Issue #1251, January 18, 2015
1. Haiti: Deal Fails, Martelly Rules by Decree
2. Mexico: Students’ Parents Storm Army Base
3. Puerto Rico: Machetero Prisoner Is Released
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
Note: The Update is ceasing publication on Feb. 15. In each of the remaining issues we will try to include some updated information on stories we covered in the past.
*1. Haiti: Deal Fails, Martelly Rules by Decree
Haiti entered a long-threatened period of constitutional crisis on Jan. 12 when terms expired for all 99 members of the Chamber of Deputies and for 10 of the country’s 30 senators; the terms had already run out for another third of the senators. Since the government had failed to hold overdue elections for these seats, Parliament no longer had a quorum to pass laws and President Martelly was free to rule by decree in the absence of a viable legislature. He and the leaders of Parliament had announced an agreement on Dec. 29 that would extend the legislators’ terms if Parliament met a Jan. 12 deadline to pass amendments to the electoral law [see Update #1249], but the deal didn’t win the agreement of the main opposition parties. The vote never took place.
The slide into direct presidential rule came on the day when Haitians were marking the fifth anniversary of the 2010 earthquake that destroyed much of Port-au-Prince and left tens or hundreds of thousands of people dead. (Radio-Canada 1/11/15 from correspondents; Radio France Internationale (RFI) 1/13/15 from correspondent)
Martelly’s opponents said they would continue with the anti-government demonstrations they have been sponsoring since the fall to demand Martelly’s resignation. On Jan. 15 an opposition coalition announced plans for marches in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 16, Jan. 17, Jan. 20, Jan. 22 and Jan. 23. The coalition includes the Patriotic Movement of the Democratic Opposition (Mopod) and a new political party, Pitit Desalin (“Children of Dessalines,” referring to the revolutionary hero Jean-Jacques Dessalines). Pitit Desalin’s leader is ex-senator Moïse Jean-Charles, who until late 2013 was associated with the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004) [see Update #1204]. FL itself has refrained from calling for Martelly’s resignation, but according to former FL senator Louis Gérald Gilles, the party is demanding the resignation of Martelly’s new prime minister, Evans Paul, a longtime Aristide opponent who hadn’t been confirmed by Parliament before it lost its quorum. If Paul doesn’t step down, Gilles said, FL will join the other opposition groups in demanding Martelly’s resignation. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 1/15/15; Haïti Libre 1/17/15)
As of Jan. 15 the so-called “Core Group”--the ambassadors of Brazil, Canada, France, Spain, the US and the European Union (EU), along with the special representatives of the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of American States (OAS)—had declared their countries’ “support for the president of the republic in the exercise of his constitutional duties.” The US had backed the failed agreement to extend the legislators’ terms, and US ambassador Pamela White angered many Haitians by attending a meeting of Parliament the evening of Jan. 11 when the deal was being discussed. She apparently hadn’t been invited. “You want to know what I think of Pamela White?” a passerby told an RFI correspondent the next day. “These people have long since been interfering in the country’s affairs. They’re the ones who chose Martelly, because he sold them the country.” The speaker was referring to interference by foreign powers in the 2010-2011 elections [see Update #1062]. (RFI 1/13/15; AlterPresse 1/15/15)
In contrast to the Core Group, the center-left government of Uruguay may react to the situation by withdrawing its troops from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), as it threatened in December [see Update #1249]. Uruguayan foreign minister Luis Almagro was reportedly planning an “emergency” visit to UN headquarters in New York to coordinate the withdrawal of his country’s 605 MINUSTAH members in the near future. (AlterPresse 1/15/15)
It was unclear how much effect the dissolution of Parliament would have on the government’s operations, which were already hampered by a longstanding stalemate between Martelly and the opposition, but an anti-mining coalition, the Mining Justice Collective (previously the “Collective Against Mining”), is concerned that the president may take advantage of the situation to impose a law that would greatly expand the mining sector [see Update #1230]. The measure, which was stalled in Parliament, would change Haiti’s 1976 mining code to allow the Bureau of Mines and Energy (BME) to sign directly with mining companies without having to win approval from Parliament, opening up northern Haiti to massive open-pit gold mining by foreign companies. The World Bank helped draft the law, and six Haitian groups filed a formal complaint with the bank on Jan. 7, noting that the measure was written without the public consultation often required by the bank’s own policies. (Upside Down World 1/13/15 from IPS)
*2. Mexico: Students’ Parents Storm Army Base
At least seven people were injured, some seriously, on Jan. 12 when dozens of protesters tried to enter a Mexican military post in Iguala de la Independencia in the southwestern state of Guerrero, saying they were looking for students who were abducted in the area the night of Sept. 26-27 [see Update #1248]. The missing students had attended the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College in the town of Ayotzinapa, and the protesters were other students from the school and parents and relatives of the missing youths. The military post, staffed by the 47th Infantry Battalion, is near the sites where local police and others—possibly including soldiers and federal police--gunned down six people and abducted 43 students in the September violence. So far authorities have only identified the remains of one of the missing students, leaving 42 unaccounted for.
“[Y]ou too were complicit in the violent acts that happened in Iguala,” one of the parents told the soldiers, addressing them over a megaphone. “Today we’ve come to demand that you give us our children, because you know where they are…. Today we’re telling these cowardly and murderous soldiers that they aren’t good for anything but killing students, not for confronting organized crime, which they’re scared of.” Unable to get into the installation, a group of students commandeered a Coca-Cola delivery truck and knocked down one side of a gate. Inside the post the protesters were outnumbered by some 300 military and state police agents, who used tear gas and fire extinguishers in an attempt to disperse them. The protesters responded with rocks, which the agents hurled back. The injured included four parents, two students and one reporter from the Venezuela-based television network TeleSUR. Two demonstrators were detained and held for about one hour.
After being driven from the post, the protesters joined with members of the militant State Organizing Committee of Education Workers in Guerrero (CETEG) to march to the Iguala-Chilpancingo highway, where they set three trucks on fire. (La Jornada 1/13/15)
The Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) insists that the September attack was the work of municipal police from Iguala and nearby Cocula and the members of a local gang, Guerreros Unidos (“United Warriors”). In the official version, the gang members took the 43 students and executed them, incinerating the bodies at a dump in Cocula. The government has arrested 97 people in the case, and is pressing charges against former Iguala mayor José Luis Abarca Velázquez and his wife María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa. Federal officials say the investigation has been completed, although they claim to be continuing the search for the 42 students who are still missing.
Insisting they had nothing to hide, on the evening of Jan. 13 federal authorities said they would make arrangements for the parents of the missing students to visit military installations. Federal governance secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong announced on Jan. 14 that the military would also invite the government’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) to inspect the Iguala post, although he denied any involvement by the military in the September events. (LJ 1/14/15, 1/14/15, 1/15/15)
According to an investigative report published on Dec. 13 by the Mexican weekly Proceso, both the military and the federal police monitored the movements of the Ayotzinapa students the evening of Sept. 26 and were probably involved in the violence. Two researchers--Jorge Antonio Montemayor Aldrete from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Pablo Ugalde Vélez from Mexico City’s Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM)—have questioned the PGR’s conclusion that the missing students were killed and then incinerated at the Cocula dump. The researchers say it would be impossible to build a fire at the site that would be hot enough for the sort of full incineration the government claims. The military has its own modern crematoria, and the researchers have asked to see records of their use in late September. (LJ 1/4/15) The researchers also charge that vegetation shown in photos of the dump in November couldn’t have grown back so quickly after the intense heat from the supposed fire, and that if some students had been killed there, blood and other organic material would have left enough DNA in the soil for investigators to make positive identifications of the victims. (LJ 1/14/15)
In other news, a leader of the Triqui indigenous group, Julián González Domínguez, was kidnapped by 10 armed men from his home in Santiago Juxtlahuaca municipality, in Oaxaca near the Guerrero border, and was found dead at a nearby highway on Jan. 12, according to the Oaxaca International Indigenous Network (RIIO). González was a leader for many years in the Unification Movement of the Triqui Struggle (MULT); more recently, he was one of the founders of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), a new center-left party started by former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The Triqui zone has been the scene of violent conflicts between the MULT, the rival Independent Unification Movement of the Triqui Struggle (MULTI) and the Social Welfare Unity of the Triqui Region (UBISORT); the last organization is said to be a paramilitary group linked to the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) [see Update #1054]. González’s community also had a longstanding agrarian dispute with a nearby community directed by the PRI-affiliated National Campesino Confederation (CNC). RIIO said that González had been receiving threats and that another member of his community was kidnapped and murdered in December. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR, or CIDH by its initials in Spanish), an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), had issued “cautionary measures” calling on the Mexican authorities to protect the Triqui leader’s life. (Sputnik News 1/13/15)
*3. Puerto Rico: Machetero Prisoner Is Released
Some 150 supporters greeted Puerto Rican independence activist Norberto González Claudio at San Juan’s international airport on Jan. 15, hours after he was released from a federal prison in Coleman, Florida. González Claudio, a former member of the rebel Boricua Popular Army (EPB)-Macheteros, had served a three and one-half year prison term for his involvement in the group’s 1983 armed robbery of $7.1 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut—until then the largest heist on record. Arrested in May 2011 in the central Puerto Rican town of Cayey after spending 25 years as fugitive, González Claudio pleaded guilty in exchange for a shorter prison sentence [see Update #1133]. He was due to be released last September, but his time in Coleman was extended four months because of an alleged infraction. The activist’s relatives and colleagues saw this as part of a pattern of physical and psychological tortures they say he endured.
Supporters and relatives of another prisoner, Oscar López Rivera, were among the people greeting González Claudio at the airport. (El Nuevo Día (Guaynabo) 1/15/15; Univision 1/15/15 from Inter News Service; Hartford Courant 1/15/15 from AP)
López Rivera has been in the US prison system for 33 years for his role in another independence group, the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) [see Update #871]. He refused to accept a clemency offer in 1999 from then-US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and is now apparently the last prisoner from the group. Fellow FALN member Haydée Beltrán Torres was released in 2009, and her husband, Carlos Alberto Torres, was released in 2010.
González Claudio was the last prisoner from the Macheteros group, whose leader, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, was shot dead by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in September 2005 [see Update #1117]. Víctor Manuel Gerena, the Wells Fargo driver who carried out the 1983 robbery, is reportedly living in Cuba. Along with African-American activist Assata Shakur (formerly Joanne Chesimard) and FALN activist William Morales, Gerena has become a target of US politicians seeking the return of US political exiles from asylum in Cuba as a condition for improved relations between that country and the US [see World War 4 Report 12/24/15]. (Hunterdon County (NJ) Democrat 1/13/15)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
Did Iran kill Argentine prosecutor?
http://ww4report.com/node/13911#comment-452733
French Economist Piketty Blasts Vulture Funds in Argentina Tour
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/French-Economist-Piketty-Blasts-Vulture-Funds-in-Argentina-Tour-20150117-0017.html
Brazil Truth Commission Details Extent of Rape During Military Dictatorship
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/5187-brazil-truth-commission-details-extent-of-rape-during-military-dictatorship
Peru: protest legal assault on land rights
http://ww4report.com/node/13447#comment-452714
Peru: youth protest labor law
http://ww4report.com/node/13906
Ecuador: Defending the CONAIE beyond Its House
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/5178-ecuador-defending-the-conaie-beyond-its-house
Ecuador: Correa blinks in stand-off with CONAIE
http://ww4report.com/node/13898
Colombia: will government answer FARC ceasefire?
http://ww4report.com/node/13897
Are the FARC narco-traffickers?
http://ww4report.com/node/13903
Straight Talk on How Maduro Measures Up to Chávez (Venezuela)
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/09/maduro%27s-progress-economic-warfare
Economic Solutions: Two Perspectives from the Bolivarian Left (Venezuela)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11160
Rudy Giuliani Will Advise El Salvador on Security, Justice Reform
http://latindispatch.com/2015/01/12/rudy-giuliani-will-advise-el-salvador-on-security-justice-reform/
El Salvador: Archbishop Romero Declared Martyr
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5180-archbishop-romero-declared-martyr
El Salvador's Other Crisis
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5172-el-salvadors-other-crisis
Poor Guatemalans Are Taking On North American Mining Companies-and Have the Bullet Wounds to Prove It
https://www.thenation.com/article/194809/poor-guatemalans-are-taking-north-american-mining-companies-and-have-bullet-wounds-pr
Justice in Guatemala Deferred, Again (Audio)
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/14/justice-guatemala-deferred-again-audio
Guatemala postpones ex-dictator's genocide retrial
http://ww4report.com/node/13896
Trial on Guatemala’s Spanish Embassy Fire Resumes Today: The Rest is History (Video)
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/19/trial-guatemala%E2%80%99s-spanish-embassy-fire-resumes-today-rest-history-video
2015 US Appropriations Act Maintains Restrictions On US Military Aid To Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5186-2015-us-appropriations-act-maintains-restrictions-on-us-military-aid-to-guatemala
Ayotzinapa: 100 Days of Rage, Sorrow and Struggle in Guerrero
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/5181-ayotzinapa-100-days-of-rage-sorrow-and-struggle-in-guerrero
The L.A.-Ayotzinapa Connection (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14454
#Alertabachajón - Police Shoot at Indigenous Tseltales Trying to Recover Lands (Mexico)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/alertabachajon-police-shoot-indigenous-tseltales-trying-recover-lands/
Mexico’s Economy 2015: Boom, Bust or Burp?
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/mexicos-economy-2015-boom-bust-or-burp/
Mexican Labor 2014 in Review
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=232#1786
Farewell to the Grand Old Dean of Latin Journalism (Mexico)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/farewell-to-the-grand-old-dean-of-latin-journalism/
US Politicians Descend on Cuba as Normalization Process Begins
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-Politicians-Descend-on-Cuba-as-Normalization-Process-Begins-20150117-0014.html
Five Years After the Earthquake in Haiti, the Sad State of Democracy and Human Rights
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14409
It’s Been Five Years, and All the Money Raised is Gone: What did the Red Cross Accomplish in Haiti?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/its-been-five-years-and-all-the-money-raised-is-gone-what-did-the-red-cross-accomplish-in-haiti
Haitians Worry World Bank-Assisted Mining Law Could Result in “Looting”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5179-haitians-worry-world-bank-assisted-mining-law-could-result-in-looting
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
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Monday, January 19, 2015
Monday, January 12, 2015
WNU #1250: US Grants UN Immunity in Haiti Cholera Suit
Issue #1250, January 11, 2015
1. Haiti: US Grants UN Immunity in Cholera Suit
2. Peru: Fujimori Sentenced for Tabloid Bribery
3. Mexico: Protests Follow Peña to Washington
4. Latin America: Why Did Monsanto Profits Dip?
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, US/immigration
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
Note: The Update is ceasing publication on Feb. 15. In each of the remaining issues we will try to include some updated information on stories we covered in the past.
*1. Haiti: US Grants UN Immunity in Cholera Suit
On Jan. 9 a federal district judge in New York, J. Paul Oetken, dismissed a lawsuit seeking compensation from the United Nations (UN) for a cholera epidemic introduced into Haiti in October 2010 by infected soldiers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) [see Update #1238]. “The UN is immune from suit unless it expressly waives its immunity,” Judge Oetken wrote in his decision, which was based on the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN and a US appeals court ruling in a 2010 sexual discrimination case. Lawyers from the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), representing thousands of Haitian cholera victims, said they would appeal the decision, which came three days before the fifth anniversary of an earthquake that devastated much of southern Haiti.
The suit, Delama Georges, et al, v. United Nations, et al, was filed in October 2013. The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the UN was not entitled to immunity under the 1946 convention because the world organization failed to meet its obligation under the convention to establish a settlement process for the victims. A number of legal experts agreed with the plaintiffs’ position, filing three amicus curiae briefs with the court and arguing in support of the plaintiffs at a hearing in October 2014. The UN has never admitted its responsibility for the cholera outbreak and didn’t respond to the suit; the US government argued on the UN’s behalf. According to Haitian rights lawyer Mario Joseph, the president of the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI), Oetken’s ruling “implies that there is nowhere in the world [the victims] can turn to seek justice. That is irreconcilable with their human rights and basic notions of justice.” (IJDH press release 1/9/15; Reuters 1/10/15)
At least 8,774 Haitians had died of the cholera epidemic by Jan. 8, according to the DC-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Some 14,000 or more were sickened by the disease in 2014, and 243 died that year. The amount of money required for a program for the eradication of cholera in Haiti is estimated to be $2.2 billion; the amount pledged so far is $50 million. (Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch, CEPR, 1/8/15)
Arnel (or Anel) Alexis Joseph, the controversial president of the Superior Council of the Judicial Branch (CSPJ), offered his resignation on Jan. 7, as was recommended on Dec. 9 by an 11-member “consultative commission” that President Michel Martelly set up to resolve a political impasse; terms are set to expire for one-third of Haiti’s senators on Jan. 12, leaving the Senate without a quorum and possibly creating a constitutional crisis [see Update #1246]. Other people that the commission asked to resign, including former prime minister Laurent Lamothe and the members of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), had already complied. The Senate called for Joseph’s resignation back in 2012 on the grounds that he was past the maximum legal age for the post. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 1/7/15)
*2. Peru: Fujimori Sentenced for Tabloid Bribery
After a trial lasting more than a year, on Jan. 8 a Peruvian court sentenced former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) to eight years in prison for embezzlement. The court found that between 1998 and 2000 Fujimori diverted some $43 million from the military to the National Intelligence Service (SIN) in order to pay tabloid dailies to follow the government’s editorial line. The colorful tabloids--known in Peru as “diarios chicha” after a popular musical style—supported Fujimori’s campaign for reelection in 2000 by characterizing his opponents as communists, homosexuals and spies; some of the papers were actually created by Fujimori’s government for the purpose. The former president claimed in court on Dec. 29 that he didn’t know about the diversion of the money. In addition to the prison sentence, Fujimori lost his right to hold public office for three years and was ordered to pay a fine of 3 million soles (about US$1 million). (RRP (Peru) 1/8/15; El País (Madrid) 1/8/15 from correspondent)
This was the fifth conviction for Fujimori since 2007. On Dec. 11, 2007, he was found guilty of ordering an illegal search of the home of the wife of his former adviser Vladimiro Montesinos to seize compromising video tapes. On Apr. 7, 2009, a court sentenced him to 25 years in prison for two massacres of unarmed civilians carried out by the Colina Group, a death squad organized by military intelligence and allegedly reporting to the president: the November 1991 killing of 15 people at a family barbecue in the Barrios Altos neighborhood of Lima, and the July 1992 abduction and murder of nine university students and a professor from the Enrique Guzmán y Valle (La Cantuta) university; the group also kidnapped journalist Gustavo Gorriti and business owner Samuel Dyer in 1992 [see Update #1019]. Also in 2009, Fujimori was sentenced to seven years and six months for appropriating $15 million from the treasury for Montesinos; in a separate case, he was sentenced to six years for spying on phone calls, payoffs to the media and the buying of Congress members.
Although elected as a populist in 1990, Fujimori quickly imposed a harsh neoliberal program known as “Fujishock.” In 1992 he seized dictatorial powers with a “self-coup,” claiming this would clear the way for combating two leftist rebel movements. He fled the country in 2000 when his government’s massive corruption came to light, and sought asylum in Japan. In 2005 he went to Chile as part of a plan to return to Peru, but Chilean authorities imprisoned him and turned him over to the Peruvian government in 2007. The maximum sentence in Peru is 25 years, so the five sentences will run concurrently. Fujimori will theoretically be released in 2032, at the age of 94. (La República (Peru) 1/8/15; El País 1/8/15)
In other news, judicial authorities announced on Dec. 30 that Attorney General Carlos Ramos Heredia had been suspended from his post for six months to “safeguard the optimal development of the investigations” into charges that he impeded inquiries concerning alleged corruption in the central western department of Ancash. Officials there took $113 million in public funds between 2008 and 2011, according to Mesías Guevara, the president of the parliamentary commission investigating the allegations. Ramos Heredia told RPP radio that he would respect the suspension but wouldn’t resign. (Yahoo News 12/30/14 from AP)
*3. Mexico: Protests Follow Peña to Washington
Facing serious political and economic problems at home, on Jan. 6 Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto made his first official visit to Washington, DC, since taking office in December 2012. A private meeting at the White House with US president Barack Obama lasted longer than was scheduled, and the two presidents didn’t take questions when they spoke with the press afterwards. The US has been following the “tragic events” involving seven deaths and the abduction of 43 students the night of Sept. 26-27 in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero [see Update #1246], Obama told reporters, and the US would continue to aid in investigations and in the fight against drug cartels. Obama also praised Mexico’s efforts to keep Central American migrants from reaching the US border, especially during the child migrant “crisis” in the summer of 2014 [see Update #1237]. Peña Nieto promised that Mexico would help the US and Cuba normalize relations. (La Jornada (Mexico) 1/7/15)
In addition to facing massive protests against the Mexican political system since the Guerrero abductions, Peña Nieto’s government is having to deal with a drop in oil prices that has led to downward pressure on the peso. Now at $39.70 a barrel, the price of Mexico’s export oil plummeted by 61.23% from June 20, 2014 to Jan. 9 of this year, while the peso fell by 12.3%, ending up at 14.5 to the US dollar. (El Financiero (Mexico) 1/12/15)
As the two presidents were speaking, about 100 protesters, mostly Mexicans and Mexican Americans, rallied outside the White House. The protesters charged that the US government is supporting corruption and violence in Mexico through its Mérida Initiative, a program often referred to as “Plan Mexico,” in which the US funds anti-narcotics campaigns by Mexican security forces, themselves often linked to the cartels [see Update #952]. Among the participants in the rally was Nansi Cisneros, whose brother was kidnapped by men in police uniforms in the western state of Jalisco; a US citizen living in Los Angeles, Cisneros had written about her brother’s case on the Huffington Post news site.
There were similar protests that day in at least nine other US cities, including Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Seattle, organized by the USTired2 network [see Update #1245] and other groups to echo the demonstrations in Mexico. One of the protesters in Seattle was José Luis Avila, the husband of Nestora Salgado García, an imprisoned community police leader in Olinalá, Guerrero [see Update #1237]. (LJ 1/7/15)
On Jan. 8 the Guerrero government announced that it was dropping charges against Salgado “as a demonstration that this citizens’ government has been consistent in the search for peace and the harmonious development of Guerrero in all its aspects.” (LJ 1/8/15) As of Jan. 11 there had been no reports of her release.
In other news, the celebrated Mexican editor and investigative reporter Julio Scherer died on Jan. 7 at the age of 88. Scherer edited the influential daily El Excélsior from 1968 to 1976, when government pressure finally succeeded in getting the paper to remove him. He then founded the weekly Proceso, whose investigative reports have plagued Mexican politicians ever since--most recently in articles on alleged federal involvement in the abduction of the 43 students in Guerrero and on possible judicial favoritism for the brother of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari [see Updates #1246, 1248]. People that Scherer interviewed or attempted to interview ranged from Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet to Sinaloa cartel leader Ismael (“El Mayo”) Zambada García. The journalist claimed that he’d go to hell if the devil offered him an interview. (LJ 1/8/15)
*4. Latin America: Why Did Monsanto Profits Dip?
The Missouri-based biotech giant Monsanto Company announced on Jan. 7 that its revenues for September through November 2014, the first quarter of the company’s current fiscal year, fell to $2.87 billion from $3.14 billion for the same period the year before. The decline was less than analysts had expected. According to Bloomberg News, this was because the losses, including a 12% drop in corn seed sales, were partly offset by sales of Monsanto’s new Intacta soybeans, which the company says are genetically modified to withstand pests in South America. But the losses themselves were “in part, due to the reduction in sowing areas in South America,” the Spanish agricultural news site agroinformación.com reported. Agroinformación.com also cited resistance to the construction of a seed processing plant in Malvinas Argentinas in Argentina’s central Córdoba province [see Update #1204]. (Bloomberg 1/7/15; agroinformación.com 1/8/15)
In December residents of Malvinas Argentinas--a small working-class town near the provincial capital, also named Córdoba—celebrated their success so far in stopping Monsanto’s factory, which was to be the company’s largest South American seed processing plant. Since September 2013 residents have been blocking construction crews’ access to the site. Construction has in fact been suspended since January 2014, when an appeals court ordered the company to produce a new environmental impact study. Although the provincial government initially promoted the construction, in February the province’s Environmental Secretariat rejected the company’ new study. Monsanto is now reportedly looking at other sites.
Despite activists’ apparent success in Malvinas Argentinas—and a growing Latin American movement against Monsanto and other producers of genetically modified (GM) seeds [see Update #1232]—Argentina’s major farmers still rely heavily on the products. The country’s huge soybean crop is 100% transgenic, as are 92% of the cotton crop and 84% of the corn crop. The 23.9 million hectares of GM crop in the country represent the world’s third largest surface sowed with transgenic seed, after the US with 69.5 million hectares and Brazil with 36.6 million hectares. (BBC Mundo 12/14/14)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, US/immigration
The Agents of Unregulated Globalization vs. the Agents of the Fight against Climate Change (Latin America)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/the-agents-of-unregulated-globalization-vs-the-agents-of-the-fight-against-climate-change
Open Letter to Rafael Correa: Stop the Eviction of CONAIE (Ecuador)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/open-letter-rafael-correa-stop-eviction-conaie/
China Commits $20 Billion to Venezuela at First Latin America-China Forum in Beijing
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11143
Territories Free of Mining on the Rise in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/5170-territories-free-of-mining-on-the-rise-in-honduras-
Genocide Trial against Guatemalan Dictator Suspended Once Again
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Genocide-Trial-against-Guatemalan-Dictator-Suspended-Once-Again-20150105-0020.html
The Federal Police Not Only Knew, They Were There (Audio) (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/08/federal-police-not-only-knew-they-were-there-audio
‘Nothing Was an Accident That Night’: Mexican Federal Police Implicated in the Disappearance of the 43
http://www.thenation.com/blog/194073/nothing-was-accident-night-mexican-federal-police-implicated-disappearance-43
Popular Political Trial in Iguala (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14375
Led by Latinos, US Cities Organize to End Plan Mexico and Support Ayotzinapa
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14231
The Organizers Who Never Gave Up on the Cuban Five
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/12/organizers-who-never-gave-cuban-five
Haiti 5 Years After Devastating Earthquake
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12984
Haiti by the Numbers, Five Years Later
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/haiti-by-the-numbers-five-years-later
Haiti Cholera Suit Struck Down
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Haiti-Cholera-Suit-Struck-Down-20150110-0005.html
Monsanto Hires Marketing Firm to Poll Citizens on GMOs (Puerto Rico)
http://alainet.org/active/79925
Deportations to Dangerous Zones (US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/deportations-to-dangerous-zones/
No Alternative: Ankle Monitors Expand the Reach of Immigration Detention (US/immigration)
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/06/no-alternative-ankle-monitors-expand-reach-immigration-detention
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
1. Haiti: US Grants UN Immunity in Cholera Suit
2. Peru: Fujimori Sentenced for Tabloid Bribery
3. Mexico: Protests Follow Peña to Washington
4. Latin America: Why Did Monsanto Profits Dip?
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, US/immigration
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
Note: The Update is ceasing publication on Feb. 15. In each of the remaining issues we will try to include some updated information on stories we covered in the past.
*1. Haiti: US Grants UN Immunity in Cholera Suit
On Jan. 9 a federal district judge in New York, J. Paul Oetken, dismissed a lawsuit seeking compensation from the United Nations (UN) for a cholera epidemic introduced into Haiti in October 2010 by infected soldiers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) [see Update #1238]. “The UN is immune from suit unless it expressly waives its immunity,” Judge Oetken wrote in his decision, which was based on the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN and a US appeals court ruling in a 2010 sexual discrimination case. Lawyers from the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), representing thousands of Haitian cholera victims, said they would appeal the decision, which came three days before the fifth anniversary of an earthquake that devastated much of southern Haiti.
The suit, Delama Georges, et al, v. United Nations, et al, was filed in October 2013. The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the UN was not entitled to immunity under the 1946 convention because the world organization failed to meet its obligation under the convention to establish a settlement process for the victims. A number of legal experts agreed with the plaintiffs’ position, filing three amicus curiae briefs with the court and arguing in support of the plaintiffs at a hearing in October 2014. The UN has never admitted its responsibility for the cholera outbreak and didn’t respond to the suit; the US government argued on the UN’s behalf. According to Haitian rights lawyer Mario Joseph, the president of the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI), Oetken’s ruling “implies that there is nowhere in the world [the victims] can turn to seek justice. That is irreconcilable with their human rights and basic notions of justice.” (IJDH press release 1/9/15; Reuters 1/10/15)
At least 8,774 Haitians had died of the cholera epidemic by Jan. 8, according to the DC-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Some 14,000 or more were sickened by the disease in 2014, and 243 died that year. The amount of money required for a program for the eradication of cholera in Haiti is estimated to be $2.2 billion; the amount pledged so far is $50 million. (Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch, CEPR, 1/8/15)
Arnel (or Anel) Alexis Joseph, the controversial president of the Superior Council of the Judicial Branch (CSPJ), offered his resignation on Jan. 7, as was recommended on Dec. 9 by an 11-member “consultative commission” that President Michel Martelly set up to resolve a political impasse; terms are set to expire for one-third of Haiti’s senators on Jan. 12, leaving the Senate without a quorum and possibly creating a constitutional crisis [see Update #1246]. Other people that the commission asked to resign, including former prime minister Laurent Lamothe and the members of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), had already complied. The Senate called for Joseph’s resignation back in 2012 on the grounds that he was past the maximum legal age for the post. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 1/7/15)
*2. Peru: Fujimori Sentenced for Tabloid Bribery
After a trial lasting more than a year, on Jan. 8 a Peruvian court sentenced former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) to eight years in prison for embezzlement. The court found that between 1998 and 2000 Fujimori diverted some $43 million from the military to the National Intelligence Service (SIN) in order to pay tabloid dailies to follow the government’s editorial line. The colorful tabloids--known in Peru as “diarios chicha” after a popular musical style—supported Fujimori’s campaign for reelection in 2000 by characterizing his opponents as communists, homosexuals and spies; some of the papers were actually created by Fujimori’s government for the purpose. The former president claimed in court on Dec. 29 that he didn’t know about the diversion of the money. In addition to the prison sentence, Fujimori lost his right to hold public office for three years and was ordered to pay a fine of 3 million soles (about US$1 million). (RRP (Peru) 1/8/15; El País (Madrid) 1/8/15 from correspondent)
This was the fifth conviction for Fujimori since 2007. On Dec. 11, 2007, he was found guilty of ordering an illegal search of the home of the wife of his former adviser Vladimiro Montesinos to seize compromising video tapes. On Apr. 7, 2009, a court sentenced him to 25 years in prison for two massacres of unarmed civilians carried out by the Colina Group, a death squad organized by military intelligence and allegedly reporting to the president: the November 1991 killing of 15 people at a family barbecue in the Barrios Altos neighborhood of Lima, and the July 1992 abduction and murder of nine university students and a professor from the Enrique Guzmán y Valle (La Cantuta) university; the group also kidnapped journalist Gustavo Gorriti and business owner Samuel Dyer in 1992 [see Update #1019]. Also in 2009, Fujimori was sentenced to seven years and six months for appropriating $15 million from the treasury for Montesinos; in a separate case, he was sentenced to six years for spying on phone calls, payoffs to the media and the buying of Congress members.
Although elected as a populist in 1990, Fujimori quickly imposed a harsh neoliberal program known as “Fujishock.” In 1992 he seized dictatorial powers with a “self-coup,” claiming this would clear the way for combating two leftist rebel movements. He fled the country in 2000 when his government’s massive corruption came to light, and sought asylum in Japan. In 2005 he went to Chile as part of a plan to return to Peru, but Chilean authorities imprisoned him and turned him over to the Peruvian government in 2007. The maximum sentence in Peru is 25 years, so the five sentences will run concurrently. Fujimori will theoretically be released in 2032, at the age of 94. (La República (Peru) 1/8/15; El País 1/8/15)
In other news, judicial authorities announced on Dec. 30 that Attorney General Carlos Ramos Heredia had been suspended from his post for six months to “safeguard the optimal development of the investigations” into charges that he impeded inquiries concerning alleged corruption in the central western department of Ancash. Officials there took $113 million in public funds between 2008 and 2011, according to Mesías Guevara, the president of the parliamentary commission investigating the allegations. Ramos Heredia told RPP radio that he would respect the suspension but wouldn’t resign. (Yahoo News 12/30/14 from AP)
*3. Mexico: Protests Follow Peña to Washington
Facing serious political and economic problems at home, on Jan. 6 Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto made his first official visit to Washington, DC, since taking office in December 2012. A private meeting at the White House with US president Barack Obama lasted longer than was scheduled, and the two presidents didn’t take questions when they spoke with the press afterwards. The US has been following the “tragic events” involving seven deaths and the abduction of 43 students the night of Sept. 26-27 in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero [see Update #1246], Obama told reporters, and the US would continue to aid in investigations and in the fight against drug cartels. Obama also praised Mexico’s efforts to keep Central American migrants from reaching the US border, especially during the child migrant “crisis” in the summer of 2014 [see Update #1237]. Peña Nieto promised that Mexico would help the US and Cuba normalize relations. (La Jornada (Mexico) 1/7/15)
In addition to facing massive protests against the Mexican political system since the Guerrero abductions, Peña Nieto’s government is having to deal with a drop in oil prices that has led to downward pressure on the peso. Now at $39.70 a barrel, the price of Mexico’s export oil plummeted by 61.23% from June 20, 2014 to Jan. 9 of this year, while the peso fell by 12.3%, ending up at 14.5 to the US dollar. (El Financiero (Mexico) 1/12/15)
As the two presidents were speaking, about 100 protesters, mostly Mexicans and Mexican Americans, rallied outside the White House. The protesters charged that the US government is supporting corruption and violence in Mexico through its Mérida Initiative, a program often referred to as “Plan Mexico,” in which the US funds anti-narcotics campaigns by Mexican security forces, themselves often linked to the cartels [see Update #952]. Among the participants in the rally was Nansi Cisneros, whose brother was kidnapped by men in police uniforms in the western state of Jalisco; a US citizen living in Los Angeles, Cisneros had written about her brother’s case on the Huffington Post news site.
There were similar protests that day in at least nine other US cities, including Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Seattle, organized by the USTired2 network [see Update #1245] and other groups to echo the demonstrations in Mexico. One of the protesters in Seattle was José Luis Avila, the husband of Nestora Salgado García, an imprisoned community police leader in Olinalá, Guerrero [see Update #1237]. (LJ 1/7/15)
On Jan. 8 the Guerrero government announced that it was dropping charges against Salgado “as a demonstration that this citizens’ government has been consistent in the search for peace and the harmonious development of Guerrero in all its aspects.” (LJ 1/8/15) As of Jan. 11 there had been no reports of her release.
In other news, the celebrated Mexican editor and investigative reporter Julio Scherer died on Jan. 7 at the age of 88. Scherer edited the influential daily El Excélsior from 1968 to 1976, when government pressure finally succeeded in getting the paper to remove him. He then founded the weekly Proceso, whose investigative reports have plagued Mexican politicians ever since--most recently in articles on alleged federal involvement in the abduction of the 43 students in Guerrero and on possible judicial favoritism for the brother of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari [see Updates #1246, 1248]. People that Scherer interviewed or attempted to interview ranged from Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet to Sinaloa cartel leader Ismael (“El Mayo”) Zambada García. The journalist claimed that he’d go to hell if the devil offered him an interview. (LJ 1/8/15)
*4. Latin America: Why Did Monsanto Profits Dip?
The Missouri-based biotech giant Monsanto Company announced on Jan. 7 that its revenues for September through November 2014, the first quarter of the company’s current fiscal year, fell to $2.87 billion from $3.14 billion for the same period the year before. The decline was less than analysts had expected. According to Bloomberg News, this was because the losses, including a 12% drop in corn seed sales, were partly offset by sales of Monsanto’s new Intacta soybeans, which the company says are genetically modified to withstand pests in South America. But the losses themselves were “in part, due to the reduction in sowing areas in South America,” the Spanish agricultural news site agroinformación.com reported. Agroinformación.com also cited resistance to the construction of a seed processing plant in Malvinas Argentinas in Argentina’s central Córdoba province [see Update #1204]. (Bloomberg 1/7/15; agroinformación.com 1/8/15)
In December residents of Malvinas Argentinas--a small working-class town near the provincial capital, also named Córdoba—celebrated their success so far in stopping Monsanto’s factory, which was to be the company’s largest South American seed processing plant. Since September 2013 residents have been blocking construction crews’ access to the site. Construction has in fact been suspended since January 2014, when an appeals court ordered the company to produce a new environmental impact study. Although the provincial government initially promoted the construction, in February the province’s Environmental Secretariat rejected the company’ new study. Monsanto is now reportedly looking at other sites.
Despite activists’ apparent success in Malvinas Argentinas—and a growing Latin American movement against Monsanto and other producers of genetically modified (GM) seeds [see Update #1232]—Argentina’s major farmers still rely heavily on the products. The country’s huge soybean crop is 100% transgenic, as are 92% of the cotton crop and 84% of the corn crop. The 23.9 million hectares of GM crop in the country represent the world’s third largest surface sowed with transgenic seed, after the US with 69.5 million hectares and Brazil with 36.6 million hectares. (BBC Mundo 12/14/14)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, US/immigration
The Agents of Unregulated Globalization vs. the Agents of the Fight against Climate Change (Latin America)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/the-agents-of-unregulated-globalization-vs-the-agents-of-the-fight-against-climate-change
Open Letter to Rafael Correa: Stop the Eviction of CONAIE (Ecuador)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/open-letter-rafael-correa-stop-eviction-conaie/
China Commits $20 Billion to Venezuela at First Latin America-China Forum in Beijing
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11143
Territories Free of Mining on the Rise in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/5170-territories-free-of-mining-on-the-rise-in-honduras-
Genocide Trial against Guatemalan Dictator Suspended Once Again
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Genocide-Trial-against-Guatemalan-Dictator-Suspended-Once-Again-20150105-0020.html
The Federal Police Not Only Knew, They Were There (Audio) (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/08/federal-police-not-only-knew-they-were-there-audio
‘Nothing Was an Accident That Night’: Mexican Federal Police Implicated in the Disappearance of the 43
http://www.thenation.com/blog/194073/nothing-was-accident-night-mexican-federal-police-implicated-disappearance-43
Popular Political Trial in Iguala (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14375
Led by Latinos, US Cities Organize to End Plan Mexico and Support Ayotzinapa
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14231
The Organizers Who Never Gave Up on the Cuban Five
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/12/organizers-who-never-gave-cuban-five
Haiti 5 Years After Devastating Earthquake
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12984
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/haiti-by-the-numbers-five-years-later
Haiti Cholera Suit Struck Down
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Haiti-Cholera-Suit-Struck-Down-20150110-0005.html
Monsanto Hires Marketing Firm to Poll Citizens on GMOs (Puerto Rico)
http://alainet.org/active/79925
Deportations to Dangerous Zones (US/immigration)
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/deportations-to-dangerous-zones/
No Alternative: Ankle Monitors Expand the Reach of Immigration Detention (US/immigration)
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/06/no-alternative-ankle-monitors-expand-reach-immigration-detention
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
Friday, January 9, 2015
Five Years Since Haiti’s Earthquake
Jan. 12 will be the fifth anniversary of the earthquake that hit southern Haiti in 2010, destroying much of Port-au-Prince and killing tens of thousands of people.
The US media will of course run anniversary articles, at least some of them expressing astonishment that so little has improved in Haiti despite billions in aid and the international community’s promise, in Bill Clinton’s words, to “build back better.” But the situation is no surprise for people who have followed Haiti news over the years. It was predictable, and in fact, many people predicted it.
To give some perspective on the anniversary, we’re linking to two old articles by an Update editor about the earthquake’s aftermath:
Helping Haiti: Our Dollars Aren't Enough
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson300110.html
Why Haiti Wasn’t “Built Back Better”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/3582--why-haiti-wasnt-built-back-better
Below are links to additional articles describing the editor’s experiences in the five days after the earthquake:
Singing and Praying at Night in Port-au-Prince
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson140110.html
Day 2 in Port-au-Prince: ‘Young Men with Crowbars'
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson180110.html
Day Three in Port-au-Prince: ‘A difficult situation’
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson210110.html
Day 4 in Port-au-Prince: On the Veranda
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-4-in-port-au-prince-on-veranda.html
Days 5 and 6 in Port-au-Prince: Escape From Katrina
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/08/days-5-and-6-in-port-au-prince-escape.html
The US media will of course run anniversary articles, at least some of them expressing astonishment that so little has improved in Haiti despite billions in aid and the international community’s promise, in Bill Clinton’s words, to “build back better.” But the situation is no surprise for people who have followed Haiti news over the years. It was predictable, and in fact, many people predicted it.
To give some perspective on the anniversary, we’re linking to two old articles by an Update editor about the earthquake’s aftermath:
Helping Haiti: Our Dollars Aren't Enough
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson300110.html
Why Haiti Wasn’t “Built Back Better”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/3582--why-haiti-wasnt-built-back-better
Below are links to additional articles describing the editor’s experiences in the five days after the earthquake:
Singing and Praying at Night in Port-au-Prince
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson140110.html
Day 2 in Port-au-Prince: ‘Young Men with Crowbars'
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson180110.html
Day Three in Port-au-Prince: ‘A difficult situation’
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson210110.html
Day 4 in Port-au-Prince: On the Veranda
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-4-in-port-au-prince-on-veranda.html
Days 5 and 6 in Port-au-Prince: Escape From Katrina
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/08/days-5-and-6-in-port-au-prince-escape.html
Monday, January 5, 2015
WNU #1249: Chile Court Hands Barrick Gold a New Setback
Issue #1249, January 4, 2015
1. Chile: Court Rejects New Pascua Lama Appeal
2. Colombia: OAS Court Rules on Palace of Justice Deaths
3. Colombia: Rights Suits Against US Firms Dismissed
4. Haiti: Martelly Names New Prime Minister
5. Puerto Rico: More Cleanup Needed for Vieques
6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
Note: The Update is ceasing publication on Feb. 15. In each of the remaining issues we will try to include some updated information on stories we covered in the past.
*1. Chile: Court Rejects New Pascua Lama Appeal
The Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation, the world’s largest gold producer, faced another setback to its mammoth Pascua Lama gold and silver mine [see Update #1198] in late December when Chile’s Supreme Court rejected its appeal of a lower court’s decision on environmental fines. Barrick’s Chilean subsidiary, Compañía Minera Nevada SPA, was disputing an environmental court’s March 2013 ruling that a fine the government’s Environmental Bureau had imposed on Barrick was inadequate. In a decision announced on Dec. 30, a Supreme Court panel rejected the appeal on a technicality: the justices held that Minera Nevada wasn’t a party to the original case and therefore couldn’t appeal the environmental court’s ruling.
Situated high in the Andes on both sides of the border between Argentina and Chile, the Pascua Lama project, planned as one of the world’s largest gold and silver mines, has been met with numerous challenges from environmentalists and local communities, especially over the risks it is said to represent for Andean glaciers. The challenges have been especially effective in Chile, where Barrick is currently facing fines of more than $16 million for violations by the project. The company suspended construction in November 2013 but has indicated that it hopes to restart construction of the mine.
In a statement dated Dec. 31, a group of 10 local and environmental organizations opposing the mine said the Supreme Court decision was “an important step and once again ratifies our objectives, which are the revocation of the environmental permit [for the construction] and the definitive closing of the Pascua Lama project…. Irreparable damage has been done in our mountain range; we will not accept any monetary fine; this doesn’t bring any solution to the constantly irresponsible and criminal attitude of the Barrick mining company in our territory.” (El Mostrador Mercados (Chile) 12/31/14; Wall Street Journal 12/31/14; Piensa Chile 1/3/15)
*2. Colombia: OAS Court Rules on Palace of Justice Deaths
On Dec. 10 the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CorteIDH), an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), notified the Colombian government that the court held it responsible for serious human rights violations in its handling of the seizure of the Palace of Justice by the Apr. 19 Movement (M-19) rebel group on Nov. 6, 1985. The violations included 11 forced disappearances, four cases of torture, one extrajudicial execution and negligence in the investigation of the security forces’ retaking of the building one day later, on Nov. 7, an operation in which more than 100 people died, mostly hostages and rebels. The court ordered the Colombian government to pay compensation to the victims, offer a formal and public apology, and produce a documentary explaining what happened.
Apparently the M-19, which demobilized in 1991, planned to use the Palace of Justice takeover to stage a trial of then-president Belisario Betancur (1982–1986) for problems in the government’s peace negotiations with the group. Military intelligence was aware of the rebels’ plans but failed to provide protection for the building. After a commando of 35 M-19 fighters seized the Palace of Justice, the government refused to hold substantive negotiations. Instead, President Betancur gave military commanders permission to storm the building with soldiers, police and armored vehicles. Almost all of the rebels died in the assault, along with 11 of the 25 justices of the Supreme Court and dozens of other hostages. The building caught on fire and was largely destroyed, as were thousands of court documents.
At the end of the assault, the military seized a group of survivors, including visitors, workers from the cafeteria and one rebel, Irma Franco, calling them “suspects.” Franco was killed, and 11 of the survivors have never reappeared. The military also tortured four people, and tortured and then executed a magistrate, Carlos Horacio Urán; his body was placed back in the building to make it appear that he was killed in crossfire. (Colombia Reports 12/10/14; Univision 12/15/14; Adital (Brazil) 12/17/14, some from Verdad Abierta;
The government has never accepted its responsibility in the violence. “The judicial institutions…for nearly 30 years have obstructed the investigations, in favor of the perpetrators,” Viviana Krsticevic, executive director of the nongovernmental Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), wrote after the decision was released. In recent years the government finally prosecuted two of the top commanders: retired colonel Alfonso Plazas Vega was sentenced in June 2010 to 30 years in prison for his involvement in the case of the 11 people disappeared [see World War 4 Report, 6/20/14], and retired general Jesús Armando Arias Cabrales received a 35-year sentence in April 2011 for the disappearances. However, efforts are under way to have Col. Plazas’ conviction overturned.
The Colombian government announced that it would comply with the CorteIDF’s orders. “If this promise is respected,” Krsticevic wrote, “the case of the Palace of Justice will mark a ‘before’ and ‘after’ for Colombia.” (Semana (Colombia) 04/29/11; Colombia Reports 12/10/14; Univision 12/15/14)
In late December the Colombian government’s Unit for Comprehensive Attention and Reparation for Victims of the Armed Conflict issued its first official list of victims from the last 30 years of internal fighting. The agency put the total at 6.8 million, about one-seventh of the country’s 48 million inhabitants. Of these, 86% are people who were forcibly displaced, according to the group’s director, Paula Gaviria. The remaining 14% are “victims of threats, homicide, forced disappearance; and, in a lower proportion, of kidnapping, sexual violence, plundering or neglect of goods, wounding, torture, forced recruitment of children, and attacks,” she said. Gaviria claims that the government is now actively working to return 4.7 million of the displaced to their homes or to compensate them in some other way. About 2.7 million of the victims blamed rebels groups for their victimization, 1.3 million blamed rightwing paramilitaries, 2.9 million didn’t assign blame, and only 28,833 blamed government security forces, according to Gaviria, who is a grandchild of former president Betancur. (El Tiempo (Colombia) 12/28/14)
*3. Colombia: Rights Suits Against US Firms Dismissed
On Dec. 15 the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district court judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit against the Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corporation by family members of three union leaders that the 18th Brigade of the Colombian National Army killed in 2004. In the suit, Saldana v. Occidental Petroleum Corp, the family members argued that under the 1789 Alien Tort Statute the US company shared responsibility for the killings by the Colombian military, which originally claimed that the three unionists were guerrilla fighters. Occidental’s Colombian subsidiary and the Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol together gave $6.3 million in assistance to the brigade; the companies said the aid was intended to help the brigade protect a pipeline near the border with Venezuela that rebel groups were attacking.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court, which is based in San Francisco, ruled in an unsigned opinion that the suit treated an inherently political question which couldn’t be argued in a US court. (New York Times 12/15/14 from Reuters)
This was the latest in a string of defeats for human rights suits since April 2013, when a US Supreme Court ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum severely restricted victims’ use of the Alien Tort Statute for abuses committed in foreign countries [see Updates #1187, 1205]. On Nov. 12 another 9th Circuit Court panel threw out a similar suit against Occidental and a US security contractor, AirScan, Inc., for the killing of 17 people, including six children, in the Colombian air force’s Dec. 13, 1998 cluster bomb attack on the village of Santo Domingo, Tame municipality, Arauca department. The 2-1 split decision cited the Kiobel case in dismissing the suit’s use of the Alien Tort Statue. The suit, Mujica et al v. AirScan Inc et al, also cited the Torture Victim Protection Act, but the court held that the law doesn’t apply to corporate defendants. The decision was written by Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, who as assistant US attorney general in 2002 produced--along with his deputy, John Yoo--the so-called “torture memo” justifying the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects. (Daily Mail (UK) 11/12/14 from Reuters)
On July 24 the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a 2007 suit against Charlotte, NC-based Chiquita Brands International Inc by some 4,000 Colombians whose relatives were killed by the rightwing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) [see Update #1193]. In 2007 Chiquita admitted to having paid out $1.7 million to the AUC over seven years; the US government fined the company $25 million for supporting a terrorist organization. In a 2-1 decision the 11th Circuit Court, which is based in Atlanta, ruled out the use of the Alien Tort Statute and, like the 9th Circuit Court, held that Torture Victim Protection Act only applies to people, not to corporations. The decision was written by Judge David Sentelle. Paul Wolf, who represents many of the plaintiffs, called the dismissal of the suit “another tragedy for the victims of the war, who have already been through so much.” (BBC News 7/24/14)
*4. Haiti: Martelly Names New Prime Minister
The heads of the three branches of the Haitian government reached an accord late on Dec. 29 aimed at heading off a constitutional crisis when the terms of one-third of the country’s senators expire on Jan. 12, leaving the Parliament without a quorum [see Update #1246]. The agreement—signed by Haitian president Michel Martelly, Senate president Simon Dieuseul Desras, Chamber of Deputies president Jacques Stevenson Thimoléon and Superior Council of the Judicial Branch (CSPJ) president Arnel Alexis Joseph—extends terms to April for current members of the Chamber of Deputies and to September for current senators. The term extension will be inserted into legislation amending the electoral law and will only take effect if Parliament passes it by Jan. 12. In the event that the long-stalled election law is passed, the government can proceed to form a new Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and schedule legislative, municipal and local elections, which have been delayed since 2011. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 12/30/14)
The agreement is one of several efforts by President Martelly’s government to counter a stream of militant opposition protests since the fall. On Dec. 25 Martelly nominated longtime politician Evans Paul to replace former prime minister Laurent Lamothe, a friend of the president’s who was pressured into resigning on Dec. 12. Paul started his political career as a radio journalist under the dictatorship of the late “president for life” Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Baby Doc,” 1971-1986). Using the name K-Plim--short for “Konpè Plim,” which is roughly equivalent to “Partner Pen” or “Brother Pen”--Paul was critical of the Duvalier regime and became an ally of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004), then a left-leaning Catholic priest. Elected Port-au-Prince mayor in 1990 as an Aristide supporter, Paul eventually became a bitter enemy of the former priest. (Reuters 12/15/14) In 2010, however, Paul joined an alliance some observers called “unnatural” because it brought together Aristide supporters and opponents in protests against then-president René Préval (1996-2001, 2006-2011) [see Update #1033].
Also as part of the concessions to the opposition, Martelly has released some 40 prisoners who the opposition says were jailed for their political activities. The latest was Jean Robert Vincent, arrested in February 2012, reportedly for distributing materials against the Martelly administration; he was freed on Dec. 30. The brothers Enold and Josué Florestal were released about two weeks before Vincent. The Florestals faced a murder accusation, but the charge came after they started a suit in August 2012 alleging corruption and misuse of titles by Martelly’s wife, Sophia Saint-Rémy, and his son, Olivier Martelly. The prisoner releases started in December, just one month after a Nov. 2 interview with TV5 Monde, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Le Monde in which Martelly said he wasn’t aware “that there are demonstrators in prison” or that there were political prisoners in Haiti. (AlterPresse 12/31/14)
In other news, Uruguay’s General Assembly has decided to reduce its contingent in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) by about 60%--from 605 to 250—between Feb. 28 and Dec. 31, according to the Spanish wire service EFE. Adopted unanimously by the Senate, the troop reduction measure was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on Dec. 29. Uruguay’s center-left government has indicated that a complete withdrawal of the troops is also possible, depending on circumstances. Activists in a number of South American countries have been campaigning for an end to their militaries’ participation in the mission, a military-police operation stationed in Haiti since June 2004 [see Update #1238]. (AlterPresse 12/30/14)
*5. Puerto Rico: More Cleanup Needed for Vieques
As of Dec. 11 authorities had closed the Playa Grande beach area in the western region of a national wildlife refuge on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques following the discovery of pieces of inactive munitions there. The US Environmental Protection Agency said the US Navy had removed a projectile, a mortar tail and other objects, although officials insisted that the materials didn’t pose any danger to visitors. The munitions are left over from the Navy’s use of Vieques for testing weapons from the 1940s until May 2003, when mass civil disobedience by Vieques residents and their supporters forced the Navy to withdraw. A total of 1,640 arrests were made from 1999 to 2003 as activists carried out militant protests, including a yearlong occupation of the bombing range. Federal judges handed down jail sentences to protesters totaling 26 years, along with fines totaling $50,980 [see Update #692].
Most of the territory used by the Navy was turned over to the US Department of the Interior in 2003, although the Vieques municipal government received a portion. Cleanup operations began in 2004. Over the past 10 years the US has spent about $220 million removing 28,000 objects, including munitions, bombs, other artifacts and residue from explosives. According to Pedro Pierluisi, the US Congress’s resident commissioner in Puerto Rico, Congress members are seeking an additional $17 million for cleanup efforts next year. Puerto Rican governance secretary Víctor Suárez said a delegation of US experts would be visiting to examine the possibility that new technology could be used to accelerate the cleanup effort. (Associated Press 12/11/14; Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 1/2/15)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico
Torture Reports: Brazil and the United States Release Reports Documenting Systematic Human Rights Abuses
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/5165-torture-reports-brazil-and-the-united-states-release-reports-documenting-systematic-human-rights-abuses-
Indigenous Bolivia begins to shine under Morales
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5161-indigenous-bolivia-begins-to-shine-under-morales-
Peruvian Communities Reject COP 20 and Build the Movement of the People for El Buen Vivir
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/5164-peruvian-communities-reject-cop-20-and-build-the-movement-of-the-people-for-el-buen-vivir
Climate Change Threatens Quechua and Their Crops in Peru’s Andes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/5167-climate-change-threatens-quechua-and-their-crops-in-perus-andes
Why Is Ecuador Selling Its Economic and Environmental Future to China?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5160-why-is-ecuador-selling-its-economic-and-environmental-future-to-china-
Maduro Confirms Venezuelan Economy in Recession, Announces “Recovery Plan” for 2015
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11122
Former Guatemala Dictator to Stand Trial Again for Genocide
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Former-Guatemala-Dictator-to-Stand-Trial-Again-for-Genocide-20150103-0004.html
Remembering Guatemala’s First Genocide Conviction as the Trial Resumes Today
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/05/remembering-guatemala%E2%80%99s-first-genocide-conviction-trial-resumes-today
Maya Land Rights & Governance (Belize)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/maya-land-rights-governance/
The U.S. and Mexico: Hand-in-Hand in Human Rights Violations
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-u-s-and-mexico-hand-in-hand-in-human-rights-violations/
Complicity and Cover-Ups in Mexican Massacres (Audio)
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/30/complicity-and-cover-ups-mexican-massacres-audio
Chicago link to Mexican mass abduction?
http://ww4report.com/node/13862
Cuba: #YoTambienExijo and 'regime change'
http://ww4report.com/node/13868
A View on Cuba's Opening From the De Facto U.S. Colony of Puerto Rico
https://nacla.org/blog/2014/12/29/view-cuba-opening-de-facto-us-colony-puerto-rico
Dissecting the Drug War: New Book Charts Ways Global Capitalism Profits From "War on People" (US/policy)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/5166-dissecting-the-drug-war-new-book-charts-ways-global-capitalism-profits-from-qwar-on-peopleq
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
1. Chile: Court Rejects New Pascua Lama Appeal
2. Colombia: OAS Court Rules on Palace of Justice Deaths
3. Colombia: Rights Suits Against US Firms Dismissed
4. Haiti: Martelly Names New Prime Minister
5. Puerto Rico: More Cleanup Needed for Vieques
6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
Note: The Update is ceasing publication on Feb. 15. In each of the remaining issues we will try to include some updated information on stories we covered in the past.
*1. Chile: Court Rejects New Pascua Lama Appeal
The Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation, the world’s largest gold producer, faced another setback to its mammoth Pascua Lama gold and silver mine [see Update #1198] in late December when Chile’s Supreme Court rejected its appeal of a lower court’s decision on environmental fines. Barrick’s Chilean subsidiary, Compañía Minera Nevada SPA, was disputing an environmental court’s March 2013 ruling that a fine the government’s Environmental Bureau had imposed on Barrick was inadequate. In a decision announced on Dec. 30, a Supreme Court panel rejected the appeal on a technicality: the justices held that Minera Nevada wasn’t a party to the original case and therefore couldn’t appeal the environmental court’s ruling.
Situated high in the Andes on both sides of the border between Argentina and Chile, the Pascua Lama project, planned as one of the world’s largest gold and silver mines, has been met with numerous challenges from environmentalists and local communities, especially over the risks it is said to represent for Andean glaciers. The challenges have been especially effective in Chile, where Barrick is currently facing fines of more than $16 million for violations by the project. The company suspended construction in November 2013 but has indicated that it hopes to restart construction of the mine.
In a statement dated Dec. 31, a group of 10 local and environmental organizations opposing the mine said the Supreme Court decision was “an important step and once again ratifies our objectives, which are the revocation of the environmental permit [for the construction] and the definitive closing of the Pascua Lama project…. Irreparable damage has been done in our mountain range; we will not accept any monetary fine; this doesn’t bring any solution to the constantly irresponsible and criminal attitude of the Barrick mining company in our territory.” (El Mostrador Mercados (Chile) 12/31/14; Wall Street Journal 12/31/14; Piensa Chile 1/3/15)
*2. Colombia: OAS Court Rules on Palace of Justice Deaths
On Dec. 10 the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CorteIDH), an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), notified the Colombian government that the court held it responsible for serious human rights violations in its handling of the seizure of the Palace of Justice by the Apr. 19 Movement (M-19) rebel group on Nov. 6, 1985. The violations included 11 forced disappearances, four cases of torture, one extrajudicial execution and negligence in the investigation of the security forces’ retaking of the building one day later, on Nov. 7, an operation in which more than 100 people died, mostly hostages and rebels. The court ordered the Colombian government to pay compensation to the victims, offer a formal and public apology, and produce a documentary explaining what happened.
Apparently the M-19, which demobilized in 1991, planned to use the Palace of Justice takeover to stage a trial of then-president Belisario Betancur (1982–1986) for problems in the government’s peace negotiations with the group. Military intelligence was aware of the rebels’ plans but failed to provide protection for the building. After a commando of 35 M-19 fighters seized the Palace of Justice, the government refused to hold substantive negotiations. Instead, President Betancur gave military commanders permission to storm the building with soldiers, police and armored vehicles. Almost all of the rebels died in the assault, along with 11 of the 25 justices of the Supreme Court and dozens of other hostages. The building caught on fire and was largely destroyed, as were thousands of court documents.
At the end of the assault, the military seized a group of survivors, including visitors, workers from the cafeteria and one rebel, Irma Franco, calling them “suspects.” Franco was killed, and 11 of the survivors have never reappeared. The military also tortured four people, and tortured and then executed a magistrate, Carlos Horacio Urán; his body was placed back in the building to make it appear that he was killed in crossfire. (Colombia Reports 12/10/14; Univision 12/15/14; Adital (Brazil) 12/17/14, some from Verdad Abierta;
The government has never accepted its responsibility in the violence. “The judicial institutions…for nearly 30 years have obstructed the investigations, in favor of the perpetrators,” Viviana Krsticevic, executive director of the nongovernmental Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), wrote after the decision was released. In recent years the government finally prosecuted two of the top commanders: retired colonel Alfonso Plazas Vega was sentenced in June 2010 to 30 years in prison for his involvement in the case of the 11 people disappeared [see World War 4 Report, 6/20/14], and retired general Jesús Armando Arias Cabrales received a 35-year sentence in April 2011 for the disappearances. However, efforts are under way to have Col. Plazas’ conviction overturned.
The Colombian government announced that it would comply with the CorteIDF’s orders. “If this promise is respected,” Krsticevic wrote, “the case of the Palace of Justice will mark a ‘before’ and ‘after’ for Colombia.” (Semana (Colombia) 04/29/11; Colombia Reports 12/10/14; Univision 12/15/14)
In late December the Colombian government’s Unit for Comprehensive Attention and Reparation for Victims of the Armed Conflict issued its first official list of victims from the last 30 years of internal fighting. The agency put the total at 6.8 million, about one-seventh of the country’s 48 million inhabitants. Of these, 86% are people who were forcibly displaced, according to the group’s director, Paula Gaviria. The remaining 14% are “victims of threats, homicide, forced disappearance; and, in a lower proportion, of kidnapping, sexual violence, plundering or neglect of goods, wounding, torture, forced recruitment of children, and attacks,” she said. Gaviria claims that the government is now actively working to return 4.7 million of the displaced to their homes or to compensate them in some other way. About 2.7 million of the victims blamed rebels groups for their victimization, 1.3 million blamed rightwing paramilitaries, 2.9 million didn’t assign blame, and only 28,833 blamed government security forces, according to Gaviria, who is a grandchild of former president Betancur. (El Tiempo (Colombia) 12/28/14)
*3. Colombia: Rights Suits Against US Firms Dismissed
On Dec. 15 the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district court judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit against the Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corporation by family members of three union leaders that the 18th Brigade of the Colombian National Army killed in 2004. In the suit, Saldana v. Occidental Petroleum Corp, the family members argued that under the 1789 Alien Tort Statute the US company shared responsibility for the killings by the Colombian military, which originally claimed that the three unionists were guerrilla fighters. Occidental’s Colombian subsidiary and the Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol together gave $6.3 million in assistance to the brigade; the companies said the aid was intended to help the brigade protect a pipeline near the border with Venezuela that rebel groups were attacking.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court, which is based in San Francisco, ruled in an unsigned opinion that the suit treated an inherently political question which couldn’t be argued in a US court. (New York Times 12/15/14 from Reuters)
This was the latest in a string of defeats for human rights suits since April 2013, when a US Supreme Court ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum severely restricted victims’ use of the Alien Tort Statute for abuses committed in foreign countries [see Updates #1187, 1205]. On Nov. 12 another 9th Circuit Court panel threw out a similar suit against Occidental and a US security contractor, AirScan, Inc., for the killing of 17 people, including six children, in the Colombian air force’s Dec. 13, 1998 cluster bomb attack on the village of Santo Domingo, Tame municipality, Arauca department. The 2-1 split decision cited the Kiobel case in dismissing the suit’s use of the Alien Tort Statue. The suit, Mujica et al v. AirScan Inc et al, also cited the Torture Victim Protection Act, but the court held that the law doesn’t apply to corporate defendants. The decision was written by Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, who as assistant US attorney general in 2002 produced--along with his deputy, John Yoo--the so-called “torture memo” justifying the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects. (Daily Mail (UK) 11/12/14 from Reuters)
On July 24 the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a 2007 suit against Charlotte, NC-based Chiquita Brands International Inc by some 4,000 Colombians whose relatives were killed by the rightwing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) [see Update #1193]. In 2007 Chiquita admitted to having paid out $1.7 million to the AUC over seven years; the US government fined the company $25 million for supporting a terrorist organization. In a 2-1 decision the 11th Circuit Court, which is based in Atlanta, ruled out the use of the Alien Tort Statute and, like the 9th Circuit Court, held that Torture Victim Protection Act only applies to people, not to corporations. The decision was written by Judge David Sentelle. Paul Wolf, who represents many of the plaintiffs, called the dismissal of the suit “another tragedy for the victims of the war, who have already been through so much.” (BBC News 7/24/14)
*4. Haiti: Martelly Names New Prime Minister
The heads of the three branches of the Haitian government reached an accord late on Dec. 29 aimed at heading off a constitutional crisis when the terms of one-third of the country’s senators expire on Jan. 12, leaving the Parliament without a quorum [see Update #1246]. The agreement—signed by Haitian president Michel Martelly, Senate president Simon Dieuseul Desras, Chamber of Deputies president Jacques Stevenson Thimoléon and Superior Council of the Judicial Branch (CSPJ) president Arnel Alexis Joseph—extends terms to April for current members of the Chamber of Deputies and to September for current senators. The term extension will be inserted into legislation amending the electoral law and will only take effect if Parliament passes it by Jan. 12. In the event that the long-stalled election law is passed, the government can proceed to form a new Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and schedule legislative, municipal and local elections, which have been delayed since 2011. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 12/30/14)
The agreement is one of several efforts by President Martelly’s government to counter a stream of militant opposition protests since the fall. On Dec. 25 Martelly nominated longtime politician Evans Paul to replace former prime minister Laurent Lamothe, a friend of the president’s who was pressured into resigning on Dec. 12. Paul started his political career as a radio journalist under the dictatorship of the late “president for life” Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Baby Doc,” 1971-1986). Using the name K-Plim--short for “Konpè Plim,” which is roughly equivalent to “Partner Pen” or “Brother Pen”--Paul was critical of the Duvalier regime and became an ally of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004), then a left-leaning Catholic priest. Elected Port-au-Prince mayor in 1990 as an Aristide supporter, Paul eventually became a bitter enemy of the former priest. (Reuters 12/15/14) In 2010, however, Paul joined an alliance some observers called “unnatural” because it brought together Aristide supporters and opponents in protests against then-president René Préval (1996-2001, 2006-2011) [see Update #1033].
Also as part of the concessions to the opposition, Martelly has released some 40 prisoners who the opposition says were jailed for their political activities. The latest was Jean Robert Vincent, arrested in February 2012, reportedly for distributing materials against the Martelly administration; he was freed on Dec. 30. The brothers Enold and Josué Florestal were released about two weeks before Vincent. The Florestals faced a murder accusation, but the charge came after they started a suit in August 2012 alleging corruption and misuse of titles by Martelly’s wife, Sophia Saint-Rémy, and his son, Olivier Martelly. The prisoner releases started in December, just one month after a Nov. 2 interview with TV5 Monde, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Le Monde in which Martelly said he wasn’t aware “that there are demonstrators in prison” or that there were political prisoners in Haiti. (AlterPresse 12/31/14)
In other news, Uruguay’s General Assembly has decided to reduce its contingent in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) by about 60%--from 605 to 250—between Feb. 28 and Dec. 31, according to the Spanish wire service EFE. Adopted unanimously by the Senate, the troop reduction measure was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on Dec. 29. Uruguay’s center-left government has indicated that a complete withdrawal of the troops is also possible, depending on circumstances. Activists in a number of South American countries have been campaigning for an end to their militaries’ participation in the mission, a military-police operation stationed in Haiti since June 2004 [see Update #1238]. (AlterPresse 12/30/14)
*5. Puerto Rico: More Cleanup Needed for Vieques
As of Dec. 11 authorities had closed the Playa Grande beach area in the western region of a national wildlife refuge on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques following the discovery of pieces of inactive munitions there. The US Environmental Protection Agency said the US Navy had removed a projectile, a mortar tail and other objects, although officials insisted that the materials didn’t pose any danger to visitors. The munitions are left over from the Navy’s use of Vieques for testing weapons from the 1940s until May 2003, when mass civil disobedience by Vieques residents and their supporters forced the Navy to withdraw. A total of 1,640 arrests were made from 1999 to 2003 as activists carried out militant protests, including a yearlong occupation of the bombing range. Federal judges handed down jail sentences to protesters totaling 26 years, along with fines totaling $50,980 [see Update #692].
Most of the territory used by the Navy was turned over to the US Department of the Interior in 2003, although the Vieques municipal government received a portion. Cleanup operations began in 2004. Over the past 10 years the US has spent about $220 million removing 28,000 objects, including munitions, bombs, other artifacts and residue from explosives. According to Pedro Pierluisi, the US Congress’s resident commissioner in Puerto Rico, Congress members are seeking an additional $17 million for cleanup efforts next year. Puerto Rican governance secretary Víctor Suárez said a delegation of US experts would be visiting to examine the possibility that new technology could be used to accelerate the cleanup effort. (Associated Press 12/11/14; Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 1/2/15)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico
Torture Reports: Brazil and the United States Release Reports Documenting Systematic Human Rights Abuses
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/5165-torture-reports-brazil-and-the-united-states-release-reports-documenting-systematic-human-rights-abuses-
Indigenous Bolivia begins to shine under Morales
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5161-indigenous-bolivia-begins-to-shine-under-morales-
Peruvian Communities Reject COP 20 and Build the Movement of the People for El Buen Vivir
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/5164-peruvian-communities-reject-cop-20-and-build-the-movement-of-the-people-for-el-buen-vivir
Climate Change Threatens Quechua and Their Crops in Peru’s Andes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/5167-climate-change-threatens-quechua-and-their-crops-in-perus-andes
Why Is Ecuador Selling Its Economic and Environmental Future to China?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5160-why-is-ecuador-selling-its-economic-and-environmental-future-to-china-
Maduro Confirms Venezuelan Economy in Recession, Announces “Recovery Plan” for 2015
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11122
Former Guatemala Dictator to Stand Trial Again for Genocide
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Former-Guatemala-Dictator-to-Stand-Trial-Again-for-Genocide-20150103-0004.html
Remembering Guatemala’s First Genocide Conviction as the Trial Resumes Today
https://nacla.org/news/2015/01/05/remembering-guatemala%E2%80%99s-first-genocide-conviction-trial-resumes-today
Maya Land Rights & Governance (Belize)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/maya-land-rights-governance/
The U.S. and Mexico: Hand-in-Hand in Human Rights Violations
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/the-u-s-and-mexico-hand-in-hand-in-human-rights-violations/
Complicity and Cover-Ups in Mexican Massacres (Audio)
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/30/complicity-and-cover-ups-mexican-massacres-audio
Chicago link to Mexican mass abduction?
http://ww4report.com/node/13862
Cuba: #YoTambienExijo and 'regime change'
http://ww4report.com/node/13868
A View on Cuba's Opening From the De Facto U.S. Colony of Puerto Rico
https://nacla.org/blog/2014/12/29/view-cuba-opening-de-facto-us-colony-puerto-rico
Dissecting the Drug War: New Book Charts Ways Global Capitalism Profits From "War on People" (US/policy)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/5166-dissecting-the-drug-war-new-book-charts-ways-global-capitalism-profits-from-qwar-on-peopleq
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
Thursday, January 1, 2015
The Weekly News Update at 25: An Announcement
The first Update was a single sheet dated Feb. 14, 1990. Produced and photocopied by volunteers, it was a compilation of news about the elections that were being held in Nicaragua later that month. On Feb. 15, 2015, the Update will complete its 25th year and will cease publication.
We started the Update in response to a serious shortage of news from Latin America that was reliable, timely and written in English from a progressive point of view. The situation now is dramatically different. There are a large number of good sources for information on the region, most of them regularly updated and easily accessible on the internet. Each week the Update lists links to at least 12 other websites (see below), and the list is by no means exhaustive. Now that so much coverage is available, we feel we can spend our time more usefully writing articles for other publications and completing the long-overdue second edition of our book, The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers.
We’re happy to have worked on the Update over the past quarter century. We made our share of errors, and we never managed to cover half the stories we wanted to cover, but we feel the Update brought its readers news about grassroots struggles and the resistance to neoliberalism that they rarely got from other sources—news about Ecuador’s indigenous uprisings in the early 1990s, for example; about possible guerrilla activity in Chiapas seven months before the official emergence of the Zapatistas on Jan. 1, 1994; about the growing struggles of the coca growers in Bolivia in the middle 1990s; about labor and indigenous resistance in Honduras in the years before Manuel Zelaya became president; and about the ongoing labor organizing in maquiladoras throughout the region.
In addition to the weekly news summaries, the Update ran occasional supplements that included on-the-ground reporting about elections in Brazil, Mexico and Central America, and about the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. For many years we sponsored Immigration News Briefs, Toby Mailman’s Centr-Am News and a weekly New York calendar, and we provided subscribers with a hardcopy version of the national Nicaragua Network’s Nicaragua News Bulletin. During more than a decade we were the only regular publishers of John Ross’s weekly reports, México Bárbaro and Blindman’s Buff.
We’ll go on using the Update's Twitter account (@WeeklyNewsUpdat) for now, and we'll post occasional items to the Update blog. We are also looking at the possibility of creating an online archive for the hundreds of Updates that we issued before we started the blog in 2008, and archives for México Bárbaro and Blindman’s Buff. We would welcome any help or suggestions you could offer for these projects. Please write us at weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com.
In solidarity,
The Update Editors
January 1, 2015
Links to alternative sources:
http://alainet.org/index.phtml.en
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/
Monday, December 29, 2014
WNU #1248: Honduran News Anchor Murdered
Issue #1248, December 28, 2014
1. Honduras: Left-Leaning TV News Anchor Murdered
2. Mexico: Raúl Salinas Cleared in Corruption Case
3. Mexico: San Fernando Massacre Document Released
4. Ecuador: CIA Justifies Reyes “Targeting” in 2008
5. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Nicaragua, 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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. Honduras: Left-Leaning TV News Anchor Murdered
Unknown assailants shot and killed TV news presenter Reynaldo Paz Mayes on the morning of Dec. 15 as he was exercising at an outdoor sports centers in Comayagua, capital of the central Honduran department of Comayagua. A supporter of the center-left opposition Freedom and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), Paz owned a small local television station, RPM TV Canal 28, where he hosted a news program known for its criticism of President Juan Orlando Hernández’s rightwing government and the June 2009 military coup that removed then-president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009) from office. Another station owner, Juan Ramón Flores, said Paz had received various threats, including an anonymous phone call the week before, because of his political views.
Police spokespeople said they were working on the assumption that the assailants were after the victim’s pistol, which was missing. They said the area where Paz died is dangerous, even though the sports center is located just 200 meters from a transit police post.
Paz was at least the ninth Honduran media worker murdered this year [see Update #1231], and the second TV station owner killed since August. Dagoberto Díaz, who owned Canal 20 in the southeastern department of El Paraíso, was killed by unknown attackers in Danlí on Aug. 24. Based on a count earlier in the year by the National Human Rights Commission (CONADEH), Paz’s death would bring the total of Honduran media workers killed since November 2003 to 49. The French-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) organization holds that at least 27 of the media deaths since 2000 are “possibly or clearly related” to the journalists’ work. The authorities “must end the unacceptable impunity for crimes of violence against journalists in Honduras,” Claire San Filippo, who heads RSF’s Americas desk, said in a statement on Dec. 18. According to the group, “[f]reedom of information has declined dramatically” since the 2009 coup. Honduras ranks 129 out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2014 World Press Freedom Index. (La Prensa (San Pedro Sula) 8/25/14; El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 12/15/14; The Guardian (UK) 12/17/14; Terra (Peru) 12/18/14 from EFE; RSF statement 12/18/14)
*2. Mexico: Raúl Salinas Cleared in Corruption Case
On Dec. 12 a federal judge in Mexico City acquitted Raúl Salinas de Gortari, brother of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), of corruption charges in a case that has been argued in the courts since 1996. The Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) charged Raúl Salinas with unlawful enrichment involving some 224 million pesos--about US$14.7 million at the time—that had gone missing from a secret presidential discretionary fund between 1990 and 1994. Salinas was cleared by a federal court on July 31, 2013, but the PGR appealed that decision. The Dec. 12 ruling, which is final, concludes that the PGR failed to prove the charges, bringing the high-profile case to a conclusion after nearly 19 years. Once he had delivered his verdict, the judge left for a vacation.
Raúl Salinas’ controversial acquittal came in the midst of a political crisis set off by a Sept. 26-27 police attack on a group of teachers’ college students in the southwestern state of Guerrero [see Update #1246]. For many Mexicans the decision confirmed a widespread belief that the country’s rich and powerful enjoy total immunity however flagrantly they break the law. In addition to the unlawful enrichment charge, over the years Raúl Salinas has faced federal charges for tax evasion, money laundering, embezzlement and drug trafficking. He spent 10 years in prison after a murder conviction, but the conviction was overturned and all the other charges were eventually dropped.
The circumstantial evidence for corruption seemed overwhelming. During the early 1990s Salinas bought a total of 41 properties in nine states, valued at about $15 million, while he was working for a modest salary in a now-defunct federal program, the Basic Commodities Distribution Company (CONASUPO). Salinas also moved tens of millions of dollars into foreign bank accounts during the period, including some $100 million he reportedly transferred from 1992 to 1994 through New York-based Citibank to the Cayman Islands and London and ultimately to bank accounts in Switzerland [see Update #463]. Salinas has never adequately explained how he acquired all this money. (Reforma (Mexico) 12/16/14; CNN Expansion 12/16/14; New York Times 12/17/14 from correspondent; Vanguardia (Mexico) 12/22/14 from El País (Madrid))
Salinas’ murder conviction was for allegedly masterminding the Sept. 28, 1994 murder of his former brother-in-law, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu. The victim was the general secretary of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and his killing was the second of two bizarre murders that year involving officials of the party, which had ruled Mexico virtually unchallenged since 1929; PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta had been gunned down at a campaign rally in Tijuana on Mar. 23 [see “Mexican Murder Mysteries, Part 2”]. The case against Salinas grew more bizarre as it progressed. The first prosecutor was the victim's brother, Mario Ruiz Massieu, who resigned from the investigation and ended up committing suicide in New Jersey in 1999 while under house arrest on US federal drug trafficking and money laundering charges [see Update #503]. The second special prosecutor, Pablo Chapa Bezanilla, employed a psychic and was implicated in the October 1996 planting of a body on Salinas’ ranch; he fled to Spain, was extradited but was cleared of all charges [see Update #469]. Salinas was finally convicted of Ruiz Massieu’s murder on Jan. 21, 1999; he received a sentence of 50 years in prison.
A court overturned the conviction in 2005, and Salinas was released from the Santiaguito prison in Almoloya de Juárez, México state, on June 14 of that year. According to the left-leaning newsweekly Proceso, all three judges involved in his release--José Nieves Luna Castro, Adalid Ambriz Landa and Manuel Baráibar Constantino—have found their judicial careers advancing smoothly since 2005. (Proceso 12/20/14)
*3. Mexico: San Fernando Massacre Document Released
Police agents in San Fernando in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas aided the Los Zetas drug gang in carrying out massacres of hundreds of Central American migrants and others in 2010 and 2011, according to a partially redacted document declassified by Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR). Although collusion between local Tamaulipas police and criminal gangs was already well known--US diplomatic cables released by the US government in 2013 discussed it [see Update #1199], and local people referred to the police as “polizetas”—this is first time that the PGR has been required to release a document from an ongoing criminal investigation. Previously federal prosecutors had insisted that Mexican freedom of information laws didn’t apply to open investigations. The document is now available on the website of the Washington, DC-based National Security Archive, along with other relevant documents, including reports from US government agencies and US diplomatic cables released by the Wikileaks group.
The undated PGR document is based on testimony from some of the 17 San Fernando police agents who were detained in connection with mass killings in the area; the most famous, often called the San Fernando massacre, involved the discovery of 72 bodies of migrants in a mass grave in August 2010. “I know that police and transit officials in San Fernando help the Zetas organization,” Alvaro Alba Terrazas, one of the detainees, told investigators, “because rather than take detainees to the ‘pentagon,’ which is to say the municipal jail, they would deliver them to the Zetas.”
Michael Evans, the director of the National Security Archive’s Mexico Migration Project, noted the similarity to the Sept. 26-27 abduction of 43 students from Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College, located in Ayotzinapa in the southwestern state of Guerrero [see Update #1246]. According to federal investigators, the Iguala municipal police detained the students and then turned them over to a local drug gang. “If all this sounds eerily familiar,” Evans told the Mexican newsweekly Proceso, “it’s because we’ve seen it before. Murders like this are disturbingly common in Mexico, and the forces behind the chaos—generally drug cartels counting on the collaboration of, at a minimum, the local police—have been remarkably consistent over time.”
Evans and another National Security Archive analyst, Jesse Franzblau, noted that the document raises a number of questions: why it lists 17 detainees when the media reported 16 at the time of their arrests, why two of the detained agents are described in later media reports as actual members of the Zetas, whether the detainees are still detained, and where they are now. (Expresión Libre (Cancún) 12/21/14 from Proceso; National Security Archive 12/22/14)
*4. Ecuador: CIA Justifies Reyes “Targeting” in 2008
According to a secret study released by the Wikileaks group on Dec. 18, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) considers the killing of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) second-in-command Raúl Reyes by Colombian forces in Ecuadorian territory on Mar. 1, 2008 [see Update #937] an example of ways that assassinations of rebel leaders “can play a useful role.” In addition to the Reyes case, the paper reviews the use of “high-value targeting (HVT)”—the killing or capture of top leaders—in fighting rebels in Afghanistan, Algeria, Colombia, Iraq, Israel, Peru, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka. HTV can have “negative effects,” the study concludes, but the practice can “contribute to successful counterinsurgency outcomes” if used strategically. The July 9, 2009 study, marked “secret” and “NOFORN” (“no foreign nationals”), is entitled “Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency Tool”; it apparently forms part of a “Best Practices in Counterinsurgency” series.
Reyes, the FARC’s chief spokesperson and negotiator, was killed when the Colombian military launched a nighttime air raid and then an incursion against a rebel encampment in Ecuador’s northeastern Sucumbíos province about three kilometers from the Colombian border. Some 19 FARC members were killed in the operation, as were four Mexican students who had been visiting the encampment while in Ecuador to attend a leftist conference. Although the Colombian government and the media treated the attack as a simple raid against a group of rebels, the CIA study refers to it as part of a number of “successful HVT strikes against top insurgent leaders in early 2008, in conjunction with earlier strikes against second and third-tier leaders and finance and logistics specialists.” Reyes’ death “is likely to have seriously damaged FARC discipline and morale, even among its leadership, according to a CIA field commentary.” As an example of the operation’s success, the CIA noted that “[p]ublic support for the Colombian government solidified in the wake of the killing…with President Alvaro Uribe’s approval rating increasing from the mid-70% range to as high as 84%.”
The study treats the Reyes killing as a strictly Colombian operation, although there have been reports that in fact the Colombians dropped US “smart bombs” and that an HC-130 airplane, used for refueling helicopters, took off from the US base then at Manta, Ecuador, just hours before the attack. The FARC itself claimed in a Mar. 14 communiqué that the US Southern Command had led the operation [see Update #940]. Theoretically US agencies are not allowed to participate in targeted assassinations. Executive Order 12333, signed by US president Ronald Reagan on Dec. 4, 1981, states that “[n]o person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 12/19/14)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Brazil: victory for indigenous land struggle
http://ww4report.com/node/13855
Bolivia Revolutionizes Urban Mass Transit: From the Streets to the Sky
https://nacla.org/blog/2014/12/26/bolivia-revolutionizes-urban-mass-transit-streets-sky
How One Indigenous Woman Took on a Multinational Mining Corporation... and Won (Peru)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/one-indigenous-woman-took-multinational-mining-corporation-won/
Peru to evacuate village in Amazon conflict
http://ww4report.com/node/13856
Against Judicial Attacks, International Support for Venezuela’s Communes
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11103
December 20, 1989: The Day that Black Lives Did Not Matter in Panama
http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/14588
Panama Canal Workers Continue Labor Strike
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Panama-Canal-Workers-Continue-Labor-Strike--20141227-0012.html
Nicaragua: protests as canal construction begins
http://ww4report.com/node/13857
Guatemalan Genocide Trial Set to Resume Amid Amnesty Battles
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/28/guatemalan-genocide-trial-set-resume-amid-amnesty-battles
Ayotzinapa Protesters Urge Boycott of 2015 Mexican Elections
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Ayotzinapa-Protesters-Urge-Boycott-of-2015-Mexican-Elections--20141227-0005.html
Zapatistas Host World Festival of Resistance and Rebellion (Mexico)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/zapatistas-host-world-festival-resistance-rebellion/
Sentencing in Sinaloa Cartel's Chicago connection (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/13844
Former Ambassador Says Mexico Provoked Cuba to Appease Bush White House
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/former-ambassador-says-mexico-provoked-cuba-to-appease-bush-white-house
Freedom fighter, journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal speaks out on behalf of Nestora Salgado (Mexico)
http://freenestora.org/2014/12/23/freedom-fighter-journalist-and-political-prisoner-mumia-abu-jamal-speaks-out-on-behalf-of-nestora-salgado/#more-731
Cuba and the United States: A triumph of political realism
http://alainet.org/active/79619
Reflections from Former Chief of U.S. Interests Section (Cuba)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14193
Assata Shakur as political football (Cuba)
http://ww4report.com/node/13847
John Conyers and 76 Other Members of Congress Urge UN to Provide Settlement Mechanism for Cholera Victims and their Families (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/johnconyersand76othermembersofcongressurgeuntoprovidesettlementmechanismforcholeravictims
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org/
1. Honduras: Left-Leaning TV News Anchor Murdered
2. Mexico: Raúl Salinas Cleared in Corruption Case
3. Mexico: San Fernando Massacre Document Released
4. Ecuador: CIA Justifies Reyes “Targeting” in 2008
5. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Nicaragua, 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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. Honduras: Left-Leaning TV News Anchor Murdered
Unknown assailants shot and killed TV news presenter Reynaldo Paz Mayes on the morning of Dec. 15 as he was exercising at an outdoor sports centers in Comayagua, capital of the central Honduran department of Comayagua. A supporter of the center-left opposition Freedom and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), Paz owned a small local television station, RPM TV Canal 28, where he hosted a news program known for its criticism of President Juan Orlando Hernández’s rightwing government and the June 2009 military coup that removed then-president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009) from office. Another station owner, Juan Ramón Flores, said Paz had received various threats, including an anonymous phone call the week before, because of his political views.
Police spokespeople said they were working on the assumption that the assailants were after the victim’s pistol, which was missing. They said the area where Paz died is dangerous, even though the sports center is located just 200 meters from a transit police post.
Paz was at least the ninth Honduran media worker murdered this year [see Update #1231], and the second TV station owner killed since August. Dagoberto Díaz, who owned Canal 20 in the southeastern department of El Paraíso, was killed by unknown attackers in Danlí on Aug. 24. Based on a count earlier in the year by the National Human Rights Commission (CONADEH), Paz’s death would bring the total of Honduran media workers killed since November 2003 to 49. The French-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) organization holds that at least 27 of the media deaths since 2000 are “possibly or clearly related” to the journalists’ work. The authorities “must end the unacceptable impunity for crimes of violence against journalists in Honduras,” Claire San Filippo, who heads RSF’s Americas desk, said in a statement on Dec. 18. According to the group, “[f]reedom of information has declined dramatically” since the 2009 coup. Honduras ranks 129 out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2014 World Press Freedom Index. (La Prensa (San Pedro Sula) 8/25/14; El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 12/15/14; The Guardian (UK) 12/17/14; Terra (Peru) 12/18/14 from EFE; RSF statement 12/18/14)
*2. Mexico: Raúl Salinas Cleared in Corruption Case
On Dec. 12 a federal judge in Mexico City acquitted Raúl Salinas de Gortari, brother of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), of corruption charges in a case that has been argued in the courts since 1996. The Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) charged Raúl Salinas with unlawful enrichment involving some 224 million pesos--about US$14.7 million at the time—that had gone missing from a secret presidential discretionary fund between 1990 and 1994. Salinas was cleared by a federal court on July 31, 2013, but the PGR appealed that decision. The Dec. 12 ruling, which is final, concludes that the PGR failed to prove the charges, bringing the high-profile case to a conclusion after nearly 19 years. Once he had delivered his verdict, the judge left for a vacation.
Raúl Salinas’ controversial acquittal came in the midst of a political crisis set off by a Sept. 26-27 police attack on a group of teachers’ college students in the southwestern state of Guerrero [see Update #1246]. For many Mexicans the decision confirmed a widespread belief that the country’s rich and powerful enjoy total immunity however flagrantly they break the law. In addition to the unlawful enrichment charge, over the years Raúl Salinas has faced federal charges for tax evasion, money laundering, embezzlement and drug trafficking. He spent 10 years in prison after a murder conviction, but the conviction was overturned and all the other charges were eventually dropped.
The circumstantial evidence for corruption seemed overwhelming. During the early 1990s Salinas bought a total of 41 properties in nine states, valued at about $15 million, while he was working for a modest salary in a now-defunct federal program, the Basic Commodities Distribution Company (CONASUPO). Salinas also moved tens of millions of dollars into foreign bank accounts during the period, including some $100 million he reportedly transferred from 1992 to 1994 through New York-based Citibank to the Cayman Islands and London and ultimately to bank accounts in Switzerland [see Update #463]. Salinas has never adequately explained how he acquired all this money. (Reforma (Mexico) 12/16/14; CNN Expansion 12/16/14; New York Times 12/17/14 from correspondent; Vanguardia (Mexico) 12/22/14 from El País (Madrid))
Salinas’ murder conviction was for allegedly masterminding the Sept. 28, 1994 murder of his former brother-in-law, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu. The victim was the general secretary of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and his killing was the second of two bizarre murders that year involving officials of the party, which had ruled Mexico virtually unchallenged since 1929; PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta had been gunned down at a campaign rally in Tijuana on Mar. 23 [see “Mexican Murder Mysteries, Part 2”]. The case against Salinas grew more bizarre as it progressed. The first prosecutor was the victim's brother, Mario Ruiz Massieu, who resigned from the investigation and ended up committing suicide in New Jersey in 1999 while under house arrest on US federal drug trafficking and money laundering charges [see Update #503]. The second special prosecutor, Pablo Chapa Bezanilla, employed a psychic and was implicated in the October 1996 planting of a body on Salinas’ ranch; he fled to Spain, was extradited but was cleared of all charges [see Update #469]. Salinas was finally convicted of Ruiz Massieu’s murder on Jan. 21, 1999; he received a sentence of 50 years in prison.
A court overturned the conviction in 2005, and Salinas was released from the Santiaguito prison in Almoloya de Juárez, México state, on June 14 of that year. According to the left-leaning newsweekly Proceso, all three judges involved in his release--José Nieves Luna Castro, Adalid Ambriz Landa and Manuel Baráibar Constantino—have found their judicial careers advancing smoothly since 2005. (Proceso 12/20/14)
*3. Mexico: San Fernando Massacre Document Released
Police agents in San Fernando in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas aided the Los Zetas drug gang in carrying out massacres of hundreds of Central American migrants and others in 2010 and 2011, according to a partially redacted document declassified by Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR). Although collusion between local Tamaulipas police and criminal gangs was already well known--US diplomatic cables released by the US government in 2013 discussed it [see Update #1199], and local people referred to the police as “polizetas”—this is first time that the PGR has been required to release a document from an ongoing criminal investigation. Previously federal prosecutors had insisted that Mexican freedom of information laws didn’t apply to open investigations. The document is now available on the website of the Washington, DC-based National Security Archive, along with other relevant documents, including reports from US government agencies and US diplomatic cables released by the Wikileaks group.
The undated PGR document is based on testimony from some of the 17 San Fernando police agents who were detained in connection with mass killings in the area; the most famous, often called the San Fernando massacre, involved the discovery of 72 bodies of migrants in a mass grave in August 2010. “I know that police and transit officials in San Fernando help the Zetas organization,” Alvaro Alba Terrazas, one of the detainees, told investigators, “because rather than take detainees to the ‘pentagon,’ which is to say the municipal jail, they would deliver them to the Zetas.”
Michael Evans, the director of the National Security Archive’s Mexico Migration Project, noted the similarity to the Sept. 26-27 abduction of 43 students from Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College, located in Ayotzinapa in the southwestern state of Guerrero [see Update #1246]. According to federal investigators, the Iguala municipal police detained the students and then turned them over to a local drug gang. “If all this sounds eerily familiar,” Evans told the Mexican newsweekly Proceso, “it’s because we’ve seen it before. Murders like this are disturbingly common in Mexico, and the forces behind the chaos—generally drug cartels counting on the collaboration of, at a minimum, the local police—have been remarkably consistent over time.”
Evans and another National Security Archive analyst, Jesse Franzblau, noted that the document raises a number of questions: why it lists 17 detainees when the media reported 16 at the time of their arrests, why two of the detained agents are described in later media reports as actual members of the Zetas, whether the detainees are still detained, and where they are now. (Expresión Libre (Cancún) 12/21/14 from Proceso; National Security Archive 12/22/14)
*4. Ecuador: CIA Justifies Reyes “Targeting” in 2008
According to a secret study released by the Wikileaks group on Dec. 18, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) considers the killing of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) second-in-command Raúl Reyes by Colombian forces in Ecuadorian territory on Mar. 1, 2008 [see Update #937] an example of ways that assassinations of rebel leaders “can play a useful role.” In addition to the Reyes case, the paper reviews the use of “high-value targeting (HVT)”—the killing or capture of top leaders—in fighting rebels in Afghanistan, Algeria, Colombia, Iraq, Israel, Peru, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka. HTV can have “negative effects,” the study concludes, but the practice can “contribute to successful counterinsurgency outcomes” if used strategically. The July 9, 2009 study, marked “secret” and “NOFORN” (“no foreign nationals”), is entitled “Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency Tool”; it apparently forms part of a “Best Practices in Counterinsurgency” series.
Reyes, the FARC’s chief spokesperson and negotiator, was killed when the Colombian military launched a nighttime air raid and then an incursion against a rebel encampment in Ecuador’s northeastern Sucumbíos province about three kilometers from the Colombian border. Some 19 FARC members were killed in the operation, as were four Mexican students who had been visiting the encampment while in Ecuador to attend a leftist conference. Although the Colombian government and the media treated the attack as a simple raid against a group of rebels, the CIA study refers to it as part of a number of “successful HVT strikes against top insurgent leaders in early 2008, in conjunction with earlier strikes against second and third-tier leaders and finance and logistics specialists.” Reyes’ death “is likely to have seriously damaged FARC discipline and morale, even among its leadership, according to a CIA field commentary.” As an example of the operation’s success, the CIA noted that “[p]ublic support for the Colombian government solidified in the wake of the killing…with President Alvaro Uribe’s approval rating increasing from the mid-70% range to as high as 84%.”
The study treats the Reyes killing as a strictly Colombian operation, although there have been reports that in fact the Colombians dropped US “smart bombs” and that an HC-130 airplane, used for refueling helicopters, took off from the US base then at Manta, Ecuador, just hours before the attack. The FARC itself claimed in a Mar. 14 communiqué that the US Southern Command had led the operation [see Update #940]. Theoretically US agencies are not allowed to participate in targeted assassinations. Executive Order 12333, signed by US president Ronald Reagan on Dec. 4, 1981, states that “[n]o person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 12/19/14)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Brazil: victory for indigenous land struggle
http://ww4report.com/node/13855
Bolivia Revolutionizes Urban Mass Transit: From the Streets to the Sky
https://nacla.org/blog/2014/12/26/bolivia-revolutionizes-urban-mass-transit-streets-sky
How One Indigenous Woman Took on a Multinational Mining Corporation... and Won (Peru)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/one-indigenous-woman-took-multinational-mining-corporation-won/
Peru to evacuate village in Amazon conflict
http://ww4report.com/node/13856
Against Judicial Attacks, International Support for Venezuela’s Communes
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11103
December 20, 1989: The Day that Black Lives Did Not Matter in Panama
http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/14588
Panama Canal Workers Continue Labor Strike
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Panama-Canal-Workers-Continue-Labor-Strike--20141227-0012.html
Nicaragua: protests as canal construction begins
http://ww4report.com/node/13857
Guatemalan Genocide Trial Set to Resume Amid Amnesty Battles
https://nacla.org/news/2014/12/28/guatemalan-genocide-trial-set-resume-amid-amnesty-battles
Ayotzinapa Protesters Urge Boycott of 2015 Mexican Elections
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Ayotzinapa-Protesters-Urge-Boycott-of-2015-Mexican-Elections--20141227-0005.html
Zapatistas Host World Festival of Resistance and Rebellion (Mexico)
https://intercontinentalcry.org/zapatistas-host-world-festival-resistance-rebellion/
Sentencing in Sinaloa Cartel's Chicago connection (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/13844
Former Ambassador Says Mexico Provoked Cuba to Appease Bush White House
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/former-ambassador-says-mexico-provoked-cuba-to-appease-bush-white-house
Freedom fighter, journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal speaks out on behalf of Nestora Salgado (Mexico)
http://freenestora.org/2014/12/23/freedom-fighter-journalist-and-political-prisoner-mumia-abu-jamal-speaks-out-on-behalf-of-nestora-salgado/#more-731
Cuba and the United States: A triumph of political realism
http://alainet.org/active/79619
Reflections from Former Chief of U.S. Interests Section (Cuba)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14193
Assata Shakur as political football (Cuba)
http://ww4report.com/node/13847
John Conyers and 76 Other Members of Congress Urge UN to Provide Settlement Mechanism for Cholera Victims and their Families (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/johnconyersand76othermembersofcongressurgeuntoprovidesettlementmechanismforcholeravictims
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php
http://nacla.org/
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://wagingnonviolence.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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