Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1026, March 28, 2010
1. Mexico: Army Kills 2 Students in “Drug War”
2. Costa Rica: Arias Tries to Bust Port Workers Union
3. Haiti: Clinton, Bush Visit, Promote Sweatshops
4. Haiti: Professor Killed, Union Funding Threatened
5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, IDB Megaprojects
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: Army Kills 2 Students in “Drug War”
As of Mar. 26 sources in the Mexican military had admitted that it was probably soldiers who killed two graduate students the early morning of Mar. 20 in front of the prestigious Institute of Technology and Higher Education’s Monterrey campus (ITESM) in the northern state of Nuevo León. The sources said that the soldiers had just been in a firefight with sicarios (hit men) from a drug cartel and probably confused the students with the men they had been fighting.
The two students, Jorge Antonio Mercado Alonso and Javier Francisco Arredondo Verdugo, left the university library a little after midnight; the library is open all night during examination periods. Seven minutes later they were gunned down as they headed toward their dormitory. For the first day after the killings the authorities described the victims as sicarios who had been “armed to the teeth”; apparently weapons had been planted on the bodies. There were also reports that Mercado and Arredondo, honor students working on a robotics project for the automobile industry, were beaten before being killed.
The level of violence has been rising in Monterrey, Mexico’s second largest city and its main industrial center, as a result both of wars between drug cartels and of the “war on drugs” that President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa launched shortly after his inauguration in December 2006. Activists have charged that this policy has led to a deterioration of the country’s human rights situation [see Update #1008].
A week before the killing of the students, the body of a small-scale drug dealer turned up in a vacant lot; he was one of two dealers photographed earlier by the press when agents of the navy arrested them in Santa Catarina, a Monterrey suburb. This has led people to wonder how many of the “drug war” deaths were actually executions by the military. Meanwhile, middle-class Monterrey residents are increasingly using “white guards,” armed private security guards, as protection against the violence. Mauricio Fernández, the mayor of the Monterrey suburb of San Pedro Garza García, employs a dozen of these paramilitaries; the military has charged that they are members of the Beltrán Leyva drug cartel.
Political analyst Javier Livas calls the situation “the total collapse of the institutions of Nuevo León. Everything is falling as if it were a house of cards.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 3/26/10, 3/28/10; EFE 3/23/10; La Crónica de Hoy (Mexico) 3/28/10)
According to Ardelio Vargas Fosado, chair of the National Defense Committee in the federal Chamber of Deputies, Mexico now has 94,540 military personnel engaged in the fight against drug trafficking, up from a few thousand as late as the middle 1980s. Vargas Fosado, a member of President Calderón’s center-right National Action Party (PAN), told a public forum in Mexico City on Mar. 27 that human rights violations by the military are “exceptions.” About 600 soldiers are currently in military prisons in connection with human rights violations, he said. (LJ 3/28/10)
Note: We gave the early morning of Mar. 20 as the time of the killings at ITESM, following the detailed chronology in the Mar. 26 La Jornada article. Other sources say the killings took place on the early morning of Mar. 19.
*2. Costa Rica: Arias Tries to Bust Port Workers Union
On Feb. 26 the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) charged that the government of Costa Rican president Oscar Arias Sánchez had in effect “illegally established a ‘yellow’ (unrepresentative, undemocratic, employer-run) trade union” for the 1,500 dockworkers at the Atlantic coast city of Limón. The government’s interference in the union--“in contravention of…conventions 87 and 98” of the United Nations’ International Labor Organization--is intended to bring about “the kind of privatization that has led to joblessness and misery in Limón’s sister port of Caldera” on the Pacific side, the ITF said.
The Caldera port was privatized in August 2006 under President Arias, who began his second four-year term in May 2006. (He previously served as president 1986-1990 and won the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to broker a peace deal in Nicaragua.) So far Arias has had less success with the "modernization" of the Board of Port Administration and Economic Development of the Atlantic Shelf (JAPDEVA), the state agency which administers the Limón port.
The JAPDEVA Workers Union (SINTRAJAP), an ITF affiliate, opposed the privatization efforts with a strike in October 2006 [see Update #872]. But the union, which is part of Costa Rica’s Catholic labor federation, Rerum Novarum, remained fairly conservative until a caucus led by the socialist-oriented group Luchemos! (Let’s Fight!) won union elections in 2007 which made Ronaldo Blear the SINTRAJAP general secretary. The new leadership built support for its anti-privatization efforts from the Costa Rican labor movement, from environmental groups and from the leftist Frente Amplio (“Broad Front”) political party.
The Blear leadership was reelected to a second two-year term in January 2009, but it was removed from office by two workers’ assemblies held on Jan. 15 and Jan. 29 this year. Luchemos! supporters said the assemblies weren’t attended by the majority of workers and represented a “coup d’état” arranged by JAPDEVA management. The elected SINTRAJAP leaders and leaders of other unions protested by occupying the labor minister’s offices for six days in January. In late March legislative deputy José Merino del Río and deputy elect José María Villalta Flórez-Estrada, both of the Frente Amplio, requested an injunction from the Constitutional Court to restore Blear and other leaders to office. The court hadn’t ruled as of Mar. 27.
President elect Laura Chinchilla Miranda, a member of Arias’ National Liberation Party (PLN) who takes office on May 8, is expected to continue Arias’ neoliberal economic policies. Labor rights supporters can sign on to an ITF letter of protest to President Arias at http://www.itfglobal.org/solidarity/sintrajap.cfm/letter/45/. (ITF website 2/26/10; Diagonal (Spain) 3/24/10; Costa Rica Hoy 3/20/10; Teletica (Costa Rica) 3/27/10)
*3. Haiti: Clinton, Bush Visit, Promote Sweatshops
Former US presidents George W. Bush (2001-2009) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001) visited Haiti for one day on Mar. 22 to call for international aid for the country. The visit helped set the stage for a United Nations (UN) donors’ conference which is to be held in New York on Mar. 31. Current US president Barack Obama appointed Bush and Clinton to head up US relief efforts following a Jan. 12 earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people in Port-au-Prince and other parts of southern Haiti. This was Bush’s first visit to Haiti, but the third since the earthquake for Clinton, who is also the UN’s special envoy for Haiti.
During his visit Clinton called for the expansion of the garment assembly sector—the tax-exempt factories, known in Spanish as maquiladoras, that produce mainly for export. To further the expansion, he and Bush called for improved US trade preferences for apparel imports from Haiti. Clinton said South Korean and Brazilian firms were interested in investing if the US strengthened the Haiti Hemispheric Opportunity Partnership Encouragement Act (HOPE), which he said he thought “could create more than 100,000 jobs in Haiti in short order."
Critics have argued that this would take jobs away from workers in the US and the rest of the Caribbean Basin, but Clinton indicated that the main losers would be Chinese workers. "Most of [the proposed increase for Haiti] would be shifted production from Asia to Haiti, so there'd be no greater penetration of American markets and we'd be helping our neighbor, and it could create hundreds of millions of dollars of investment,” he said on Mar. 22.
Several hundred supporters of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1995 and 2001-2004) protested Bush’s presence and called for Aristide’s return from his exile in South Africa. Aristide was removed from office in February 2004 while Bush was president. (Agence France Presse 3/22/10 via CyberPresse; Reuters 3/22/10) There were reports that Bush surreptitiously wiped his hand off on Clinton’s shirt after shaking hands with an earthquake victim. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 3/24/10)
Other criticism was directed more at the UN economic proposals associated with Clinton, who as president restored Aristide to power in 1994 with a US-led military intervention; Clinton’s administration also pushed the Haitian government to carry out a drastic reduction of tariffs on imported rice (known in Haiti as “Miami rice”). On Mar. 18 a number of Haitian organizations issued a statement denouncing the UN’s Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment (PDNA) for rebuilding Haiti. The UN document was “produced by a group of 300 international and national functionaries,” excluding Haitian “social actors,” the statement said. The Haitian groups called for a “break with economic dependence” and for the construction of “an economic model that stimulates national production” rather than export-based industries. (“Position des Mouvements sociaux haïtiens sur le processus de ‘reconstruction’ d’Haïti,” 3/18/10)
Earlier in the month Clinton apologized for his role in promoting rice imports for Haiti, which devastated local rice production. "It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked,” he told the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate on Mar. 10. “It was a mistake. I had to live every day with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.” (Associated Press 3/20/10 via Huffington Post)
*4. Haiti: Professor Killed, Union Funding Threatened
On Mar. 12 several hundred Haitian students and activists gathered at a memorial service for Jean Anil Louis-Juste, a sociology professor at the State University of Haiti (UEH) who was shot dead in downtown Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12 a few hours before a massive earthquake hit the city. A well-known author and activist, Louis-Juste was a strong supporter of the militant student movement that erupted in the spring and summer of 2009 [see Update #994].
Witnesses reportedly said men on a motorcycle approached Louis-Juste at the corner of Capois Street and La Fleur du Chêne as he was leaving the university and asked for money. When Louis-Juste said he didn’t have any, the men gunned him down with one bullet to the head and two to the chest, the witnesses said. Activists expressed doubt that a killing in broad daylight in that area could have been a simple mugging. (Haiti Press Network 1/12/10; Haïti Liberté (Haiti and New York) 3/10/10-3/16/10)
In other news, General Motors de Brasil, the Brazilian subsidiary of the giant US automaker, has announced that it will block payroll check-offs that the Metal Workers Union of São José dos Campos and the Region asked to be donated for earthquake relief to Haitian grassroots organizations, including the leftist labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (Workers’ Struggle) [see Update #1022]. An assembly of 6,000 GM workers approved the one-time donation of 1% of their pay on Feb. 11. The GM workers’ pledge was part of a Brazilian campaign that has already sent about 160,000 reais ($89,000) to Haiti. (AlterPresse 3/24/10 from Brasil de Fato (São Paulo))
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, IDB Megaprojects
Chile's Billionaire President Piñera Gets a Raise
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/2417-chiles-billionaire-president-gets-a-raise
The Land Lugo Promised: Paraguayan Farmers Mobilize for Agrarian Reform
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/2421-the-land-lugo-promised-paraguayan-farmers-mobilize-for-agrarian-reform
The Brazilian Two-Step: Strategic Politics in the Lula Administration
https://nacla.org/node/6485
Free Trade Undermining Rights in Peru
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/2418-free-trade-undermining-rights-in-peru
Colombia: FARC to release hostages —despite new government raids
http://ww4report.com/node/8506
Colombia: drug recrim on hold —sort of
http://ww4report.com/node/8505
Bomb blast rocks Colombian port
http://ww4report.com/node/8504
Colombia's Elections: Under the Gun
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6707
Amnesty International urges El Salvador to repeal amnesty law
http://ww4report.com/node/8501
El Salvador: 30th Anniversary of Assassination of Oscar Romero
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/03/24/el-salvador-30th-anniversary-of-assassination-of-oscar-romero/
Text Book State Terrorism in Honduras: Death Squad Kills Teacher in Front of Students
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2420-text-book-state-terrorism-in-honduras-death-squad-kills-teacher-in-front-of-students
Hondurans' Great Awakening
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100405
Mérida Initiative retooled at Mexico City summit
http://ww4report.com/node/8500
Juarez, Murder Capital of the World
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6681
IDB Megaprojects: Displacement, Destruction, and Deception
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6708
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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:
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http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Monday, 22 March 2010
Links but No Update for March 21, 2010
[We are unable to send out an Update this week. We'll be back next week. Below are links to stories from other sources.]
Earthquake and Tsunami in Chile: The Militarization of Natural Disasters
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6700
Israeli foreign minister snubs Lula's "peace mission" (Brazil)
http://ww4report.com/node/8486
Report to UN Reveals Shocking Situation of Guarani Tribe in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2409-report-to-un-reveals-shocking-situation-of-guarani-tribe-in-brazil-
Bolivia: general who captured Che Guevara questioned in destablization plot
http://ww4report.com/node/8483
Bolivia: prison party over for García Meza
http://ww4report.com/node/8467
Bolivia’s New Political Space: An Interview With Ambassador Pablo Solón
https://nacla.org/node/6473
Bolivia Creates a New Opportunity for Climate Talks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2411-bolivia-creates-a-new-opportunity-for-climate-talks-
Bolivia’s New Political Space: An Interview With Ambassador Pablo Solón
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2410-bolivias-new-political-space-an-interview-with-ambassador-pablo-solon
The Militarization of the Peruvian Countryside
https://nacla.org/node/6482
FARC commander "Ivan Vargas" gets 20 years in US prison (Colombia)
http://ww4report.com/node/8482
Colombia: peasant human rights defender assassinated
http://ww4report.com/node/8481
Colombian journalist assassinated after exposing paras
http://ww4report.com/node/8487
Colombia: Canadian free trade agreement advances —despite rights concerns
http://ww4report.com/node/8480
U.S. Bases in Colombia Rattle the Region
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2412-us-bases-in-colombia-rattle-the-region
Colombia Elections 2010
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6703
For Venezuela, There is No Going Back: A Discussion with Federico Fuentes and Kiraz Janicke
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/2413-for-venezuela-there-is-no-going-back-a-discussion-with-federico-fuentes-and-kiraz-janicke
Third Honduran journalist gunned down in two weeks
http://ww4report.com/node/8470
Honduras: Repression Intensifies, Resistance Deepens, and Washington Promotes Recognition of the Post-Coup Regime
https://nacla.org/node/6480
U.S. Tries to Divide Honduran Resistance
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2414-us-tries-to-divide-honduran-resistance
Honduras: Poll Proposed by Resistance Challenges Regime
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2406-honduran-resistance-challenges-regime
Guatemala: In Memory of Our Martyrs and Bloodshed in Comalapa
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/2403-guatemala-in-memory-of-our-martyrs-and-bloodshed-in-comalapa
National Strike Begins in Mexico, Police Respond With Violence
http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/2010/03/national-strike-begins-in-mexico-police.html
Federal Police Attack Five More Electricians' Blockades, One Electrician Shot
http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/2010/03/federal-police-attack-five-more.html
Cartel gunmen block roads in northern Mexico
http://ww4report.com/node/8479
Haiti’s Earthquake Victims in Great Peril
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2408-haitis-earthquake-victims-in-great-peril
Post-disaster reconstruction: Putting Haitian citizens into the equation
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-bell/post-disaster-reconstruct_b_499110.html
Haiti's Excluded
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100329/lindsay
Student Protests in Dominican Republic Shut Down Universities
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2405-student-protests-in-dominican-republic-shut-down-universities
Earthquake and Tsunami in Chile: The Militarization of Natural Disasters
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6700
Israeli foreign minister snubs Lula's "peace mission" (Brazil)
http://ww4report.com/node/8486
Report to UN Reveals Shocking Situation of Guarani Tribe in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2409-report-to-un-reveals-shocking-situation-of-guarani-tribe-in-brazil-
Bolivia: general who captured Che Guevara questioned in destablization plot
http://ww4report.com/node/8483
Bolivia: prison party over for García Meza
http://ww4report.com/node/8467
Bolivia’s New Political Space: An Interview With Ambassador Pablo Solón
https://nacla.org/node/6473
Bolivia Creates a New Opportunity for Climate Talks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2411-bolivia-creates-a-new-opportunity-for-climate-talks-
Bolivia’s New Political Space: An Interview With Ambassador Pablo Solón
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2410-bolivias-new-political-space-an-interview-with-ambassador-pablo-solon
The Militarization of the Peruvian Countryside
https://nacla.org/node/6482
FARC commander "Ivan Vargas" gets 20 years in US prison (Colombia)
http://ww4report.com/node/8482
Colombia: peasant human rights defender assassinated
http://ww4report.com/node/8481
Colombian journalist assassinated after exposing paras
http://ww4report.com/node/8487
Colombia: Canadian free trade agreement advances —despite rights concerns
http://ww4report.com/node/8480
U.S. Bases in Colombia Rattle the Region
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2412-us-bases-in-colombia-rattle-the-region
Colombia Elections 2010
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6703
For Venezuela, There is No Going Back: A Discussion with Federico Fuentes and Kiraz Janicke
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/2413-for-venezuela-there-is-no-going-back-a-discussion-with-federico-fuentes-and-kiraz-janicke
Third Honduran journalist gunned down in two weeks
http://ww4report.com/node/8470
Honduras: Repression Intensifies, Resistance Deepens, and Washington Promotes Recognition of the Post-Coup Regime
https://nacla.org/node/6480
U.S. Tries to Divide Honduran Resistance
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2414-us-tries-to-divide-honduran-resistance
Honduras: Poll Proposed by Resistance Challenges Regime
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2406-honduran-resistance-challenges-regime
Guatemala: In Memory of Our Martyrs and Bloodshed in Comalapa
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/2403-guatemala-in-memory-of-our-martyrs-and-bloodshed-in-comalapa
National Strike Begins in Mexico, Police Respond With Violence
http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/2010/03/national-strike-begins-in-mexico-police.html
Federal Police Attack Five More Electricians' Blockades, One Electrician Shot
http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/2010/03/federal-police-attack-five-more.html
Cartel gunmen block roads in northern Mexico
http://ww4report.com/node/8479
Haiti’s Earthquake Victims in Great Peril
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2408-haitis-earthquake-victims-in-great-peril
Post-disaster reconstruction: Putting Haitian citizens into the equation
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-bell/post-disaster-reconstruct_b_499110.html
Haiti's Excluded
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100329/lindsay
Student Protests in Dominican Republic Shut Down Universities
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2405-student-protests-in-dominican-republic-shut-down-universities
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
WNU #1025: Chilean Grassroots Groups Respond to Quake
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1025, March 14, 2010
1. Chile: Grassroots Groups Respond to Quake
2. Honduras: Cops Evict Thousands of Squatters
3. Peru: Old Crimes Catch Up With Ex-Officers
4. Links to alternative sources on: Regional, Environment, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti, Canada
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: Grassroots Groups Respond to Quake
Some 12 Chilean social and grassroots organizations have formed a solidarity network in response to what they consider the authorities’ failure to act quickly and appropriately when a 8.8 magnitude earthquake devastated much of central and southern Chile on Feb. 27. The network will work for Chileans to “reconstitute ourselves as an organized people to confront the present tragedy in an effective and dignified manner,” the groups said in an undated statement posted on the website of Vía Campesina, the international peasant federation, on Mar. 10.
The statement criticized the army for its failure to provide accurate information to the government that could have saved “hundreds of lives.” It also criticized the incoming government of rightwing billionaire Sebastián Piñera, whose term as president began on Mar. 11. The right tried “to take political advantage of the country’s misfortune,” the groups said, while the other political parties failed to react. (Presumably this includes the Socialist Party of outgoing president Michelle Bachelet). More generally, the statement called the “slow, disorganized and individualistic way” in which aid was delivered a “direct consequence of forms of centralized, authoritarian organization” and of social practices “based on repression of organizations and political debate.” The damage to housing, schools, bridges, hospitals and highways was, according to the statement, the “product of a business sector that spent decades making profits, acting in an irresponsible and criminal manner.”
The groups said they would promote “real and effective social participation" in decisions about reconstruction and aid distribution so that the process “doesn’t become a big business for the big companies” or a way for politicians to create divisions in different sectors. The military could have a “vital role in support for logistics and infrastructure,” they said, but without “the repressive role it played in the past.”
In addition to the Chilean branch of Vía Campesina, the organizations in the network include the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI), the Ranquil Confederation, the World March of Women's Chile branch and the Center of National Studies for Alternative Development (CENDA). (“Chile: Organizando Red Solidaria--Pueblo y Organización” declaration 3/10/10; Adital (Brazil) 3/10/10)
*2. Honduras: Cops Evict Thousands of Squatters
On Mar. 12 hundreds of Honduran soldiers, police and agents of the National Criminal Investigation Directorate (DNIC) removed thousands of families from some 200 manzanas (about 340 acres) of land they were living on in the Montes de León, La Mesa, Santa Rosa and Loarque Sur neighborhoods in Comayagüela, Tegucigalpa’s twin city. Deputy Police Commissioner Leandro Osorio said the operation was in compliance with an eviction order issued by a Tegucigalpa court. According to the authorities, the land belongs to the Social Fund for Housing (Fosovi) and was occupied illegally. After the residents were removed, bulldozers destroyed their homes, which had been built mostly from materials like sheet metal and pieces of wood.
The Agence France Presse (AFP) wire service reported that 2,000 families were living at the site, while the San Pedro Sula daily La Prensa put the number at 15,000. La Prensa, which supported the June 28, 2009 coup d’état against former president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, called the police operation “peaceful” and reported one arrest. AFP said the removal was violent and quoted Deputy Commissioner Osorio as saying dozens of people were arrested.
"They lied to us,” resident Carolina Amador told AFP, referring to the authorities. “They promised us they were going to negotiate with us, and they came and surprised us.” Amador said her husband works as a street vendor; the couple has two small children. “We don’t have anywhere to go—what are we going to do?” she asked. The capital is surrounded by improvised settlements of people who have left the countryside; these settlements are largely concentrated in Comayagüela, which is south of Tegucigalpa; the two cities form the country’s Central District. (AFP 3/12/10 via Vos el Soberano website (Honduras); La Prensa 3/13/10; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 3/12/10)
Armed masked men seized two farm workers, Ramón Ulises Castellanos and Miguel Sauceda, the evening of Mar. 8 at their homes in El Naranjo community in the northern department of Atlántida. Their bodies were found beside a highway the next day with bullet wounds in the head, chest and abdomen. The masked men reportedly identified themselves as DNIC agents. “They all had black vests and ski masks. One of them had the initials ‘DNIC’ on his vest,” said the wife of one of the victims. (Prensa Latina 3/9/10)
Correction: This item originally described La Prensa as a "Tegucigalpa daily." It's published in San Pedro Sula.
*3. Peru: Old Crimes Catch Up With Ex-Officers
According to a report in the Peruvian daily La República on Mar. 5, Jesús Sosa Saavedra, a former agent of Peru’s Army Intelligence Service (SIE), has confessed to prosecutor Alicia Chamorro Bermúdez that he participated in the 1988 “Operation Lucero,” in which the SIE captured and executed alleged Ecuadorian spy Enrique Duchicela and Lt. Marco Barrantes, a Peruvian officer also accused of espionage. Sosa Saavedra said Col. Oswaldo Hanke Velasco, then the head of the SIE, ordered the operation. According to La República, this testimony may bring Hanke Velasco to trial; he had avoided prosecution in the past.
Sosa Saavedra--nicknamed "Kerosene" because he used the fuel to kill his victims--was already in prison as a former member of the Colina Group, a death squad organized by military intelligence and allegedly reporting to former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). Fujimori was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for causing deaths and serious injuries while in office [see Update #1019]. (Los Tiempos (Cochabamba, Bolivia) 3/5/10 from EFE)
On the night of Mar. 11 Peruvian judicial police captured another former SIE agent, army captain Víctor Penas Sandoval, who had been in hiding. The First Special Tribunal of Lima has accused Penas Sandoval of carrying out terrorist acts on the orders of Vladimiro Montesinos, Fujimori’s intelligence adviser and the founder of the Colina Group; Montesinos too is now a prisoner.
Penas Sandoval allegedly made and sent at least five letter bombs in 1991, while he was stationed in Lima. Attorney Augusto Zúñiga Paz, of the Human Rights Commission (Comisedh), lost an arm when he opened the first of these letter bombs on Mar. 15; Víctor Ruiz León was killed on June 21 when he opened the second, which was intended for a neighbor, the director of Cambio, a magazine supporting the rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA); on June 28 the third blew off the arm of a caretaker at El Diario, a publication supporting the rebel Communist Party of Peru (PCP, Sendero Luminoso); the fourth killed Cambio editor Melissa Alfaro Méndez on Oct. 10. Penas Sandoval was moved out of Lima after he failed in an effort to assassinate leftist legislative deputy Ricardo Letts Colmenares by letter bomb.
In 1993 a military court charged Penas Sandoval with the October 1992 murder of eight drug traffickers and the theft of 300 kilos of drugs in Balsayacu, Alto Huallaga. Penas Sandoval decided to respond by exposing military crimes, and he arranged to meet with officials at the US embassy in Lima on June 30, 1994. He is apparently the unnamed officer cited in a declassified document released by the National Security Archives, a Washington, DC-based nongovernmental organization; the document reports on a lengthy conversation in which a Peruvian intelligence officer admitted to making the letter bombs and said they were ordered by Montesinos. The officer also told the officials about the army’s routine practice of torturing, raping and murdering captives during military operations against rebels during the 1980s. He sometimes chuckled while describing torture techniques.
Penas Sandoval reportedly asked to be admitted to the US. The embassy officials recommended against admitting him, but it is not clear what action the US took, if any, in response to his revelations of terrorist acts by the Peruvian government, a US ally. (AFP 3/12/10; La República 3/13/10; “The Search for Truth: The Declassified Record on Human Rights Abuses in Peru,” Document 26, National Security Archives 8/28/03)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Regional, Environment, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti, Canada
Abortion in Latin America - Still Illegal, Still Killing, Despite Growing Awareness
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2397-abortion-in-latin-america-still-illegal-still-killing-despite-growing-awareness
Central Bank Independence ... Independent from Whom?
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6691
Americas Program Biodiversity Report—February 2010
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6689
Chile's Social Earthquake
http://globalalternatives.org/node/112
The Homeless in Bahia: The Utopia of "Good Living" (Brazil)
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6693
Bolivia, Uruguay sign deal on pipeline, sea access
http://ww4report.com/node/8455
Bolivia unseals files from military dictatorship
http://ww4report.com/node/8454
Is Bolivia Heading for Andean-Amazonian Capitalism?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2401-is-bolivia-heading-for-andean-amazonian-capitalism
International Delegation Issues Preliminary Findings on Pre-electoral Conditions in Colombia
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6699
Conservatives Revive Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2398-conservatives-revive-canada-colombia-free-trade-agreement
Venezuela: Bari Indians Speak at Landmark Supreme Court Hearing
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2400-bari-indians-speak-at-landmark-supreme-court-hearing
Venezuela: Chávez calls for Internet controls
http://ww4report.com/node/8453
Venezuela buys Chinese jets for drug war
http://ww4report.com/node/8452
Cananea Mine Battle Reveals Anti-Labor Offensive in Mexico, United States
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6694
Mexico: Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno Released From Prison for (Not) Killing Brad Will
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2396-juan-manuel-martinez-moreno-released-from-prison-for-not-killing-brad-will-
Mexico: Guerrero narco-violence breaks grisly record
http://ww4report.com/node/8451
Chomsky Post-Earthquake: Aid to Haitian Popular Organizations, not Contractors or NGOs
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2394--chomsky-post-earthquake-aid-to-haitian-popular-organizations-not-contractors-or-ngos
Haiti's Excluded
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100329/lindsay
Canada Moves to Oversee Mining Firms
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2392-canada-moves-to-oversee-mining-firms
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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 #1025, March 14, 2010
1. Chile: Grassroots Groups Respond to Quake
2. Honduras: Cops Evict Thousands of Squatters
3. Peru: Old Crimes Catch Up With Ex-Officers
4. Links to alternative sources on: Regional, Environment, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti, Canada
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: Grassroots Groups Respond to Quake
Some 12 Chilean social and grassroots organizations have formed a solidarity network in response to what they consider the authorities’ failure to act quickly and appropriately when a 8.8 magnitude earthquake devastated much of central and southern Chile on Feb. 27. The network will work for Chileans to “reconstitute ourselves as an organized people to confront the present tragedy in an effective and dignified manner,” the groups said in an undated statement posted on the website of Vía Campesina, the international peasant federation, on Mar. 10.
The statement criticized the army for its failure to provide accurate information to the government that could have saved “hundreds of lives.” It also criticized the incoming government of rightwing billionaire Sebastián Piñera, whose term as president began on Mar. 11. The right tried “to take political advantage of the country’s misfortune,” the groups said, while the other political parties failed to react. (Presumably this includes the Socialist Party of outgoing president Michelle Bachelet). More generally, the statement called the “slow, disorganized and individualistic way” in which aid was delivered a “direct consequence of forms of centralized, authoritarian organization” and of social practices “based on repression of organizations and political debate.” The damage to housing, schools, bridges, hospitals and highways was, according to the statement, the “product of a business sector that spent decades making profits, acting in an irresponsible and criminal manner.”
The groups said they would promote “real and effective social participation" in decisions about reconstruction and aid distribution so that the process “doesn’t become a big business for the big companies” or a way for politicians to create divisions in different sectors. The military could have a “vital role in support for logistics and infrastructure,” they said, but without “the repressive role it played in the past.”
In addition to the Chilean branch of Vía Campesina, the organizations in the network include the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI), the Ranquil Confederation, the World March of Women's Chile branch and the Center of National Studies for Alternative Development (CENDA). (“Chile: Organizando Red Solidaria--Pueblo y Organización” declaration 3/10/10; Adital (Brazil) 3/10/10)
*2. Honduras: Cops Evict Thousands of Squatters
On Mar. 12 hundreds of Honduran soldiers, police and agents of the National Criminal Investigation Directorate (DNIC) removed thousands of families from some 200 manzanas (about 340 acres) of land they were living on in the Montes de León, La Mesa, Santa Rosa and Loarque Sur neighborhoods in Comayagüela, Tegucigalpa’s twin city. Deputy Police Commissioner Leandro Osorio said the operation was in compliance with an eviction order issued by a Tegucigalpa court. According to the authorities, the land belongs to the Social Fund for Housing (Fosovi) and was occupied illegally. After the residents were removed, bulldozers destroyed their homes, which had been built mostly from materials like sheet metal and pieces of wood.
The Agence France Presse (AFP) wire service reported that 2,000 families were living at the site, while the San Pedro Sula daily La Prensa put the number at 15,000. La Prensa, which supported the June 28, 2009 coup d’état against former president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, called the police operation “peaceful” and reported one arrest. AFP said the removal was violent and quoted Deputy Commissioner Osorio as saying dozens of people were arrested.
"They lied to us,” resident Carolina Amador told AFP, referring to the authorities. “They promised us they were going to negotiate with us, and they came and surprised us.” Amador said her husband works as a street vendor; the couple has two small children. “We don’t have anywhere to go—what are we going to do?” she asked. The capital is surrounded by improvised settlements of people who have left the countryside; these settlements are largely concentrated in Comayagüela, which is south of Tegucigalpa; the two cities form the country’s Central District. (AFP 3/12/10 via Vos el Soberano website (Honduras); La Prensa 3/13/10; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 3/12/10)
Armed masked men seized two farm workers, Ramón Ulises Castellanos and Miguel Sauceda, the evening of Mar. 8 at their homes in El Naranjo community in the northern department of Atlántida. Their bodies were found beside a highway the next day with bullet wounds in the head, chest and abdomen. The masked men reportedly identified themselves as DNIC agents. “They all had black vests and ski masks. One of them had the initials ‘DNIC’ on his vest,” said the wife of one of the victims. (Prensa Latina 3/9/10)
Correction: This item originally described La Prensa as a "Tegucigalpa daily." It's published in San Pedro Sula.
*3. Peru: Old Crimes Catch Up With Ex-Officers
According to a report in the Peruvian daily La República on Mar. 5, Jesús Sosa Saavedra, a former agent of Peru’s Army Intelligence Service (SIE), has confessed to prosecutor Alicia Chamorro Bermúdez that he participated in the 1988 “Operation Lucero,” in which the SIE captured and executed alleged Ecuadorian spy Enrique Duchicela and Lt. Marco Barrantes, a Peruvian officer also accused of espionage. Sosa Saavedra said Col. Oswaldo Hanke Velasco, then the head of the SIE, ordered the operation. According to La República, this testimony may bring Hanke Velasco to trial; he had avoided prosecution in the past.
Sosa Saavedra--nicknamed "Kerosene" because he used the fuel to kill his victims--was already in prison as a former member of the Colina Group, a death squad organized by military intelligence and allegedly reporting to former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). Fujimori was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for causing deaths and serious injuries while in office [see Update #1019]. (Los Tiempos (Cochabamba, Bolivia) 3/5/10 from EFE)
On the night of Mar. 11 Peruvian judicial police captured another former SIE agent, army captain Víctor Penas Sandoval, who had been in hiding. The First Special Tribunal of Lima has accused Penas Sandoval of carrying out terrorist acts on the orders of Vladimiro Montesinos, Fujimori’s intelligence adviser and the founder of the Colina Group; Montesinos too is now a prisoner.
Penas Sandoval allegedly made and sent at least five letter bombs in 1991, while he was stationed in Lima. Attorney Augusto Zúñiga Paz, of the Human Rights Commission (Comisedh), lost an arm when he opened the first of these letter bombs on Mar. 15; Víctor Ruiz León was killed on June 21 when he opened the second, which was intended for a neighbor, the director of Cambio, a magazine supporting the rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA); on June 28 the third blew off the arm of a caretaker at El Diario, a publication supporting the rebel Communist Party of Peru (PCP, Sendero Luminoso); the fourth killed Cambio editor Melissa Alfaro Méndez on Oct. 10. Penas Sandoval was moved out of Lima after he failed in an effort to assassinate leftist legislative deputy Ricardo Letts Colmenares by letter bomb.
In 1993 a military court charged Penas Sandoval with the October 1992 murder of eight drug traffickers and the theft of 300 kilos of drugs in Balsayacu, Alto Huallaga. Penas Sandoval decided to respond by exposing military crimes, and he arranged to meet with officials at the US embassy in Lima on June 30, 1994. He is apparently the unnamed officer cited in a declassified document released by the National Security Archives, a Washington, DC-based nongovernmental organization; the document reports on a lengthy conversation in which a Peruvian intelligence officer admitted to making the letter bombs and said they were ordered by Montesinos. The officer also told the officials about the army’s routine practice of torturing, raping and murdering captives during military operations against rebels during the 1980s. He sometimes chuckled while describing torture techniques.
Penas Sandoval reportedly asked to be admitted to the US. The embassy officials recommended against admitting him, but it is not clear what action the US took, if any, in response to his revelations of terrorist acts by the Peruvian government, a US ally. (AFP 3/12/10; La República 3/13/10; “The Search for Truth: The Declassified Record on Human Rights Abuses in Peru,” Document 26, National Security Archives 8/28/03)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Regional, Environment, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti, Canada
Abortion in Latin America - Still Illegal, Still Killing, Despite Growing Awareness
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2397-abortion-in-latin-america-still-illegal-still-killing-despite-growing-awareness
Central Bank Independence ... Independent from Whom?
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6691
Americas Program Biodiversity Report—February 2010
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6689
Chile's Social Earthquake
http://globalalternatives.org/node/112
The Homeless in Bahia: The Utopia of "Good Living" (Brazil)
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6693
Bolivia, Uruguay sign deal on pipeline, sea access
http://ww4report.com/node/8455
Bolivia unseals files from military dictatorship
http://ww4report.com/node/8454
Is Bolivia Heading for Andean-Amazonian Capitalism?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2401-is-bolivia-heading-for-andean-amazonian-capitalism
International Delegation Issues Preliminary Findings on Pre-electoral Conditions in Colombia
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6699
Conservatives Revive Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2398-conservatives-revive-canada-colombia-free-trade-agreement
Venezuela: Bari Indians Speak at Landmark Supreme Court Hearing
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2400-bari-indians-speak-at-landmark-supreme-court-hearing
Venezuela: Chávez calls for Internet controls
http://ww4report.com/node/8453
Venezuela buys Chinese jets for drug war
http://ww4report.com/node/8452
Cananea Mine Battle Reveals Anti-Labor Offensive in Mexico, United States
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6694
Mexico: Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno Released From Prison for (Not) Killing Brad Will
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2396-juan-manuel-martinez-moreno-released-from-prison-for-not-killing-brad-will-
Mexico: Guerrero narco-violence breaks grisly record
http://ww4report.com/node/8451
Chomsky Post-Earthquake: Aid to Haitian Popular Organizations, not Contractors or NGOs
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2394--chomsky-post-earthquake-aid-to-haitian-popular-organizations-not-contractors-or-ngos
Haiti's Excluded
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100329/lindsay
Canada Moves to Oversee Mining Firms
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2392-canada-moves-to-oversee-mining-firms
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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, 9 March 2010
WNU #1024: 5 Killed in Peruvian Vendor Protest
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1024, March 7, 2010
1. Peru: 5 Killed in Market Vendor Protest
2. Colombia: Transport Strike Paralyzes Bogotá
3. Guatemala: Teachers’ Strike Settled
4. Mexico: Same-Sex Weddings Set to Start
5. Haiti: US and Canada Draw Down Troops
6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, development
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Peru: 5 Killed in Market Vendor Protest
A confrontation on Mar. 3 between police agents and market vendors in Piura, capital of Peru’s northwestern Piura province, resulted in the deaths of at least five civilians, according to the authorities; 95 civilians and 25 agents were injured in the incident, and 137 people were arrested. The vendors were protesting Piura mayor Mónica Zapata’s plan to remove them from their current location in the Modelo Market to a new market area that they considered inadequate.
According to police, some two thousand vendors marched on city hall Mar. 3 in response to an order for their removal, which was supposed to take place that day. When Mayor Zapata refused to meet with them, the vendors reportedly threw rocks at the building and carried out acts of violence in various streets in the center of the city. The authorities said police used tear gas and fired shots into the air to disperse the protesters. Five people were killed, according to the government, but the Peruvian daily La República reported that seven people died, including two underage youths who hadn’t been part of the demonstration. One youth was shot in the head and the other in the chest; witnesses told La República that they saw a police agent shoot one of the youths.
On Mar. 4 national police director Miguel Hidalgo and Interior Minister Octavio Salazar testified on the incident before the congressional Defense Committee, which expressed its unanimous support for the actions of the police. Also on Mar. 4, hundreds of people attended funerals for the victims. “Mónica murderer,” they chanted, referring to Mayor Zapata.
After the confrontation, Zapata expressed willingness to consider a different location for the new market, and as of Mar. 5 she and representatives of the vendors were in negotiations. Carlos Sánchez, general manager of the Piura Chamber of Commerce, expressed concern over the loss of business during the crisis and said he hoped there would be a solution soon. “The city’s growing economically and is getting the attention of big companies that find this is a strategic area for doing business,” he explained. “That’s the case with Open Plaza and Ripley, which are opening their doors [here] this year.” (Los Tiempos (Bolivia) 3/5/10 from AP; La República 3/5/10; El Comercio (Peru) 3/6/10) [Open Plaza is a chain of shopping malls, and Ripley is a department store chain.]
*2. Colombia: Transport Strike Paralyzes Bogotá
On the morning of Mar. 1 members of Bogotá’s Small Transport Providers Association (Apetrans), which represents about 90% of the Colombian capital’s transport owners and workers, pulled some 16,400 buses and collective taxis out of service in a dispute with Mayor Samuel Moreno Rojas over his plans for modernizing the city’s public transportation. Bogotá residents used trucks, bicycles and even vehicles drawn by animals to get to work and school in what most observers described as “chaos.” On Mar. 3 Mayor Moreno ordered the closing of public schools to relieve the congestion caused by the strike and authorized the sharing of individual taxis and other alternative transportation methods. He also sent 500 extra police agents to the streets in collaboration with the army’s 13th Brigade.
By the time the mayor and Apetrans president Alfonso Pérez reached an agreement on Mar. 4, the police claimed to have arrested at least 215 people for looting, attacks on transport or disorderly conduct. On the night of Mar. 2 some 300 youths reportedly destroyed a police station in the La Gaitana neighborhood in northwestern Bogotá. Businesses said their sales had fallen by 60%.
Mayor Moreno’s plan, the Integrated Public Transport System (SITP), seeks to rationalize the capital’s transport by consolidating routes, replacing antiquated and polluting buses with new buses, and starting a subway system. Apetrans was demanding a greater role for its members in the new system and a higher rate of compensation for older buses retired from service. In the settlement, Moreno increased the payments for buses, while the transport providers gave in on their demand for more participation in the SITP.
Politicians on the right took advantage of the strike to attack Moreno, a member of the center-left Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA) party. Bogotá “lacks a mayor,” former president Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002, Conservative Party) announced on Mar. 3. Moreno needs to “do his job,” Pastrana continued, “or if he can’t, he runs the risk of being recalled.” On Feb. 18, well before the strike, Germán Vargas Lleras, presidential candidate of the rightwing Radical Change party, said he wouldn’t discount the possibility of promoting a referendum for Moreno’s recall. (La República (Peru) 3/3/10 from EFE; El País (Colombia) 3/4/10 from Colprensa; La Opinión (Los Angeles) 3/5/10 from El Diario-La Prensa (New York))
*3. Guatemala: Teachers’ Strike Settled
After lengthy negotiations on Feb. 26, Guatemala’s new education minister, Dennis Alonzo, and Joviel Acevedo, head of the 80,000-member National Teachers Assembly (ANM), reached an agreement settling a wage dispute that had set off a series of militant actions starting Feb. 22. Thousands of teachers tied up traffic throughout the country and occupied a central plaza in Guatemala City to push their demand for a 16% pay increase this year, including an 8% raise the government had failed to provide in 2009 [see Update #1023].
Acevedo announced the terms of the deal before hundreds of teachers in the Plaza de la Constitución on Mar. 1. The teachers are to receive a 10% increase this year—the 8% pay hike promised for 2010 plus 2% from the 8% raise due last year. A technical group will analyze budgeting a 14% increase next year, representing 8% for 2011 along with the 6% still owed from 2009. Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom also addressed the demonstrators, acknowledging that more needed to be done to improve the education system and calling for fiscal reforms to generate additional income for social programs. (Prensa Latina 2/27/10; EFE 2/27/10; Guatemala Hoy 3/2/10)
*4. Mexico: Same-Sex Weddings Set to Start
There were celebrations in Mexico City’s downtown Alameda park on Mar. 4 as 31 same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses at the Civil Registry on the nearby Arcos de Belén avenue under a new law that took effect that day in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City). The DF legislature passed the law on Dec. 21, making Mexico City the first city in Latin America to recognize same-sex marriages [see Update #1018].
Theater director and performer Jesusa Rodríguez and Argentine-born singer Liliana Felipe were among the applicants, along with activists Judith Vázquez and Lol Kin Castañeda. Only 19 of the couples completed their registrations, but legal adviser Leticia Bonifaz Alfonzo said the other 12 couples simply needed to come back another day with additional documentation. Conservative forces are challenging the law’s constitutionality, but even if the Supreme Court rules against same-sex marriage, couples that have already married will be protected, according to Bonifaz Castañeda. (La Jornada (Mexico) 3/5/10)
*5. Haiti: US and Canada Draw Down Troops
About 100 Canadian soldiers were scheduled to leave Haiti on Mar. 7 and return to the Valcartier base northwest of Quebec city in Quebec province. An 850-member force deployed to the Port-au-Prince area from the base after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated much of southern Haiti on Jan. 12. The Canadians indicated that they were planning to withdraw the rest of the troops gradually, but Canadian defense minister Peter MacKay, who was in Haiti on Mar. 7 during a two-day visit, said his government would be doubling the size of its contingent in the 9,000-member United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which has occupied the country since June 2004. (Radio Métropole (Haiti) 3/7/10)
The US has also been drawing down its force in Haiti. The US military said 700 paratroopers withdrew on the weekend of Mar. 6, leaving a total of 11,000 soldiers in the country, more than half of them on ships near the shore. At its high point, on Feb. 1, the force had 20,000 members. "Our mission is largely accomplished," said Gen. Douglas Fraser, who as head of US Southern Command is in charge of the Haiti operation, but he said a smaller US force would remain as the Haitian government and MINUSTAH take over. According to the Associated Press (AP) wire service, some Haitians expressed concern about security in the absence of US troops. But Ted Constan, chief program officer for Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante, a US-Haitian medical group, told AP: "The real solution is to deliver services...rather than turn Haiti into a military state." (AP 3/7/10)
In other news, Haitian women’s groups were planning to mark International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 with an outdoor ceremony honoring Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan, three feminist leaders who died in the earthquake. Activists were also planning commemorations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Honduras and Puerto Rico for the three women, who established shelters for victims of trafficking and sexual violence, and promoted legal reforms recognizing sexual violence as a violation of women’s rights. (Adital (Brazil) 3/4/10)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, development
Argentina: Food Must be Produced Locally
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2389-argentina-food-must-be-produced-locally
Philip Morris vs. Uruguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2390-philip-morris-vs-uruguay
Celebrating Compromises in Uruguay: José Mujica Inaugurated as President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/uruguay-archives-48/2385-celebrating-compromises-in-uruguay-mujica-inaugurated-as-president
Brazil as a Key Player
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/2387-brazil-as-a-key-player
Brazil Faces Its Post-Lula Future
https://nacla.org/node/6437
Chile's Socialist Rebar
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100315/klein
Bolivian Women Rise Up
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2388-bolivian-women-rise-up
Bolivia: Cash for Checkups to Slash Maternal Deaths
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2386-bolivia-cash-for-checkups-to-slash-maternal-deaths
The U.S./Bolivia Drug Show
http://democracyctr.org/blog/2010/03/usbolivia-drug-show.html
Peru: Relocating Entire Villages for Mines, Dams
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2384-peru-relocating-entire-villages-for-mines-dams
Gold Fever: Artisanal and Industrial Extraction in the Nicaraguan Mining Triangle
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/nicaragua-archives-62/2382-gold-fever-artisanal-and-industrial-extraction-in-the-nicaraguan-mining-triangle
Clinton presses leaders to recognize Honduras at drug war summit
http://ww4report.com/node/8419
Suit charges Coca-Cola complicity in Guatemala rights abuses
http://ww4report.com/node/8410
Guatemalan police destroy opium, cannabis crops
http://ww4report.com/node/8409
Guatemala: top cops busted, death squads exposed
http://ww4report.com/node/8408
Mexico: police stage protest after deadly ambush outside Monterrey
http://ww4report.com/node/8420
"Rebuilding Haiti" -- the Sweatshop Hoax
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson040310.html
A Future for Agriculture, A Future for Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2383-a-future-for-agriculture-a-future-for-haiti
From the NACLA Archives: Development, Unthinking the Past
https://nacla.org/node/6440
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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 #1024, March 7, 2010
1. Peru: 5 Killed in Market Vendor Protest
2. Colombia: Transport Strike Paralyzes Bogotá
3. Guatemala: Teachers’ Strike Settled
4. Mexico: Same-Sex Weddings Set to Start
5. Haiti: US and Canada Draw Down Troops
6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, development
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Peru: 5 Killed in Market Vendor Protest
A confrontation on Mar. 3 between police agents and market vendors in Piura, capital of Peru’s northwestern Piura province, resulted in the deaths of at least five civilians, according to the authorities; 95 civilians and 25 agents were injured in the incident, and 137 people were arrested. The vendors were protesting Piura mayor Mónica Zapata’s plan to remove them from their current location in the Modelo Market to a new market area that they considered inadequate.
According to police, some two thousand vendors marched on city hall Mar. 3 in response to an order for their removal, which was supposed to take place that day. When Mayor Zapata refused to meet with them, the vendors reportedly threw rocks at the building and carried out acts of violence in various streets in the center of the city. The authorities said police used tear gas and fired shots into the air to disperse the protesters. Five people were killed, according to the government, but the Peruvian daily La República reported that seven people died, including two underage youths who hadn’t been part of the demonstration. One youth was shot in the head and the other in the chest; witnesses told La República that they saw a police agent shoot one of the youths.
On Mar. 4 national police director Miguel Hidalgo and Interior Minister Octavio Salazar testified on the incident before the congressional Defense Committee, which expressed its unanimous support for the actions of the police. Also on Mar. 4, hundreds of people attended funerals for the victims. “Mónica murderer,” they chanted, referring to Mayor Zapata.
After the confrontation, Zapata expressed willingness to consider a different location for the new market, and as of Mar. 5 she and representatives of the vendors were in negotiations. Carlos Sánchez, general manager of the Piura Chamber of Commerce, expressed concern over the loss of business during the crisis and said he hoped there would be a solution soon. “The city’s growing economically and is getting the attention of big companies that find this is a strategic area for doing business,” he explained. “That’s the case with Open Plaza and Ripley, which are opening their doors [here] this year.” (Los Tiempos (Bolivia) 3/5/10 from AP; La República 3/5/10; El Comercio (Peru) 3/6/10) [Open Plaza is a chain of shopping malls, and Ripley is a department store chain.]
*2. Colombia: Transport Strike Paralyzes Bogotá
On the morning of Mar. 1 members of Bogotá’s Small Transport Providers Association (Apetrans), which represents about 90% of the Colombian capital’s transport owners and workers, pulled some 16,400 buses and collective taxis out of service in a dispute with Mayor Samuel Moreno Rojas over his plans for modernizing the city’s public transportation. Bogotá residents used trucks, bicycles and even vehicles drawn by animals to get to work and school in what most observers described as “chaos.” On Mar. 3 Mayor Moreno ordered the closing of public schools to relieve the congestion caused by the strike and authorized the sharing of individual taxis and other alternative transportation methods. He also sent 500 extra police agents to the streets in collaboration with the army’s 13th Brigade.
By the time the mayor and Apetrans president Alfonso Pérez reached an agreement on Mar. 4, the police claimed to have arrested at least 215 people for looting, attacks on transport or disorderly conduct. On the night of Mar. 2 some 300 youths reportedly destroyed a police station in the La Gaitana neighborhood in northwestern Bogotá. Businesses said their sales had fallen by 60%.
Mayor Moreno’s plan, the Integrated Public Transport System (SITP), seeks to rationalize the capital’s transport by consolidating routes, replacing antiquated and polluting buses with new buses, and starting a subway system. Apetrans was demanding a greater role for its members in the new system and a higher rate of compensation for older buses retired from service. In the settlement, Moreno increased the payments for buses, while the transport providers gave in on their demand for more participation in the SITP.
Politicians on the right took advantage of the strike to attack Moreno, a member of the center-left Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA) party. Bogotá “lacks a mayor,” former president Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002, Conservative Party) announced on Mar. 3. Moreno needs to “do his job,” Pastrana continued, “or if he can’t, he runs the risk of being recalled.” On Feb. 18, well before the strike, Germán Vargas Lleras, presidential candidate of the rightwing Radical Change party, said he wouldn’t discount the possibility of promoting a referendum for Moreno’s recall. (La República (Peru) 3/3/10 from EFE; El País (Colombia) 3/4/10 from Colprensa; La Opinión (Los Angeles) 3/5/10 from El Diario-La Prensa (New York))
*3. Guatemala: Teachers’ Strike Settled
After lengthy negotiations on Feb. 26, Guatemala’s new education minister, Dennis Alonzo, and Joviel Acevedo, head of the 80,000-member National Teachers Assembly (ANM), reached an agreement settling a wage dispute that had set off a series of militant actions starting Feb. 22. Thousands of teachers tied up traffic throughout the country and occupied a central plaza in Guatemala City to push their demand for a 16% pay increase this year, including an 8% raise the government had failed to provide in 2009 [see Update #1023].
Acevedo announced the terms of the deal before hundreds of teachers in the Plaza de la Constitución on Mar. 1. The teachers are to receive a 10% increase this year—the 8% pay hike promised for 2010 plus 2% from the 8% raise due last year. A technical group will analyze budgeting a 14% increase next year, representing 8% for 2011 along with the 6% still owed from 2009. Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom also addressed the demonstrators, acknowledging that more needed to be done to improve the education system and calling for fiscal reforms to generate additional income for social programs. (Prensa Latina 2/27/10; EFE 2/27/10; Guatemala Hoy 3/2/10)
*4. Mexico: Same-Sex Weddings Set to Start
There were celebrations in Mexico City’s downtown Alameda park on Mar. 4 as 31 same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses at the Civil Registry on the nearby Arcos de Belén avenue under a new law that took effect that day in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City). The DF legislature passed the law on Dec. 21, making Mexico City the first city in Latin America to recognize same-sex marriages [see Update #1018].
Theater director and performer Jesusa Rodríguez and Argentine-born singer Liliana Felipe were among the applicants, along with activists Judith Vázquez and Lol Kin Castañeda. Only 19 of the couples completed their registrations, but legal adviser Leticia Bonifaz Alfonzo said the other 12 couples simply needed to come back another day with additional documentation. Conservative forces are challenging the law’s constitutionality, but even if the Supreme Court rules against same-sex marriage, couples that have already married will be protected, according to Bonifaz Castañeda. (La Jornada (Mexico) 3/5/10)
*5. Haiti: US and Canada Draw Down Troops
About 100 Canadian soldiers were scheduled to leave Haiti on Mar. 7 and return to the Valcartier base northwest of Quebec city in Quebec province. An 850-member force deployed to the Port-au-Prince area from the base after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated much of southern Haiti on Jan. 12. The Canadians indicated that they were planning to withdraw the rest of the troops gradually, but Canadian defense minister Peter MacKay, who was in Haiti on Mar. 7 during a two-day visit, said his government would be doubling the size of its contingent in the 9,000-member United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which has occupied the country since June 2004. (Radio Métropole (Haiti) 3/7/10)
The US has also been drawing down its force in Haiti. The US military said 700 paratroopers withdrew on the weekend of Mar. 6, leaving a total of 11,000 soldiers in the country, more than half of them on ships near the shore. At its high point, on Feb. 1, the force had 20,000 members. "Our mission is largely accomplished," said Gen. Douglas Fraser, who as head of US Southern Command is in charge of the Haiti operation, but he said a smaller US force would remain as the Haitian government and MINUSTAH take over. According to the Associated Press (AP) wire service, some Haitians expressed concern about security in the absence of US troops. But Ted Constan, chief program officer for Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante, a US-Haitian medical group, told AP: "The real solution is to deliver services...rather than turn Haiti into a military state." (AP 3/7/10)
In other news, Haitian women’s groups were planning to mark International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 with an outdoor ceremony honoring Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan, three feminist leaders who died in the earthquake. Activists were also planning commemorations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Honduras and Puerto Rico for the three women, who established shelters for victims of trafficking and sexual violence, and promoted legal reforms recognizing sexual violence as a violation of women’s rights. (Adital (Brazil) 3/4/10)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, development
Argentina: Food Must be Produced Locally
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2389-argentina-food-must-be-produced-locally
Philip Morris vs. Uruguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2390-philip-morris-vs-uruguay
Celebrating Compromises in Uruguay: José Mujica Inaugurated as President
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/uruguay-archives-48/2385-celebrating-compromises-in-uruguay-mujica-inaugurated-as-president
Brazil as a Key Player
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/2387-brazil-as-a-key-player
Brazil Faces Its Post-Lula Future
https://nacla.org/node/6437
Chile's Socialist Rebar
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100315/klein
Bolivian Women Rise Up
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2388-bolivian-women-rise-up
Bolivia: Cash for Checkups to Slash Maternal Deaths
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2386-bolivia-cash-for-checkups-to-slash-maternal-deaths
The U.S./Bolivia Drug Show
http://democracyctr.org/blog/2010/03/usbolivia-drug-show.html
Peru: Relocating Entire Villages for Mines, Dams
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2384-peru-relocating-entire-villages-for-mines-dams
Gold Fever: Artisanal and Industrial Extraction in the Nicaraguan Mining Triangle
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/nicaragua-archives-62/2382-gold-fever-artisanal-and-industrial-extraction-in-the-nicaraguan-mining-triangle
Clinton presses leaders to recognize Honduras at drug war summit
http://ww4report.com/node/8419
Suit charges Coca-Cola complicity in Guatemala rights abuses
http://ww4report.com/node/8410
Guatemalan police destroy opium, cannabis crops
http://ww4report.com/node/8409
Guatemala: top cops busted, death squads exposed
http://ww4report.com/node/8408
Mexico: police stage protest after deadly ambush outside Monterrey
http://ww4report.com/node/8420
"Rebuilding Haiti" -- the Sweatshop Hoax
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson040310.html
A Future for Agriculture, A Future for Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2383-a-future-for-agriculture-a-future-for-haiti
From the NACLA Archives: Development, Unthinking the Past
https://nacla.org/node/6440
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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, 2 March 2010
WNU #1023: Guatemalan Teachers Block Roads, Occupy Plaza
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1023, February 28, 2010
1. Guatemala: Teachers Block Roads, Occupy Plaza
2. Mexico: 2 Otomí Women Sentenced for “Kidnapping”
3. Mexico: Summit Creates New Hemispheric Organization
4. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, 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. Guatemala: Teachers Block Roads, Occupy Plaza
Thousands of Guatemalan public school teachers blocked roads on Feb. 22 to push their demand for the government of President of Alvaro Colom to give them a 16% pay raise this year. According to Joviel Acevedo, head of the 80,000-member National Teachers Assembly (ANM), the protesters obstructed highways connecting Guatemala with Honduras, El Salvador and México, and blocked roads accessing Guatemala City. Amilcar Montejo of the Municipal Transit Police (PMT) told reporters the blockages had caused chaos in various routes leading to the center of the capital. A group of unionists including Acevedo occupied the Education Ministry (Mineduc).
The government had promised the teachers an 8% pay raise last year and another 8% raise in 2010, but it failed to deliver on the promise in 2009. Education Minister Bienvenido Argueta said the government would pay this year’s 8% raise but doesn’t have enough money for last year’s increase. The median salary for Guatemalan teachers is $440 a month, but many are covered by individual contracts that only pay around $240 a month. The teachers are also pushing for the national education budget to be increased to 12 billion quetzales a year (about $1.47 billion).
On Feb. 24 the teachers continued the protests by splitting into different groups and holding marches that tied up traffic in the capital’s four main entry points. Later in the day some 5,000 unionists from all of Guatemala's 22 departments occupied the Plaza de la Constitución in the center of the city, camping out in tents and cardboard boxes and promising to remain until they get the 16% pay hike. (EFE 2/22/10; Latin American Herald Tribune 2/24/10 from EFE; Guatemala Hoy 2/25/10, 2/26/10)
In an apparently unrelated development, on Feb. 25 President Colom accepted the Constitutional Court’s order to remove Education Minister Argueta from office. The court had ruled on a request from legislative deputy Nineth Montenegro, of the opposition Encounter for Guatemala party, to remove Argueta for disobedience. Montenegro said Argueta had failed to turn over full information on the beneficiaries of a government family support program, Mi Familia Progresa (“My Family Progresses”). (Prensa Latina 2/26/10)
*2. Mexico: 2 Otomí Women Sentenced for “Kidnapping”
On Feb. 19 Fourth District judge Rodolfo Pedraza Longhi, in Querétaro, capital of the central Mexican state of Querétaro, upheld a 21-year prison sentence for two indigenous women charged with kidnapping six agents of the now-defunct Federal Investigation Agency (AFI). The two women--Teresa González Cornelio and Alberta Alcántara Juan—had been charged in connection with a Mar. 26, 2006 incident in the market in Santiago Mexquititlán community, Amealco de Bonfil municipality, which the AFI agents raided in an unsuccessful search for pirated DVDs.
Some vendors reportedly held the federal agents until they agreed to pay for damage they had done in the raid. Prosecutors claimed that González and Alcántara were among the vendors that detained the agents. Judge Pedraza Longhi ruled against the defendants on the kidnapping charge and also convicted Alcántara of possessing 400 grams of cocaine.
The defendants’ lawyers, from the Miguel Agustín Pro Human Rights Center and the Fray Jacobo Daciano Human Rights Center, filed an appeal on Feb. 25. They said that the agents contradicted each other in court and that the only evidence against González and Alcántara was a newspaper photograph showing them near the agents at the time of the incident. The lawyers already succeeded in reopening the case once, in April 2009, when a judge ruled that the evidence was contradictory and required prosecutors to present the case again. In September the prosecutors decided to drop charges against a third woman, Jacinta Francisco Marcial, who was arrested with González and Alcántara.
The British-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) has declared González and Alcántara prisoners of conscience. On Feb. 12 AI Mexico researcher Rupert Knox charged that the two women had been “framed as a convenient target because of their marginal status in society as poor indigenous women." They are members of the Ñañú ethnic group, a part of the Otomí group, which is mainly based in Querétaro and Hidalgo. According to Knox, the defendants didn’t have access to an interpreter during the judicial procedures and weren’t informed of their legal rights. They have been held in jail since their arrest in August 2006. (La Jornada (Mexico) 2/23/10, 2/25/10; Latin American Herald Tribune 2/24/10 from EFE; AI 2/12/10)
*3. Mexico: Summit Creates New Hemispheric Group
The Latin America and Caribbean Unity Summit, a two-day meeting of 32 regional leaders in Cancún, in the eastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, ended on Feb. 23 with an agreement that included the formation of a new hemispheric organization, provisionally named the “Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.” The leaders made plans for further meetings, in Venezuela in July 2011 and in Chile in 2012, to continue discussing the mechanics of the new group and to establish its final name.
The leaders also pledged $25 million for rebuilding Haiti, devastated by a Jan. 12 earthquake; supported Argentina’s claim of sovereignty over the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands, currently held by Great Britain; and condemned the 50-year US trade embargo against Cuba.
The regional leaders seemed to have very different views of the new organization, which will include all the countries in the Western Hemisphere except Canada and the US, in contrast to the 62-year-old Organization of American States (OAS), which until last June included all the countries except Cuba. Bolivia’s leftist president, Evo Morales, said the new group will be parallel to the OAS and shows that “the empire has lost.” The region’s people are now not “a kneeling chorus, subordinate to Washington,” Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez said, calling the group the “reborn…project and dream of [Simón] Bolívar,” the 19th-century Latin American independence leader.
But the summit’s host, rightwing Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, insisted that the new group “shouldn’t and doesn’t represent any threat or reason to worry for anyone.” “We’re not thinking about whether we have an organization with or without another country,” he said. “It’s not a question of an American organization without the US, as has been said.” Center-left Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took a middle course. He compared the decision to form a new organization to a child who had reached adulthood and needed to follow his or her own path. (La Jornada 2/24/10, __; Adital 2/23/10 from Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias; New York Times 2/24/10; The Guardian (UK) 2/25/10)
A verbal dispute broke out between President Chávez and Colombian president Alvaro Uribe on Feb. 22 during a working lunch for the regional leaders. Although the argument took place at what was supposed to be closed-door meeting, reports quickly went out to the internet and the international media. The two presidents agreed to discuss their differences in a “respectful dialogue” mediated by Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Mexico, President Calderón told the media afterwards. (LJ 2/23/10)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
Prison Violence and Security in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2377-prison-violence-and-security-in-latin-america
Resisting Mining: Brutal Repression and Uprising in Argentina
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/2376-resisting-mining-brutal-repression-and-uprising-in-argentina
"State of exception" in quake-stricken Chile
http://ww4report.com/node/8400
Coca production down in South America, up in Peru: UN
http://ww4report.com/node/8383
New Sendero attack in Peru's conflicted VRAE
http://ww4report.com/node/8382
Peru: still no justice in Bagua massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/8381
Peru: indigenous organizations demand protection for "isolated peoples"
http://ww4report.com/node/8380
Peru: No Justice for Indians in Amazon Massacre
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2372-peru-no-justice-for-indians-in-amazon-massacre-
Peruvian State Protects Mining Company Instead of Citizens: Interview with Mario Tabra Guerrero
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/2378-peruvian-state-protects-mining-company-instead-of-citizens-interview-with-mario-tabra-guerrero
China enters free trade deal with Peru
http://ww4report.com/node/8402
Ecuador: indigenous movement calls national uprising
http://ww4report.com/node/8404
Colombia: indigenous communities targeted in war —again
http://ww4report.com/node/8379
Colombian re-election referendum unconstitutional: court
http://ww4report.com/node/8388
Venezuela: Chávez unveils Campesino Militia
http://ww4report.com/node/8378
Venezuela: rights chief disputes critical OAS report
http://ww4report.com/node/8387
Venezuela Creates Peasant Militias, Enacts Federal Government Council
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2375-venezuela-creates-peasant-militias-enacts-federal-government-council
Venezuela’s Revolution Faces Crucial Battles
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2373-venezuelas-revolution-faces-crucial-battles
Spain: judge accuses Venezuela in FARC-ETA assassination plot
http://ww4report.com/node/8403
Honduras: National Resistance Front marches against repression
http://ww4report.com/node/8386
Honduras Palm Oil Plantations: Sustainable Development Facade
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2380-honduras-palm-oil-plantations-sustainable-development-facade
Honduras: new charges against Zelaya; coup leader ousted from military
http://ww4report.com/node/8401
Mexico: violent evictions in Chiapas rainforest clear land for biofuels?
http://ww4report.com/node/8385
US closes Reynosa consular office as Mexican narco-violence spirals (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/8384
Mexico: activist accused in Brad Will murder free at last
http://ww4report.com/node/8365
Mexico: massacre in Oaxaca village
http://ww4report.com/node/8364
Raising Up Another Haiti
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/23-5
Haiti: Peasant Organizations Provide Humanitarian Aid
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/24/840201/-Country-Hospitality:-Haitian-Peasant-Organizations-Provide-Humanitarian-Aid
HAITI: Secure Shelters Scarce as Rainy Season Looms
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50442
Haiti: Private Contractors 'Like Vultures Coming to Grab the Loot'
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2381-haiti-private-contractors-like-vultures-coming-to-grab-the-loot
Beyond Supply and Demand: Obama’s Drug Wars in Latin America
https://nacla.org/node/6429
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. 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 #1023, February 28, 2010
1. Guatemala: Teachers Block Roads, Occupy Plaza
2. Mexico: 2 Otomí Women Sentenced for “Kidnapping”
3. Mexico: Summit Creates New Hemispheric Organization
4. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, 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. Guatemala: Teachers Block Roads, Occupy Plaza
Thousands of Guatemalan public school teachers blocked roads on Feb. 22 to push their demand for the government of President of Alvaro Colom to give them a 16% pay raise this year. According to Joviel Acevedo, head of the 80,000-member National Teachers Assembly (ANM), the protesters obstructed highways connecting Guatemala with Honduras, El Salvador and México, and blocked roads accessing Guatemala City. Amilcar Montejo of the Municipal Transit Police (PMT) told reporters the blockages had caused chaos in various routes leading to the center of the capital. A group of unionists including Acevedo occupied the Education Ministry (Mineduc).
The government had promised the teachers an 8% pay raise last year and another 8% raise in 2010, but it failed to deliver on the promise in 2009. Education Minister Bienvenido Argueta said the government would pay this year’s 8% raise but doesn’t have enough money for last year’s increase. The median salary for Guatemalan teachers is $440 a month, but many are covered by individual contracts that only pay around $240 a month. The teachers are also pushing for the national education budget to be increased to 12 billion quetzales a year (about $1.47 billion).
On Feb. 24 the teachers continued the protests by splitting into different groups and holding marches that tied up traffic in the capital’s four main entry points. Later in the day some 5,000 unionists from all of Guatemala's 22 departments occupied the Plaza de la Constitución in the center of the city, camping out in tents and cardboard boxes and promising to remain until they get the 16% pay hike. (EFE 2/22/10; Latin American Herald Tribune 2/24/10 from EFE; Guatemala Hoy 2/25/10, 2/26/10)
In an apparently unrelated development, on Feb. 25 President Colom accepted the Constitutional Court’s order to remove Education Minister Argueta from office. The court had ruled on a request from legislative deputy Nineth Montenegro, of the opposition Encounter for Guatemala party, to remove Argueta for disobedience. Montenegro said Argueta had failed to turn over full information on the beneficiaries of a government family support program, Mi Familia Progresa (“My Family Progresses”). (Prensa Latina 2/26/10)
*2. Mexico: 2 Otomí Women Sentenced for “Kidnapping”
On Feb. 19 Fourth District judge Rodolfo Pedraza Longhi, in Querétaro, capital of the central Mexican state of Querétaro, upheld a 21-year prison sentence for two indigenous women charged with kidnapping six agents of the now-defunct Federal Investigation Agency (AFI). The two women--Teresa González Cornelio and Alberta Alcántara Juan—had been charged in connection with a Mar. 26, 2006 incident in the market in Santiago Mexquititlán community, Amealco de Bonfil municipality, which the AFI agents raided in an unsuccessful search for pirated DVDs.
Some vendors reportedly held the federal agents until they agreed to pay for damage they had done in the raid. Prosecutors claimed that González and Alcántara were among the vendors that detained the agents. Judge Pedraza Longhi ruled against the defendants on the kidnapping charge and also convicted Alcántara of possessing 400 grams of cocaine.
The defendants’ lawyers, from the Miguel Agustín Pro Human Rights Center and the Fray Jacobo Daciano Human Rights Center, filed an appeal on Feb. 25. They said that the agents contradicted each other in court and that the only evidence against González and Alcántara was a newspaper photograph showing them near the agents at the time of the incident. The lawyers already succeeded in reopening the case once, in April 2009, when a judge ruled that the evidence was contradictory and required prosecutors to present the case again. In September the prosecutors decided to drop charges against a third woman, Jacinta Francisco Marcial, who was arrested with González and Alcántara.
The British-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) has declared González and Alcántara prisoners of conscience. On Feb. 12 AI Mexico researcher Rupert Knox charged that the two women had been “framed as a convenient target because of their marginal status in society as poor indigenous women." They are members of the Ñañú ethnic group, a part of the Otomí group, which is mainly based in Querétaro and Hidalgo. According to Knox, the defendants didn’t have access to an interpreter during the judicial procedures and weren’t informed of their legal rights. They have been held in jail since their arrest in August 2006. (La Jornada (Mexico) 2/23/10, 2/25/10; Latin American Herald Tribune 2/24/10 from EFE; AI 2/12/10)
*3. Mexico: Summit Creates New Hemispheric Group
The Latin America and Caribbean Unity Summit, a two-day meeting of 32 regional leaders in Cancún, in the eastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, ended on Feb. 23 with an agreement that included the formation of a new hemispheric organization, provisionally named the “Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.” The leaders made plans for further meetings, in Venezuela in July 2011 and in Chile in 2012, to continue discussing the mechanics of the new group and to establish its final name.
The leaders also pledged $25 million for rebuilding Haiti, devastated by a Jan. 12 earthquake; supported Argentina’s claim of sovereignty over the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands, currently held by Great Britain; and condemned the 50-year US trade embargo against Cuba.
The regional leaders seemed to have very different views of the new organization, which will include all the countries in the Western Hemisphere except Canada and the US, in contrast to the 62-year-old Organization of American States (OAS), which until last June included all the countries except Cuba. Bolivia’s leftist president, Evo Morales, said the new group will be parallel to the OAS and shows that “the empire has lost.” The region’s people are now not “a kneeling chorus, subordinate to Washington,” Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez said, calling the group the “reborn…project and dream of [Simón] Bolívar,” the 19th-century Latin American independence leader.
But the summit’s host, rightwing Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, insisted that the new group “shouldn’t and doesn’t represent any threat or reason to worry for anyone.” “We’re not thinking about whether we have an organization with or without another country,” he said. “It’s not a question of an American organization without the US, as has been said.” Center-left Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took a middle course. He compared the decision to form a new organization to a child who had reached adulthood and needed to follow his or her own path. (La Jornada 2/24/10, __; Adital 2/23/10 from Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias; New York Times 2/24/10; The Guardian (UK) 2/25/10)
A verbal dispute broke out between President Chávez and Colombian president Alvaro Uribe on Feb. 22 during a working lunch for the regional leaders. Although the argument took place at what was supposed to be closed-door meeting, reports quickly went out to the internet and the international media. The two presidents agreed to discuss their differences in a “respectful dialogue” mediated by Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Mexico, President Calderón told the media afterwards. (LJ 2/23/10)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
Prison Violence and Security in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2377-prison-violence-and-security-in-latin-america
Resisting Mining: Brutal Repression and Uprising in Argentina
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/2376-resisting-mining-brutal-repression-and-uprising-in-argentina
"State of exception" in quake-stricken Chile
http://ww4report.com/node/8400
Coca production down in South America, up in Peru: UN
http://ww4report.com/node/8383
New Sendero attack in Peru's conflicted VRAE
http://ww4report.com/node/8382
Peru: still no justice in Bagua massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/8381
Peru: indigenous organizations demand protection for "isolated peoples"
http://ww4report.com/node/8380
Peru: No Justice for Indians in Amazon Massacre
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2372-peru-no-justice-for-indians-in-amazon-massacre-
Peruvian State Protects Mining Company Instead of Citizens: Interview with Mario Tabra Guerrero
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/2378-peruvian-state-protects-mining-company-instead-of-citizens-interview-with-mario-tabra-guerrero
China enters free trade deal with Peru
http://ww4report.com/node/8402
Ecuador: indigenous movement calls national uprising
http://ww4report.com/node/8404
Colombia: indigenous communities targeted in war —again
http://ww4report.com/node/8379
Colombian re-election referendum unconstitutional: court
http://ww4report.com/node/8388
Venezuela: Chávez unveils Campesino Militia
http://ww4report.com/node/8378
Venezuela: rights chief disputes critical OAS report
http://ww4report.com/node/8387
Venezuela Creates Peasant Militias, Enacts Federal Government Council
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2375-venezuela-creates-peasant-militias-enacts-federal-government-council
Venezuela’s Revolution Faces Crucial Battles
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2373-venezuelas-revolution-faces-crucial-battles
Spain: judge accuses Venezuela in FARC-ETA assassination plot
http://ww4report.com/node/8403
Honduras: National Resistance Front marches against repression
http://ww4report.com/node/8386
Honduras Palm Oil Plantations: Sustainable Development Facade
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2380-honduras-palm-oil-plantations-sustainable-development-facade
Honduras: new charges against Zelaya; coup leader ousted from military
http://ww4report.com/node/8401
Mexico: violent evictions in Chiapas rainforest clear land for biofuels?
http://ww4report.com/node/8385
US closes Reynosa consular office as Mexican narco-violence spirals (Mexico)
http://ww4report.com/node/8384
Mexico: activist accused in Brad Will murder free at last
http://ww4report.com/node/8365
Mexico: massacre in Oaxaca village
http://ww4report.com/node/8364
Raising Up Another Haiti
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/23-5
Haiti: Peasant Organizations Provide Humanitarian Aid
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/24/840201/-Country-Hospitality:-Haitian-Peasant-Organizations-Provide-Humanitarian-Aid
HAITI: Secure Shelters Scarce as Rainy Season Looms
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50442
Haiti: Private Contractors 'Like Vultures Coming to Grab the Loot'
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2381-haiti-private-contractors-like-vultures-coming-to-grab-the-loot
Beyond Supply and Demand: Obama’s Drug Wars in Latin America
https://nacla.org/node/6429
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/articles
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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