union
3. Mexico: UN Reports on Attacks Against Rights Activists
4. Puerto Rico: General Strike Protests Layoffs
5. Links to alternative sources on: Trade, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Latin America: Indigenous Mark Oct. 12 With Protests
On Oct. 12 tens of thousands of indigenous people in the region marked 517 years since the arrival of European colonizer Christopher Columbus by protesting around current issues such as the seizure of traditional lands by businesses and the damage to the environment from mining and oil drilling.
In Santiago, Chile, thousands of people marched along Bernardo O'Higgins Avenue in the historic center and rallied in a nearby plaza as speakers denounced “the Spanish invasion” of the past and the repression of Mapuche activists by the current government [see Updates #979, 985]. The Mapuche are the country’s largest indigenous group, and Mapuche activists and their supporters have carried out civil disobedience to reclaim land they say was stolen from them in southern Chile. Mapuche speaker Manuel Calfío stressed that Santiago’s Mapuche residents supported the demands of their brothers and sisters in the south.
In Bolivia Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous president, called Oct. 12 a “day of mourning…not a day of celebration,” although Foreign Minister David Choquehuenca and legislators attended a Spanish Heritage Day ceremony at the Spanish embassy.
In Quito, an Ecuadorian indigenous leader, Lourdes Tibian, told the Ecuavisa television network that “the conditions of the indigenous peoples since the Spanish invasion haven’t changed at all down to the present.” The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the main indigenous umbrella group, led nationwide protests from Aug. 27 to Oct. 5 over the autonomy of bilingual education and revisions to the water and mining laws; one person was killed in the Amazon region in the demonstrations. CONAIE and the government of President Rafael Correa are now in negotiations over the issues. (Univision 10/12/09 from AP)
Some 25,000 indigenous Colombians started a march on Oct. 12 from several towns and cities in the southwestern Valle del Cauca department that was to culminate in a demonstration of some 40,000 in the departmental capital, Cali. The main focus was on the environment, Feliciano Valencia, a leader of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), told reporters; the protest was called the “World Minga for the Liberation of Mother Earth and Against Global Warming.” “There has to be a very strong call to humanity, because life is at risk,” he said. (“Minga” comes from a Quechua word for collective work.) The marchers also protested the economic policies of President Alvaro Uribe and attacks on indigenous communities by leftist rebels, rightwing paramilitaries and drug traffickers despite the communities’ insistence that they are neutral in the conflicts [see Update #997].
The minga was promoting a “congress of the peoples” that the indigenous organizations are planning for next year, CRIC adviser Marcos Cueitia said. The congress, whose date and location are not yet set, will include “indigenous communities, Afro Colombian [communities], labor unions, campesinos, NGOs [nonprofit organizations], grassroots organizations. The goal is a country with a project that’s different from war, aggression and death.” (Agence France Presse 10/13/09; El Extra (Fort Worth, TX) 10/16/09 from Notimex; El Tiempo (Colombia) 10/15/09).
Several thousand indigenous activists, environmentalists, campesinos and students held protests across Panama demanding respect for their land rights and rejecting energy projects that they said fail to respect the autonomy of indigenous people and cause forced evictions. Indigenous protesters closed the border with Costa Rica for several hours in the morning at the Sixaola border crossing. In Panama City, indigenous leader Cecilio Guerra, who burned a Spanish flag close to the presidential palace, told reporters that over 21 hydroelectric concessions and nine mining projects are affecting indigenous communities. Representatives of the Ngobe-Buglé peoples and other campesinos sought a meeting with rightwing president Ricardo Martinelli, but the government would only allow six people in the delegation. The indigenous activists refused to accept this condition and waited outside the presidential palace for more than three hours before dispersing. (AFP 10/13/09; Servicio Informativo "Alai-amlatina" 10/15/09)
In Guatemala, 19-year-old protester Imer Boror was killed and two other protesters were wounded as Mayan indigenous people blocked entry points into Guatemala City to demonstrate against the government's mining policies. The killing, which took place on El Caminero Boulevard, in Mixco municipality, 22 km south of the capital, was part of a day of protests that an indigenous leader, Juana Mulul, called a "defense of Mother Earth and our territory." After Boror’s death, President Alvar Colom agreed to appoint a commission to meet with indigenous leaders. Aparicio Pérez of the Farmers Union Committee (CUC) said representatives would ask the government to annul mining, hydroelectric and cement concessions because "multinational companies are taking over natural resources, which have long been the source of life for rural families" [see Updates #999, 1003].
According to government statistics, 42% of Guatemala's 12 million inhabitants are indigenous; others estimate that over 60% are indigenous. (AFP 10/13/09; Adital 10/13/09; World War 4 Report 10/18/09)
*2. Mexico: Marchers Back Electrical Workers Union
At least 150,000 Mexicans joined a march from the Angel of Independence in downtown Mexico City to the central Zócalo Plaza in the late afternoon of Oct. 15 to protest the Oct. 10 seizure by Mexican soldiers and federal police of facilities of the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC). Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s center-right administration decreed the liquidation of the company and terminated its employees as the security forces were occupying the plants [see Update #1007]. The number of workers laid off is now said to be more than 43,000.
The Oct. 15 demonstration was so large that protesters were already waiting in the mammoth Zócalo while marchers were still setting off from the starting point more than two miles away. The Angel of Independence circle was packed at the beginning of the march, and many demonstrators, including former Mexico City mayor and 2006 presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, started from other locations—the nearby statue of Diana the Hunter and points along the Paseo de la Reforma boulevard. The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), a 95-year-old independent union which represents the LFC’s active workers and about 23,000 retirees, estimated that more than 350,000 people took part in the protest; police put the number at about 150,000.
The speakers included leaders of various unions and legislative deputy Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, who in his long career has led the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and is now in the small leftist Workers Party (PT). They called for rescinding the LFC’s liquidation and expressed solidarity with the SME. The federal government says the company had to be closed because it was inefficient and lost too much money, but SME general secretary Martín Esparza Flores charges that President Calderón’s goal was to break the union and to pave the way for privatization of the LFC. According to the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada, the average pay for LFC workers was 6,000 pesos a month (about $455). (LJ 10/16/09; Agence France Presse 10/16/09)
During talks after the protest, the government offered to negotiate over finding employment for the workers if they would accept the liquidation, but at departmental assemblies on Oct. 17 the union leaders announced that they would continue their strategy of legal challenges and demonstrations. (LJ 10/18/09)
On Oct. 14 the United Steelworkers (USW), the largest industrial union in North America, expressed solidarity with the SME, which has called for support from unions in Mexico and other countries. “The actions of the Mexican government in using federal forces to take over the public utility, dismissing the workers and thereby effectively disbanding their union is an outrageous act of union busting,” USW international president Leo Gerard said. (USW press release 10/14/09)
*3. Mexico: UN Reports on Attacks Against Rights Activists
The Mexico Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) presented a report in Mexico City on Oct. 13 on the dangers facing human rights activists in Mexico. According to the report, “Defending Human Rights: Caught Between Commitment and Risk,” the OHCHR found 128 cases of aggression against activists from January 2006 to August 2009, including 10 murders. OHCHR staff visited 10 of Mexico's 32 states to compile the report, interviewing non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights defenders, victims of aggression, journalists and government authorities.
Noemí Ramírez, head of the nongovernmental Mexican Academy for Human Rights, told the Inter Press Service (IPS) that the situation of human rights defenders is "worrying." She laid much of the blame on the government of President Felipe Calderón of the center-right National Action Party (PAN). Violence has risen in the country since Calderón launched a massive “war on drugs” after taking office in December 2006. "The government has vilified the work of rights defenders,” she said. “There has been a serious deterioration in the situation under the present administration."
Incidents involving violence against human rights defenders include the murder of Raúl Lucas and Manuel Ponce, leaders of the Organization for the Future of the Mixteca Indigenous Peoples, whose bodies were found Feb. 21 in the southern state of Guerrero. They had been tortured and executed; the crimes remain unpunished. In the same month, the Tlachilollan Mountain Human Rights Center closed one of its offices in Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero, because of threats, intimidation and persecution of activists for indigenous peoples' rights. (IPS 10/14/09)
*4. Puerto Rico: General Strike Protests Layoffs
A one-day general strike protesting plans to lay off 16,970 of Puerto Rico’s 180,000 public employees in November shut down all state-owned enterprises and the island’s schools and colleges on Oct. 15; most private businesses reportedly remained open remained open, and ports and airports were said to be functioning normally. There were protests throughout Puerto Rico, with tens of thousands of people converging on San Juan's Plaza Las Américas, the biggest shopping mall in the Caribbean. Hundreds of trucks drove slowly around the Milla de Oro area honking their horns, while some employees of the companies along the way gathered at doors and windows to show their support for the protest. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” office worker Yadira de León told the Associated Press news service. “I support it because the situation is difficult [for the laid-off workers], but I have to work.” De León’s 11-year-old daughter was with her because the schools were closed.
Organizers said more than 100,000 people had participated in the San Juan demonstration, while the police declined to give an estimate. The general strike was backed by all the island’s main labor organizations, including the General Workers Union (UGT) and the All Puerto Rico for Puerto Rico Coalition. Economists said the Oct. 15 strike would cost the economy at least $32 million.
If Gov. Luis Fortuño goes ahead with the November layoffs, the total job losses for the year will be above 21,000. The government laid off 7,816 employees in May but had to hire more than 3,000 temporary teachers and assistants when the school year started in August. Fortuño says the job cuts, expected to save $386 million, are necessary because the government faces a $3.2 billion deficit this year due to the world economic crisis, but economists say the cuts will prolong the recession. Union leaders accuse Fortuño of planning to privatize government services [see Update #1006]. (El Diario-La Prensa (New York) 10/15/09 from AP; Univision 10/15/09; Latin American Herald Tribune 10/16/09 from EFE)
In New York, with the largest community of people of Puerto Rican descent outside the island, labor unions and other groups held a press conference on the steps of City Hall on Oct. 15 to support the demands of the strikers. In the late afternoon, as many as 200 activists gathered in a heavy rain outside the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration office in midtown for a lively solidarity rally organized by the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights and other grassroots organizations. After the rally, protesters carried out a “huevazo,” hurling eggs at a poster with Gov. Fortuño’s picture. (Terra (Spain) 10/15/09 from EFE; eyewitness report)
Protests continued after Oct. 15. Members of the National Hostosian Independence Movement (MINH) demonstrated against the governor when he appeared at a ceremony at the Julita Ross amphitheater in Toa Baja on Oct. 17. The labor unions said on Oct. 16 that they planned to continue the struggle until they had overturned Law 7, which permits the layoffs. Methodist bishop Juan Vera, a spokesperson for protest organizers, warned that there may be another general strike. “The people are tired of so much abuse,” he told the Cuban news service Prensa Latina. (ED-LP 10/18/09 from AP; PL 10/16/09)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Trade, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico
South American Countries Sign Articles of Agreement of BANCOSUR
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2156/68/
ALBA sanctions Honduras, moves towards new currency
http://ww4report.com/node/7840
Brazil Emerges as a Military Power
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6494?utm_source=streamsend&utm_medium=email&utm_content=6655371&utm_campaign=Brazil%20Emerges%20as%20a%20Military%20Power
Rio de Janeiro: 12 dead, chopper down as favela wars escalate
http://ww4report.com/node/7839
Peru: Gov't Seeks Legal Shield for Security Forces
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2163/68/
Colombia: army officer detained in massacre of indigenous people
http://ww4report.com/node/7836
Bogotá: kidnapping charges for student protesters?
http://ww4report.com/node/7837
Venezuelan Yukpa Indigenous Community Attacked, Two Murdered Following Land Grants
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2161/1/
Hugo Chávez: Iran aids Venezuela uranium exploration
http://ww4report.com/node/7838
Multipolar Machinations: Chávez Endeavors to 'Sow the Oil' with Russia and China
https://nacla.org/node/6159
The Property Waiver Regime: US Continues Punishing Land Reform in Nicaragua
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2158/1/
Honduras: Talks Seek Solution to 102-Day Crisis
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2155/68/
Honduran Accords Hung Up on Zelaya's Reinstatement
http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/10/honduran-accords-hung-up-on-zelayas.html
Honduras De Facto Regime Opens Fire in Poor Neighborhoods: Youth and union members targeted by coup violence
http://americasmexico.blogspot.com/2009/10/honduras-de-facto-regime-opens-fire-in.html
Honduran Congressional Opinion, Part 2
http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/2009/10/honduran-congressional-opinion-part-2.html
The Young Honduran Revolution
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2159/1/
Honduras: cocaine flights surge in wake of coup
http://ww4report.com/node/7822
Guatemala: one dead in anti-mine protests
http://ww4report.com/node/7841
Mexico Revs up War on Workers; Obama Shrugs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-faux/mexico-revs-up-war-on-wor_b_317924.html
A Spanish Company and National Action Party Members Hope to Exploit Luz y Fuerza's Fiber Optic Network
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/10/privatization-behind-calderons-attack-electricians-union
Mexico: Disappeared Anti-Mining Activist is Back Fighting
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2157/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
