Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1098, September 25, 2011
1. Chile: Student Strikers March as President Makes UN Speech
2. Colombia: Students Build for National Strike
3. Honduras: Cops Arrest More Aguán Campesinos
4. Central America: Abuse Continues in US-Linked Maquilas
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Amazon region, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti, 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. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
1. Chile: Student Strikers March as President Makes UN Speech
Chilean students took to the streets on Sept. 22 to push their demands for free public education and a reversal of the privatization policies started under the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Organizers estimated that 180,000 people marched in Santiago, with thousands more protesting in major cities like Concepción, Talca, Temuco and Valparaíso, making the protest one of the larger demonstrations in the nearly four months since secondary and university students began striking at their schools [see Update #1094]. Following a familiar pattern, the march was generally peaceful until a confrontation started between the police and a few hooded youths at the end of the route. About 50 arrests were reported.
“We’ve shut this government up,” Camilo Ballesteros, president of the Federation of Santiago de Chile University Students (FEUSACH), said at the conclusion of the march, near the La Moneda presidential palace. “We’ve got this park filled with students, filled with conviction and happiness.” Analysts had suggested that the movement was ebbing when just 10,000 people came out for a march a week earlier. Andrés Chadwick, spokesperson for rightwing president Sebastián Piñera, responded to the massive turnout on Sept. 22 by saying “a bigger or smaller march isn’t going to change the basic concern of the government” to resolve the issues through dialogue.
President Piñera himself was in New York on Sept. 22 to address the United Nations General Assembly. His government was ready for “the greatest reform, and it has promised the greatest economic, human, professional and technical resources for advancing towards a true revolution in our educational system,” he told the delegates, promising coverage for vulnerable sectors of the population and free schooling for those who need it. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/23/11 from correspondent)
Three students from the Darío Salas High School in Santiago were hospitalized on Sept. 23 due to the effects of a two-month hunger strike in support of the movement's demands. Cristián Silva, a spokesperson for the strikers, said their health was in a delicate state but they were ready to resume the fast once their condition was stabilized. Eight students remain on hunger strike at High School A-131 in the city of Buin, in Maipo province, part of Greater Santiago. There have been hunger strikes at about 30 schools in the Santiago area. (TeleSUR 9/24/11, with information from EFE, Europa Press, InfoBAE)
2. Colombia: Students Build for National Strike
An operation by the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) of Colombia’s National Police in Pamplona University in the northern department of Norte de Santander on Sept. 20 set off a confrontation between police and students that left four students and two police agents injured; two students were arrested. The students had started blocking the school’s main entrances on Sept. 16 to protest high tuition costs, to demand improvements in the school’s program and infrastructure, and to oppose a national education “reform” bill. The riot police reportedly used tear gas in an effort to remove the protesters, who responded with rocks and sticks.
A number of Colombian organizations denounced the police incursion. “We vehemently reject the repression of the students, the entry of the ESMAD on campuses and the criminalization of student protest, the militarization of university campuses and all repressive action against the student body,” the Iván David Ortiz Human Rights Monitoring Center wrote in response to the police operation.
Two days later, on Sept. 22, 100 or more students, some of them hooded, confronted ESMAD agents at the District University in the center of Bogotá. The police used stun grenades, water cannons and tear gas, while the protesters threw rocks and homemade grenades. Ten protesters were arrested, according to Gen. Francisco Patiño, commander of the Bogotá Metropolitan Police. Three of those arrested were minors and were turned over to their parents, but the others could face up to two years in prison, Patiño said.
Colombian students and teachers have been organizing against changes that President Juan Manuel Santos has proposed for Law 30, which has been in effect since 1992; the protesters say the new version of the law would lead to privatization of the education system. Thousands participated in a protest against Santos’ proposals on Sept. 7 [see World World 4 Report 9/8/11], and the Federation of University Students (FEU) has called for a national “consultation” on Oct. 5-6. This would be followed by a national strike on Oct. 12 on the model of the protests that have paralyzed Chilean schools for nearly four months. (Adital (Brazil) 9/20/11; Prensa Latina 9/20/11, 9/24/11; Terra (Colombia) 9/22/11)
According to an opinion poll carried out by the Datexco firm and published by the Colombian daily El Tiempo on Sept. 23, 67.1% of Colombians support the call for a strike on Oct. 12, 30.9% oppose it, and 2.0% don’t know about it. The pollsters surveyed 700 people in 13 cities. (Notimex 9/23/11 via SDPnoticias.com (Mexico))
3. Honduras: Cops Arrest More Aguán Campesinos
According to human rights organizations in Honduras, between 200 and 600 soldiers and police agents raided the campesino community of Rigores in the northern department of Colón on the afternoon of Sept. 19. Residents reported that security forces broke into homes, destroying utensils and hitting both adults and children. There was also a report of homes being set on fire. Two minors were arrested: 15-year-old Darwin Leonel Cartagena and 16-year-old Santos Bernabé Cruz Aldana, the son of local campesino leader Rodolfo Cruz. As of Sept. 20 the community had still not learned where the youths were.
This was the second raid on the Rigores community in three days. On Sept. 16 soldiers and police arrested 21 people [not 40, as we reported in Update #1097, following our sources]. The detained campesinos, who were released later, said the police treated them cruelly during their captivity, threatening to kill women and children if they returned to their homes and to murder human rights activists who supported the campesinos. The Rigores community is one of a number of communities and organizations that have been struggling for years in the Lower Aguán Valley for land currently held by large landowners; as many as 51 campesinos have died in the conflicts in the region over the past two years. (Red Morazánica de Información 9/20/11 via Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (Honduras); Adital (Brazil) 9/20/11)
The attacks on Rigores appeared to be in retaliation for the deaths of a soldier and a police agent near there on Sept. 16 in what the authorities said was an ambush of a patrol vehicle by guerrilla forces. Campesinos denied from the beginning that there was an ambush and suggested that a drunken soldier accidentally detonated a grenade inside the vehicle. Vitalino Alvarez, a spokesperson for the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), told Honduran media that the road is straight where rebels allegedly ambushed the patrol vehicle and that there aren’t enough trees and bushes there to provide cover for attackers. Alvarez says he went to the hospital right after the attack and saw injuries that were consistent with a grenade explosion, not an assault with rifles. (Honduras Culture and Politics blog 9/20/11)
4. Central America: Abuse Continues in US-Linked Maquilas
Managers at two factories in northern Honduras owned by the US clothing firm Delta Apparel, Inc. are continuing to threaten women employees suffering from work-related injuries, according to a Sept. 22 statement by the Honduran Women’s Collective (CODEMUH). The group, which reported labor abuses at the plants in July [see Update #1090], said injured workers had applied to the Labor and Social Security Secretariat (STSS) to have the company reassign them to other work. Management has responded by saying there are no other jobs available and these employees aren’t competent at the work, CODEMUH reported. The two plants are Delta Apparel Honduras and Delta Apparel Cortés, maquiladoras (tax-exempt assembly plants producing for export) in Cortés department. (Adital (Brazil) 9/23/11)
Students in the US are now campaigning against university contracts with Silver Star Merchandising, a Dallas Cowboys affiliate, because of reports of labor abuse at two apparel maquiladoras that the firm has used in El Salvador and one in Indonesia. The US group United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) reported harassment of union supporters at both Salvadoran plants; there were also reports of contaminated drinking water and illegal compulsory overtime at one of these factories. The University of Southern California has already signed a contract with Silver Star for producing college-logo apparel, and Ohio State University is considering a similar contract. News reports didn’t identify the two Salvadoran factories. (New York Times 9/24/11)
In July 2010 a campaign by USAS at several universities forced the US sportswear giant Nike, Inc to pay $1.54 million to some 1,600 workers laid off by two Nike subcontractors in Honduras [see Update #1042].
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Amazon region, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti, Puerto Rico
Latin America's left at the crossroads
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3228-latin-americas-left-at-the-crossroads
Pan-Amazonian indigenous groups issue action plan at Manaus summit
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10352
Bolivia's ex-drug czar sentenced in US following DEA set-up
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10353
Bolivia’s TIPNIS Conflict Moves Beyond Regional Borders
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/23/bolivia%E2%80%99s-tipnis-conflict-moves-beyond-regional-borders
Bolivia: indigenous protesters break blockade —take foreign minister hostage?
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10356
Peru: 25 injured as peasants block access to copper mine
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10354
Showdown in Peru: Indigenous Communities Kick Out Canadian Mining Company
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3229-showdown-in-peru-indigenous-communities-kick-out-canadian-mining-company-
Federal appeals court allows damages against Chevron for Ecuador oil spill
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10343
US-Colombia FTA will be ratified this month: Santos .
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/19182-us-colombia-fta-will-be-ratified-by-the-end-of-the-month-santos.html
Measuring the Poor in Colombia or a Poor Measurement?
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/19/measuring-poor-colombia-or-poor-measurement
Chávez Helped Mediate Release Of American Hikers From Iran
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/23/chavez-helped-mediate-release-of-american-hikers-from-iran/
US tilting to Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico's narco wars?
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10344
Fathers, Mothers and Lost Children Travel Together on the Caravan for Peace
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5392
Mexico: Peace Movement Meets Zapatistas
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3225-mexico-peace-movement-meets-zapatistas
Mexico: Former President Zedillo Sued For 1997 Acteal Massacre
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/20/mexico-former-president-zedillo-sued-for-1997-acteal-massacre/
Nonviolence Grows in Mexico
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/20/nonviolence-grows-mexico
Mexican Constitution Now Recognizes Right to Food
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5432
Electrical Workers End Sit-in, Claim Victory
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=192#1342
Teachers Strike, March for Safety in the Workplace (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=192#1346
More GM crops in Puerto Rico: Why We Should Worry
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3226-more-gm-crops-in-puerto-rico-why-we-should-worry
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
WNU #1097: Have Mexican Electrical Workers Won Their Two-Year Struggle?
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1097, September 18, 2011
1. Mexico: Have Electrical Workers Won Their Two-Year Struggle?
2. Honduras: Campesinos Arrested as Aguán Violence Continues
3. Argentina: Ex-President Walks in Arms Smuggling Case
4. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Andes region, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Mexico: Have Electrical Workers Won Their Two-Year Struggle?
Leaders of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) reached an agreement with Mexico’s federal government on Sept. 13 that ended a sit-in the unionists had been holding in Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zócalo, since March. In exchange for stopping the protest, the union received a pledge that the authorities would negotiate a way for some 16,720 laid-off members to return to work. The government also agreed to free up union funds worth 21 million pesos (about $1.6 million) that it had frozen and to review the cases of SME members arrested in the two years of struggle between the authorities and the unionists.
The SME members packed up their tents and belongings and vacated the plaza in time for maintenance crews to begin preparing for Mexican Independence Day celebrations, which are traditionally held there on Sept. 15 and 16. Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, the head of the government of the Federal District (DF, Mexico City), thanked the union for “freeing” the Zócalo. Union leaders said Ebrard, who is seeking the nomination of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) for the 2012 presidential election, was key to the negotiations.
The face-off between the government and the SME, one of the country’s largest independent unions, began the night of Oct. 10, 2009, when Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa abruptly liquidated the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) and terminated some 44,000 employees [see Update #1007]. About 27,280 workers accepted the government’s severance package, but the others followed the union leadership’s strategy, which combined negotiations with militant protests, including a 90-day hunger strike last year and joint actions with other unions [see Updates #1041, 1066]. SME general secretary Martín Esparza Flores and his slate easily won reelection in a vote last June by the remaining active union members and the retirees. Meanwhile, residents of the central area of Mexico that had been served by the LFC complained about frequent blackouts and high electricity bills after the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) took on LFC’s customers.
The respected labor law expert Néstor de Buen wrote on Sept. 18 that Esparza had had a “notable success” in winning the Sept. 13 agreement with the government. Esparza himself was more cautious. The government has agreed to hold weekly meetings to resolve the employment issue by Nov. 30, but it has yet to start rehiring the laid-off workers. At the Zócalo on Sept. 13 Esparza told union members that the accord was part of the struggle, but that pressure from the workers was still necessary. He said the SME leaders didn’t have confidence in the government; instead, they trusted the members’ capacity for mobilizing. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/14/11, 9/18/11; Mexican Labor News & Analysis, August 2011)
*2. Honduras: Campesinos Arrested as Aguán Violence Continues
Honduran authorities say armed rebels killed a police agent and a soldier in a military-police patrol the afternoon of Sept. 16 in the Lower Aguán Valley, the site of numerous violent struggles over land over the past two years [see Updates #1094, 1096]. According to Gen. René Osorio Canales, head of the Armed Forces Joint General Staff, the soldiers and police agents were in two vehicles carrying out a routine patrol at the La Consentida estate, in Sonaguera municipality in the northern department of Colón, when they were ambushed by “people with high-caliber weapons, people who have dedicated themselves to guerrilla activities.”
Police agent Antony Costly was killed at the scene, and Mariano García Bernal, a soldier, died later at a hospital. A police agent and two soldiers were wounded. The patrols were part of the Xatruch II deployment that President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa ordered into the area on Aug. 15 in what the government said was a response to the violence there. (AFP 9/17/11 via Univisión TV; Proceso Digital (Honduras) 9/17/11; El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 9/18/11)
Campesinos from the area gave activists and human right workers a different account. They said there was an ongoing dispute over ownership of the La Consentida estate, which is held by a producer for Standard Fruit. Campesinos had occupied it but were removed earlier in this month. They returned on Sept. 16, and private guards at the estate called in the police and military. According to the campesinos, the two deaths resulted from a grenade exploding inside one of the vehicles—a grenade the agents and soldiers may have been planning to throw out the window at the campesinos. After the explosion, the patrols arrested some 40 campesinos from the nearby Rigores community, and apparently took them to a police station in Tocoa municipality.
As of Sept. 17 human rights groups were asking for calls and faxes, in Spanish, to the Tocoa police station (+504 2444-3101, +504 2444-3105, fax +504 2444-3105). Adrienne Pine, a professor at American University in Washington, DC, called on the night of Sept. 16 and asked a woman who answered the phone how the campesinos from Rigores were being treated. “Like dogs,” the woman answered. "Are they being tortured?” Pine asked. The woman laughed and said: “If only that were true.” (Quotha blog 9/17/11, ___)
*3. Argentina: Ex-President Walks in Arms Smuggling Case
By a vote of two to one, on Sept. 13 a three-judge panel in Buenos Aires declared former Argentine president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) innocent of involvement in the government's clandestine sales of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995. The judges also acquitted former defense minister Oscar Camilión, former air force head Brig. Gen. Juan Paulik, Menem’s former brother-in-law Emir Yoma, and 14 other defendants. Prosecutor Mariano Borinsky, who had asked for an eight-year prison term for Menem, said his office would appeal the decision, although he himself is leaving his post to accept a judgeship.
Menem is the first former Argentine president ever to be tried on corruption charges. He was a close US ally during his time in office, and he vigorously pushed a neoliberal economic agenda of privatization and austerity. Two years after he left office, the economy collapsed and Argentina was unable to meet its debt obligations, resulting in what at the time was the largest default in history.
Using three secret decrees signed by Menem and his ministers, the Argentine military sold weapons to Croatia and Ecuador under the pretense that the weapons were going to Panama and Venezuela. Sales of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador were banned at the time by international agreements. Croatia was covered by an embargo of weapons for the warring former Yugoslav republics; Argentina was on the committee that was supposed to enforce the ban, and it supplied 800 United Nations peacekeepers to the region. At the same time, the Argentine government was secretly selling Croatia 6,500 tons of heavy cannons, antitank missiles and other weapons.
As a signatory of the Rio Protocol of 1942, Argentina was committed to guaranteeing a peaceful resolution to any border conflicts between Peru and Ecuador, but when a brief war broke out between the two countries over borders in 1995, Argentina secretly sold Ecuador 8,000 FAL combat rifles and 75 tons of munitions.
The Argentine daily Clarín wrote that the Sept. 13 acquittal “seemed to surprise even the defendants.” The paper, which is critical of the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, also noted that until recently Menem, now a senator from La Rioja province, was in a faction of the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist) that strongly opposes the PJ faction that Fernández heads. Now Menem is running for reelection to his Senate seat as an ally of the Fernández faction. The elections will take place on Oct. 23, and the court plans to wait until after the vote to release its written decision in the arms smuggling case; this will show its reasoning for acquitting the defendants. (Clarín 9/14/11, 9/15/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 9/14/11 from correspondent)
The trial, which began in October 2008 [see Update #978], has been hampered by the loss of evidence and potential witnesses. In late 1995 nine workers died in an explosion at a military arsenal involved in the case; the explosion apparently destroyed key evidence. Two potential witnesses died in a helicopter crash, and two more died from unexpected heart attacks. Another possible witness, retired Navy captain Horacio Pedro Estrada, died of a gunshot wound in his Buenos Aires apartment in August 1998 in what the authorities ruled was a suicide. According to press accounts at the time, Estrada, who was right-handed, was shot in the left side of his head, and his hands showed no traces of gunpowder [see Update #449].
*4. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Andes region, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
Streets of Latin America Offer US a Roadmap for Social Change
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3213-streets-of-latin-america-offer-us-a-roadmap-for-social-change
WikiLeaks cables reveal US fear of indigenous movements in Andes
http://ww4report.com/node/10320
Bolivia’s 9/11: The Pando Massacre and the TIPNIS Conflict
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/18/bolivia%E2%80%99s-911-pando-massacre-and-tipnis-conflict
Indigenous peoples "bribed" in Peru's Amazon oil zones, Survival International charges
http://ww4report.com/node/10323
Strikes halt operations at Freeport McMoRan mines in Peru, Indonesia
http://ww4report.com/node/10322
Colombia: former intelligence chief gets 25 years for paramilitary collaboration
http://ww4report.com/node/10318
Colombia: Uribe's Former Intelligence Chief Sent to Prison
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3223-colombia-uribes-former-intelligence-chief-sent-to-prison
Colombian Human Rights Defenders Targeted for Prosecution: The Case of Principe Gabriel Gonzalez
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3221-colombian-human-rights-defenders-targeted-for-prosecution-the-case-of-principe-gabriel-gonzalez
Colombia: protests shut down oil production
http://ww4report.com/node/10319
Buenaventura, Colombia: Where Free Trade Meets Mass Graves
https://nacla.org/news/2011/9/16/buenaventura-colombia-where-free-trade-meets-mass-graves
Venezuelan President Signs Major Deal with Chinese Development Bank
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6492
Venezuela: Chávez criticizes OAS human rights court ruling
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10336
White House censures Venezuelan officials for "narco-terrorist" ties
http://ww4report.com/node/10333
White House expands drug watch list to include all Central America
http://ww4report.com/node/10332
Colombia's police train Salvadoran law enforcement at US-funded installation
http://ww4report.com/node/10330
El Salvador recognizes Palestine, deploys soldiers to Afghanistan
http://ww4report.com/node/10331
Biofuel (the New Banana) Republic (Honduras)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/15/biofuel-new-banana-republic
New Film Tracks Struggle for Justice After Guatemalan Genocide (Video)
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/15/granito_how_to_nail_a_dictator
The War Over Land in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3219-the-war-over-land-in-guatemala
Pérez Molina Leads Guatemala Election But Faces November Run-Off
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/12/perez-molina-leads-guatemala-election-but-faces-november-run-off/
Guatemala and Mexico
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/13/guatemala-and-mexico
On the Mexico-Guatemala Border, Migrants Demand End to the Violence
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5339
Mexico: cartels threaten bloggers
http://ww4report.com/node/10328
Mexico Drug War Attacks Social Media Users; Bodies Hung From Nuevo Laredo Bridge
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/14/mexico-drug-war-attacks-social-media-users-bodies-hung-from-nuevo-laredo-bridge/
Guerrero Protesters Demand Education, Not War (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5329
Mexico: Indigenous Communities Defend Themselves Without the Government's “Permission”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3214-mexico-indigenous-communities-defend-themselves-without-the-governments-permission
Mexico: Peace Caravan "Has Made Us Feel Stronger"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3222-mexico-peace-caravan-qhas-made-us-feel-strongerq
Newly Wikileaked Cables Provide Context to Anti-MINUSTAH Backlash in the Wake of Scandals
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/newly-wikileaked-cables-provide-context-to-anti-minustah-backlash-in-the-wake-of-scandals
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1097, September 18, 2011
1. Mexico: Have Electrical Workers Won Their Two-Year Struggle?
2. Honduras: Campesinos Arrested as Aguán Violence Continues
3. Argentina: Ex-President Walks in Arms Smuggling Case
4. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Andes region, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Mexico: Have Electrical Workers Won Their Two-Year Struggle?
Leaders of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) reached an agreement with Mexico’s federal government on Sept. 13 that ended a sit-in the unionists had been holding in Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zócalo, since March. In exchange for stopping the protest, the union received a pledge that the authorities would negotiate a way for some 16,720 laid-off members to return to work. The government also agreed to free up union funds worth 21 million pesos (about $1.6 million) that it had frozen and to review the cases of SME members arrested in the two years of struggle between the authorities and the unionists.
The SME members packed up their tents and belongings and vacated the plaza in time for maintenance crews to begin preparing for Mexican Independence Day celebrations, which are traditionally held there on Sept. 15 and 16. Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, the head of the government of the Federal District (DF, Mexico City), thanked the union for “freeing” the Zócalo. Union leaders said Ebrard, who is seeking the nomination of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) for the 2012 presidential election, was key to the negotiations.
The face-off between the government and the SME, one of the country’s largest independent unions, began the night of Oct. 10, 2009, when Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa abruptly liquidated the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) and terminated some 44,000 employees [see Update #1007]. About 27,280 workers accepted the government’s severance package, but the others followed the union leadership’s strategy, which combined negotiations with militant protests, including a 90-day hunger strike last year and joint actions with other unions [see Updates #1041, 1066]. SME general secretary Martín Esparza Flores and his slate easily won reelection in a vote last June by the remaining active union members and the retirees. Meanwhile, residents of the central area of Mexico that had been served by the LFC complained about frequent blackouts and high electricity bills after the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) took on LFC’s customers.
The respected labor law expert Néstor de Buen wrote on Sept. 18 that Esparza had had a “notable success” in winning the Sept. 13 agreement with the government. Esparza himself was more cautious. The government has agreed to hold weekly meetings to resolve the employment issue by Nov. 30, but it has yet to start rehiring the laid-off workers. At the Zócalo on Sept. 13 Esparza told union members that the accord was part of the struggle, but that pressure from the workers was still necessary. He said the SME leaders didn’t have confidence in the government; instead, they trusted the members’ capacity for mobilizing. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/14/11, 9/18/11; Mexican Labor News & Analysis, August 2011)
*2. Honduras: Campesinos Arrested as Aguán Violence Continues
Honduran authorities say armed rebels killed a police agent and a soldier in a military-police patrol the afternoon of Sept. 16 in the Lower Aguán Valley, the site of numerous violent struggles over land over the past two years [see Updates #1094, 1096]. According to Gen. René Osorio Canales, head of the Armed Forces Joint General Staff, the soldiers and police agents were in two vehicles carrying out a routine patrol at the La Consentida estate, in Sonaguera municipality in the northern department of Colón, when they were ambushed by “people with high-caliber weapons, people who have dedicated themselves to guerrilla activities.”
Police agent Antony Costly was killed at the scene, and Mariano García Bernal, a soldier, died later at a hospital. A police agent and two soldiers were wounded. The patrols were part of the Xatruch II deployment that President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa ordered into the area on Aug. 15 in what the government said was a response to the violence there. (AFP 9/17/11 via Univisión TV; Proceso Digital (Honduras) 9/17/11; El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 9/18/11)
Campesinos from the area gave activists and human right workers a different account. They said there was an ongoing dispute over ownership of the La Consentida estate, which is held by a producer for Standard Fruit. Campesinos had occupied it but were removed earlier in this month. They returned on Sept. 16, and private guards at the estate called in the police and military. According to the campesinos, the two deaths resulted from a grenade exploding inside one of the vehicles—a grenade the agents and soldiers may have been planning to throw out the window at the campesinos. After the explosion, the patrols arrested some 40 campesinos from the nearby Rigores community, and apparently took them to a police station in Tocoa municipality.
As of Sept. 17 human rights groups were asking for calls and faxes, in Spanish, to the Tocoa police station (+504 2444-3101, +504 2444-3105, fax +504 2444-3105). Adrienne Pine, a professor at American University in Washington, DC, called on the night of Sept. 16 and asked a woman who answered the phone how the campesinos from Rigores were being treated. “Like dogs,” the woman answered. "Are they being tortured?” Pine asked. The woman laughed and said: “If only that were true.” (Quotha blog 9/17/11, ___)
*3. Argentina: Ex-President Walks in Arms Smuggling Case
By a vote of two to one, on Sept. 13 a three-judge panel in Buenos Aires declared former Argentine president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) innocent of involvement in the government's clandestine sales of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995. The judges also acquitted former defense minister Oscar Camilión, former air force head Brig. Gen. Juan Paulik, Menem’s former brother-in-law Emir Yoma, and 14 other defendants. Prosecutor Mariano Borinsky, who had asked for an eight-year prison term for Menem, said his office would appeal the decision, although he himself is leaving his post to accept a judgeship.
Menem is the first former Argentine president ever to be tried on corruption charges. He was a close US ally during his time in office, and he vigorously pushed a neoliberal economic agenda of privatization and austerity. Two years after he left office, the economy collapsed and Argentina was unable to meet its debt obligations, resulting in what at the time was the largest default in history.
Using three secret decrees signed by Menem and his ministers, the Argentine military sold weapons to Croatia and Ecuador under the pretense that the weapons were going to Panama and Venezuela. Sales of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador were banned at the time by international agreements. Croatia was covered by an embargo of weapons for the warring former Yugoslav republics; Argentina was on the committee that was supposed to enforce the ban, and it supplied 800 United Nations peacekeepers to the region. At the same time, the Argentine government was secretly selling Croatia 6,500 tons of heavy cannons, antitank missiles and other weapons.
As a signatory of the Rio Protocol of 1942, Argentina was committed to guaranteeing a peaceful resolution to any border conflicts between Peru and Ecuador, but when a brief war broke out between the two countries over borders in 1995, Argentina secretly sold Ecuador 8,000 FAL combat rifles and 75 tons of munitions.
The Argentine daily Clarín wrote that the Sept. 13 acquittal “seemed to surprise even the defendants.” The paper, which is critical of the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, also noted that until recently Menem, now a senator from La Rioja province, was in a faction of the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist) that strongly opposes the PJ faction that Fernández heads. Now Menem is running for reelection to his Senate seat as an ally of the Fernández faction. The elections will take place on Oct. 23, and the court plans to wait until after the vote to release its written decision in the arms smuggling case; this will show its reasoning for acquitting the defendants. (Clarín 9/14/11, 9/15/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 9/14/11 from correspondent)
The trial, which began in October 2008 [see Update #978], has been hampered by the loss of evidence and potential witnesses. In late 1995 nine workers died in an explosion at a military arsenal involved in the case; the explosion apparently destroyed key evidence. Two potential witnesses died in a helicopter crash, and two more died from unexpected heart attacks. Another possible witness, retired Navy captain Horacio Pedro Estrada, died of a gunshot wound in his Buenos Aires apartment in August 1998 in what the authorities ruled was a suicide. According to press accounts at the time, Estrada, who was right-handed, was shot in the left side of his head, and his hands showed no traces of gunpowder [see Update #449].
*4. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Andes region, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
Streets of Latin America Offer US a Roadmap for Social Change
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3213-streets-of-latin-america-offer-us-a-roadmap-for-social-change
WikiLeaks cables reveal US fear of indigenous movements in Andes
http://ww4report.com/node/10320
Bolivia’s 9/11: The Pando Massacre and the TIPNIS Conflict
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/18/bolivia%E2%80%99s-911-pando-massacre-and-tipnis-conflict
Indigenous peoples "bribed" in Peru's Amazon oil zones, Survival International charges
http://ww4report.com/node/10323
Strikes halt operations at Freeport McMoRan mines in Peru, Indonesia
http://ww4report.com/node/10322
Colombia: former intelligence chief gets 25 years for paramilitary collaboration
http://ww4report.com/node/10318
Colombia: Uribe's Former Intelligence Chief Sent to Prison
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3223-colombia-uribes-former-intelligence-chief-sent-to-prison
Colombian Human Rights Defenders Targeted for Prosecution: The Case of Principe Gabriel Gonzalez
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3221-colombian-human-rights-defenders-targeted-for-prosecution-the-case-of-principe-gabriel-gonzalez
Colombia: protests shut down oil production
http://ww4report.com/node/10319
Buenaventura, Colombia: Where Free Trade Meets Mass Graves
https://nacla.org/news/2011/9/16/buenaventura-colombia-where-free-trade-meets-mass-graves
Venezuelan President Signs Major Deal with Chinese Development Bank
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6492
Venezuela: Chávez criticizes OAS human rights court ruling
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10336
White House censures Venezuelan officials for "narco-terrorist" ties
http://ww4report.com/node/10333
White House expands drug watch list to include all Central America
http://ww4report.com/node/10332
Colombia's police train Salvadoran law enforcement at US-funded installation
http://ww4report.com/node/10330
El Salvador recognizes Palestine, deploys soldiers to Afghanistan
http://ww4report.com/node/10331
Biofuel (the New Banana) Republic (Honduras)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/15/biofuel-new-banana-republic
New Film Tracks Struggle for Justice After Guatemalan Genocide (Video)
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/15/granito_how_to_nail_a_dictator
The War Over Land in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3219-the-war-over-land-in-guatemala
Pérez Molina Leads Guatemala Election But Faces November Run-Off
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/12/perez-molina-leads-guatemala-election-but-faces-november-run-off/
Guatemala and Mexico
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/13/guatemala-and-mexico
On the Mexico-Guatemala Border, Migrants Demand End to the Violence
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5339
Mexico: cartels threaten bloggers
http://ww4report.com/node/10328
Mexico Drug War Attacks Social Media Users; Bodies Hung From Nuevo Laredo Bridge
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/14/mexico-drug-war-attacks-social-media-users-bodies-hung-from-nuevo-laredo-bridge/
Guerrero Protesters Demand Education, Not War (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5329
Mexico: Indigenous Communities Defend Themselves Without the Government's “Permission”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3214-mexico-indigenous-communities-defend-themselves-without-the-governments-permission
Mexico: Peace Caravan "Has Made Us Feel Stronger"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3222-mexico-peace-caravan-qhas-made-us-feel-strongerq
Newly Wikileaked Cables Provide Context to Anti-MINUSTAH Backlash in the Wake of Scandals
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/newly-wikileaked-cables-provide-context-to-anti-minustah-backlash-in-the-wake-of-scandals
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, September 12, 2011
WNU #1096: Cable Links Honduran Landowner to Drug Flights
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1096, September 11, 2011
1. Honduras: Cable Links Aguán Landowner to Drug Flights
2. Honduras: Two Resistance Activists Murdered
3. Chile: Thousands Commemorate 9/11 Coup
4. Haiti: Neoliberal Cabal Will “Advise” on Economic Policy
5. Mexico: 71 Unions Demand Probe of 2007 Murder
6. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, 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. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Honduras: Cable Links Aguán Landowner to Drug Flights
US diplomats suspected in 2004 that Honduran business owner Miguel Facussé Barjum may have been involved in three drug-related incidents at one of his properties, according to a secret US diplomatic cable released by the Wikileaks group on Aug. 30 of this year. The founder of the Grupo Dinant food product and cooking oil corporation and a member of a powerful family that includes media magnate and former Honduran president Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé (1998-2002), Miguel Facussé has been at the center of land disputes in the Lower Aguán Valley in the north of the country that have reportedly left 51 campesinos dead in the last two years [see Update #1094].
In the Mar. 19, 2004 partial cable--Wikileaks says the full text “is not available”--the US embassy in Tegucigalpa reported on a “known drug trafficking flight with a 1,000 kilo cocaine shipment from Colombia” and “a fruitless air interdiction attempt” by the Honduran Air Force on Mar. 14. Unidentified sources told the embassy that the plane landed on an estate belonging to Facussé at Farallones in Colón department on the northern coast. “[I]ts cargo was off-loaded onto a convoy of vehicles that was guarded by about 30 heavily armed men… The aircraft was then burned on Mar. 14 during daylight hours near the runway.” A “bulldozer/front-end loader buried the wreckage on the evening of Mar. 15,” according to a source.
The diplomats found it suspicious that Facussé didn’t report the incident until Mar. 17; they said he gave the police information that “obviously contradicts other information” the embassy had received. “Facussé’s property is heavily guarded,” the cable noted, “and the prospect that individuals were able to access the property and, without authorization, use the airstrip is questionable.” One source “also claimed that Facussé was present on the property at the time of the incident.”
“Of additional interest,” the cable concludes, “is that this incident marks the third time in the last 15 months that drug traffickers have been linked to this property owned by Mr. Facussé. In July 2003, a go-fast boat crashed into a sea wall on the same property and engaged in a firefight with National Police forces. Two known drug traffickers were arrested in this incident and 420 kilos of cocaine were recovered.” Earlier in 2003 another suspected drug flight “terminated at the same property and appeared to have used the same airstrip.” (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 9/2/11)
*2. Honduras: Two Resistance Activists Murdered
An unidentified man shot and killed Honduran activist Mahadeo (“Emo”) Sadloo on Sept. 7 at his small automobile tire shop in eastern Tegucigalpa. Sadloo had been active in the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) from the time when the grassroots coalition was founded to oppose the June 2009 military coup against former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009); he was also a strong supporter of teacher and student demonstrations in defense of public education. Zelaya called Sadloo’s death a “political assassination” and a “declaration of war” against him and his supporters; the FNRP said it was “a political crime intended to demobilize and demoralize the Popular Resistance.”
Current president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa promised a thorough investigation of the murder. “There is no interest in persecuting anyone politically,” he insisted at a press conference on Sept. 7, “much less in taking anyone’s life.” However, in August 2010 Lobo’s government reportedly considered deporting Sadloo as a foreigner who meddled in Honduran politics. Sadloo, a naturalized Honduran citizen of Indian origin, immigrated to Honduras from Suriname more than 35 years ago. (EFE 9/8/11 via Que.es (Spain); Latinoamérica de Hoy blog 9/7/11)
On the night of Sept. 8, the day after the Sadloo murder, a group of gunmen killed activist and journalist Medardo Flores in an ambush near his farm outside Puerto Cortés, the country’s main port, in the northern department of Cortés. In addition to running his farm, Flores was active in the resistance movement and worked for the Uno radio station in nearby San Pedro Sula, the second largest Honduran city. He spent the 1980s in exile to avoid being targeted in the “low-intensity war” then being carried out against alleged leftist rebels.
Flores is the 16th journalist murdered in Honduras since February 2010; the most recent victim before Flores was Nery Orellana, the director of a rural radio station who was shot dead on July 19 at the border between Honduras and El Salvador. None of the cases have been solved. The Security Ministry claims the murders are all for personal reasons, but most of the victims were opponents of the 2009 coup. (AFP 9/9/11 via El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula))
*3. Chile: Thousands Commemorate 9/11 Coup
On Sept. 11 Chileans marked the 38th anniversary of the coup d’état that overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973 and installed the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Thousands of people gathered in the center of Santiago for a march to a memorial in the General Cemetery for the 3,225 people known to have have been killed by the Pinochet regime. The mobilization was organized by the Association of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees and the National Assembly for Human Rights.
Many marchers carried Chilean flags; some had signs calling for restoration of public education, the demand of a student movement that has closed down universities and secondary schools in a three-month strike [see Update #1094]. Camila Vallejo, president of the Federation of University of Chile Students (FECH), participated, along with other student leaders. As often happens at Chilean demonstrations, the event was peaceful until the end, when a small group of hooded youths confronted the police and agents dispersed them with tear gas and water cannons. Organizers estimated that 10,000 people took part in the march. (AFP 9/11/11 via Terra (Peru); Radio Universidad de Chile 9/11/11)
Plans for a dialogue between student strike leaders and rightwing president Sebastián Piñera remained stalled as of Sept. 10. The students insisted that before talks start, the government should withdraw bills on education reform it sent to the National Congress. “At this point there’s no real interest in finding solutions,” according to Camilo Ballesteros, president of the Federation of Santiago de Chile University Students (FEUSACH). The government is just trying to “diminish the mobilizations, diminish their profile by sending bills to the legislature,” he said. (TeleSUR 9/10/11, some from EFE)
*4. Haiti: Neoliberal Cabal Will “Advise” on Economic Policy
On Sept. 8 Haitian president Michel Martelly announced the formation of a Presidential Advisory Council for Economic Development and Investment as part of a “strategic vision” that he claims will create 500,000 jobs over the next three years. The council is to help his administration “remove the brakes on investment to free up Haitian growth,” Martelly said.
The council’s two co-directors will be former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and Laurent Lamothe, the president of the South Africa-based telecommunications company Global Voice Group. Three former heads of state are on the council in addition to Clinton: former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar (1996-2004), former Jamaican prime minister Percival Patterson (1992-2006) and former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010). Aznar and Uribe are both rightists who, like Clinton, are strong proponents of neoliberal economic policies; Patterson is a moderate social democrat.
The council also includes Haitian American hip-hop star Wyclef Jean; Haitian Canadian Michaelle Jean, Canada’s governor general from 2005 to 2010; and Irish telecommunications magnate Dennis O’Brien, who owns the Haiti-based Digicel cell phone company.
Clinton already has a remarkable degree of influence over Haiti’s economic policies: in the country’s political circles he is referred to as the “governor of Haiti.” In addition to being the United Nations’ special envoy for the country, he is co-president of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC, or CIRH in French and Spanish), which was established to monitor international aid for reconstruction after a January 2010 earthquake. (The other co-president is acting prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive, a holdover from the previous administration serving because so far the Parliament has refused to approve any of Martelly’s choices for prime minister.) The CIRH has received much of the blame for the slow pace of reconstruction, and its mandate expires in October. The position on Martelly’s advisory council seems to guarantee Clinton a leading role in Haiti even if the CIRH is closed down. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 9/8/11; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 9/9/11 (French), (English))
In other news, the newly formed Defense Council of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), representing 12 South American defense ministries, decided during a meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Sept. 8 to begin the gradual withdrawal of South American troops from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a military and police force that has occupied the country since June 2004. The force has been the target of protests in Haiti, especially after poor sanitary practices at a MINUSTAH base started a cholera epidemic last October that has killed some 6,000 people to date. Opposition swelled in the past month because of allegations that Uruguayan soldiers sexually abused Haitian youths in the southern town of Port-Salut [see Update #1095].
In its first stage, the withdrawal would lower the troop levels by 2,000 or more, bringing the force closer to the 9,000 members it had before the 2010 earthquake; since then the number has been about 12,200—some 8,700 soldiers and 3,500 police agents. MINUSTAH’s mandate comes up for renewal by the United Nations Security Council on Oct. 15. The Security Council is expected to approve a renewal, but probably with a reduced force in line with the UNASUR Defense Council’s decision. (TeleSUR 9/8/11, some from EFE, AFP, Prensa Latina; AlterPresse 9/9/11)
*5. Mexico: 71 Unions Demand Probe of 2007 Murder
Leaders of 71 unions in 18 countries have signed a letter to Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa expressing “grave concern for the lack of progress in the investigation” of the April 2007 murder of an organizer for the Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in Monterrey, in the northern state of Nuevo León [see Update #902]. After holding a press conference in Mexico City on Sept. 8, FLOC president Baldemar Velasquez delivered the letter to the Mexican president’s official residence, Los Pinos.
FLOC organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz was tied up and beaten to death in the union’s Monterrey office, where he worked educating and organizing farm laborers who were to be employed in the US under the H-2A visa temporary worker program. The FLOC won an unprecedented victory in 2004 when a North Carolina employers’ association signed a contract protecting the rights of guest workers in these programs. A year later, FLOC opened the Monterrey office to advise the workers on their labor rights even before they left for the US, and to protect them from corrupt recruiters demanding exorbitant fees.
One suspect in Cruz’s murder is in jail, but Nuevo León prosecutors failed to move against three other suspects. According to FLOC attorney Leonel Rivero Rodriguez, the state authorities have said at various times that Cruz was killed in a dispute over a woman, in a “drunken fight,” or because he himself was engaged in human trafficking. “I think if the investigation deepened, [the state authorities] were evidently going to touch sensitive issues within the government,” Rodriguez told the Toledo Blade. The unionists’ letter to President Calderón calls for the federal government to take over the investigation. (Toledo (Ohio) Blade 9/8/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 9/10/11; FLOC website, accessed 9/11/11)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Puerto Rico
South American Nations Create Defense Council, Bank of the South
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6477
September 11 and 'The Story Behind the Coup' (Chile)
https://nacla.org/news/2011/9/11/september-11-and-story-behind-coup
Brazilian Indians Demand Shell Leave Their Land
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3208-brazilian-indians-demand-shell-leave-their-land-
Bolivia: credit agencies hail resource boom; rainforest burns
http://ww4report.com/node/10300
Peru: strike closes Freeport McMoRan copper mine
http://ww4report.com/node/10301
Peru: World Bank explores indigenous self-sufficiency as adaptation to climate change
http://ww4report.com/node/10302
Climate Change Poses Challenge For Peru
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/06/climate-change-poses-challenge-for-peru/
Peru: Humala brother gets reduced sentence
http://ww4report.com/node/9965#comment-327948
Colombian teachers, students protest education reforms
http://ww4report.com/node/10303
Colombian high court re-legalizes drug possession
http://ww4report.com/node/10288#comment-327910
Colombian Music Festival Keeps Afro-Colombian Culture Alive
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3209-colombian-music-festival-keeps-afro-colombian-culture-alive
Colombia: Santos Shakes Up Military Leadership
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/07/colombia-santos-shakes-up-military-leadership/
The Santos Government Revises Military Strategy
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/6/santos-government-revises-military-strategy
The Pending US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement: False Claims Versus Hard Realities
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3205-the-pending-us-colombia-free-trade-agreement-false-claims-versus-hard-realities
U.S. Sanctions Venezuelan Officials For Alleged FARC Ties
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/09/u-s-sanctions-venezuelan-officials-for-alleged-farc-ties/
Missing the Point: Media Speculations Over Venezuela
https://nacla.org/news/2011/9/9/missing-point-media-speculations-over-venezuela
Wikileaks Cables Reveal U.S. Embassy Works with Venezuelan Private Media
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6469
Nicaragua's Antidote to Violent Crime
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3210-nicaraguas-antidote-to-violent-crime
Dying for Land in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3207-dying-for-land-in-honduras
Medical & Military Malpractice: The U.S. Public Health Service in Guatemala
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/8/medical-military-malpractice-us-public-health-service-guatemala
Riding “The Beast” (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5287
Drug War Madness (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5301
Justice Department condemns unconstitutional conduct of Puerto Rico police
http://ww4report.com/node/10308
U.N. Troops Accused of Exploiting Local Women in Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/3212-un-troops-accused-of-exploiting-local-women-in-haiti
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1096, September 11, 2011
1. Honduras: Cable Links Aguán Landowner to Drug Flights
2. Honduras: Two Resistance Activists Murdered
3. Chile: Thousands Commemorate 9/11 Coup
4. Haiti: Neoliberal Cabal Will “Advise” on Economic Policy
5. Mexico: 71 Unions Demand Probe of 2007 Murder
6. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, 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. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Honduras: Cable Links Aguán Landowner to Drug Flights
US diplomats suspected in 2004 that Honduran business owner Miguel Facussé Barjum may have been involved in three drug-related incidents at one of his properties, according to a secret US diplomatic cable released by the Wikileaks group on Aug. 30 of this year. The founder of the Grupo Dinant food product and cooking oil corporation and a member of a powerful family that includes media magnate and former Honduran president Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé (1998-2002), Miguel Facussé has been at the center of land disputes in the Lower Aguán Valley in the north of the country that have reportedly left 51 campesinos dead in the last two years [see Update #1094].
In the Mar. 19, 2004 partial cable--Wikileaks says the full text “is not available”--the US embassy in Tegucigalpa reported on a “known drug trafficking flight with a 1,000 kilo cocaine shipment from Colombia” and “a fruitless air interdiction attempt” by the Honduran Air Force on Mar. 14. Unidentified sources told the embassy that the plane landed on an estate belonging to Facussé at Farallones in Colón department on the northern coast. “[I]ts cargo was off-loaded onto a convoy of vehicles that was guarded by about 30 heavily armed men… The aircraft was then burned on Mar. 14 during daylight hours near the runway.” A “bulldozer/front-end loader buried the wreckage on the evening of Mar. 15,” according to a source.
The diplomats found it suspicious that Facussé didn’t report the incident until Mar. 17; they said he gave the police information that “obviously contradicts other information” the embassy had received. “Facussé’s property is heavily guarded,” the cable noted, “and the prospect that individuals were able to access the property and, without authorization, use the airstrip is questionable.” One source “also claimed that Facussé was present on the property at the time of the incident.”
“Of additional interest,” the cable concludes, “is that this incident marks the third time in the last 15 months that drug traffickers have been linked to this property owned by Mr. Facussé. In July 2003, a go-fast boat crashed into a sea wall on the same property and engaged in a firefight with National Police forces. Two known drug traffickers were arrested in this incident and 420 kilos of cocaine were recovered.” Earlier in 2003 another suspected drug flight “terminated at the same property and appeared to have used the same airstrip.” (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 9/2/11)
*2. Honduras: Two Resistance Activists Murdered
An unidentified man shot and killed Honduran activist Mahadeo (“Emo”) Sadloo on Sept. 7 at his small automobile tire shop in eastern Tegucigalpa. Sadloo had been active in the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) from the time when the grassroots coalition was founded to oppose the June 2009 military coup against former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009); he was also a strong supporter of teacher and student demonstrations in defense of public education. Zelaya called Sadloo’s death a “political assassination” and a “declaration of war” against him and his supporters; the FNRP said it was “a political crime intended to demobilize and demoralize the Popular Resistance.”
Current president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa promised a thorough investigation of the murder. “There is no interest in persecuting anyone politically,” he insisted at a press conference on Sept. 7, “much less in taking anyone’s life.” However, in August 2010 Lobo’s government reportedly considered deporting Sadloo as a foreigner who meddled in Honduran politics. Sadloo, a naturalized Honduran citizen of Indian origin, immigrated to Honduras from Suriname more than 35 years ago. (EFE 9/8/11 via Que.es (Spain); Latinoamérica de Hoy blog 9/7/11)
On the night of Sept. 8, the day after the Sadloo murder, a group of gunmen killed activist and journalist Medardo Flores in an ambush near his farm outside Puerto Cortés, the country’s main port, in the northern department of Cortés. In addition to running his farm, Flores was active in the resistance movement and worked for the Uno radio station in nearby San Pedro Sula, the second largest Honduran city. He spent the 1980s in exile to avoid being targeted in the “low-intensity war” then being carried out against alleged leftist rebels.
Flores is the 16th journalist murdered in Honduras since February 2010; the most recent victim before Flores was Nery Orellana, the director of a rural radio station who was shot dead on July 19 at the border between Honduras and El Salvador. None of the cases have been solved. The Security Ministry claims the murders are all for personal reasons, but most of the victims were opponents of the 2009 coup. (AFP 9/9/11 via El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula))
*3. Chile: Thousands Commemorate 9/11 Coup
On Sept. 11 Chileans marked the 38th anniversary of the coup d’état that overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973 and installed the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Thousands of people gathered in the center of Santiago for a march to a memorial in the General Cemetery for the 3,225 people known to have have been killed by the Pinochet regime. The mobilization was organized by the Association of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees and the National Assembly for Human Rights.
Many marchers carried Chilean flags; some had signs calling for restoration of public education, the demand of a student movement that has closed down universities and secondary schools in a three-month strike [see Update #1094]. Camila Vallejo, president of the Federation of University of Chile Students (FECH), participated, along with other student leaders. As often happens at Chilean demonstrations, the event was peaceful until the end, when a small group of hooded youths confronted the police and agents dispersed them with tear gas and water cannons. Organizers estimated that 10,000 people took part in the march. (AFP 9/11/11 via Terra (Peru); Radio Universidad de Chile 9/11/11)
Plans for a dialogue between student strike leaders and rightwing president Sebastián Piñera remained stalled as of Sept. 10. The students insisted that before talks start, the government should withdraw bills on education reform it sent to the National Congress. “At this point there’s no real interest in finding solutions,” according to Camilo Ballesteros, president of the Federation of Santiago de Chile University Students (FEUSACH). The government is just trying to “diminish the mobilizations, diminish their profile by sending bills to the legislature,” he said. (TeleSUR 9/10/11, some from EFE)
*4. Haiti: Neoliberal Cabal Will “Advise” on Economic Policy
On Sept. 8 Haitian president Michel Martelly announced the formation of a Presidential Advisory Council for Economic Development and Investment as part of a “strategic vision” that he claims will create 500,000 jobs over the next three years. The council is to help his administration “remove the brakes on investment to free up Haitian growth,” Martelly said.
The council’s two co-directors will be former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and Laurent Lamothe, the president of the South Africa-based telecommunications company Global Voice Group. Three former heads of state are on the council in addition to Clinton: former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar (1996-2004), former Jamaican prime minister Percival Patterson (1992-2006) and former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010). Aznar and Uribe are both rightists who, like Clinton, are strong proponents of neoliberal economic policies; Patterson is a moderate social democrat.
The council also includes Haitian American hip-hop star Wyclef Jean; Haitian Canadian Michaelle Jean, Canada’s governor general from 2005 to 2010; and Irish telecommunications magnate Dennis O’Brien, who owns the Haiti-based Digicel cell phone company.
Clinton already has a remarkable degree of influence over Haiti’s economic policies: in the country’s political circles he is referred to as the “governor of Haiti.” In addition to being the United Nations’ special envoy for the country, he is co-president of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC, or CIRH in French and Spanish), which was established to monitor international aid for reconstruction after a January 2010 earthquake. (The other co-president is acting prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive, a holdover from the previous administration serving because so far the Parliament has refused to approve any of Martelly’s choices for prime minister.) The CIRH has received much of the blame for the slow pace of reconstruction, and its mandate expires in October. The position on Martelly’s advisory council seems to guarantee Clinton a leading role in Haiti even if the CIRH is closed down. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 9/8/11; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 9/9/11 (French), (English))
In other news, the newly formed Defense Council of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), representing 12 South American defense ministries, decided during a meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Sept. 8 to begin the gradual withdrawal of South American troops from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a military and police force that has occupied the country since June 2004. The force has been the target of protests in Haiti, especially after poor sanitary practices at a MINUSTAH base started a cholera epidemic last October that has killed some 6,000 people to date. Opposition swelled in the past month because of allegations that Uruguayan soldiers sexually abused Haitian youths in the southern town of Port-Salut [see Update #1095].
In its first stage, the withdrawal would lower the troop levels by 2,000 or more, bringing the force closer to the 9,000 members it had before the 2010 earthquake; since then the number has been about 12,200—some 8,700 soldiers and 3,500 police agents. MINUSTAH’s mandate comes up for renewal by the United Nations Security Council on Oct. 15. The Security Council is expected to approve a renewal, but probably with a reduced force in line with the UNASUR Defense Council’s decision. (TeleSUR 9/8/11, some from EFE, AFP, Prensa Latina; AlterPresse 9/9/11)
*5. Mexico: 71 Unions Demand Probe of 2007 Murder
Leaders of 71 unions in 18 countries have signed a letter to Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa expressing “grave concern for the lack of progress in the investigation” of the April 2007 murder of an organizer for the Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in Monterrey, in the northern state of Nuevo León [see Update #902]. After holding a press conference in Mexico City on Sept. 8, FLOC president Baldemar Velasquez delivered the letter to the Mexican president’s official residence, Los Pinos.
FLOC organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz was tied up and beaten to death in the union’s Monterrey office, where he worked educating and organizing farm laborers who were to be employed in the US under the H-2A visa temporary worker program. The FLOC won an unprecedented victory in 2004 when a North Carolina employers’ association signed a contract protecting the rights of guest workers in these programs. A year later, FLOC opened the Monterrey office to advise the workers on their labor rights even before they left for the US, and to protect them from corrupt recruiters demanding exorbitant fees.
One suspect in Cruz’s murder is in jail, but Nuevo León prosecutors failed to move against three other suspects. According to FLOC attorney Leonel Rivero Rodriguez, the state authorities have said at various times that Cruz was killed in a dispute over a woman, in a “drunken fight,” or because he himself was engaged in human trafficking. “I think if the investigation deepened, [the state authorities] were evidently going to touch sensitive issues within the government,” Rodriguez told the Toledo Blade. The unionists’ letter to President Calderón calls for the federal government to take over the investigation. (Toledo (Ohio) Blade 9/8/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 9/10/11; FLOC website, accessed 9/11/11)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Puerto Rico
South American Nations Create Defense Council, Bank of the South
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6477
September 11 and 'The Story Behind the Coup' (Chile)
https://nacla.org/news/2011/9/11/september-11-and-story-behind-coup
Brazilian Indians Demand Shell Leave Their Land
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3208-brazilian-indians-demand-shell-leave-their-land-
Bolivia: credit agencies hail resource boom; rainforest burns
http://ww4report.com/node/10300
Peru: strike closes Freeport McMoRan copper mine
http://ww4report.com/node/10301
Peru: World Bank explores indigenous self-sufficiency as adaptation to climate change
http://ww4report.com/node/10302
Climate Change Poses Challenge For Peru
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/06/climate-change-poses-challenge-for-peru/
Peru: Humala brother gets reduced sentence
http://ww4report.com/node/9965#comment-327948
Colombian teachers, students protest education reforms
http://ww4report.com/node/10303
Colombian high court re-legalizes drug possession
http://ww4report.com/node/10288#comment-327910
Colombian Music Festival Keeps Afro-Colombian Culture Alive
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3209-colombian-music-festival-keeps-afro-colombian-culture-alive
Colombia: Santos Shakes Up Military Leadership
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/07/colombia-santos-shakes-up-military-leadership/
The Santos Government Revises Military Strategy
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/6/santos-government-revises-military-strategy
The Pending US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement: False Claims Versus Hard Realities
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3205-the-pending-us-colombia-free-trade-agreement-false-claims-versus-hard-realities
U.S. Sanctions Venezuelan Officials For Alleged FARC Ties
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/09/u-s-sanctions-venezuelan-officials-for-alleged-farc-ties/
Missing the Point: Media Speculations Over Venezuela
https://nacla.org/news/2011/9/9/missing-point-media-speculations-over-venezuela
Wikileaks Cables Reveal U.S. Embassy Works with Venezuelan Private Media
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6469
Nicaragua's Antidote to Violent Crime
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3210-nicaraguas-antidote-to-violent-crime
Dying for Land in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3207-dying-for-land-in-honduras
Medical & Military Malpractice: The U.S. Public Health Service in Guatemala
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/8/medical-military-malpractice-us-public-health-service-guatemala
Riding “The Beast” (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5287
Drug War Madness (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5301
Justice Department condemns unconstitutional conduct of Puerto Rico police
http://ww4report.com/node/10308
U.N. Troops Accused of Exploiting Local Women in Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/3212-un-troops-accused-of-exploiting-local-women-in-haiti
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, September 5, 2011
WNU #1095: “Fast and Furious” Fells ATF Head
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1095, September 4, 2011
1. Mexico: “Fast and Furious” Fells US Gun Control Chief
2. Mexico: Civilian Killed in Latest “Drug War” Mistake
3. Chile: Carabineros Admit Agent Killed Student Protester
4. Haiti: Video Implicates UN Troops in Sex Abuse
5. Puerto Rico: Who’s Playing Dirty Tricks on the Macheteros?
6. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Caribbean, Jamaica, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Mexico: “Fast and Furious” Fells US Gun Control Chief
The US Justice Department announced on Aug. 30 that Kenneth Melson, the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), had been reassigned to another position in the department and that Dennis Burke, the US attorney for Arizona, was resigning from his post. The department didn’t explain the reason for the changes, but they were clearly fallout from Operation Fast and Furious, a bungled ATF program that allowed some 2,000 weapons to go from the US to Mexico, where they were probably used in drug cartel violence [see Update #1087].
The ATF is the agency in charge of preventing the spread of illegal weapons in and from the US; gun smuggling from states on the Mexico-US border is considered the source of the majority of contraband firearms in Mexico. Some 40,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related killings since the beginning of 2007.
So far at least eight US officials have been removed or reassigned because of their association with Fast and Furious, but the Congress members who have led the probe into the operation--Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA)—indicated that they weren’t satisfied. The two Republicans plan to continue their investigation into what has become a major embarrassment for Attorney General Eric Holder and the administration of US president Barack Obama, a Democrat. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/31/11 from correspondent)
Despite their apparent concern now about controlling the flow of illegal firearms, Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley have opposed gun control in the past. Grassley has an “A” rating from the National Rife Association (NRA) [see Update #1070], which lobbies against gun control laws and has pushed to limit the ATF’s powers. Issa too has the group’s “A” rating. (On the Issues website, accessed 9/4/11)
A report released by a gun control advocacy group a few days after the ATF shake-up pointed to what may be an important source for the US weapons that end up with Mexican drug traffickers. Using ATF data, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence found that 16,485 guns have disappeared from the inventories of some 4,500 US gun manufacturers during the past two years. There are no records of their having been sold. “Firearms that disappear from gun manufacturers’ plants without records of sale are frequently trafficked by gun traffickers and prized by criminals,” the report says. “Guns taken from gun manufacturing plants may also be removed before they have been stamped with serial numbers, making them virtually untraceable.”
In 2004 Congress passed an amendment sponsored by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS, 1995-2011) that keeps the ATF from requiring gun manufacturers to track their inventory. (The Hill (Washington, DC) 9/3/11) Issa and Grassley are strong defenders of the amendment. (NRA Institute for Legislative Action website, accessed 9/5/11)
*2. Mexico: Civilian Dies in Latest “Drug War” Mistake
Mexican marines shot and killed Gustavo Acosta Luján in the early morning of Sept. 1 in his home in Jardines de San Andrés, Apodaca municipality, in the northern state of Nuevo León. According to the Secretariat of the Navy, the marines, responding to an anonymous tip, were fired on from inside the house, and Gustavo Acosta, an “alleged criminal” with the alias “M-3,” died in the operation. The marines said they found a 9 mm submachine gun, an AR-15 rifle and quantities of cocaine in the house. Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa has been using soldiers for police work in northern Mexico since militarizing the “war on drugs” shortly after he took office in December 2006.
The Acosta family said the marines came to their home while they were asleep, fired on the house and demanded that they open the door. The marines shot Gustavo Acosta when he came to the door, according to the Acostas, and they threw his brother Daniel Acosta to the floor, hooding him and placing a gun in his hands. The entire family was taken outside, including a nine-year-old child; the authorities stayed in control of the house until 7 am, and the family says the marines took computers and cell phones. Gustavo’s mother was hospitalized with an attack of high blood pressure.
The family and the Citizens in Support of Human Rights Civic Association (CADHAC) indicated that the marines raided the Acosta home in error. At some point in the operation, the marines also arrested Osnoel Rolando Peña Serna (“Mascarita”) four doors away from the Acosta home. He had been living in a rented house which had no furniture and was described as “like a safe house.” The Acosta family said they planned to file a complaint with the Public Ministry and the federal government’s National Human Rights Commision (CNDH). (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/3/11)
*3. Chile: Carabineros Admit Agent Killed Student Protester
On Aug. 29 Chilean prosecutors ordered the detention of Sgt. Miguel Millacura of the carabineros militarized police for the shooting death of 16-year-old Manuel Gutiérrez Reinoso in the early morning of Aug. 26 in the Villa Jaime Eyzaguirre neighborhood in Macul, a commune in Greater Santiago [see Update #1094]. Investigators found that Sgt. Millacura’s Uzi submachine gun fired the shot that killed Gutiérrez, who had been walking with his brother to observe late-night protests following an Aug. 24-25 general strike. Millacura claimed he shot into the air.
The carabineros, who have been accused of brutally repressing student demonstrations over the past three months, initially dismissed witnesses’ accounts of the shooting. But once the ballistic evidence implicated Milllacura, the carabinero command discharged him and four other agents; several others went into retirement. The government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera asked for the resignation of carabinero general Sergio Gajardo, who had failed to carry out an internal investigation. The head of the militarized police, Gen. Eduardo Gordon, apologized to the Gutiérrez family. There were calls for Gordon’s resignation. (EFE 8/30/11 via Terra.com (Peru); El País (Spain) 8/31/11 via Vanguardia (Mexico); La Tercera (Chile) 8/31/11)
Gen. Gordon’s resignation came on Sept. 2, after an accusation appeared in the media that he had altered an official report that implicated his son in an automobile accident; the general has also been accused of telephone spying. Gordon announced that he was “tired of such wickedness and such trashing of the institutions.” Piñera’s government suffered this latest blow one day before the president was to sit down in talks with student leaders, who are demanding sweeping changes in Chile’s highly privatized education system. (La Nación (Argentina) 9/3/11 from correspondent)
*4. Haiti: Video Implicates UN Troops in Sex Abuse
As of Sept. 2 it appeared that some of the 1,100 Uruguayan troops in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) were about to be repatriated because of accusations of sex abuse at a base in the southern coastal town of Port-Salut. Eliane Nabaa, who handles communication and information for the United Nations military and police occupation force in Haiti, told the Haitian internet news service AlterPresse on Sept. 1 that repatriation was a possibility. On Sept. 2 an Uruguayan website said the soldiers would be sent home in the coming week.
A Port-Salut organization made the accusations on Aug. 11, but the Uruguayan military quickly dismissed them [see Update #1094]. Apparently the decision to act on the charges followed the appearance of a cell phone video showing four MINUSTAH soldiers forcing an 18-year-old Haitian youth on to a bed. The video was posted on the ABC News website on Sept. 2. According to the youth, the soldiers beat him and sexually molested him in the incident, which occurred in July. A medical certificate filed in a Haitian court confirms that he was beaten and suffered injuries consistent with sexual assault.
Under MINUSTAH's agreement with Haiti, the force’s troops can only be disciplined and tried by their home country. (AlterPresse 9/2/11; ABC News 9/2/11)
*5. Puerto Rico: Who’s Playing Dirty Tricks on the Macheteros?
Puerto Rican independence activist Hilton Fernández Diamante has charged that in June US federal agents planted an electronic device in his car while it was parked in the apartment tower complex where he lives in Trujillo Alto, south of San Juan. Photographs, an eyewitness account and statements by the apartment complex’s management confirm that people who identified themselves as Puerto Rican police agents were in the parking area while Fernández Diamante was in New York to meet with a lawyer. Told about the suspicious activity on his return, Fernández Diamante called the Puerto Rican police's bomb squad on June 15. Police agents evacuated the area and removed the device.
A former member of the rebel Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Macheteros, Fernández Diamante served five years in jail in connection with the group’s 1983 armed robbery of $7.1 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut, one of the largest robberies in US history. In June he agreed to be a spokesperson for Norberto González Claudio, who was arrested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in May in the central Puerto Rico town of Cayey; González Claudio had spent 25 years as a fugitive from charges related to the Wells Fargo robbery. Fernández Diamante’s decision to be active in the González Claudio case may have motivated the installation of the device in his car, according to a statement issued on Aug. 31 by a committee formed to support Norberto González Claudio and his brother Avelino. [Avelino González Claudio pleaded guilty to charges in the Wells Fargo case in February 2010, after his capture in 2008; see Update #1021.]
An unidentified law enforcement source told the Hartford Courant that the device planted in Fernández Diamante’s car sent out an electronic signal that would have enabled agents to track the vehicle. His supporters say they don’t discount the possibility that the device was a bomb. The FBI office in San Juan declined to comment. (Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 6/15/11; Hartford (CT) Courant 9/2/11)
On June 22, Jennifer González, the president of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, received an envelope containing white powder; this led to an evacuation of the Capitol building for fear of a terrorist attack. Rep. Charlie Hernández received a similar envelope at his office on Aug. 17. In both cases, a “Commander Nacho” of the Macheteros assumed responsibility. But an Aug. 18 communiqué said to be sent by the Macheteros “from someplace in the Heart of the People” denied any connection with the action. The message said the group has “never used chemical weapons that could endanger the safety of the people.” (PH 8/20/11)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Caribbean, Jamaica, Haiti
Chile: National Strike Forces Government to Negotiating Table
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3203-chile-national-strike-forces-government-to-negotiating-table
Rainforest Defenders Marked for Death in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3201-rainforest-defenders-marked-for-death-in-brazil
Bolivia: high court convicts seven officials of genocide
http://ww4report.com/node/10275
Bolivia: Former Officials Convicted Over Massacre
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3202-bolivia-former-officials-convicted-over-massacre
Bolivia: A Visit From Lula as TIPNIS Negotiations Falter (Bolivia)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/2/bolivia-visit-lula-tipnis-negotiations-falter
Bolivia strikes blow against car culture
http://ww4report.com/node/10290
Let Me Speak! A Bolivian Woman Miner’s Revolutionary Life
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/3194-let-me-speak-a-bolivian-woman-miners-revolutionary-life-
Peru: Humala makes demands on Camisea consortium
http://ww4report.com/node/10274
Peru: Amazon communities break off negotiations with Maple Energy over six oil spills
http://ww4report.com/node/10289
The Colombia FTA: Only Corporations Win
https://nacla.org/news/2011/8/31/colombia-fta-only-corporations-win
Multinational Incentives and the Rentier Predatory State (Colombia)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/29/multinational-incentives-and-rentier-predatory-state
Colombia criticized on post-9-11 human rights record
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10288
What does “Socialism” Mean Anyway? Voices from Central America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3196-what-does-socialism-mean-anyway-voices-from-central-america
El Salvador’s Supreme Court Not Ready to Detain and Extradite Officers to Spain
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/25/el-salvadors-supreme-court-not-ready-to-detain-and-extradite-officers-to-spain/
Honduras: Aguán Massacres Continue to Support Production of Biodiesel
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3198-honduras-aguan-massacres-continue-to-support-production-of-biodiesel
Declaration from Artists and Intellectuals on the Bajo Aguán and Human Rights in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/3204-declaration-from-artists-and-intellectuals-on-the-bajo-aguan-and-human-rights-in-honduras
Gay Couples Can Adopt In Mexico City, But They Aren’t Applying
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/03/gay-couples-can-adopt-in-mexico-city-but-they-arent-applying/
Mexico Drug War: Facing Skepticism, Calderón Takes His Case To Social Media
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/02/mexico-drug-war-facing-skepticism-calderon-takes-his-case-to-social-media/
Was Al Capone a Terrorist? (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/30/was-al-capone-terrorist
Hurricane Irene's Effect on the Caribbean
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3195-hurricane-irenes-effect-on-the-caribbean
Jamaica: shock in Kingston as Dudus Coke cuts deal
http://ww4report.com/node/10287
Explosive New Report Accuses UN Troops of Sexual Assault--Will This Lead to Greater Pressure for Withdrawal?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/explosive-new-report-accuses-un-troops-of-sexual-assault-will-this-lead-to-greater-pressure-for-withdrawal
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1095, September 4, 2011
1. Mexico: “Fast and Furious” Fells US Gun Control Chief
2. Mexico: Civilian Killed in Latest “Drug War” Mistake
3. Chile: Carabineros Admit Agent Killed Student Protester
4. Haiti: Video Implicates UN Troops in Sex Abuse
5. Puerto Rico: Who’s Playing Dirty Tricks on the Macheteros?
6. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Caribbean, Jamaica, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Mexico: “Fast and Furious” Fells US Gun Control Chief
The US Justice Department announced on Aug. 30 that Kenneth Melson, the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), had been reassigned to another position in the department and that Dennis Burke, the US attorney for Arizona, was resigning from his post. The department didn’t explain the reason for the changes, but they were clearly fallout from Operation Fast and Furious, a bungled ATF program that allowed some 2,000 weapons to go from the US to Mexico, where they were probably used in drug cartel violence [see Update #1087].
The ATF is the agency in charge of preventing the spread of illegal weapons in and from the US; gun smuggling from states on the Mexico-US border is considered the source of the majority of contraband firearms in Mexico. Some 40,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related killings since the beginning of 2007.
So far at least eight US officials have been removed or reassigned because of their association with Fast and Furious, but the Congress members who have led the probe into the operation--Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA)—indicated that they weren’t satisfied. The two Republicans plan to continue their investigation into what has become a major embarrassment for Attorney General Eric Holder and the administration of US president Barack Obama, a Democrat. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/31/11 from correspondent)
Despite their apparent concern now about controlling the flow of illegal firearms, Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley have opposed gun control in the past. Grassley has an “A” rating from the National Rife Association (NRA) [see Update #1070], which lobbies against gun control laws and has pushed to limit the ATF’s powers. Issa too has the group’s “A” rating. (On the Issues website, accessed 9/4/11)
A report released by a gun control advocacy group a few days after the ATF shake-up pointed to what may be an important source for the US weapons that end up with Mexican drug traffickers. Using ATF data, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence found that 16,485 guns have disappeared from the inventories of some 4,500 US gun manufacturers during the past two years. There are no records of their having been sold. “Firearms that disappear from gun manufacturers’ plants without records of sale are frequently trafficked by gun traffickers and prized by criminals,” the report says. “Guns taken from gun manufacturing plants may also be removed before they have been stamped with serial numbers, making them virtually untraceable.”
In 2004 Congress passed an amendment sponsored by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS, 1995-2011) that keeps the ATF from requiring gun manufacturers to track their inventory. (The Hill (Washington, DC) 9/3/11) Issa and Grassley are strong defenders of the amendment. (NRA Institute for Legislative Action website, accessed 9/5/11)
*2. Mexico: Civilian Dies in Latest “Drug War” Mistake
Mexican marines shot and killed Gustavo Acosta Luján in the early morning of Sept. 1 in his home in Jardines de San Andrés, Apodaca municipality, in the northern state of Nuevo León. According to the Secretariat of the Navy, the marines, responding to an anonymous tip, were fired on from inside the house, and Gustavo Acosta, an “alleged criminal” with the alias “M-3,” died in the operation. The marines said they found a 9 mm submachine gun, an AR-15 rifle and quantities of cocaine in the house. Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa has been using soldiers for police work in northern Mexico since militarizing the “war on drugs” shortly after he took office in December 2006.
The Acosta family said the marines came to their home while they were asleep, fired on the house and demanded that they open the door. The marines shot Gustavo Acosta when he came to the door, according to the Acostas, and they threw his brother Daniel Acosta to the floor, hooding him and placing a gun in his hands. The entire family was taken outside, including a nine-year-old child; the authorities stayed in control of the house until 7 am, and the family says the marines took computers and cell phones. Gustavo’s mother was hospitalized with an attack of high blood pressure.
The family and the Citizens in Support of Human Rights Civic Association (CADHAC) indicated that the marines raided the Acosta home in error. At some point in the operation, the marines also arrested Osnoel Rolando Peña Serna (“Mascarita”) four doors away from the Acosta home. He had been living in a rented house which had no furniture and was described as “like a safe house.” The Acosta family said they planned to file a complaint with the Public Ministry and the federal government’s National Human Rights Commision (CNDH). (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/3/11)
*3. Chile: Carabineros Admit Agent Killed Student Protester
On Aug. 29 Chilean prosecutors ordered the detention of Sgt. Miguel Millacura of the carabineros militarized police for the shooting death of 16-year-old Manuel Gutiérrez Reinoso in the early morning of Aug. 26 in the Villa Jaime Eyzaguirre neighborhood in Macul, a commune in Greater Santiago [see Update #1094]. Investigators found that Sgt. Millacura’s Uzi submachine gun fired the shot that killed Gutiérrez, who had been walking with his brother to observe late-night protests following an Aug. 24-25 general strike. Millacura claimed he shot into the air.
The carabineros, who have been accused of brutally repressing student demonstrations over the past three months, initially dismissed witnesses’ accounts of the shooting. But once the ballistic evidence implicated Milllacura, the carabinero command discharged him and four other agents; several others went into retirement. The government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera asked for the resignation of carabinero general Sergio Gajardo, who had failed to carry out an internal investigation. The head of the militarized police, Gen. Eduardo Gordon, apologized to the Gutiérrez family. There were calls for Gordon’s resignation. (EFE 8/30/11 via Terra.com (Peru); El País (Spain) 8/31/11 via Vanguardia (Mexico); La Tercera (Chile) 8/31/11)
Gen. Gordon’s resignation came on Sept. 2, after an accusation appeared in the media that he had altered an official report that implicated his son in an automobile accident; the general has also been accused of telephone spying. Gordon announced that he was “tired of such wickedness and such trashing of the institutions.” Piñera’s government suffered this latest blow one day before the president was to sit down in talks with student leaders, who are demanding sweeping changes in Chile’s highly privatized education system. (La Nación (Argentina) 9/3/11 from correspondent)
*4. Haiti: Video Implicates UN Troops in Sex Abuse
As of Sept. 2 it appeared that some of the 1,100 Uruguayan troops in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) were about to be repatriated because of accusations of sex abuse at a base in the southern coastal town of Port-Salut. Eliane Nabaa, who handles communication and information for the United Nations military and police occupation force in Haiti, told the Haitian internet news service AlterPresse on Sept. 1 that repatriation was a possibility. On Sept. 2 an Uruguayan website said the soldiers would be sent home in the coming week.
A Port-Salut organization made the accusations on Aug. 11, but the Uruguayan military quickly dismissed them [see Update #1094]. Apparently the decision to act on the charges followed the appearance of a cell phone video showing four MINUSTAH soldiers forcing an 18-year-old Haitian youth on to a bed. The video was posted on the ABC News website on Sept. 2. According to the youth, the soldiers beat him and sexually molested him in the incident, which occurred in July. A medical certificate filed in a Haitian court confirms that he was beaten and suffered injuries consistent with sexual assault.
Under MINUSTAH's agreement with Haiti, the force’s troops can only be disciplined and tried by their home country. (AlterPresse 9/2/11; ABC News 9/2/11)
*5. Puerto Rico: Who’s Playing Dirty Tricks on the Macheteros?
Puerto Rican independence activist Hilton Fernández Diamante has charged that in June US federal agents planted an electronic device in his car while it was parked in the apartment tower complex where he lives in Trujillo Alto, south of San Juan. Photographs, an eyewitness account and statements by the apartment complex’s management confirm that people who identified themselves as Puerto Rican police agents were in the parking area while Fernández Diamante was in New York to meet with a lawyer. Told about the suspicious activity on his return, Fernández Diamante called the Puerto Rican police's bomb squad on June 15. Police agents evacuated the area and removed the device.
A former member of the rebel Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Macheteros, Fernández Diamante served five years in jail in connection with the group’s 1983 armed robbery of $7.1 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut, one of the largest robberies in US history. In June he agreed to be a spokesperson for Norberto González Claudio, who was arrested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in May in the central Puerto Rico town of Cayey; González Claudio had spent 25 years as a fugitive from charges related to the Wells Fargo robbery. Fernández Diamante’s decision to be active in the González Claudio case may have motivated the installation of the device in his car, according to a statement issued on Aug. 31 by a committee formed to support Norberto González Claudio and his brother Avelino. [Avelino González Claudio pleaded guilty to charges in the Wells Fargo case in February 2010, after his capture in 2008; see Update #1021.]
An unidentified law enforcement source told the Hartford Courant that the device planted in Fernández Diamante’s car sent out an electronic signal that would have enabled agents to track the vehicle. His supporters say they don’t discount the possibility that the device was a bomb. The FBI office in San Juan declined to comment. (Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 6/15/11; Hartford (CT) Courant 9/2/11)
On June 22, Jennifer González, the president of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, received an envelope containing white powder; this led to an evacuation of the Capitol building for fear of a terrorist attack. Rep. Charlie Hernández received a similar envelope at his office on Aug. 17. In both cases, a “Commander Nacho” of the Macheteros assumed responsibility. But an Aug. 18 communiqué said to be sent by the Macheteros “from someplace in the Heart of the People” denied any connection with the action. The message said the group has “never used chemical weapons that could endanger the safety of the people.” (PH 8/20/11)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Caribbean, Jamaica, Haiti
Chile: National Strike Forces Government to Negotiating Table
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3203-chile-national-strike-forces-government-to-negotiating-table
Rainforest Defenders Marked for Death in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3201-rainforest-defenders-marked-for-death-in-brazil
Bolivia: high court convicts seven officials of genocide
http://ww4report.com/node/10275
Bolivia: Former Officials Convicted Over Massacre
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3202-bolivia-former-officials-convicted-over-massacre
Bolivia: A Visit From Lula as TIPNIS Negotiations Falter (Bolivia)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/2/bolivia-visit-lula-tipnis-negotiations-falter
Bolivia strikes blow against car culture
http://ww4report.com/node/10290
Let Me Speak! A Bolivian Woman Miner’s Revolutionary Life
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/3194-let-me-speak-a-bolivian-woman-miners-revolutionary-life-
Peru: Humala makes demands on Camisea consortium
http://ww4report.com/node/10274
Peru: Amazon communities break off negotiations with Maple Energy over six oil spills
http://ww4report.com/node/10289
The Colombia FTA: Only Corporations Win
https://nacla.org/news/2011/8/31/colombia-fta-only-corporations-win
Multinational Incentives and the Rentier Predatory State (Colombia)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/29/multinational-incentives-and-rentier-predatory-state
Colombia criticized on post-9-11 human rights record
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10288
What does “Socialism” Mean Anyway? Voices from Central America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3196-what-does-socialism-mean-anyway-voices-from-central-america
El Salvador’s Supreme Court Not Ready to Detain and Extradite Officers to Spain
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/25/el-salvadors-supreme-court-not-ready-to-detain-and-extradite-officers-to-spain/
Honduras: Aguán Massacres Continue to Support Production of Biodiesel
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3198-honduras-aguan-massacres-continue-to-support-production-of-biodiesel
Declaration from Artists and Intellectuals on the Bajo Aguán and Human Rights in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/3204-declaration-from-artists-and-intellectuals-on-the-bajo-aguan-and-human-rights-in-honduras
Gay Couples Can Adopt In Mexico City, But They Aren’t Applying
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/03/gay-couples-can-adopt-in-mexico-city-but-they-arent-applying/
Mexico Drug War: Facing Skepticism, Calderón Takes His Case To Social Media
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/02/mexico-drug-war-facing-skepticism-calderon-takes-his-case-to-social-media/
Was Al Capone a Terrorist? (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/30/was-al-capone-terrorist
Hurricane Irene's Effect on the Caribbean
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3195-hurricane-irenes-effect-on-the-caribbean
Jamaica: shock in Kingston as Dudus Coke cuts deal
http://ww4report.com/node/10287
Explosive New Report Accuses UN Troops of Sexual Assault--Will This Lead to Greater Pressure for Withdrawal?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/explosive-new-report-accuses-un-troops-of-sexual-assault-will-this-lead-to-greater-pressure-for-withdrawal
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
WNU #1094: Killings Continue in Honduras’ Aguán Valley
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1094, August 28, 2011
1. Honduras: Killings Continue as Aguán Becomes “New Colombia”
2. Chile: General Strike Adds to Pressure on the Government
3. Nicaragua: Dole Settles Pesticide Case With 4,000 Ex-Employees
4. Haiti: Genome Study Confirms UN Troops Brought Cholera
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Honduras: Killings Continue as Aguán Becomes “New Colombia”
Honduran campesino leader Pedro Salgado and his wife, Reina Mejía, were murdered on the evening of Aug. 21 at their home in the La Concepción cooperative, in Tocoa municipality in the northern department of Colón. Salgado was the president of the cooperative and a vice president of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), a leading organization in a decade-old struggle for land in Honduras’ Lower Aguán Valley.
The murders came just one day after the shooting death of Secundino Ruiz, who is president of the nearby San Isidro cooperative and of another campesino organization, the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA) [see Update #1093]. Both MUCA and MARCA won land for their members under an agreement they signed with Honduran president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa in April 2010 [see Update #1029]. The killing of Salgado and Mejía brought the number of people killed in the Lower Aguán in two weeks to 14 or more, including Ruiz, six private guards (previously reported as five), four people working for a Pepsi distributor and a food vendor riding with them. (Comité de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras 8/21/11 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras); FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN) 8/22/11 via Adital (Brazil))
Campesino groups trace the Aguán struggle back to the 1992 Agricultural Modernization Law, which changed restrictions on the size of land holdings to allow businesses to own more than 300 hectares. Campesinos feel that land which should have been theirs through agrarian reform has gone to big businesses like Grupo Dinant, a food product and cooking oil company founded by Miguel Facussé Barjum. There are 40,000 campesinos living “in extreme poverty” in the valley “who need a piece of land to farm,” MUCA general secretary Johnny Rivas told the Spanish wire service EFE. Groups like MUCA started forming about 11 years ago and have relied on a strategy of peaceful occupations of large estates—although Rivas didn’t discount the possibility that some sectors of the campesino movement might have arms.
African oil palms have replaced bananas as the main commercial crop in the valley, and tensions increased as landowners like Facussé saw the potential for the palms in the biofuel business, which could attract carbon credits and international financing [see Update #1077]. To maintain their estates, the landowners have hired private guards and supplied them with arms. Campesino groups consider the guards paramilitaries and blame them for most of the 51 killings of campesinos that they say have taken place in the past two years. Meanwhile, narco traffickers and other criminals have reportedly moved into the area.
President Lobo’s government has negotiated some land transfers under the agrarian reform policy, but the government’s main response to the violence in the Aguán has been to send in soldiers and police agents. There are now about 1,000 police and military personnel stationed in the valley in an operation codenamed Xatruch II, but the violence continues. Juan Almendárez, a former rector of the National Autonomous University of Honduras who has mediated in talks between campesino groups and the government, told EFE that the military and police presence isn’t meant to maintain order but “to weaken the campesino leadership.” He adds that the authorities can’t control the narco traffickers “because of inability” and because the security forces themselves are corrupt. The only way to resolve the valley’s problems is “by giving land to the campesinos, along with credits and technical assistance so that they can cultivate the land.”
With soldiers, paramilitaries and drug traffickers now operating in the valley, Honduran activists fear the Aguán is becoming a “new Colombia.” The right wing charges that there are also guerrilla groups, allegedly trained by Nicaraguans and Venezuelans; an Aug. 25 article in La Prensa, the Honduran daily with the largest circulation, claimed a man known as “The Commander” was leading a band of at least 300 rebels. Campesino and activist groups, which deny the stories about guerrillas, charge that some of the private guards have been trained by the US and that the landowners have been recruiting paramilitaries from Colombia.
“We’re experiencing an extremely difficult situation in the region,” Wilfredo Paz Zúniga, the local coordinator of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), told Argentine journalist Claudia Korol. He asked her to tell “international human rights organizations [and] friendly international journalists” that “we urgently need the presence of an international commission, even if just for weeks or days… Maybe this way the terrible murders of campesino leaders in the region could be stopped.” (EFE 8/23/11 via Que.es (Spain); La Prensa (Honduras) 8/25/11; Vos el Soberano 8/27/11)
The Boston-based organization Grassroots International has set up a web page at http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5123/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7981 with a letter on the situation that activists can send to Honduran and US officials.
Secondary students continue to occupy schools around the country to protest what they say is an effort to privatize the public education system. Nahúm Alexander Guerra, a student at the Pompilio Ortega Agricultural School in Macuelizo in the northwestern department of Santa Bárbara, was killed the night of Aug. 22 as he stood by the door of the school, which the students had occupied. An unidentified man yelled “strikers,” and shot the teenager in the chest and in the arm. (El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula) 8/23/11)
*2. Chile: General Strike Adds to Pressure on the Government
Tens of thousands of Chilean workers, students and teachers participated in a 48-hour strike on Aug. 24 and 25 initiated by the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), the country’s main labor federation, to call “for a different Chile.” The demands included changes to the Labor Code, a reduction in taxes on fuel, and reform of the Constitution, created in 1980 during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The strike also backed the student protest movement that has paralyzed schools for three months to push for a reversal of the Pinochet-era privatization of education [see Update #1092].
Aug. 24, the first day of the strike, was marked by confrontations between the carabinero militarized police and strike supporters, including students attempting to block roads in Santiago and other cities. Police and protesters also clashed in the poorer neighborhoods on the outskirts of the capital. The government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera reported that at least 348 people were arrested during the day and 36 were injured, including 19 police agents. According to the government, the strike call was only respected by 14% of employees in the public sector, where the unions are strongest, while union sources put the number at 80%. In the evening thousands of people took to the streets to bang on pots and pans in a cacerolazo protest to support the strike.
The second day, Aug. 25, brought massive marches throughout the country. Organizers estimated that 250,000 to 300,000 people marched in Santiago, and an equal number took part in the mobilizations in the rest of the country. Jaime Gajardo, president of the Teachers Association of Chile, called the Santiago march “the largest of this year’s mobilizations”—which are generally considered the largest since the restoration of democracy in 1990. But according to Deputy Interior Minister Rodrigo Urbilla, only 50,000 people participated in the Santiago march and a total of 175,000 protested nationwide; the Labor Ministry reported that most public employees were at work, with just 9.1% observing the strike. Despite the disturbances by masked youths that have routinely accompanied recent demonstrations, President Piñera’s spokesperson, Andrés Chadwick, conceded that in general “the [Santiago] march was peaceful and orderly” and “there were no major problems.” The government reported that 153 police agents and 53 civilians were injured nationally and almost 1,400 people were arrested.
There was one fatality: 16-year-old Manuel Gutiérrez Reinoso, who was shot in the Villa Jaime Eyzaguirre neighborhood in Macul, a commune in Greater Santiago. He was walking with his brother and a friend to observe what was happening, according to his brother, when carabineros passed by in a truck and three shots were heard. Other witnesses confirmed this. Manuel Gutiérrez died in a hospital in the early morning of Aug. 26. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/25/11, 8/26/11, 8/27/11 from correspondent and unidentified wire services; La Tercera (Santiago) 8/27/11)
Students and their supporters were engaged in a number of protests in addition to the general strike. On Aug. 23, the day before the labor action, a group of artists and performers sat in at the Santiago office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in support of some 35 students who were on hunger strike to push their demands for education reform. Three of them—students at High School A-131 in the city of Buin, in Maipo province, part of Greater Santiago-- had been fasting for 36 days. These three students ended their strike on Aug. 24, along with three others from the same school. “We’re suspending our strike but not our struggle,” one of the strikers, 19-year-old Gloria Negrete, said at a press conference. She was hospitalized after losing some 26 pounds and contracting a respiratory infection. (LJ 8/24/11, 8/25/11)
The president of Brazil’s National Student Union (UNE), Daniel Iliescu, visited Chile to participate in the general strike and also to announce a Continental Day of Struggle by Latin American Youth, a day of protests to be held in March 2012 around public education issues. Camila Vallejo, president of the Federation of University of Chile Students (FECH), was planning to reciprocate by visiting Brazil on Aug. 31 to join a student march in Brasilia (DF) calling for the government there to allocate 10% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to education, along with 50% of the Pre-Salt Social Fund, a special government fund financed by profits from Brazil’s sub-salt oilfields. (Adital (Brazil) 8/25/11)
*3. Nicaragua: Dole Settles Pesticide Case With 4,000 Ex-Employees
Dole Food Company, a California-based agricultural multinational, announced in Managua on Aug. 11 that it had arrived at a settlement with some 5,000 former banana workers who said their health had been damaged by prolonged and unprotected exposure to the pesticides Nemagon and Fumazone, brand names for dibromochloropropane (DBCP). The settlement, arranged with Dole by the Texas-based law firm Provost Umphrey, covers 3,153 Nicaraguans, 780 Costa Ricans and 1,000 Hondurans; the former employees or their survivors—about 300 of the workers have died--should start receiving payment in two or three months. The amount wasn’t disclosed.
The pesticides, now banned, have been linked to cancer, sterility and birth defects. Dole used them on its Central American banana plantations from 1973 to 1980. About 17,000 former banana workers brought suits in Nicaragua against Dole and the pesticides’ manufacturers about 10 years ago. A Nicaraguan court awarded the workers $489.4 million in compensation in 2002, and the workers staged a series of protests to get the Nicaraguan government to enforce the court’s decision. US courts eventually ruled against them [see Updates #672, 732, 734, 826]. The issue was the subject of a 2009 documentary film, “Bananas!”
The Aug. 11 settlement doesn’t cover the 13,874 Nicaraguan workers who are represented by other law firms, and the suits against the manufacturers--Dow Chemical Company, Shell Oil Company, Shell Chemical Company, Shell Chemical Company LLP and Occidental Chemical Corporation—remain open. In making the settlement, Dole admitted no wrongdoing, according to Dole spokesperson Humberto Hurtado. “This is the style of the transnationals, with a dual intention: not to appear as murderers to the public and to protect themselves from future suits,” a representative of the workers, Jacinto Obregón, explained. “But the memo the manufacturer, Dow Chemical Company, put out is clear. They recognized that although the product was toxic, it could be sold in Latin America as long as the profits were greater than the losses from lawsuits.” (El Nuevo Diario (Managua) 8/12/11; AFP 8/12/11 via La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa); La Nación (San José, Costa Rica) 8/12/11, some from AFP)
*4. Haiti: Genome Study Confirms UN Troops Brought Cholera
A comparison that Danish and US researchers have made of the whole genomes of cholera bacteria found in patients in Haiti and in Nepal provides nearly conclusive evidence that Nepalese soldiers in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) were the inadvertent cause of a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 6,000 Haitians. The genomes are “practically identical,” Harvard University microbiologist John Mekalanos told the magazine Science. “This is as close as you can come to molecular proof.”
The first cases of cholera were reported in October 2010 around the city of Mirebalais in Haiti’s Central Plateau. Local people blamed MINUSTAH troops at a base where they said had fecal matter had leaked into a nearby river. The soldiers at the base had recently arrived from Nepal, right after an outbreak of cholera there. On-the-ground research by a French epidemiologist, Dr. Renaud Piarroux, supported the Haitians’ suspicions, as have subsequent studies, but MINUSTAH spokespeople have repeatedly denied that there’s proof of the claim [see Update #1086]. With the new study, which was published on Aug. 23, the United Nations should take full responsibility by paying compensation or by backing a massive effort to stop the epidemic, Piarroux told Science. “More than 6,000 people are dead,” he said. “It's our fault, as the people of the world.” (Science 8/23/11)
The genome report appeared as MINUSTAH troops were being blamed for further unsanitary practices in the Central Plateau. There were reports that human wastes were dumped in the Guayamouc River near Hinche, capital of Center department, on Aug. 6 and in the Ahibon River, near Fort Marmont, 15 km from Hinche, on Aug. 21. MINUSTAH has denied the charges. Dozens of people protested on Aug. 21, shooting guns, throwing stones and blocking National Route 3, which passes through Hinche, for more than an hour. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 8/23/11)
On Aug. 11 an organization in the southern coastal town of Port-Salut, the Research Committee for the Development and Organization of Port-Salut (CREDOP), charged that MINUSTAH troops from Uruguayan were prostituting impoverished underage Haitians at their base. The Uruguayan navy denied the accusations on Aug. 16, saying it had conducted an interrogation of all 108 troops on the base. The Uruguayan contingent is studying the possibility of suing CREDOP for unfounded allegations. (Haiti Press Network 8/11/11; TeleSUR 8/17/11) [MINUSTAH troops from Sri Lanka were repatriated in 2007 because of similar charges; see Update #923.]
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
UNASUR: South American Alliance Confronts Economic Crisis
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6448
Beyond the Drug War: The Pentagon’s Other Operations in Latin America
https://nacla.org/news/2011/8/26/beyond-drug-war-pentagon%E2%80%99s-other-operations-latin-america
WikiLeaks Cables of Interest on Latin America, Released July 24 - August 21 2011
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3182-wikileaks-cables-of-interest-on-latin-america-released-july-24-august-21-2011-
Demanding Economic and Educational Reform in Chile
http://www.thenation.com/blog/163006/demanding-economic-and-educational-reform-chile
Seeking Social Justice Through Education in Chile
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3190-seeking-social-justice-through-education-in-chile
Bolivia: Morales Accuses U.S. Of Inciting Indigenous Protests
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/22/bolivia-morales-accuses-u-s-of-inciting-indigenous-protests/
Bolivia: TIPNIS Marchers Face Accusations and Negotiations
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/26/bolivia-tipnis-marchers-face-accusations-and-negotiations
Bolivia: Morales Clashes with Native Protesters over Road through Tropical Park
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/3192-bolivia-morales-clashes-with-native-protesters-over-road-through-tropical-park-
Peru passes "historic" indigenous rights law
http://ww4report.com/node/10260
Native Peruvians More Marginalized Despite Growth
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3183-native-peruvians-more-marginalized-despite-growth-
Ecuador: New Oil Policy Threatens Amazonian Peoples
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3185-ecuador-new-oil-policy-threatens-amazonian-peoples
Unions Call for House Committee Investigation of Possible Misuse of U.S. Aid in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3191-unions-call-for-house-committee-investigation-of-possible-misuse-of-us-aid-in-colombia
Colombia: Interview with Eberto Diaz Montes, President of FENSUAGRO (United National Federation of Peasant Farmers and Farm Workers)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3184-colombia-interview-with-eberto-diaz-montes-president-of-fensuagro-united-national-federation-of-peasant-farmers-and-farm-workers
Colombia beefs up security in Amazon oil zone following FARC attacks
http://ww4report.com/node/10268
Chávez Says Venezuela Only Recognizes Gaddafi Gov In Libya
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/24/chavez-says-venezuela-only-recognizes-gaddafi-gov-in-libya/
The Islamo-Bolivarian Threat (Venezuela)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3188-the-islamo-bolivarian-threat
El Salvador: high court refuses to extradite officers accused in Jesuit Massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/10258
The Honduran Resistance at the Crossroads: An Interview With Carlos Amaya
https://nacla.org/news/2011/8/24/honduran-resistance-crossroads-interview-carlos-amaya
Human Rights Caravan Protests Migrant Kidnappings
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5267
Sandak Workers Defend Their Jobs, Win the Protection of a Legal Strike
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=191#1336
Maquiladora Factories in Mexico Manufacture Toxic Pollutants
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3186-maquiladora-factories-in-mexico-manufacture-toxic-pollutants
Mexico: "terrorists" massacre 50 in blaze at Monterrey's Casino Royale
http://ww4report.com/node/10259
Nowhere to Turn: Sex Trafficking in Nuevo León, Mexico
https://nacla.org/news/2011/8/25/nowhere-turn-sex-trafficking-nuevo-le%C3%B3n-mexico
Mexico’s Drug War Refugees Rarely Secure Asylum In United States
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/25/mexicos-drug-war-refugees-rarely-secure-asylum-in-united-states/
Abandoned like a stray dog (Haiti)
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/8/22/january-12-victims-abandoned-like-a-stray-dog.html
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1094, August 28, 2011
1. Honduras: Killings Continue as Aguán Becomes “New Colombia”
2. Chile: General Strike Adds to Pressure on the Government
3. Nicaragua: Dole Settles Pesticide Case With 4,000 Ex-Employees
4. Haiti: Genome Study Confirms UN Troops Brought Cholera
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Honduras: Killings Continue as Aguán Becomes “New Colombia”
Honduran campesino leader Pedro Salgado and his wife, Reina Mejía, were murdered on the evening of Aug. 21 at their home in the La Concepción cooperative, in Tocoa municipality in the northern department of Colón. Salgado was the president of the cooperative and a vice president of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), a leading organization in a decade-old struggle for land in Honduras’ Lower Aguán Valley.
The murders came just one day after the shooting death of Secundino Ruiz, who is president of the nearby San Isidro cooperative and of another campesino organization, the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA) [see Update #1093]. Both MUCA and MARCA won land for their members under an agreement they signed with Honduran president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa in April 2010 [see Update #1029]. The killing of Salgado and Mejía brought the number of people killed in the Lower Aguán in two weeks to 14 or more, including Ruiz, six private guards (previously reported as five), four people working for a Pepsi distributor and a food vendor riding with them. (Comité de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras 8/21/11 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras); FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN) 8/22/11 via Adital (Brazil))
Campesino groups trace the Aguán struggle back to the 1992 Agricultural Modernization Law, which changed restrictions on the size of land holdings to allow businesses to own more than 300 hectares. Campesinos feel that land which should have been theirs through agrarian reform has gone to big businesses like Grupo Dinant, a food product and cooking oil company founded by Miguel Facussé Barjum. There are 40,000 campesinos living “in extreme poverty” in the valley “who need a piece of land to farm,” MUCA general secretary Johnny Rivas told the Spanish wire service EFE. Groups like MUCA started forming about 11 years ago and have relied on a strategy of peaceful occupations of large estates—although Rivas didn’t discount the possibility that some sectors of the campesino movement might have arms.
African oil palms have replaced bananas as the main commercial crop in the valley, and tensions increased as landowners like Facussé saw the potential for the palms in the biofuel business, which could attract carbon credits and international financing [see Update #1077]. To maintain their estates, the landowners have hired private guards and supplied them with arms. Campesino groups consider the guards paramilitaries and blame them for most of the 51 killings of campesinos that they say have taken place in the past two years. Meanwhile, narco traffickers and other criminals have reportedly moved into the area.
President Lobo’s government has negotiated some land transfers under the agrarian reform policy, but the government’s main response to the violence in the Aguán has been to send in soldiers and police agents. There are now about 1,000 police and military personnel stationed in the valley in an operation codenamed Xatruch II, but the violence continues. Juan Almendárez, a former rector of the National Autonomous University of Honduras who has mediated in talks between campesino groups and the government, told EFE that the military and police presence isn’t meant to maintain order but “to weaken the campesino leadership.” He adds that the authorities can’t control the narco traffickers “because of inability” and because the security forces themselves are corrupt. The only way to resolve the valley’s problems is “by giving land to the campesinos, along with credits and technical assistance so that they can cultivate the land.”
With soldiers, paramilitaries and drug traffickers now operating in the valley, Honduran activists fear the Aguán is becoming a “new Colombia.” The right wing charges that there are also guerrilla groups, allegedly trained by Nicaraguans and Venezuelans; an Aug. 25 article in La Prensa, the Honduran daily with the largest circulation, claimed a man known as “The Commander” was leading a band of at least 300 rebels. Campesino and activist groups, which deny the stories about guerrillas, charge that some of the private guards have been trained by the US and that the landowners have been recruiting paramilitaries from Colombia.
“We’re experiencing an extremely difficult situation in the region,” Wilfredo Paz Zúniga, the local coordinator of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), told Argentine journalist Claudia Korol. He asked her to tell “international human rights organizations [and] friendly international journalists” that “we urgently need the presence of an international commission, even if just for weeks or days… Maybe this way the terrible murders of campesino leaders in the region could be stopped.” (EFE 8/23/11 via Que.es (Spain); La Prensa (Honduras) 8/25/11; Vos el Soberano 8/27/11)
The Boston-based organization Grassroots International has set up a web page at http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5123/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7981 with a letter on the situation that activists can send to Honduran and US officials.
Secondary students continue to occupy schools around the country to protest what they say is an effort to privatize the public education system. Nahúm Alexander Guerra, a student at the Pompilio Ortega Agricultural School in Macuelizo in the northwestern department of Santa Bárbara, was killed the night of Aug. 22 as he stood by the door of the school, which the students had occupied. An unidentified man yelled “strikers,” and shot the teenager in the chest and in the arm. (El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula) 8/23/11)
*2. Chile: General Strike Adds to Pressure on the Government
Tens of thousands of Chilean workers, students and teachers participated in a 48-hour strike on Aug. 24 and 25 initiated by the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), the country’s main labor federation, to call “for a different Chile.” The demands included changes to the Labor Code, a reduction in taxes on fuel, and reform of the Constitution, created in 1980 during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The strike also backed the student protest movement that has paralyzed schools for three months to push for a reversal of the Pinochet-era privatization of education [see Update #1092].
Aug. 24, the first day of the strike, was marked by confrontations between the carabinero militarized police and strike supporters, including students attempting to block roads in Santiago and other cities. Police and protesters also clashed in the poorer neighborhoods on the outskirts of the capital. The government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera reported that at least 348 people were arrested during the day and 36 were injured, including 19 police agents. According to the government, the strike call was only respected by 14% of employees in the public sector, where the unions are strongest, while union sources put the number at 80%. In the evening thousands of people took to the streets to bang on pots and pans in a cacerolazo protest to support the strike.
The second day, Aug. 25, brought massive marches throughout the country. Organizers estimated that 250,000 to 300,000 people marched in Santiago, and an equal number took part in the mobilizations in the rest of the country. Jaime Gajardo, president of the Teachers Association of Chile, called the Santiago march “the largest of this year’s mobilizations”—which are generally considered the largest since the restoration of democracy in 1990. But according to Deputy Interior Minister Rodrigo Urbilla, only 50,000 people participated in the Santiago march and a total of 175,000 protested nationwide; the Labor Ministry reported that most public employees were at work, with just 9.1% observing the strike. Despite the disturbances by masked youths that have routinely accompanied recent demonstrations, President Piñera’s spokesperson, Andrés Chadwick, conceded that in general “the [Santiago] march was peaceful and orderly” and “there were no major problems.” The government reported that 153 police agents and 53 civilians were injured nationally and almost 1,400 people were arrested.
There was one fatality: 16-year-old Manuel Gutiérrez Reinoso, who was shot in the Villa Jaime Eyzaguirre neighborhood in Macul, a commune in Greater Santiago. He was walking with his brother and a friend to observe what was happening, according to his brother, when carabineros passed by in a truck and three shots were heard. Other witnesses confirmed this. Manuel Gutiérrez died in a hospital in the early morning of Aug. 26. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/25/11, 8/26/11, 8/27/11 from correspondent and unidentified wire services; La Tercera (Santiago) 8/27/11)
Students and their supporters were engaged in a number of protests in addition to the general strike. On Aug. 23, the day before the labor action, a group of artists and performers sat in at the Santiago office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in support of some 35 students who were on hunger strike to push their demands for education reform. Three of them—students at High School A-131 in the city of Buin, in Maipo province, part of Greater Santiago-- had been fasting for 36 days. These three students ended their strike on Aug. 24, along with three others from the same school. “We’re suspending our strike but not our struggle,” one of the strikers, 19-year-old Gloria Negrete, said at a press conference. She was hospitalized after losing some 26 pounds and contracting a respiratory infection. (LJ 8/24/11, 8/25/11)
The president of Brazil’s National Student Union (UNE), Daniel Iliescu, visited Chile to participate in the general strike and also to announce a Continental Day of Struggle by Latin American Youth, a day of protests to be held in March 2012 around public education issues. Camila Vallejo, president of the Federation of University of Chile Students (FECH), was planning to reciprocate by visiting Brazil on Aug. 31 to join a student march in Brasilia (DF) calling for the government there to allocate 10% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to education, along with 50% of the Pre-Salt Social Fund, a special government fund financed by profits from Brazil’s sub-salt oilfields. (Adital (Brazil) 8/25/11)
*3. Nicaragua: Dole Settles Pesticide Case With 4,000 Ex-Employees
Dole Food Company, a California-based agricultural multinational, announced in Managua on Aug. 11 that it had arrived at a settlement with some 5,000 former banana workers who said their health had been damaged by prolonged and unprotected exposure to the pesticides Nemagon and Fumazone, brand names for dibromochloropropane (DBCP). The settlement, arranged with Dole by the Texas-based law firm Provost Umphrey, covers 3,153 Nicaraguans, 780 Costa Ricans and 1,000 Hondurans; the former employees or their survivors—about 300 of the workers have died--should start receiving payment in two or three months. The amount wasn’t disclosed.
The pesticides, now banned, have been linked to cancer, sterility and birth defects. Dole used them on its Central American banana plantations from 1973 to 1980. About 17,000 former banana workers brought suits in Nicaragua against Dole and the pesticides’ manufacturers about 10 years ago. A Nicaraguan court awarded the workers $489.4 million in compensation in 2002, and the workers staged a series of protests to get the Nicaraguan government to enforce the court’s decision. US courts eventually ruled against them [see Updates #672, 732, 734, 826]. The issue was the subject of a 2009 documentary film, “Bananas!”
The Aug. 11 settlement doesn’t cover the 13,874 Nicaraguan workers who are represented by other law firms, and the suits against the manufacturers--Dow Chemical Company, Shell Oil Company, Shell Chemical Company, Shell Chemical Company LLP and Occidental Chemical Corporation—remain open. In making the settlement, Dole admitted no wrongdoing, according to Dole spokesperson Humberto Hurtado. “This is the style of the transnationals, with a dual intention: not to appear as murderers to the public and to protect themselves from future suits,” a representative of the workers, Jacinto Obregón, explained. “But the memo the manufacturer, Dow Chemical Company, put out is clear. They recognized that although the product was toxic, it could be sold in Latin America as long as the profits were greater than the losses from lawsuits.” (El Nuevo Diario (Managua) 8/12/11; AFP 8/12/11 via La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa); La Nación (San José, Costa Rica) 8/12/11, some from AFP)
*4. Haiti: Genome Study Confirms UN Troops Brought Cholera
A comparison that Danish and US researchers have made of the whole genomes of cholera bacteria found in patients in Haiti and in Nepal provides nearly conclusive evidence that Nepalese soldiers in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) were the inadvertent cause of a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 6,000 Haitians. The genomes are “practically identical,” Harvard University microbiologist John Mekalanos told the magazine Science. “This is as close as you can come to molecular proof.”
The first cases of cholera were reported in October 2010 around the city of Mirebalais in Haiti’s Central Plateau. Local people blamed MINUSTAH troops at a base where they said had fecal matter had leaked into a nearby river. The soldiers at the base had recently arrived from Nepal, right after an outbreak of cholera there. On-the-ground research by a French epidemiologist, Dr. Renaud Piarroux, supported the Haitians’ suspicions, as have subsequent studies, but MINUSTAH spokespeople have repeatedly denied that there’s proof of the claim [see Update #1086]. With the new study, which was published on Aug. 23, the United Nations should take full responsibility by paying compensation or by backing a massive effort to stop the epidemic, Piarroux told Science. “More than 6,000 people are dead,” he said. “It's our fault, as the people of the world.” (Science 8/23/11)
The genome report appeared as MINUSTAH troops were being blamed for further unsanitary practices in the Central Plateau. There were reports that human wastes were dumped in the Guayamouc River near Hinche, capital of Center department, on Aug. 6 and in the Ahibon River, near Fort Marmont, 15 km from Hinche, on Aug. 21. MINUSTAH has denied the charges. Dozens of people protested on Aug. 21, shooting guns, throwing stones and blocking National Route 3, which passes through Hinche, for more than an hour. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 8/23/11)
On Aug. 11 an organization in the southern coastal town of Port-Salut, the Research Committee for the Development and Organization of Port-Salut (CREDOP), charged that MINUSTAH troops from Uruguayan were prostituting impoverished underage Haitians at their base. The Uruguayan navy denied the accusations on Aug. 16, saying it had conducted an interrogation of all 108 troops on the base. The Uruguayan contingent is studying the possibility of suing CREDOP for unfounded allegations. (Haiti Press Network 8/11/11; TeleSUR 8/17/11) [MINUSTAH troops from Sri Lanka were repatriated in 2007 because of similar charges; see Update #923.]
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
UNASUR: South American Alliance Confronts Economic Crisis
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6448
Beyond the Drug War: The Pentagon’s Other Operations in Latin America
https://nacla.org/news/2011/8/26/beyond-drug-war-pentagon%E2%80%99s-other-operations-latin-america
WikiLeaks Cables of Interest on Latin America, Released July 24 - August 21 2011
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3182-wikileaks-cables-of-interest-on-latin-america-released-july-24-august-21-2011-
Demanding Economic and Educational Reform in Chile
http://www.thenation.com/blog/163006/demanding-economic-and-educational-reform-chile
Seeking Social Justice Through Education in Chile
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3190-seeking-social-justice-through-education-in-chile
Bolivia: Morales Accuses U.S. Of Inciting Indigenous Protests
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/22/bolivia-morales-accuses-u-s-of-inciting-indigenous-protests/
Bolivia: TIPNIS Marchers Face Accusations and Negotiations
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/26/bolivia-tipnis-marchers-face-accusations-and-negotiations
Bolivia: Morales Clashes with Native Protesters over Road through Tropical Park
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/3192-bolivia-morales-clashes-with-native-protesters-over-road-through-tropical-park-
Peru passes "historic" indigenous rights law
http://ww4report.com/node/10260
Native Peruvians More Marginalized Despite Growth
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3183-native-peruvians-more-marginalized-despite-growth-
Ecuador: New Oil Policy Threatens Amazonian Peoples
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3185-ecuador-new-oil-policy-threatens-amazonian-peoples
Unions Call for House Committee Investigation of Possible Misuse of U.S. Aid in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3191-unions-call-for-house-committee-investigation-of-possible-misuse-of-us-aid-in-colombia
Colombia: Interview with Eberto Diaz Montes, President of FENSUAGRO (United National Federation of Peasant Farmers and Farm Workers)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3184-colombia-interview-with-eberto-diaz-montes-president-of-fensuagro-united-national-federation-of-peasant-farmers-and-farm-workers
Colombia beefs up security in Amazon oil zone following FARC attacks
http://ww4report.com/node/10268
Chávez Says Venezuela Only Recognizes Gaddafi Gov In Libya
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/24/chavez-says-venezuela-only-recognizes-gaddafi-gov-in-libya/
The Islamo-Bolivarian Threat (Venezuela)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3188-the-islamo-bolivarian-threat
El Salvador: high court refuses to extradite officers accused in Jesuit Massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/10258
The Honduran Resistance at the Crossroads: An Interview With Carlos Amaya
https://nacla.org/news/2011/8/24/honduran-resistance-crossroads-interview-carlos-amaya
Human Rights Caravan Protests Migrant Kidnappings
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5267
Sandak Workers Defend Their Jobs, Win the Protection of a Legal Strike
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=191#1336
Maquiladora Factories in Mexico Manufacture Toxic Pollutants
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3186-maquiladora-factories-in-mexico-manufacture-toxic-pollutants
Mexico: "terrorists" massacre 50 in blaze at Monterrey's Casino Royale
http://ww4report.com/node/10259
Nowhere to Turn: Sex Trafficking in Nuevo León, Mexico
https://nacla.org/news/2011/8/25/nowhere-turn-sex-trafficking-nuevo-le%C3%B3n-mexico
Mexico’s Drug War Refugees Rarely Secure Asylum In United States
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/25/mexicos-drug-war-refugees-rarely-secure-asylum-in-united-states/
Abandoned like a stray dog (Haiti)
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/8/22/january-12-victims-abandoned-like-a-stray-dog.html
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
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. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
