Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #948, May 25, 2008
1. Cuba: Dissidents Funded by Terrorist?
2. Chile: 1 Convicted in Jara Murder
3. Mexico: Bishops Push Posadas Probe
4. Haiti: 1,000 Peasants Protest
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Cuba: Dissidents Funded by Terrorist?
On May 19 the Cuban government accused Michael Parmly, outgoing head of the US Interests Section in Havana, of supplying opponents of the government with money from Cuban American rightwinger Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriñat, who is currently serving a 46-month prison sentence in the US for illegally stockpiling weapons. According to the government, dissidents such as Martha Beatriz Roque, José Luis García and Laura Pollán were receiving money from a Miami organization called Fundación Rescate Jurídico ("Legal Rescue Foundation"), which is reportedly headed by Alvarez. The Cuban political police intercepted emails and telephone calls during the past two years between Roque and Carmen Machado, a woman said to be Alvarez's assistant. The government also displayed receipts it says opposition members signed for money they received from the foundation.
On May 23, Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque charged that Parmly, who was scheduled to leave his post this summer, personally carried out "at least three operations of supplying the money." Pérez Roque said this violated the May 30, 1977 Bilateral Agreement that established the Interests Section, and he called on the US government to respond to the charges.
Alvarez is a longtime associate of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "asset" Luis Posada Carriles. The US has charged that he smuggled Posada into the US in a shrimping boat in March 2005; his current prison sentence stems from apparent plans for armed attacks on Cuba [see Updates #761, 875, 883]. The Cuban government says it has a tape of Alvarez in 2001 advising one of his associates on a planned attack with explosives against the Tropicana nightclub. Martha Beatriz Roque is an economist who has figured prominently in the opposition. She was one of 75 dissidents sentenced to long jail terms in 2003, but she was released for health reasons in July 2004 [see Updates #756, 811].
Cuba's accusations came as US politicians were focusing on Cuba. The likely candidates for the November presidential elections--Sen. John McCain (R-AR) and Barack Obama (D-IL)--were both visiting Miami during the week. McCain supports the hardline policies of US president George W. Bush, while Obama says he favors dialogue with Havana and the easing of some restrictions on Cuban Americans' visits and remittances to Cuba. On May 21 Bush announced that recent changes by the Cuban government were a "cruel joke" but said his government would now allow people in the US to send cellphones to Cuba, since Cuban president Raúl Castro is easing Cuban restrictions on owning cellphones. (La Jornada (Mexico) 5/20/08, 5/21/08, 5/22/08, 5/23/08 from correspondent)
Correction: Alvarez's prison term has been reduced to 30 months; see Update #949.
*2. Chile: 1 Convicted in Jara Murder
On May 15 Chilean judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes Belmar found retired army colonel Mario Manriquez Bravo guilty in the Sept. 16, 1973 murder of the internationally renowned singer Víctor Jara; the judge then closed the case, despite testimony that other officers were also involved. Joan Jara, the victim's widow, expressed surprise at the unexpected decision; the family's lawyer, Nelson Caucoto, indicated that he'll file an appeal so that other culprits can be identified. Caucoto noted that witnesses had referred to someone known as "The Prince" and identified him as the actual killer.
In addition to his singing career, Jara carried out studies in folklore and directed theatrical productions. He campaigned for leftist presidential candidate Salvador Allende in 1970 and was appointed cultural ambassador after Allende was elected. He was arrested on Sept. 12, 1973, the day after Allende's government was overthrown in a coup headed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Jara and 5,000 other prisoners were held in a stadium in Santiago which is now named for him. The military tortured Jara before cutting off his hands and shooting him. (Prensa Latina 5/15/08; La Jornada 5/16/08 from correspondent)
*3. Mexico: Bishops Push Posadas Probe
On May 21 José Leopoldo González, secretary general of the Conference of Mexican Bishops (CEM), said the Catholic bishops had voted unanimously to call for the government to make former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) testify again about the killing of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and six people in a bloody shootout at Guadalajara's airport on May 24, 1993. González said Salinas' previous testimony, on Aug. 2, 2006, was "full of omissions."
The official account is that Posadas Ocampo was shot because the killers mistook him for someone else when he happened to be present during a fight between the Tijuana and Sinaloa drug cartels. The director of Mexico's Forensic Medical Service at the time, Mario Rivas Souza, said the cardinal was shot directly 14 times, which casts doubt on the official explanation. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the killing, the Guadalajara archdiocese has issued a book entitled: The Truth Will Set You Free. Don't Be Afraid. And the Homicide of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo? The book suggests that the killing was organized by a high official in the government's "war on drugs" to make sure Posadas wouldn't reveal evidence of links between Salinas and drug trafficking networks.
The book reportedly also entertains a conspiracy theory involving the Freemasons. Independent journalist John Ross reports that some people think Posadas was targeted because he himself had drug trafficking connections. (Excelsior (Mexico) 5/20/08 from Notimex; Univisión 5/23/08 from EFE; Proceso (Mexico) 5/24/08; John Ross, Blindman's Buff #213, 5/27/08)
*4. Haiti: 1,000 Peasants Protest
More than 1,000 people, mostly peasants, marched through the streets of Savanette, near the Dominican border in Haiti's Central Plateau region, on May 19 to protest the local government's failure to issue proper identity papers. The march also commemorated the 88th anniversary of the assassination of Benoit Batraville ("Ti Benwa"), the commander of the KAKO peasant army, which fought against a 1915-1934 military occupation by the US. "Down with the occupation," "Long live an independent and sovereign Haiti," "Authentic birth certificates for small peasants" and "Down with corrupt civil servants" read the signs the protesters carried as they marched 4 km from the community of Kowos into the town of Savanette. There was a public meeting with local officials before the march, which was organized by Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen ("Small Haitian Peasants' Unity"). A number of groups sponsored a forum honoring Batraville in Kowos on the evening of May 18. (Alterpresse 5/22/08)
On May 20 the grassroots organization Chandèl issued a call for measures to reduce unemployment and the high cost of food, which had spurred violent protests in April [see Updates #942, 943]. The group asked for the authorities to suspend layoffs and the privatization process at the national telecommunications company, Téléco, and at the National Port Authority (APN); reopen state-owned warehouses in all 10 departments; and carry out agrarian reform measures aimed at restarting Haitian agricultural production. Other groups have raised similar demands, including the Collective of Small Haitian Peasant Organizations (KOTPA). (AlterPresse 5/20/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Argentina: A Different Kind of Land Occupation
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1294/1/
Free Software in Brazil: Analysis & Interview with Marcos Mazoni http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1289/1/
FARC commander Mario Marulanda dead: Colombia
http://ww4report.com/node/5549
Colombia: More Doubts on Interpol's Laptop Findings
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1293/1/
Colombia: seized guerilla computer leads to "farcpolítica" scandal
http://ww4report.com/node/5541
Hydro development exiles indigenous king in Panama
http://ww4report.com/node/5547
Colombian "farcpolítica" scandal hits Nicaragua
http://ww4report.com/node/5542
Guatemala: No End to the Assassination of Trade Unionists
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1297/68/
Congress scales back "Plan Mexico"
http://ww4report.com/node/5543
Disappeared Oil Workers in Mexico - Out of Sight, Out of Mind http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1298/68/
Mexico's Battle Over Oil
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5235
Latin America: Report Slams Canadian Mining Industry
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1291/1/
Behind Latin America's Food Crisis
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1292/68/
Obama pledges new direction on Latin America
http://ww4report.com/node/5548
McCain to Prevent Venezuela and Bolivia from Becoming Another Cuba http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1299/68/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, 26 May 2008
Monday, 19 May 2008
WNU #947: Colombian Refugee Leader Murdered
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #947, May 18, 2008
1. Colombia: Refugee Leader Murdered
2. Colombia: Rights Activist Threatened
3. Mexico: Union Attacked in Capital
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Colombia: Refugee Leader Murdered
On May 13 unknown persons riding a motorcycle shot and killed Julio César Molina, a leader of refugees from Colombia's internal conflicts who were displaced to the rural zone of Ansermanueva in the southwestern department of Valle del Cauca. On May 16 the Bogota office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (ACNUR) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (OACNUDH) condemned Molina's murder and expressed concern for other refugee leaders in the area. The agencies indicated that Molina's killing was "connected to his reports on the misuse of lands taken from narco traffickers and turned over to displaced persons. It is also feared that there was a connection with his work training victims about their right to reparations."
Molina, a director of the New Dawn Humanitarian Foundation, was shot near the Germania estate, where he and his family had been living with 11 other refugee families since January 2007. Five years earlier the family fled from rightwing paramilitaries in Vista Hermosa in Meta department and sought land to farm in Valle del Cauca. At a ceremony on Dec. 20, 2004, rightwing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Vélez officially presented 20 families, including Molina's, with three estates seized from the extradited landowner Alberto Monsalve. But the families weren't able to use the land until legal issues were settled. They received threats after moving to the Germania estate, and Molina tried unsuccessfully from January of this year to get the local government to provide protection.
At his funeral in the town of Cartago on May 14, Molina was praised for his hard work for the refugees. "My daddy was all skinny when he died," one of Molina's five children said, "from suffering so much for us." That evening the families in Germania were again threatened with death if they didn't leave the region, and on May 16 men on motorcycles left death "sentences" for other refugee leaders, saying they would die if they talked. (Terra (Spain) 5/16/08 from EFE; El Tiempo (Bogota) 5/17/08)
*2. Colombia: Rights Activist Threatened
On May 15 the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders--a program sponsored jointly by the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH)--issued an urgent call for the Colombian government to ensure the safety of Colombian human rights activist Iván Cepeda Castro, his family and other members of the National Movement of Victims of Crimes of the State (MOVICE). The Observatory is asking for letters to President Alvaro Uribe Vélez (auribe@presidencia.gov.co), Vice President Francisco Santos (fsantos@presidencia.gov.co), the vice president's human rights office (obserdh@presidencia.gov.co) and other officials.
Uribe's government has been verbally attacking Cepeda because of a Mar. 6 demonstration he helped organize for the victims of paramilitary violence and an Apr. 15 appearance before members of the US Congress [see Update #944]. Uribe and US president George W. Bush are currently lobbying Congress to ratify a Colombia-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish) and are trying to downplay complaints about Colombia's human rights record. On May 6 Uribe called Cepeda a "human rights faker" and complained about those in the international community who sympathize with "the crocodile tears of these human rights fakers."
Cepeda dedicated himself to human rights work after the 1994 assassination of his father, Manuel Cepeda Vargas, a senator for the leftist Patriotic Union (UP). Iván Cepeda himself has received death threats several times. (Observatorio para la Protección de los Defensores de Derechos Humanos urgent action 5/15/08; dhcolombia 5/11/08 from El Espectador 5/10/08)
*3. Mexico: Union Attacked in Capital
The Authentic Labor Front (FAT), an independent Mexican labor group, announced on May 13 that one of its affiliates is set to declare a strike at the Central de Abasto, Mexico City's huge wholesale food market, on May 30. For the past four years the affiliate--the Union of Workers of Commercial Buildings, Offices and Stores, and the Like and Related (STRACC)--has represented 41 workers who clean bathrooms in the flowers and vegetables area of the giant facility, which is operated by the Federal District (DF) government. The workers are mostly women, and several are older or have disabilities.
Recently the Central de Abasto's management contracted the bathroom maintenance out to a small new private company, Operadora Comercial SAFE, SA de CV (OESSA). This company claims it is subcontracting the work to another company, Great Limp, which it says already has a union. On Apr. 29 OESSA management took the STRACC workers offsite and attempted by pressure and false pretenses to have them sign letters of resignation. Management got 14 to sign before the workers could contact union officials; after that the rest refused. The union members continued to work until May 6, when management appeared with a group of judicial and auxiliary police and arrested the workers, some of whom were injured in the operation. The police held them for 14 hours, supposedly for "illegal exercise of particular rights," which can carry a sentence of three months to one year in prison. Since then the STRACC members have not been allowed to work.
The Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR) is asking for letters to Marcelo Ebrard (mebrard@df.gob.mx), head of the DF government, which has been controlled by the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) for the last 11 years. (A sample letter is available at http://www.netraising.net/images/enlace/Carta_para_Marcelo_Ebrard.doc) (La Jornada (Mexico) 5/7/08, 5/10/08; Excelsior (Mexico) 5/13/08 from Notimex; CLR urgent action 5/14/08)
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico
Argentina Versus the World Bank: Fair Play or Fixed Fight?
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5189
Chilean Protesters Unhappy With Barrick Gold Pascua Lama Project
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1280/1/
I Give Up, Says Brazilian Minister Who Fought to Save the Rainforest
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1286/68/
Bolivia: Morales Bets All or Nothing in Recall Referendum
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1281/68/
Reports from Indigenous Summit in Lima
http://movimientos.org/ea3/index.phtml?lang=Ingles
Ecuador: CONAIE Indigenous Movement Condemns President Correa
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1288/1/
Colombia extradites paramilitary commanders
http://ww4report.com/node/5499
FARC 47th Front commander surrenders
http://ww4report.com/node/5522
Chávez: Interpol chief "corrupt gringo policeman"
http://ww4report.com/node/5513
Venezuela charges Colombian military incursion
http://ww4report.com/node/5523
US Naval Fleet to Be Positioned Off the Coast of South America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1283/1/
Rising Fuel Costs Provoke Transportation Strike in Nicaragua
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1279/1/
El Salvador: The UDW Interview with FMLN Presidential Candidate Mauricio Funes (Part I)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1282/1/
Transport Strike in Guatemala Leaves 1 dead, 48 arrested
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1285/68/
No Country for Good Men in Chihuahua: Drug Trafficking, Violence, and Repression
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5218
Juarez Mothers Demand Justice for their Murdered Daughters
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5201
"Plan Mexico" dies with Iraq funding bill--for now
http://ww4report.com/node/5510
Mexican military to take over Jußrez police?
http://ww4report.com/node/5521
Council on Foreign Relations reconsiders Monroe Doctrine
http://ww4report.com/node/5512
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #947, May 18, 2008
1. Colombia: Refugee Leader Murdered
2. Colombia: Rights Activist Threatened
3. Mexico: Union Attacked in Capital
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Colombia: Refugee Leader Murdered
On May 13 unknown persons riding a motorcycle shot and killed Julio César Molina, a leader of refugees from Colombia's internal conflicts who were displaced to the rural zone of Ansermanueva in the southwestern department of Valle del Cauca. On May 16 the Bogota office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (ACNUR) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (OACNUDH) condemned Molina's murder and expressed concern for other refugee leaders in the area. The agencies indicated that Molina's killing was "connected to his reports on the misuse of lands taken from narco traffickers and turned over to displaced persons. It is also feared that there was a connection with his work training victims about their right to reparations."
Molina, a director of the New Dawn Humanitarian Foundation, was shot near the Germania estate, where he and his family had been living with 11 other refugee families since January 2007. Five years earlier the family fled from rightwing paramilitaries in Vista Hermosa in Meta department and sought land to farm in Valle del Cauca. At a ceremony on Dec. 20, 2004, rightwing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Vélez officially presented 20 families, including Molina's, with three estates seized from the extradited landowner Alberto Monsalve. But the families weren't able to use the land until legal issues were settled. They received threats after moving to the Germania estate, and Molina tried unsuccessfully from January of this year to get the local government to provide protection.
At his funeral in the town of Cartago on May 14, Molina was praised for his hard work for the refugees. "My daddy was all skinny when he died," one of Molina's five children said, "from suffering so much for us." That evening the families in Germania were again threatened with death if they didn't leave the region, and on May 16 men on motorcycles left death "sentences" for other refugee leaders, saying they would die if they talked. (Terra (Spain) 5/16/08 from EFE; El Tiempo (Bogota) 5/17/08)
*2. Colombia: Rights Activist Threatened
On May 15 the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders--a program sponsored jointly by the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH)--issued an urgent call for the Colombian government to ensure the safety of Colombian human rights activist Iván Cepeda Castro, his family and other members of the National Movement of Victims of Crimes of the State (MOVICE). The Observatory is asking for letters to President Alvaro Uribe Vélez (auribe@presidencia.gov.co), Vice President Francisco Santos (fsantos@presidencia.gov.co), the vice president's human rights office (obserdh@presidencia.gov.co) and other officials.
Uribe's government has been verbally attacking Cepeda because of a Mar. 6 demonstration he helped organize for the victims of paramilitary violence and an Apr. 15 appearance before members of the US Congress [see Update #944]. Uribe and US president George W. Bush are currently lobbying Congress to ratify a Colombia-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish) and are trying to downplay complaints about Colombia's human rights record. On May 6 Uribe called Cepeda a "human rights faker" and complained about those in the international community who sympathize with "the crocodile tears of these human rights fakers."
Cepeda dedicated himself to human rights work after the 1994 assassination of his father, Manuel Cepeda Vargas, a senator for the leftist Patriotic Union (UP). Iván Cepeda himself has received death threats several times. (Observatorio para la Protección de los Defensores de Derechos Humanos urgent action 5/15/08; dhcolombia 5/11/08 from El Espectador 5/10/08)
*3. Mexico: Union Attacked in Capital
The Authentic Labor Front (FAT), an independent Mexican labor group, announced on May 13 that one of its affiliates is set to declare a strike at the Central de Abasto, Mexico City's huge wholesale food market, on May 30. For the past four years the affiliate--the Union of Workers of Commercial Buildings, Offices and Stores, and the Like and Related (STRACC)--has represented 41 workers who clean bathrooms in the flowers and vegetables area of the giant facility, which is operated by the Federal District (DF) government. The workers are mostly women, and several are older or have disabilities.
Recently the Central de Abasto's management contracted the bathroom maintenance out to a small new private company, Operadora Comercial SAFE, SA de CV (OESSA). This company claims it is subcontracting the work to another company, Great Limp, which it says already has a union. On Apr. 29 OESSA management took the STRACC workers offsite and attempted by pressure and false pretenses to have them sign letters of resignation. Management got 14 to sign before the workers could contact union officials; after that the rest refused. The union members continued to work until May 6, when management appeared with a group of judicial and auxiliary police and arrested the workers, some of whom were injured in the operation. The police held them for 14 hours, supposedly for "illegal exercise of particular rights," which can carry a sentence of three months to one year in prison. Since then the STRACC members have not been allowed to work.
The Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR) is asking for letters to Marcelo Ebrard (mebrard@df.gob.mx), head of the DF government, which has been controlled by the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) for the last 11 years. (A sample letter is available at http://www.netraising.net/images/enlace/Carta_para_Marcelo_Ebrard.doc) (La Jornada (Mexico) 5/7/08, 5/10/08; Excelsior (Mexico) 5/13/08 from Notimex; CLR urgent action 5/14/08)
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico
Argentina Versus the World Bank: Fair Play or Fixed Fight?
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5189
Chilean Protesters Unhappy With Barrick Gold Pascua Lama Project
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1280/1/
I Give Up, Says Brazilian Minister Who Fought to Save the Rainforest
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1286/68/
Bolivia: Morales Bets All or Nothing in Recall Referendum
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1281/68/
Reports from Indigenous Summit in Lima
http://movimientos.org/ea3/index.phtml?lang=Ingles
Ecuador: CONAIE Indigenous Movement Condemns President Correa
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1288/1/
Colombia extradites paramilitary commanders
http://ww4report.com/node/5499
FARC 47th Front commander surrenders
http://ww4report.com/node/5522
Chávez: Interpol chief "corrupt gringo policeman"
http://ww4report.com/node/5513
Venezuela charges Colombian military incursion
http://ww4report.com/node/5523
US Naval Fleet to Be Positioned Off the Coast of South America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1283/1/
Rising Fuel Costs Provoke Transportation Strike in Nicaragua
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1279/1/
El Salvador: The UDW Interview with FMLN Presidential Candidate Mauricio Funes (Part I)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1282/1/
Transport Strike in Guatemala Leaves 1 dead, 48 arrested
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1285/68/
No Country for Good Men in Chihuahua: Drug Trafficking, Violence, and Repression
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5218
Juarez Mothers Demand Justice for their Murdered Daughters
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5201
"Plan Mexico" dies with Iraq funding bill--for now
http://ww4report.com/node/5510
Mexican military to take over Jußrez police?
http://ww4report.com/node/5521
Council on Foreign Relations reconsiders Monroe Doctrine
http://ww4report.com/node/5512
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
WNU #946: US Blamed in Reporter's Death in Haiti
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #946, May 11, 2008
1. Haiti: US Blamed in Reporter's Death
2. Mexico: Rebel Talks Advancing
3. In Other News: Argentina, Dominican Republic
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Haiti: US Blamed in Reporter's Death
Foreign troops and not Haitian demonstrators killed Spanish journalist Ricardo Ortega in Port-au-Prince during a protest on Mar. 7, 2004, according to the reporter's family. Haitian judge Bernard Saint-Vil has dismissed charges against the Haitian suspects in the killing, Ortega's parents, José Luis and Charo Ortega, told the media in Madrid on May 9; Saint-Vil reportedly blamed the foreign soldiers deployed in the country during the three months after then-president Jean Bertrand Aristide, was removed from office on Feb. 29, 2004.
Ortega and four other people were reported killed when armed people fired into a Mar. 7 march by opponents to Aristide [see Update #737]. Initial reports pointed to Aristide supporters in Ortega's death. Jesús Martín, who worked with Ortega at the Spanish Antena 3 television network, originally blamed pro-Aristide gangs, but an investigation by Antena 3 on the ground six months later changed Martín's mind. The family now believes that Ortega and his translator had been in a courtyard contacting the US ambassador to get medical attention for a wounded US reporter. Ortega was shot as he and his translator left the courtyard and headed for the street. Witnesses reported that a soldier in a passing "Hummer"--a US military vehicle--fired the shot, even though there was no sign that the soldiers were in danger. Martín said the soldier probably wasn't targeting Ortega.
According to Ortega's family, an autopsy carried out in Spain after Ortega's body was returned showed traces of bullets from the heavy arms used by US soldiers. The family ruled out any possibility that Ortega was shot by French or Canadian troops, the other components of the interim "peacekeeping" force that occupied Haiti from the time of Aristide's removal until the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) took over in June 2004. The family is asking the Spanish government to demand a clarification from the countries that made up the interim force. (AlterPresse 5/9/08; La Rioja (Spain) 5/10/08 from Reuters)
*2. Mexico: Rebel Talks Advancing
On May 9 the government of Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa accepted a seven-member mediation commission proposed by the rebel Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) on Apr. 28 to start a talks to end 12 years of conflict. The center-right government had initially rejected the proposed mediation commission, which would be made up mostly of leftists or left-leaning intellectuals; on Apr. 29 the government proposed a direct meeting between the two sides in which the commission members would be "social witnesses" rather than mediators. The EPR responded with an angry communiqué released on May 7, dismissing the government's proposal as "perfidious, vulgar [and] cheating." The government then said it would accept the commission in order "to establish the principles of understanding and a process of dialogue."
The EPR emerged in a series of bloody attacks on police and military outposts in 1996. Afterwards the group was relatively quiet while various factions split off, but in July 2007 the EPR bombed pipelines belonging to the state oil monopoly, Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), in a campaign for the release of two of its leaders, Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Alberto Cruz Sánchez, who were apparently detained in the southern state of Oaxaca on May 25, 2007 [see Updates #907, 909, 910]. The release of the leaders is one of the main issues in the proposed talks.
The mediators include the writer Carlos Montemayor, who is the commission's spokesperson; anthropologist Gilberto López y Rivas; Samuel Ruiz García, bishop emeritus of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southeastern state of Chiapas; and human rights activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, a senator for the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). At a press conference in Mexico City on May 9, Montemayor said the commission planned meetings with the government in the near future and would communicate with the rebels through the media, which he called "the red telephone with all the sides involved." (La Jornada (Mexico) 5/8/08, 5/10/08)
*3. In Other News...
Thousands of Argentine farmers blocked highways on May 8 to protest increased taxes on soy, a major export crop. The farmers had struck in March, halting shipments of grain throughout the country and presenting the center-left government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with its biggest challenge since she took office in December [see Update #941]. The new protests come after a 30-day truce failed to produce an agreement. Farmers said they planned eight days of protests; if these produce no results, they may continue the actions past May 15. Argentina is one of the world's major soy exporters, and the Chicago commodity exchange reponded to the renewed strike with a rise in soy prices. (La Jornada 5/9/08 from Reuters)... The Jesuit Service for Refugees and Migrants reports that at least 1,693 Haitians were deported from the Dominican Republic in the first four months of 2008. The mass repatriations are "almost always marked by violations of the migrants' human rights," the group said, noting that some immigrants reported that soldiers released the Haitians who could afford to pay bribes. (Adital 5/9/08)
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Argentina: Human Rights Witness Goes Missing and is Released http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1273/1/
Brazilian police occupy Amazon indigenous reserve
http://ww4report.com/node/5472
Accused mastermind acquitted in murder of Amazon defender
http://ww4report.com/node/5471
Santa Cruz Divided: Report from the Streets on Referendum Day in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1270/1/
Polarizing Bolivia: Autonomy Vote in Santa Cruz
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1275/1/
Peruvian Women Rally Against Rising Food Prices
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1269/68/
Indymedia Journalists Targeted in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1274/1/
Reflections on Ecuador's Mining Mandate
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1267/68/
Ecuador accuses Colombia of extrajudicial executions
http://ww4report.com/node/5475
Colombia extradites paramilitary leader
http://ww4report.com/node/5474
US Re-establishes Navy Fleet in South America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1271/68/
US Navy revives Fourth Fleet to police Latin America
http://ww4report.com/node/5480
South America: Leaders Warn of Autonomy Attempts in Venezuela, Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1268/68/
Separatist "contagion" spreading in Andes?
http://ww4report.com/node/5479
El Salvador: Hector Ventura of the Suchitoto 14 Assassinated
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1276/68/
El Salvador: Hector Ventura of Suchitoto 14 assassinated
http://ww4report.com/node/5478
Nicaragua hosts emergency food summit
http://ww4report.com/node/5477
Guatemala: Río Negro Survivors Identify Executioners
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1272/1/
Mexico: open season on police commanders
http://ww4report.com/node/5487
Arizona gun bust linked to Mexican cartels
http://ww4report.com/node/5469
Miami fetes terrorist
http://ww4report.com/node/5450
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #946, May 11, 2008
1. Haiti: US Blamed in Reporter's Death
2. Mexico: Rebel Talks Advancing
3. In Other News: Argentina, Dominican Republic
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Haiti: US Blamed in Reporter's Death
Foreign troops and not Haitian demonstrators killed Spanish journalist Ricardo Ortega in Port-au-Prince during a protest on Mar. 7, 2004, according to the reporter's family. Haitian judge Bernard Saint-Vil has dismissed charges against the Haitian suspects in the killing, Ortega's parents, José Luis and Charo Ortega, told the media in Madrid on May 9; Saint-Vil reportedly blamed the foreign soldiers deployed in the country during the three months after then-president Jean Bertrand Aristide, was removed from office on Feb. 29, 2004.
Ortega and four other people were reported killed when armed people fired into a Mar. 7 march by opponents to Aristide [see Update #737]. Initial reports pointed to Aristide supporters in Ortega's death. Jesús Martín, who worked with Ortega at the Spanish Antena 3 television network, originally blamed pro-Aristide gangs, but an investigation by Antena 3 on the ground six months later changed Martín's mind. The family now believes that Ortega and his translator had been in a courtyard contacting the US ambassador to get medical attention for a wounded US reporter. Ortega was shot as he and his translator left the courtyard and headed for the street. Witnesses reported that a soldier in a passing "Hummer"--a US military vehicle--fired the shot, even though there was no sign that the soldiers were in danger. Martín said the soldier probably wasn't targeting Ortega.
According to Ortega's family, an autopsy carried out in Spain after Ortega's body was returned showed traces of bullets from the heavy arms used by US soldiers. The family ruled out any possibility that Ortega was shot by French or Canadian troops, the other components of the interim "peacekeeping" force that occupied Haiti from the time of Aristide's removal until the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) took over in June 2004. The family is asking the Spanish government to demand a clarification from the countries that made up the interim force. (AlterPresse 5/9/08; La Rioja (Spain) 5/10/08 from Reuters)
*2. Mexico: Rebel Talks Advancing
On May 9 the government of Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa accepted a seven-member mediation commission proposed by the rebel Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) on Apr. 28 to start a talks to end 12 years of conflict. The center-right government had initially rejected the proposed mediation commission, which would be made up mostly of leftists or left-leaning intellectuals; on Apr. 29 the government proposed a direct meeting between the two sides in which the commission members would be "social witnesses" rather than mediators. The EPR responded with an angry communiqué released on May 7, dismissing the government's proposal as "perfidious, vulgar [and] cheating." The government then said it would accept the commission in order "to establish the principles of understanding and a process of dialogue."
The EPR emerged in a series of bloody attacks on police and military outposts in 1996. Afterwards the group was relatively quiet while various factions split off, but in July 2007 the EPR bombed pipelines belonging to the state oil monopoly, Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), in a campaign for the release of two of its leaders, Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Alberto Cruz Sánchez, who were apparently detained in the southern state of Oaxaca on May 25, 2007 [see Updates #907, 909, 910]. The release of the leaders is one of the main issues in the proposed talks.
The mediators include the writer Carlos Montemayor, who is the commission's spokesperson; anthropologist Gilberto López y Rivas; Samuel Ruiz García, bishop emeritus of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southeastern state of Chiapas; and human rights activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, a senator for the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). At a press conference in Mexico City on May 9, Montemayor said the commission planned meetings with the government in the near future and would communicate with the rebels through the media, which he called "the red telephone with all the sides involved." (La Jornada (Mexico) 5/8/08, 5/10/08)
*3. In Other News...
Thousands of Argentine farmers blocked highways on May 8 to protest increased taxes on soy, a major export crop. The farmers had struck in March, halting shipments of grain throughout the country and presenting the center-left government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with its biggest challenge since she took office in December [see Update #941]. The new protests come after a 30-day truce failed to produce an agreement. Farmers said they planned eight days of protests; if these produce no results, they may continue the actions past May 15. Argentina is one of the world's major soy exporters, and the Chicago commodity exchange reponded to the renewed strike with a rise in soy prices. (La Jornada 5/9/08 from Reuters)... The Jesuit Service for Refugees and Migrants reports that at least 1,693 Haitians were deported from the Dominican Republic in the first four months of 2008. The mass repatriations are "almost always marked by violations of the migrants' human rights," the group said, noting that some immigrants reported that soldiers released the Haitians who could afford to pay bribes. (Adital 5/9/08)
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
Argentina: Human Rights Witness Goes Missing and is Released http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1273/1/
Brazilian police occupy Amazon indigenous reserve
http://ww4report.com/node/5472
Accused mastermind acquitted in murder of Amazon defender
http://ww4report.com/node/5471
Santa Cruz Divided: Report from the Streets on Referendum Day in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1270/1/
Polarizing Bolivia: Autonomy Vote in Santa Cruz
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1275/1/
Peruvian Women Rally Against Rising Food Prices
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1269/68/
Indymedia Journalists Targeted in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1274/1/
Reflections on Ecuador's Mining Mandate
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1267/68/
Ecuador accuses Colombia of extrajudicial executions
http://ww4report.com/node/5475
Colombia extradites paramilitary leader
http://ww4report.com/node/5474
US Re-establishes Navy Fleet in South America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1271/68/
US Navy revives Fourth Fleet to police Latin America
http://ww4report.com/node/5480
South America: Leaders Warn of Autonomy Attempts in Venezuela, Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1268/68/
Separatist "contagion" spreading in Andes?
http://ww4report.com/node/5479
El Salvador: Hector Ventura of the Suchitoto 14 Assassinated
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1276/68/
El Salvador: Hector Ventura of Suchitoto 14 assassinated
http://ww4report.com/node/5478
Nicaragua hosts emergency food summit
http://ww4report.com/node/5477
Guatemala: Río Negro Survivors Identify Executioners
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1272/1/
Mexico: open season on police commanders
http://ww4report.com/node/5487
Arizona gun bust linked to Mexican cartels
http://ww4report.com/node/5469
Miami fetes terrorist
http://ww4report.com/node/5450
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, 5 May 2008
WNU #945: Latin America Workers March for May Day
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #945, May 4, 2008
1. Latin America: Workers March for May Day
2. Honduras: Union Leader Murdered
3. Mexico: Cananea Strike Now Legal
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Latin America: Workers March for May Day
Unionists and other activists marked International Workers Day with marches throughout Latin America on May 1 as rising food and fuel costs cut into workers' standard of living. Demands included increases in the minimum wage, an end to violence against unionists and rejection of trade pacts with the US.
Some 15,000-20,000 Chileans marched in Santiago to demand an end to neoliberal policies and a new Constitution to eliminate all remaining traces of the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. After the protest, which was organized by the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), anarchist youths dressed in black reportedly threw paint bombs at a bank branch and then rocks and bottles. Police agents responded with massive amounts of tear gas, forcing hundreds of bystanders to flee. Authorities reported 96 arrests.
There were at least five different marches in Buenos Aires, Argentina, mostly by leftist unions and parties; total participation was reportedly in the hundreds. Participation was also low in Uruguay.
Paraguayan president-elect Fernando Lugo headed celebrations in Asunción, telling some 3.000 unionists that his government would be "with the poor, the indigenous, the unionists, the common people" despite "the oligarchs" waiting "with open maws to trap those of us who are coming to power."
Hundreds of Peruvian workers gathered in Lima to protest President Alan García's policies, including a crackdown against human rights defenders in March and April [see Update #941]. General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) general secretary Mario Huamán denounced companies "that murder workers"; on Apr. 30 four workers were buried alive in an accident at a Lima construction site.
Some 15,000 Ecuadoran unionists celebrated a decision by the Constituent Assembly to ban labor subcontracting; about 480,000 Ecuadorans are estimated to be working under contracts with third parties. The Assembly has been meeting since November to write a new Constitution.
Colombian union members marched in Bogotá to protest an increase in the number of unionists murdered this year. According to the National Union School, 39 have been killed since the beginning of the year, a 71.4% increase over the same period in 2007. The marchers also demanded higher pay and rejected a Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish) signed with the US but not yet ratified by the US Congress [see Updates #938, 944]. Several people were injured and others were arrested in confrontations with the police.
Thousands of members of Venezuela's National Workers Union (UNT) chanted "Chávez, homeland or death" as they marched through west and central Caracas in support of the leftist government of President Hugo Chávez Frías, while thousands of members of the opposition Confederation of Workers of Venezuela (CTV) marched through central Caracas to the National Assembly to demand higher wages. On Apr. 30 Chávez signed a decree raising the minimum wage by 30% to $372 a month, which he said was the highest in Latin America. The CTV supported the increase but said it barely covered the rise in the cost of living. In 2007 Venezuela had a 22.5% annual inflation rate--also the highest in Latin America. So far this year the annual rate has been 19.5%.
In El Salvador, thousands of workers marched in the capital to demand "urgent changes" in President Tony Saca's policies. "Saca's government is responsible for the crisis we're going through; he can't fool us with his publicity stories about the international crisis being responsible," construction worker Pedro Martínez told the Associated Press wire service.
Hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched before President Raúl Castro and union leaders in the traditional celebration in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución. (Univision 5/1/08 from AP; La Jornada (Mexico) 5/2/08 from AFP, DPA, Reuters, Prensa Latina; El Diario-La Prensa (New York) 5/2/08 from unidentified wire services (print edition))
Haitian grassroots and progressive organizations prepared for May 1 with a call for an increase of the minimum wage from 70 gourdes ($1.84) a day to 300 gourdes ($7.89). The call--dated Apr. 29 and signed by the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP), Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen ("Small Haitian Peasants Unity"), Batay Ouvriye ("Workers Struggle") and other groups--said the wage increase was a way to enable the working class to confront "Clorox hunger." [This is a popular expression for hunger so painful it feels like swallowing bleach, frequently referring to the situation that led to violent protests over food in April--see Updates #942, 943.] The call also demanded that Jean Paul Faubert, the owner of Société Haitienne de Couture SA, an assembly plant in Port-au-Prince's Sonapi industrial park, pay back wages and other benefits to the 800 workers who lost their jobs when he closed the plant. (AlterPresse 4/29/08, 4/30/08)
*2. Honduras: Union Leader Murdered
According to union sources, some 40,000 Hondurans participated in May 1 celebrations, which included marches in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. The three main labor federations marched together, along with a number of grassroots groups and coalitions, including the Popular Bloc (BP), the National Popular Resistance Coordinating Committee and the Coordinating Council of Campesino Organizations. The demands included a better agrarian reform, a general wage increase, a halt to privatizations, an end to corruption, and justice for three unionists murdered the night of Apr. 23-24. Chanting "Justice, justice" and "Out with the corrupt ones," the marchers in Tegucigalpa passed the Congress building, where striking prosecutors had an encampment. The prosecutors walked off the job on Apr. 7 around demands for suspects to be tried in several corruption cases that have been shelved; for a suspension of the firings and reassignments started by Attorney General Leónidas Rosa Bautista; and for the dismissal of Rosa Bautista and his deputy, Omar Cerna. (La Prensa (Honduras) 5/1/08; Granma (Cuba) 5/1/08 from Prensa Latina)
The murdered unionists were Rosa Altagracia Fuentes, general secretary of the conservative Workers' Confederation of Honduras (CTH); her driver, Juan Bautista Gálvez; and trade union leader Virginia García de Sánchez. Six masked assailants shot them on the highway between El Progreso and San Pedro Sula, according to eyewitnesses; Altagracia Fuentes was shot 16 times. Police initially called the attack a robbery by youth gangs, even though the attackers failed to take valuables from the car, including $4,000 in cash. But on Apr. 28 the prosecutor in the case, Ricardo Castro, who works in a special unit for crimes against women, said he was now investigating other union leaders. Unionists generally blamed the murders on "enemies of the union movement." Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), wrote Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales a letter calling for "a full investigation to establish, as quickly as possible, the motives for the murders and identify those materially and intellectually responsible for these crimes, to punish them with the full weight of the law." (Reuters 4/28/08; AFL-CIO Blog 4/28/08)
*3. Mexico: Cananea Strike Now Legal
On Apr. 28 Mexico's Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JFCA) ruled in favor of a nine-month old strike at Grupo México's giant copper mine at Cananea, in the northwestern state of Sonora. The ruling, which is final, makes the job action legal. Previously the JFCA had ruled against the strike--which was started by the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM) over safety issues on July 30--and the government sent troops to the mine in January [see Updates #930, 931, 933, 935]. Grupo México must now end the partial operations it was carrying out at the mine. (La Jornada 4/29/08) On Apr. 24 the company had threatened to close the facility, as it is reportedly doing in the San Martín mine in Zacatecas [see Update #944]. (Mexican Labor News and Analysis, April 2008, Vol. 13, No. 4)
Despite labor's apparent victory at Cananea, Mexico's union movement is "pulverized" through lack of unity, Autonomous National University of Mexico Workers Union (STUNAM) leader Agustín Rodríguez told the daily La Jornada during May 1 celebrations in Mexico City. The unions held three separate marches in the capital, the largest by the National Workers Union (UNT), the main independent labor federation. Under the formerly ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the federal government sponsored the May Day marches, and tens of thousands of workers would carry signs reading: "Thank you, Mr. President." The government of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), did not sponsor the May 1 events. The evening before, Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcón held a meeting with union leaders; after shaking their hands he reportedly wiped his own hands with antibacterial cream. (LJ 5/2/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Argentina's Soy Storm: Tensions Rising Among Farmers
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1253/1/
The Real Crisis of Argentina's Agricultural Sector
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5184
Violence mars autonomy vote in Bolivia
http://ww4report.com/node/5445
Bolivia polarized on eve of autonomy vote
http://ww4report.com/node/5439
Landowners' Rebellion: Slavery and Saneamiento in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1254/1/
Understanding the May 4th Referendum in Santa Cruz, Bolivia http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1263/68/
Santa Cruz's Referendum, Bolivia's Choice
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1262/68/
Right Wing Revolt Threatens Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1222/68/
Peruvian indigenous protest at Oxy Petroleum
http://ww4report.com/node/5441
Food crisis: summit in Venezuela, protests in Peru
http://ww4report.com/node/5440
Blackouts in Venezuela
http://ww4report.com/node/5427
Colombia: FARC blow up oil pipeline
http://ww4report.com/node/5438
Colombian herbicide spraying grows --so does coca crop!
http://ww4report.com/node/5436
Colombian government continues attack on rights defenders
http://ww4report.com/node/5434
Bullets and Bananas: The Violence of Free Trade in Guatemala http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1264/1/
Heads They Win, Tails You Lose: Canadian Nickel Companies in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1261/1/
Pope Benedict's Holy War Against Liberation Theology in South America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1259/68/
Haitian Food Riots Unnerving But Not Surprising
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5186
Biotech Bets on Agrofuels
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5179
Mexico: dialogue with EPR guerillas?
http://ww4report.com/node/5428
Time to Renegotiate NAFTA, Not Expand It
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5175
Mexico: deadly attacks on police in Sinaloa
http://ww4report.com/node/5444
Mexico: deadly attacks on Guerrero cattle barons
http://ww4report.com/node/5443
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #945, May 4, 2008
1. Latin America: Workers March for May Day
2. Honduras: Union Leader Murdered
3. Mexico: Cananea Strike Now Legal
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Latin America: Workers March for May Day
Unionists and other activists marked International Workers Day with marches throughout Latin America on May 1 as rising food and fuel costs cut into workers' standard of living. Demands included increases in the minimum wage, an end to violence against unionists and rejection of trade pacts with the US.
Some 15,000-20,000 Chileans marched in Santiago to demand an end to neoliberal policies and a new Constitution to eliminate all remaining traces of the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. After the protest, which was organized by the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), anarchist youths dressed in black reportedly threw paint bombs at a bank branch and then rocks and bottles. Police agents responded with massive amounts of tear gas, forcing hundreds of bystanders to flee. Authorities reported 96 arrests.
There were at least five different marches in Buenos Aires, Argentina, mostly by leftist unions and parties; total participation was reportedly in the hundreds. Participation was also low in Uruguay.
Paraguayan president-elect Fernando Lugo headed celebrations in Asunción, telling some 3.000 unionists that his government would be "with the poor, the indigenous, the unionists, the common people" despite "the oligarchs" waiting "with open maws to trap those of us who are coming to power."
Hundreds of Peruvian workers gathered in Lima to protest President Alan García's policies, including a crackdown against human rights defenders in March and April [see Update #941]. General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) general secretary Mario Huamán denounced companies "that murder workers"; on Apr. 30 four workers were buried alive in an accident at a Lima construction site.
Some 15,000 Ecuadoran unionists celebrated a decision by the Constituent Assembly to ban labor subcontracting; about 480,000 Ecuadorans are estimated to be working under contracts with third parties. The Assembly has been meeting since November to write a new Constitution.
Colombian union members marched in Bogotá to protest an increase in the number of unionists murdered this year. According to the National Union School, 39 have been killed since the beginning of the year, a 71.4% increase over the same period in 2007. The marchers also demanded higher pay and rejected a Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish) signed with the US but not yet ratified by the US Congress [see Updates #938, 944]. Several people were injured and others were arrested in confrontations with the police.
Thousands of members of Venezuela's National Workers Union (UNT) chanted "Chávez, homeland or death" as they marched through west and central Caracas in support of the leftist government of President Hugo Chávez Frías, while thousands of members of the opposition Confederation of Workers of Venezuela (CTV) marched through central Caracas to the National Assembly to demand higher wages. On Apr. 30 Chávez signed a decree raising the minimum wage by 30% to $372 a month, which he said was the highest in Latin America. The CTV supported the increase but said it barely covered the rise in the cost of living. In 2007 Venezuela had a 22.5% annual inflation rate--also the highest in Latin America. So far this year the annual rate has been 19.5%.
In El Salvador, thousands of workers marched in the capital to demand "urgent changes" in President Tony Saca's policies. "Saca's government is responsible for the crisis we're going through; he can't fool us with his publicity stories about the international crisis being responsible," construction worker Pedro Martínez told the Associated Press wire service.
Hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched before President Raúl Castro and union leaders in the traditional celebration in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución. (Univision 5/1/08 from AP; La Jornada (Mexico) 5/2/08 from AFP, DPA, Reuters, Prensa Latina; El Diario-La Prensa (New York) 5/2/08 from unidentified wire services (print edition))
Haitian grassroots and progressive organizations prepared for May 1 with a call for an increase of the minimum wage from 70 gourdes ($1.84) a day to 300 gourdes ($7.89). The call--dated Apr. 29 and signed by the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP), Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen ("Small Haitian Peasants Unity"), Batay Ouvriye ("Workers Struggle") and other groups--said the wage increase was a way to enable the working class to confront "Clorox hunger." [This is a popular expression for hunger so painful it feels like swallowing bleach, frequently referring to the situation that led to violent protests over food in April--see Updates #942, 943.] The call also demanded that Jean Paul Faubert, the owner of Société Haitienne de Couture SA, an assembly plant in Port-au-Prince's Sonapi industrial park, pay back wages and other benefits to the 800 workers who lost their jobs when he closed the plant. (AlterPresse 4/29/08, 4/30/08)
*2. Honduras: Union Leader Murdered
According to union sources, some 40,000 Hondurans participated in May 1 celebrations, which included marches in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. The three main labor federations marched together, along with a number of grassroots groups and coalitions, including the Popular Bloc (BP), the National Popular Resistance Coordinating Committee and the Coordinating Council of Campesino Organizations. The demands included a better agrarian reform, a general wage increase, a halt to privatizations, an end to corruption, and justice for three unionists murdered the night of Apr. 23-24. Chanting "Justice, justice" and "Out with the corrupt ones," the marchers in Tegucigalpa passed the Congress building, where striking prosecutors had an encampment. The prosecutors walked off the job on Apr. 7 around demands for suspects to be tried in several corruption cases that have been shelved; for a suspension of the firings and reassignments started by Attorney General Leónidas Rosa Bautista; and for the dismissal of Rosa Bautista and his deputy, Omar Cerna. (La Prensa (Honduras) 5/1/08; Granma (Cuba) 5/1/08 from Prensa Latina)
The murdered unionists were Rosa Altagracia Fuentes, general secretary of the conservative Workers' Confederation of Honduras (CTH); her driver, Juan Bautista Gálvez; and trade union leader Virginia García de Sánchez. Six masked assailants shot them on the highway between El Progreso and San Pedro Sula, according to eyewitnesses; Altagracia Fuentes was shot 16 times. Police initially called the attack a robbery by youth gangs, even though the attackers failed to take valuables from the car, including $4,000 in cash. But on Apr. 28 the prosecutor in the case, Ricardo Castro, who works in a special unit for crimes against women, said he was now investigating other union leaders. Unionists generally blamed the murders on "enemies of the union movement." Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), wrote Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales a letter calling for "a full investigation to establish, as quickly as possible, the motives for the murders and identify those materially and intellectually responsible for these crimes, to punish them with the full weight of the law." (Reuters 4/28/08; AFL-CIO Blog 4/28/08)
*3. Mexico: Cananea Strike Now Legal
On Apr. 28 Mexico's Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JFCA) ruled in favor of a nine-month old strike at Grupo México's giant copper mine at Cananea, in the northwestern state of Sonora. The ruling, which is final, makes the job action legal. Previously the JFCA had ruled against the strike--which was started by the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM) over safety issues on July 30--and the government sent troops to the mine in January [see Updates #930, 931, 933, 935]. Grupo México must now end the partial operations it was carrying out at the mine. (La Jornada 4/29/08) On Apr. 24 the company had threatened to close the facility, as it is reportedly doing in the San Martín mine in Zacatecas [see Update #944]. (Mexican Labor News and Analysis, April 2008, Vol. 13, No. 4)
Despite labor's apparent victory at Cananea, Mexico's union movement is "pulverized" through lack of unity, Autonomous National University of Mexico Workers Union (STUNAM) leader Agustín Rodríguez told the daily La Jornada during May 1 celebrations in Mexico City. The unions held three separate marches in the capital, the largest by the National Workers Union (UNT), the main independent labor federation. Under the formerly ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the federal government sponsored the May Day marches, and tens of thousands of workers would carry signs reading: "Thank you, Mr. President." The government of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), did not sponsor the May 1 events. The evening before, Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcón held a meeting with union leaders; after shaking their hands he reportedly wiped his own hands with antibacterial cream. (LJ 5/2/08)
More breaking stories from alternative sources:
Argentina's Soy Storm: Tensions Rising Among Farmers
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1253/1/
The Real Crisis of Argentina's Agricultural Sector
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5184
Violence mars autonomy vote in Bolivia
http://ww4report.com/node/5445
Bolivia polarized on eve of autonomy vote
http://ww4report.com/node/5439
Landowners' Rebellion: Slavery and Saneamiento in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1254/1/
Understanding the May 4th Referendum in Santa Cruz, Bolivia http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1263/68/
Santa Cruz's Referendum, Bolivia's Choice
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1262/68/
Right Wing Revolt Threatens Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1222/68/
Peruvian indigenous protest at Oxy Petroleum
http://ww4report.com/node/5441
Food crisis: summit in Venezuela, protests in Peru
http://ww4report.com/node/5440
Blackouts in Venezuela
http://ww4report.com/node/5427
Colombia: FARC blow up oil pipeline
http://ww4report.com/node/5438
Colombian herbicide spraying grows --so does coca crop!
http://ww4report.com/node/5436
Colombian government continues attack on rights defenders
http://ww4report.com/node/5434
Bullets and Bananas: The Violence of Free Trade in Guatemala http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1264/1/
Heads They Win, Tails You Lose: Canadian Nickel Companies in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1261/1/
Pope Benedict's Holy War Against Liberation Theology in South America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1259/68/
Haitian Food Riots Unnerving But Not Surprising
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5186
Biotech Bets on Agrofuels
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5179
Mexico: dialogue with EPR guerillas?
http://ww4report.com/node/5428
Time to Renegotiate NAFTA, Not Expand It
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5175
Mexico: deadly attacks on police in Sinaloa
http://ww4report.com/node/5444
Mexico: deadly attacks on Guerrero cattle barons
http://ww4report.com/node/5443
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.newsvine.com/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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