Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1046, August 29, 2010
1. Puerto Rico: One-Day Teachers’ Strike Shuts Down Schools
2. Honduras: Cops Attack Striking Teachers, Again
3. Haiti: Camp Residents Continue Protests
4. Links to alternative sources on: Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Puerto Rico: One-Day Teachers’ Strike Shuts Down Schools
A one-day strike by Puerto Rican teachers over budget issues and the need for additional teachers shut down about 90% of the island’s 1,500 public schools on Aug. 26, according to the Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR). The walkout was the largest teachers’ strike since early 2008, when the FMPR led a militant 10-day strike [see Update #938]. Interim education secretary Jesús Rivera Chávez called the Aug. 26 strike’s effect “devastating.”
The walkout was called by three unions: the FMPR, the largest, with 42,000 members; the smaller Teachers Association of Puerto Rico (AMPR); and the new National Union of Educators and Education Workers (UNETE). The FMPR and UNETE also led thousands of teachers in a march from San Juan’s Colón Plaza past the Capitol building to La Fortaleza, the governor’s residence.
The teachers charged that the government had failed to fill 1,000 vacancies for the new school year; they said this hurts the students and gives extra work to the teachers, who are also facing a shortage of textbooks and photocopies. The authorities said that they had now filled all but 330 posts, and Education Secretary Rivera Chávez blamed the problem in part on a lack of qualified teachers.
Some 30,000 teachers observed the strike while 13,000 reported for work, according to the government. Union leaders said that parents had generally kept their children at home. “This strike brought about reflection on the part of each family,” UNETE’s Emilio Nieves remarked, “and they came to the conclusion that they should be in solidarity with the teachers.” Rafael Feliciano of the FMPR said the teachers were planning to hold an assembly in September “if the government continues with the same attitude” and would decide whether to hold more job actions. (El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 8/26/10 from AP; Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 8/26/10)
The teachers’ strike follows a number of strikes and protests in the past year over austerity measures imposed by Gov. Luis Fortuño in response to the US economic crisis [see Update #1041].
*2. Honduras: Cops Attack Striking Teachers, Again
Honduran police arrested some 150 people while using tear gas and water cannons to disperse a demonstration by teachers, students and others in Tegucigalpa on Aug. 27, the 23rd day of a strike by teachers over their pension fund and other issues [see Update #1045]. The protest, which blocked Central America Boulevard for three hours, was called by the Federation of Teachers Organizations of Honduras (FOMH), which includes six unions, and the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition that formed last year to oppose the June 2009 military coup against then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales.
"We had to repel violent aggression and remove the protesters,” police commissioner Mario Chamorro said in a press conference. "And we almost immediately released the detainees.” The police said the demonstrators burned tires, set up barricades and confronted police agents with clubs, rocks and firebombs. The Associated Press wire service reported that masked teachers fired rifles and revolvers and broke car and shop windows, although it was not clear whether the AP correspondent claimed to have witnessed this or was citing police sources.
The unions and the FNRP said the police attacked the protesters “in a savage manner,” launching hundreds of tear gas grenades indiscriminately against protesters and bystanders. Agents clubbed protesters and charged into the nearby Francisco Morazán National Pedagogic University (UPNFM), where they searched classrooms for protesters. The operation was directed by Deputy Police Chief Rene Maradiaga Panchame, accused by human rights organizations of participating in the notorious Battalion 3-16 death squad, which disappeared around 100 people during the 1980s. “Before, the sicarios [hired killers] hid themselves—now they don’t,” said Berta Oliva, coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH), a leading human rights organization.
It was not clear how many people were injured by the agents or affected by the tear gas. Protesters charged that two public institutions, the School Hospital and the Social Security Hospital, turned the injured away without treatment. (El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 8/27/10 from AP; Red Morazánica de Información 8/27/10 via FNRP website, ___)
Negotiations to end the strike, which affects some 2 million students, had broken down on Aug. 26. Apparently the government and the unions largely agreed on a settlement under which the government would make overdue payments to the teachers’ pension fund, the National Institute of Teachers’ Social Security (Inprema), that have accumulated since 2007. The teachers estimate that the fund is owed some 3.7 billion lempiras (about $194 million). A union leader, Edwin Oliva, said the stalemate was over interest rates and scheduling for the payments, while Planning and International Cooperation Minister Arturo Corrales, the lead government negotiator, said the problem was the unions’ demand for President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa to negotiate the removal of Education Minister Alejandro Ventura. (EFE 8/26/10 via Terra.ar)
*3. Haiti: Camp Residents Continue Protests
In the largest protest to date by Haitians left homeless by a massive Jan. 12 earthquake [see Update #1045], hundreds of people marched in Port-au-Prince on Aug. 26 to demand that the authorities take immediate measures to provide decent housing. The protesters threatened not to take part in presidential and legislative elections scheduled for Nov. 28. “There can be no elections with 1.5 million people living in tents,” demonstration organizers said.
The marchers came from several of more than 1,000 improvised encampments where earthquake survivors have been living for over seven months. The protesters suggested that international aid intended for them had been diverted elsewhere, and they accused the government of President René Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive of “political bargaining” with the situation. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 8/26/10)
Also on Aug. 26, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member international military and police force, announced plans to double the number of police agents in the camps from 400 to 800, starting on Sept. 15. “This measure is aimed at preventing crime and protecting the most vulnerable groups in the camps,” United Nations Civilian Police spokesperson Jean François Vezina announced at a press conference. There have been repeated calls for more protection in the settlements, especially for women and girls, who have frequently been victims of sexual assaults.
MINUSTAH puts the number of camps at 1,354 in the Port-au-Prince area alone. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 8/26/10)
Twelve Haitian social organizations are planning to hold a conference on the homelessness crisis from Sept. 29 to Oct. 4. The International Symposium on the Right to Housing is to include seminars, protests, press conferences and meetings with the authorities to prioritize the need for proper shelter for earthquake survivors. The conference, timed to coincide with the United Nations’ World Habit Day, celebrated this year on Oct. 1, is also intended to build for Haitian participation in the 2011 World Social Forum (WSF), to be held next February in Dakar, Senegal. (Adital (Brazil) 8/27/10)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Biodiversity, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba
Americas Program Biodiversity Report – July 2010
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/2972
Chile: Mapuche occupy radio station
http://ww4report.com/node/8981
Chilean Miners Sent First Supplies in 18 Days; Families Seeking Legal Action Against Mining Company
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/24/chilean-miners-sent-first-supplies-in-18-days-families-seeking-legal-action-against-mining-company/
IV Americas Social Forum: Grassroots Organizations Are Still in Charge (Paraguay)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/2996
Pachamama and Progress: Conflicting Visions for Latin America’s Future (Paraguay)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2665-pachamama-and-progress-conflicting-visions-for-latin-americas-future
Brazil's president signs "death sentence" for Amazonian river
http://ww4report.com/node/8993
The Price of Fire in Bolivia: Reflecting on the Journeys of a Book
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2656-the-price-of-fire-in-spanish-reflecting-on-the-journeys-of-a-book
Potosí, Bolivia Protest: Resolved or Postponed?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2659-potosi-bolivia-protest-resolved-or-postponed
Peru: Students, Workers, and Teachers in Defense of the Public University
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2658-peru-stuents-workers-and-teachers-in-defense-of-the-public-university
Water or Gold in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2663-people-and-power-water-or-gold-in-ecuador-
Colombia: Violent "Agrarian Counter-Reform" Conspiracy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2664-the-violent-qagrarian-counter-reformq-conspiracy
Colombia: indigenous leaders murdered
http://ww4report.com/node/8998
Colombia: Santos pledges to return 6 million hectares to displaced
http://ww4report.com/node/8999
Colombia: Blackwater busted for "unauthorized" military training
http://ww4report.com/node/9000
NYT Exploits Own Iraq Death Toll Denial to Trash Venezuela
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/nyt-exploits-own-iraq-dea_b_693041.html
Venezuelan Central Bank: Economy on Path Out of Recession
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5589
Venezuela-Colombia Border Security and Commerce a Top Priority as Bilateral Ties Restored
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5592
Mexico: migrants massacred in Tamaulipas
http://ww4report.com/node/8989
Mexico: Tamaulipas terror escalates
http://ww4report.com/node/8990
In Northern Mexico, Bodies of 72 Migrants Found
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/26/in-northern-mexico-bodies-of-72-migrants-found/
Mexico: The Voice of the Community Faces Numerous Threats
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2662-mexico-the-voice-of-the-community-faces-numerous-threats
Growing Fuel Instead of Food: Agro-fuels in Chiapas (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2657-growing-fuel-instead-of-food-agro-fuels-in-chiapas
Cuba Agrees To Free More Dissidents Into Exile In Spain; U.S. May Take Some
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/25/cuba-agrees-to-free-more-dissidents-into-exile-in-spain-u-s-may-take-some/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
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, 31 August 2010
Monday, 23 August 2010
WNU #1045: Honduran Unions Plan for General Strike
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1045, August 22, 2010
1. Honduras: Unions Plan for General Strike
2. Peru: Police Repress Protest, Kill Boy
3. Haiti: Board Approves 19 Presidential Candidates
4. Links to alternative sources on: Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Honduras: Unions Plan for General Strike
Thousands of Honduran workers marched in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula on Aug. 18 to demand an increase in the minimum wage and to show solidarity with teachers who were in the 14th day of an open-ended strike. The protest--initiated by the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), Honduras’ main coalition of labor and grassroots organizations [see Update #1042]—was part of a strategy to build gradually for a national general strike against the government of President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa, according to Juan Barahona, an FNRP leader.
Police agents dispersed the San Pedro Sula demonstration when the protesters blocked the highway leading to Puerto Cortés, the country’s main commercial port.
The minimum wage, currently 5,500 lempiras a month (about $290), was supposed to be raised in April, but the business sector blocked the pay hike. The unions are calling for a 30% increase but have indicated that they are willing to negotiate with the government. The Aug. 18 demonstration was also intended to press the government to rehire workers at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) who were laid off earlier in the year by university rector Julieta Castellanos [see Update #1033].
The teachers’ strike, supported by four of the six unions in the Federation of Teachers Organizations of Honduras (FOMH), is over money the government owes the teachers’ pension fund going back to 2007 under then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales. The government holds that it owes $94 million and offered to pay by the end of the year, while the unions claim the amount may be as high as 4.6 billion lempiras (about $242 million). The government has also rejected the teachers’ demand for the firing of Education Minister Alejando Ventura.
On Aug. 20 thousands of teachers escalated their job action by blocking Fuerzas Armadas and Miraflores boulevards in Tegucigalpa. Hundreds of police agents violently dispersed them with tear gas and nightsticks. According to the police, about 20 teachers were detained and a number were treated for minor injuries. (Univision 8/18/10 from EFE; El Universal (Venezuela) 8/20/10; TeleSUR (Venezuela) 8/21/10 from PL, AFP, EPA)
Also on Aug. 20, the FNRP and the three main labor confederations—the Unitary Confederation of Honduran Workers (CUTH), the General Workers Central (CGT) and the Confederation of Honduran Workers (CTH)—set up a national strike committee and regional committees to prepare for a national general strike around a seven-point program. CUTH general secretary Israel Salinas didn’t set a date but said the strike was imminent. Campesino organizations are planning to hold mobilizations at the same time around land issues.
For now “we’re going to the bases for consciousness raising,” CGT general secretary Daniel Durón said, “because a general strike isn’t just a declaration by three men, four, 10 people.” He added that the external factors for the strike were there and that now the unions were going to deal with the internal ones. (Red Morazánica de Información 8/20/10 via FNRP website)
*2. Peru: Police Repress Protest, Kill Boy
Henry Benítez Huamán, 14, died on Aug. 12 from a gunshot wound he received one week earlier when police agents attacked protesters in the town of Kitena, in La Convención province in Peru’s southeastern Cusco region. Another victim, Juan Carlos Aragón Monzón, remained hospitalized in Cusco city with a gunshot wound in his right leg, while 18 people were apparently injured by rubber bullets. The autopsy report on Benítez Huamán showed he was hit by a metal bullet in the chest, disproving initial claims by the police that they only used rubber bullets. The demonstrators were protesting plans by the Camisea LNG consortium to export natural gas.
Cusco governor Marcelo Angulo blamed the leaders of the protest for allegedly manipulating Benítez Huamán into joining the action, but his family said he was returning home for lunch when he was hit and wasn’t involved in the demonstration. According to the boy’s aunt, Luz Benítez, police captain Neils Aróstegui at first denied him medical treatment at the police post. A police doctor treated the boy later, but Benítez Huamán was only taken to a hospital in Cusco city on Aug. 9, after the intervention of Peruvian prime minister Javier Velásquez. The family and leaders of the Federation of Convención Campesinos are demanding an investigation.
Peru’s Association for Human Rights (Aprodeh) charged on Aug. 13 that at least 47 civilians have been killed in protests by the National Police since President Alan García started his second term in 2006. According to Aprodeh, the dead included at least one other minor: nine-month-old Angélica Santiago Rufino was suffocated when her mother tried to protect her from tear gas the police used at a hospital in the Amazonian region of Ucayali. (La Primera (Peru) 8/13/10; Adital (Brazil) 8/18/10)
Recent grassroots protests against the multinational Camisea LNG consortium included general strikes and road blockages in the Cusco, Arequipa and Tacna regions on June 17 and 18. (WW4 Report 6/19/10)
In other news, on Aug. 18 a Lima court revoked parole for Lori Berenson, a US citizen who had been released from prison in May after serving almost 15 years of a 20-year sentence for collaborating with the rebels of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) [see Update #1019]. In a court appearance on Aug. 15 she noted that she was never involved in any killings or other violent actions. "If my participation contributed to societal violence, I am very sorry for this,” she said. (New York Times 8/19/10 from correspondent)
*3. Haiti: Board Approves 19 Presidential Candidates
On Aug. 20 Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced that it had approved 19 and rejected 15 of the 34 people who had applied to run for the presidency in general elections scheduled for Nov. 28 [see Update #1043, where we gave the number of applicants as 33, following our sources]. The approved candidates included Jude Célestin (Unity); former prime minister Jacques Edouard Alexis (Movement for the Progress of Haiti, MPH); former senator Myrlande Hyppolite Manigat (Coalition of National Progressive Democrats, RDNP); economist Leslie Voltaire (Together We Are Strong); Chavannes Jeune (Alliance of Christians and Citizens for the Reconstruction of Haiti, ACCRHA); and singer Joseph Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky,” Peasant Response).
The CEP has excluded the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004) from the ballot, but it approved several presidential candidates associated with the party: former prime minister Yvon Neptune (Haitians for Haiti ); current social affairs minister Yves Christalin (Organization Future); and Jean Henry Céant (Love Haiti). But a Florida-based Lavalas activist, Lavarice Gaudin, was rejected.
Other rejected candidates included Haitian-born US hip-hop star Wyclef Jean and his uncle, former ambassador to the US Raymond Alcide Joseph. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 8/20/10; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 8/20/10)
Meanwhile, more than a million people left homeless by a massive Jan. 12 earthquake are still living in some 1,000 improvised encampments in the Port-au-Prince area. On Aug. 19, the United Nations’ World Humanitarian Day, the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) issued a report on the situation in the camps. “The anger of the displaced against the NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and international agencies continues to manifest itself and to intensify in the camps,” the Catholic organization wrote, citing “conflicts between the NGOs and some camp committees [and] between the owners of private properties and the displaced.” The JRS called on the government to coordinate the activities of the NGOs and to provide for urgent needs of the displaced, and for international agencies and organizations not to exclude local people from the decision-making process. (AlterPresse 8/19/10)
On Aug. 12, exactly seven months after the earthquake, dozens of the homeless held a sit-in in front of the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince to demand decent housing and end to the expulsion of earthquake victims from the land where they have had to camp out. The protest was organized by seven camp committees, including committees from camps at Boyer and St Pierre Plazas east of the capital in Pétionville, and from Cote Plage 16, south of the capital in Carrefour. Also sponsoring the protest were the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”) and Force for Reflection and Action on the Housing Problem (Fraka). (AlterPresse 8/11/10; Radio Kiskeya 8/12/10)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba
Documents Reveal Nixon Administration Urged Death Threats for Uruguayan Prisoners
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2652-documents-reveal-nixon-administration-urged-death-threats-for-uruguayan-prisoners
Paraguay: Americas Social Forum Continues Struggle to Dismantle Neoliberalism
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/2649-paraguay-americas-social-forum-continues-struggle-to-dismantle-neoliberalism
Hundreds of Brazilian Indians Gather for Protest
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2646-canadian-mining-company-faces-criminal-charges-in-honduras-as-it-tries-to-re-open-gold-mine-
State of emergency as Bolivian rainforest burns
http://ww4report.com/node/8969
Social Tensions Erupt in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2642-social-tensions-erupt-in-bolivia
The Rebellion in Potosí: Uneven Development, Neoliberal Continuities, and a Revolt Against Poverty in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2643--the-rebellion-in-potosi-uneven-development-neoliberal-continuities-and-a-revolt-against-poverty-in-bolivia
Ecuador to renegotiate Amazon oil deals
http://ww4report.com/node/8973
Colombia: congressman takes case against Uribe to World Court
http://ww4report.com/node/8963
U.S.-Colombian Base Deal Suspended By Constitutional Court
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/19/u-s-colombian-base-deal-suspended-by-constitutional-court/
US: Colombia Must Defend Military Pact
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2653-us-colombia-must-defend-military-pact-
Venezuela seeks extradition of Colombian kingpin linked to FARC
http://ww4report.com/node/8970
Colombian Senate President Visits Venezuela to Build Trust as Bilateral Relations Renewed
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5580
Venezuelans Experiment With Participatory Democracy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/2638-venezuelans-experiment-with-participatory-democracy
Venezuelan Court Retracts Ruling in Graphic Image Controversy
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5585
As PSUV and Opposition Intensify National Assembly Campaigns, Polls Indicate Majority for Socialists
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5576
Arming Aid: Costa Rica, the US Military and the Ongoing “War” on Drugs
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2648-arming-aid-costa-rica-the-us-military-and-the-ongoing-war-on-drugs
Three Men Massacred in Aguan, Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2651-three-men-massacred-in-aguan-honduras
Canadian Mining Company Faces Criminal Charges in Honduras as it Tries to Re-open Gold Mine
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2646-canadian-mining-company-faces-criminal-charges-in-honduras-as-it-tries-to-re-open-gold-mine-
Mexico: police arrested in mayor's murder
http://ww4report.com/node/8968
Mexico: decapitated corpses in Cuernavaca
http://ww4report.com/node/8972
Mexico: peasant ecologist imprisoned in Oaxaca
http://ww4report.com/node/8971
Triqui Women Prepare For Third Peace Caravan to Mexico City
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2647-triqui-women-prepare-for-third-peace-caravan-to-mexico-city-
Obama Administration Plans To Ease Travel Restrictions To Cuba
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/18/obama-administration-plans-to-ease-travel-restrictions-to-cuba/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
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 #1045, August 22, 2010
1. Honduras: Unions Plan for General Strike
2. Peru: Police Repress Protest, Kill Boy
3. Haiti: Board Approves 19 Presidential Candidates
4. Links to alternative sources on: Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Honduras: Unions Plan for General Strike
Thousands of Honduran workers marched in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula on Aug. 18 to demand an increase in the minimum wage and to show solidarity with teachers who were in the 14th day of an open-ended strike. The protest--initiated by the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), Honduras’ main coalition of labor and grassroots organizations [see Update #1042]—was part of a strategy to build gradually for a national general strike against the government of President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa, according to Juan Barahona, an FNRP leader.
Police agents dispersed the San Pedro Sula demonstration when the protesters blocked the highway leading to Puerto Cortés, the country’s main commercial port.
The minimum wage, currently 5,500 lempiras a month (about $290), was supposed to be raised in April, but the business sector blocked the pay hike. The unions are calling for a 30% increase but have indicated that they are willing to negotiate with the government. The Aug. 18 demonstration was also intended to press the government to rehire workers at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) who were laid off earlier in the year by university rector Julieta Castellanos [see Update #1033].
The teachers’ strike, supported by four of the six unions in the Federation of Teachers Organizations of Honduras (FOMH), is over money the government owes the teachers’ pension fund going back to 2007 under then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales. The government holds that it owes $94 million and offered to pay by the end of the year, while the unions claim the amount may be as high as 4.6 billion lempiras (about $242 million). The government has also rejected the teachers’ demand for the firing of Education Minister Alejando Ventura.
On Aug. 20 thousands of teachers escalated their job action by blocking Fuerzas Armadas and Miraflores boulevards in Tegucigalpa. Hundreds of police agents violently dispersed them with tear gas and nightsticks. According to the police, about 20 teachers were detained and a number were treated for minor injuries. (Univision 8/18/10 from EFE; El Universal (Venezuela) 8/20/10; TeleSUR (Venezuela) 8/21/10 from PL, AFP, EPA)
Also on Aug. 20, the FNRP and the three main labor confederations—the Unitary Confederation of Honduran Workers (CUTH), the General Workers Central (CGT) and the Confederation of Honduran Workers (CTH)—set up a national strike committee and regional committees to prepare for a national general strike around a seven-point program. CUTH general secretary Israel Salinas didn’t set a date but said the strike was imminent. Campesino organizations are planning to hold mobilizations at the same time around land issues.
For now “we’re going to the bases for consciousness raising,” CGT general secretary Daniel Durón said, “because a general strike isn’t just a declaration by three men, four, 10 people.” He added that the external factors for the strike were there and that now the unions were going to deal with the internal ones. (Red Morazánica de Información 8/20/10 via FNRP website)
*2. Peru: Police Repress Protest, Kill Boy
Henry Benítez Huamán, 14, died on Aug. 12 from a gunshot wound he received one week earlier when police agents attacked protesters in the town of Kitena, in La Convención province in Peru’s southeastern Cusco region. Another victim, Juan Carlos Aragón Monzón, remained hospitalized in Cusco city with a gunshot wound in his right leg, while 18 people were apparently injured by rubber bullets. The autopsy report on Benítez Huamán showed he was hit by a metal bullet in the chest, disproving initial claims by the police that they only used rubber bullets. The demonstrators were protesting plans by the Camisea LNG consortium to export natural gas.
Cusco governor Marcelo Angulo blamed the leaders of the protest for allegedly manipulating Benítez Huamán into joining the action, but his family said he was returning home for lunch when he was hit and wasn’t involved in the demonstration. According to the boy’s aunt, Luz Benítez, police captain Neils Aróstegui at first denied him medical treatment at the police post. A police doctor treated the boy later, but Benítez Huamán was only taken to a hospital in Cusco city on Aug. 9, after the intervention of Peruvian prime minister Javier Velásquez. The family and leaders of the Federation of Convención Campesinos are demanding an investigation.
Peru’s Association for Human Rights (Aprodeh) charged on Aug. 13 that at least 47 civilians have been killed in protests by the National Police since President Alan García started his second term in 2006. According to Aprodeh, the dead included at least one other minor: nine-month-old Angélica Santiago Rufino was suffocated when her mother tried to protect her from tear gas the police used at a hospital in the Amazonian region of Ucayali. (La Primera (Peru) 8/13/10; Adital (Brazil) 8/18/10)
Recent grassroots protests against the multinational Camisea LNG consortium included general strikes and road blockages in the Cusco, Arequipa and Tacna regions on June 17 and 18. (WW4 Report 6/19/10)
In other news, on Aug. 18 a Lima court revoked parole for Lori Berenson, a US citizen who had been released from prison in May after serving almost 15 years of a 20-year sentence for collaborating with the rebels of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) [see Update #1019]. In a court appearance on Aug. 15 she noted that she was never involved in any killings or other violent actions. "If my participation contributed to societal violence, I am very sorry for this,” she said. (New York Times 8/19/10 from correspondent)
*3. Haiti: Board Approves 19 Presidential Candidates
On Aug. 20 Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced that it had approved 19 and rejected 15 of the 34 people who had applied to run for the presidency in general elections scheduled for Nov. 28 [see Update #1043, where we gave the number of applicants as 33, following our sources]. The approved candidates included Jude Célestin (Unity); former prime minister Jacques Edouard Alexis (Movement for the Progress of Haiti, MPH); former senator Myrlande Hyppolite Manigat (Coalition of National Progressive Democrats, RDNP); economist Leslie Voltaire (Together We Are Strong); Chavannes Jeune (Alliance of Christians and Citizens for the Reconstruction of Haiti, ACCRHA); and singer Joseph Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky,” Peasant Response).
The CEP has excluded the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004) from the ballot, but it approved several presidential candidates associated with the party: former prime minister Yvon Neptune (Haitians for Haiti ); current social affairs minister Yves Christalin (Organization Future); and Jean Henry Céant (Love Haiti). But a Florida-based Lavalas activist, Lavarice Gaudin, was rejected.
Other rejected candidates included Haitian-born US hip-hop star Wyclef Jean and his uncle, former ambassador to the US Raymond Alcide Joseph. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 8/20/10; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 8/20/10)
Meanwhile, more than a million people left homeless by a massive Jan. 12 earthquake are still living in some 1,000 improvised encampments in the Port-au-Prince area. On Aug. 19, the United Nations’ World Humanitarian Day, the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) issued a report on the situation in the camps. “The anger of the displaced against the NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and international agencies continues to manifest itself and to intensify in the camps,” the Catholic organization wrote, citing “conflicts between the NGOs and some camp committees [and] between the owners of private properties and the displaced.” The JRS called on the government to coordinate the activities of the NGOs and to provide for urgent needs of the displaced, and for international agencies and organizations not to exclude local people from the decision-making process. (AlterPresse 8/19/10)
On Aug. 12, exactly seven months after the earthquake, dozens of the homeless held a sit-in in front of the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince to demand decent housing and end to the expulsion of earthquake victims from the land where they have had to camp out. The protest was organized by seven camp committees, including committees from camps at Boyer and St Pierre Plazas east of the capital in Pétionville, and from Cote Plage 16, south of the capital in Carrefour. Also sponsoring the protest were the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”) and Force for Reflection and Action on the Housing Problem (Fraka). (AlterPresse 8/11/10; Radio Kiskeya 8/12/10)
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba
Documents Reveal Nixon Administration Urged Death Threats for Uruguayan Prisoners
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2652-documents-reveal-nixon-administration-urged-death-threats-for-uruguayan-prisoners
Paraguay: Americas Social Forum Continues Struggle to Dismantle Neoliberalism
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/2649-paraguay-americas-social-forum-continues-struggle-to-dismantle-neoliberalism
Hundreds of Brazilian Indians Gather for Protest
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2646-canadian-mining-company-faces-criminal-charges-in-honduras-as-it-tries-to-re-open-gold-mine-
State of emergency as Bolivian rainforest burns
http://ww4report.com/node/8969
Social Tensions Erupt in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2642-social-tensions-erupt-in-bolivia
The Rebellion in Potosí: Uneven Development, Neoliberal Continuities, and a Revolt Against Poverty in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2643--the-rebellion-in-potosi-uneven-development-neoliberal-continuities-and-a-revolt-against-poverty-in-bolivia
Ecuador to renegotiate Amazon oil deals
http://ww4report.com/node/8973
Colombia: congressman takes case against Uribe to World Court
http://ww4report.com/node/8963
U.S.-Colombian Base Deal Suspended By Constitutional Court
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/19/u-s-colombian-base-deal-suspended-by-constitutional-court/
US: Colombia Must Defend Military Pact
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2653-us-colombia-must-defend-military-pact-
Venezuela seeks extradition of Colombian kingpin linked to FARC
http://ww4report.com/node/8970
Colombian Senate President Visits Venezuela to Build Trust as Bilateral Relations Renewed
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5580
Venezuelans Experiment With Participatory Democracy
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/2638-venezuelans-experiment-with-participatory-democracy
Venezuelan Court Retracts Ruling in Graphic Image Controversy
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5585
As PSUV and Opposition Intensify National Assembly Campaigns, Polls Indicate Majority for Socialists
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5576
Arming Aid: Costa Rica, the US Military and the Ongoing “War” on Drugs
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2648-arming-aid-costa-rica-the-us-military-and-the-ongoing-war-on-drugs
Three Men Massacred in Aguan, Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2651-three-men-massacred-in-aguan-honduras
Canadian Mining Company Faces Criminal Charges in Honduras as it Tries to Re-open Gold Mine
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2646-canadian-mining-company-faces-criminal-charges-in-honduras-as-it-tries-to-re-open-gold-mine-
Mexico: police arrested in mayor's murder
http://ww4report.com/node/8968
Mexico: decapitated corpses in Cuernavaca
http://ww4report.com/node/8972
Mexico: peasant ecologist imprisoned in Oaxaca
http://ww4report.com/node/8971
Triqui Women Prepare For Third Peace Caravan to Mexico City
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2647-triqui-women-prepare-for-third-peace-caravan-to-mexico-city-
Obama Administration Plans To Ease Travel Restrictions To Cuba
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/18/obama-administration-plans-to-ease-travel-restrictions-to-cuba/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
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, 17 August 2010
WNU #1044: Tensions Continue Over Anti-Labor Law in Panama
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1044, August 15, 2010
1. Panama: Tensions Continue Over Anti-Labor Law
2. Mexico: Supreme Court Extends Same-Sex Marriage
3. Mexico: Rights Commission Faults Army in Students’ Deaths
4. Puerto Rico: Lebrón Remembered, Torres Freed
5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago
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. Panama: Tensions Continue Over Anti-Labor Law
Hundreds marched in Changuinola, the capital of the northwestern Panamanian province of Bocas del Toro, on Aug. 8 in memory of two workers who were killed a month earlier while protesting legislation opposed by unionists and environmental activists. Erasmo Cerrud, a local leader in the country’s largest union, the Only Union of Construction and Similar Workers (SUNTRACS), charged that there had been no progress in the investigations into the deaths of the two workers, Antonio Smith and Virgilio Castillo, in confrontations with anti-riot police. “The dead and the wounded won’t be forgotten, and the struggle will continue,” Feliciana Jaén, a leader of indigenous women, told the marchers.
Passed in June, Law 30 ostensibly deals with the aviation industry, but sections aimed at union dues, the right to strike and environmental impact studies were put into the measure—now popularly known as the “sausage law” because so much was stuffed into it. Banana workers in Bocas del Toro went on strike on July 3 to protest Law 30, and the strike quickly spread across the country. A one-day nationwide general strike on July 13 forced the government to back down and to set up a commission to discuss modifications to the law.
Police repression was exceptionally severe in Bocas del Toro. Although Smith and Castillo are the only fatalities the government listed for Changuinola, on July 23 lawyers and labor and human rights activists charged that as many as eight people may have been killed in the area. The activists presented eight names of people they said seemed to have died from gunshot wounds, other injuries or asphyxiation from tear gas. In late July a group of 11 lawyers filed a criminal complaint calling for an investigation of Public Security Minister José Raúl Mulino, National Police director Gustavo Pérez, and the police chiefs of Bocas del Toro, Chiriquí and Veraguas provinces for murder, abuse of authority and violation of duties. (Crítica (Panama) 8/9/10; Adital (Brazil) 7/25/10; Newsroom Panama 7/27/10)
SUNTRACS held a demonstration near the presidential offices in Panama City on Aug. 9 during the first meeting of the commission on modifying Law 30. While the protesters demanded the repeal of the law and the removal of Mulino and Pérez from office, labor and grassroots representatives at the meeting called for broader participation. “We think that all the groups affected should be present in the dialogue, such as environmental, indigenous and human rights groups,” National Council of Organized Workers (CONATO) representative Rafael Chavarría told the Spanish wire service EFE. Like the protesters, the labor and grassroots representatives were pushing for complete repeal of the legislation. (EFE 8/9/10 via Terra.es)
Erasmo Cerrud, the Bocas de Toro SUNTRACS leader, was detained at a police checkpoint in La Chorrera municipality, west of Panama City, on Aug. 10 or 11 (the sources weren’t clear on the date). Police agents handcuffed Cerrud, threatened him with a pistol and held him for an extended period of time before finally releasing him. Cerrud, who is also a leader in the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO), was returning to Bocas de Toro with a number of colleagues after going to Panama City for the commission meeting. (Rebanadas de Realidad (Argentina) 8/11/10 from FRENADESO and Kaos en la Red)
*2. Mexico: Supreme Court Extends Same-Sex Marriage
A full session of Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) decided by a 9-2 vote on Aug. 10 that same-sex marriages performed in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) are valid in all the country’s states, although each state remains free to regulate marriages performed in its own territory. The court had ruled on Aug. 5 that the DF’s law allowing same-sex marriage was constitutional, denying a challenge from federal attorney general Arturo Chávez Chávez [see Update #1043].
During the Aug. 10 session the justices began deliberations on the federal government’s challenge to the provision in the DF legislation which allows same-sex couples to adopt. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/11/10)
Update: By another 9-2 vote, on Aug. 16 the SJCN upheld the DF’s legalization of adoption by same-sex couples, ruling that there were no legal arguments to prevent homosexuals from adopting children and that to deny them the right to adopt would be “to constitutionalize discrimination.” One justice, Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea, cited studies by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) indicating that children are happier with same-sex parents. (Milenio (Mexico) 8/16/10)
*3. Mexico: Rights Commission Faults Army in Students’ Deaths
On Aug. 12 the Mexican government’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issued recommendations in the case of two graduate students killed the early morning of Mar. 19 during a gunfight between soldiers and alleged drug cartel members in front of the prestigious Institute of Technology and Higher Education’s Monterrey campus (ITESM) in the northern state of Nuevo León [see Update #1026, where we gave the date as Mar. 20, following our source]. The incident took place as part of a heavily militarized “war on drugs” that President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa put into motion shortly after taking office in December 2006; the government and the army claim that most of the thousands of victims are cartel members.
The CNDH said it couldn’t determine who killed the students, Jorge Antonio Mercado Alonso and Javier Francisco Arredondo Verdugo, because the military and state authorities had created obstacles to the investigation, including the alteration of the crime scene. However, it found that the “irregularities detected imply a failure to fulfill the public function of obtaining justice” and resulted in a violation of the human rights of the victims and their families. The CNDH also criticized the military for shooting with high-powered weapons so close to a university campus, and called on the military to pay compensation to the victims’ families and to improve its handling of investigations.
According to the CNDH, the victims’ bodies were moved, weapons were planted near them, and an ITESM security camera that recorded the incident was destroyed. The military initially claimed that the students were drug cartel employees; military spokespeople said later that the students died in crossfire between the military and cartel members. The CNDH noted that according to the forensic evidence the students didn’t die immediately from their wounds and received injuries in their faces while still alive—in other words, they were beaten as they lay dying. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/13/10)
*4. Puerto Rico: Lebrón Remembered, Torres Freed
Hundreds of supporters of Puerto Rican independence gathered at the Ateneo Puertorriqueño, one of the island’s oldest cultural centers, in San Juan on Aug. 2 to commemorate Dolores ("Lolita") Lebrón Sotomayor. Lebrón, who died the day before of cardiovascular complications at the age of 90, led an armed attack on the US Congress on Mar. 1, 1954, and spent 25 years and six months in a US prison before being pardoned in 1979 by US president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). She was a “mythic figure,” Rubén Berríos, president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), told the Spanish wire service EFE. “Lolita’s death wasn’t a death, because she will never be forgotten,” said former prisoner Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of the five participants in the attack. “The person who hasn’t left anything behind is forgotten.”
Lebrón continued to be a political activist after her release. At age 81 she served 60 days in prison in 2001 for participating in a nonviolent civil disobedience protesting the US military testing grounds on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques [see Updates #596, 599]. (EFE 8/2/10 via Terra.es)
On July 26 US authorities released independence activist Carlos Alberto Torres from the federal prison in Pekin, Illinois. Torres had served 30 years of a 78-year sentence for “seditious conspiracy.” He was a member of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), which took responsibility for numerous bombings in the US in the 1970s, although Torres himself wasn’t charged with any of the attacks. He refused a clemency offered by US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) in 1999.
Torres told EFE after his release on parole that he would return to Puerto Rico and continue his political activities while being “a good citizen who respects the laws.” "I’m still the same fighter, but things have changed in Puerto Rico and in the world,” he said. "Now I believe I can pursue Puerto Rico’s independence from within a movement that is integrated into civil society--which is different from what we did in the 1970s.” (EFE 7/26/10 via Terra.com)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago
Chile: Mapuche Prisoners on Hunger Strike to Demand Talks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/2640-chile-mapuche-prisoners-on-hunger-strike-to-demand-talks
Americas Social Forum Celebrates Change in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2639-americas-social-forum-celebrates-change-in-paraguay
Oscar Olivera: Opposition in Times of Evo (Bolivia)
http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/2010/08/oscar-olivera-opposition-in-times-of.html
Uribe to Teach at Georgetown University
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2635-uribe-to-teach-at-georgetown-university-
Uribe Appointment Undermines U.N. Flotilla Investigation
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2637-uribe-appointment-undermines-un-flotilla-investigation
Car Bomb Rattles Bogotá, Colombia; Authorities Suspect Terrorist Attack
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/13/car-bomb-rattles-bogota-colombia-authorities-suspect-terrorist-attack/
Somos Pacifico! Rap Trio Choc Quib Town Puts Colombia’s Pacific on the (Music) Map
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2628-somos-pacifico-esme-mcavoy-rap-trio-choc-quib-town-puts-colombias-pacific-on-the-music-map-
Oil, Gas, and Canada-Colombia Free Trade
https://nacla.org/node/6694
Uribe’s Parting Shot
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/2877
Colombia's new president joins Chávez to honor Bolívar
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8942
Colombia and Venezuela to Restore Diplomatic Relations
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/11/colombia-and-venezuela-to-restore-diplomatic-relations/
Venezuela: Ending farmer exploitation
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5567
A worker-run energy plan in Venezuela
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5564
The Lowest Form Of Military Aggression (Costa Rica)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/2885
Honduran Peasant Leader Assassinated
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2641-honduran-peasant-leader-assassinated
Honduras Down the Memory Hole
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2636-honduras-down-the-memory-hole
What the Zapatistas Can Teach Us About the Climate Crisis (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2630-what-the-zapatistas-can-teach-us-about-the-climate-crisis-
Wonks bash Mexico's Fox over legalization proposal
http://globalganjareport.com/content/wonks-bash-mexicos-fox-over-legalization-proposal
Haiti: A Walk Inside the Camps
http://www.counterpunch.org/schuller08092010.html
Convictions in NYC terror case linked to Trinidad coup attempt
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8953
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
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 #1044, August 15, 2010
1. Panama: Tensions Continue Over Anti-Labor Law
2. Mexico: Supreme Court Extends Same-Sex Marriage
3. Mexico: Rights Commission Faults Army in Students’ Deaths
4. Puerto Rico: Lebrón Remembered, Torres Freed
5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago
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. Panama: Tensions Continue Over Anti-Labor Law
Hundreds marched in Changuinola, the capital of the northwestern Panamanian province of Bocas del Toro, on Aug. 8 in memory of two workers who were killed a month earlier while protesting legislation opposed by unionists and environmental activists. Erasmo Cerrud, a local leader in the country’s largest union, the Only Union of Construction and Similar Workers (SUNTRACS), charged that there had been no progress in the investigations into the deaths of the two workers, Antonio Smith and Virgilio Castillo, in confrontations with anti-riot police. “The dead and the wounded won’t be forgotten, and the struggle will continue,” Feliciana Jaén, a leader of indigenous women, told the marchers.
Passed in June, Law 30 ostensibly deals with the aviation industry, but sections aimed at union dues, the right to strike and environmental impact studies were put into the measure—now popularly known as the “sausage law” because so much was stuffed into it. Banana workers in Bocas del Toro went on strike on July 3 to protest Law 30, and the strike quickly spread across the country. A one-day nationwide general strike on July 13 forced the government to back down and to set up a commission to discuss modifications to the law.
Police repression was exceptionally severe in Bocas del Toro. Although Smith and Castillo are the only fatalities the government listed for Changuinola, on July 23 lawyers and labor and human rights activists charged that as many as eight people may have been killed in the area. The activists presented eight names of people they said seemed to have died from gunshot wounds, other injuries or asphyxiation from tear gas. In late July a group of 11 lawyers filed a criminal complaint calling for an investigation of Public Security Minister José Raúl Mulino, National Police director Gustavo Pérez, and the police chiefs of Bocas del Toro, Chiriquí and Veraguas provinces for murder, abuse of authority and violation of duties. (Crítica (Panama) 8/9/10; Adital (Brazil) 7/25/10; Newsroom Panama 7/27/10)
SUNTRACS held a demonstration near the presidential offices in Panama City on Aug. 9 during the first meeting of the commission on modifying Law 30. While the protesters demanded the repeal of the law and the removal of Mulino and Pérez from office, labor and grassroots representatives at the meeting called for broader participation. “We think that all the groups affected should be present in the dialogue, such as environmental, indigenous and human rights groups,” National Council of Organized Workers (CONATO) representative Rafael Chavarría told the Spanish wire service EFE. Like the protesters, the labor and grassroots representatives were pushing for complete repeal of the legislation. (EFE 8/9/10 via Terra.es)
Erasmo Cerrud, the Bocas de Toro SUNTRACS leader, was detained at a police checkpoint in La Chorrera municipality, west of Panama City, on Aug. 10 or 11 (the sources weren’t clear on the date). Police agents handcuffed Cerrud, threatened him with a pistol and held him for an extended period of time before finally releasing him. Cerrud, who is also a leader in the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO), was returning to Bocas de Toro with a number of colleagues after going to Panama City for the commission meeting. (Rebanadas de Realidad (Argentina) 8/11/10 from FRENADESO and Kaos en la Red)
*2. Mexico: Supreme Court Extends Same-Sex Marriage
A full session of Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) decided by a 9-2 vote on Aug. 10 that same-sex marriages performed in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) are valid in all the country’s states, although each state remains free to regulate marriages performed in its own territory. The court had ruled on Aug. 5 that the DF’s law allowing same-sex marriage was constitutional, denying a challenge from federal attorney general Arturo Chávez Chávez [see Update #1043].
During the Aug. 10 session the justices began deliberations on the federal government’s challenge to the provision in the DF legislation which allows same-sex couples to adopt. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/11/10)
Update: By another 9-2 vote, on Aug. 16 the SJCN upheld the DF’s legalization of adoption by same-sex couples, ruling that there were no legal arguments to prevent homosexuals from adopting children and that to deny them the right to adopt would be “to constitutionalize discrimination.” One justice, Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea, cited studies by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) indicating that children are happier with same-sex parents. (Milenio (Mexico) 8/16/10)
*3. Mexico: Rights Commission Faults Army in Students’ Deaths
On Aug. 12 the Mexican government’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issued recommendations in the case of two graduate students killed the early morning of Mar. 19 during a gunfight between soldiers and alleged drug cartel members in front of the prestigious Institute of Technology and Higher Education’s Monterrey campus (ITESM) in the northern state of Nuevo León [see Update #1026, where we gave the date as Mar. 20, following our source]. The incident took place as part of a heavily militarized “war on drugs” that President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa put into motion shortly after taking office in December 2006; the government and the army claim that most of the thousands of victims are cartel members.
The CNDH said it couldn’t determine who killed the students, Jorge Antonio Mercado Alonso and Javier Francisco Arredondo Verdugo, because the military and state authorities had created obstacles to the investigation, including the alteration of the crime scene. However, it found that the “irregularities detected imply a failure to fulfill the public function of obtaining justice” and resulted in a violation of the human rights of the victims and their families. The CNDH also criticized the military for shooting with high-powered weapons so close to a university campus, and called on the military to pay compensation to the victims’ families and to improve its handling of investigations.
According to the CNDH, the victims’ bodies were moved, weapons were planted near them, and an ITESM security camera that recorded the incident was destroyed. The military initially claimed that the students were drug cartel employees; military spokespeople said later that the students died in crossfire between the military and cartel members. The CNDH noted that according to the forensic evidence the students didn’t die immediately from their wounds and received injuries in their faces while still alive—in other words, they were beaten as they lay dying. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/13/10)
*4. Puerto Rico: Lebrón Remembered, Torres Freed
Hundreds of supporters of Puerto Rican independence gathered at the Ateneo Puertorriqueño, one of the island’s oldest cultural centers, in San Juan on Aug. 2 to commemorate Dolores ("Lolita") Lebrón Sotomayor. Lebrón, who died the day before of cardiovascular complications at the age of 90, led an armed attack on the US Congress on Mar. 1, 1954, and spent 25 years and six months in a US prison before being pardoned in 1979 by US president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). She was a “mythic figure,” Rubén Berríos, president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), told the Spanish wire service EFE. “Lolita’s death wasn’t a death, because she will never be forgotten,” said former prisoner Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of the five participants in the attack. “The person who hasn’t left anything behind is forgotten.”
Lebrón continued to be a political activist after her release. At age 81 she served 60 days in prison in 2001 for participating in a nonviolent civil disobedience protesting the US military testing grounds on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques [see Updates #596, 599]. (EFE 8/2/10 via Terra.es)
On July 26 US authorities released independence activist Carlos Alberto Torres from the federal prison in Pekin, Illinois. Torres had served 30 years of a 78-year sentence for “seditious conspiracy.” He was a member of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), which took responsibility for numerous bombings in the US in the 1970s, although Torres himself wasn’t charged with any of the attacks. He refused a clemency offered by US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) in 1999.
Torres told EFE after his release on parole that he would return to Puerto Rico and continue his political activities while being “a good citizen who respects the laws.” "I’m still the same fighter, but things have changed in Puerto Rico and in the world,” he said. "Now I believe I can pursue Puerto Rico’s independence from within a movement that is integrated into civil society--which is different from what we did in the 1970s.” (EFE 7/26/10 via Terra.com)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago
Chile: Mapuche Prisoners on Hunger Strike to Demand Talks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/2640-chile-mapuche-prisoners-on-hunger-strike-to-demand-talks
Americas Social Forum Celebrates Change in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2639-americas-social-forum-celebrates-change-in-paraguay
Oscar Olivera: Opposition in Times of Evo (Bolivia)
http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/2010/08/oscar-olivera-opposition-in-times-of.html
Uribe to Teach at Georgetown University
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2635-uribe-to-teach-at-georgetown-university-
Uribe Appointment Undermines U.N. Flotilla Investigation
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2637-uribe-appointment-undermines-un-flotilla-investigation
Car Bomb Rattles Bogotá, Colombia; Authorities Suspect Terrorist Attack
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/13/car-bomb-rattles-bogota-colombia-authorities-suspect-terrorist-attack/
Somos Pacifico! Rap Trio Choc Quib Town Puts Colombia’s Pacific on the (Music) Map
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2628-somos-pacifico-esme-mcavoy-rap-trio-choc-quib-town-puts-colombias-pacific-on-the-music-map-
Oil, Gas, and Canada-Colombia Free Trade
https://nacla.org/node/6694
Uribe’s Parting Shot
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/2877
Colombia's new president joins Chávez to honor Bolívar
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8942
Colombia and Venezuela to Restore Diplomatic Relations
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/11/colombia-and-venezuela-to-restore-diplomatic-relations/
Venezuela: Ending farmer exploitation
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5567
A worker-run energy plan in Venezuela
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5564
The Lowest Form Of Military Aggression (Costa Rica)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/2885
Honduran Peasant Leader Assassinated
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2641-honduran-peasant-leader-assassinated
Honduras Down the Memory Hole
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2636-honduras-down-the-memory-hole
What the Zapatistas Can Teach Us About the Climate Crisis (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2630-what-the-zapatistas-can-teach-us-about-the-climate-crisis-
Wonks bash Mexico's Fox over legalization proposal
http://globalganjareport.com/content/wonks-bash-mexicos-fox-over-legalization-proposal
Haiti: A Walk Inside the Camps
http://www.counterpunch.org/schuller08092010.html
Convictions in NYC terror case linked to Trinidad coup attempt
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8953
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
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, 10 August 2010
WNU #1043: Venezuelan Cops Sentenced in Unionists’ Deaths
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1043, August 8, 2010
1. Venezuela: 15 Cops Sentenced in Unionists’ Deaths
2. Honduras: Campesino Leader Detained in Aguán Valley
3. Mexico: Supreme Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage
4. Haiti: Bands Compete in Election Campaign
5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, US
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. Venezuela: 15 Cops Sentenced in Unionists’ Deaths
The Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office announced on Aug. 2 that the Fourth Trial Court of the eastern state of Anzoátegui had handed down prison sentences to 15 police agents for the Jan. 29, 2009 shooting deaths of two unionists at the Mitsubishi Motors Corp (MMC) Automotriz auto factory in the Los Montones de Barcelona industrial park, located outside the city of Barcelona [see Update #977]. Five agents were sentenced to 12 years and nine months for voluntary homicide in the killing of Pedro Jesús Suárez Poito, a plant employee, and Javier Marcano, who worked at the Macusa auto parts factory, and for injuries to Alexander García, a worker at the Barcelona plant. Ten agents received three-year prison terms for their involvement, and six were acquitted.
The same court sentenced police agent Juan Carlos Álvarez Rojas to 16 years and 10 months in prison last December for his part in the killings.
The killings took place when police tried to remove striking Mitsubishi workers who had occupied the Barcelona plant. Workers said they threw rocks and bottles at the police in response to the attempt to end the sit-in and that the police fired tear gas canisters and then shot at them. Company executives claimed that the workers were armed, but the announcement of the court’s decision didn’t mention any charges against the workers.
The leftist news site Laclase.info claims that an Anzoátegui state official initially blamed the strikers for the confrontation and that Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez implied at first that the workers were armed. The site called the sentencing of the police agents “an important victory, although still incomplete,” pointing out that the judge who ordered the operation was not tried. The site also called for an investigation of the role of Anzoátegui governor Tarek William Saab Halabi, a Chávez ally. (Dow Jones 8/2/10 via Fox Business News; Laclase.info (Venezuela) 8/3/10)
*2. Honduras: Campesino Leader Detained in Aguán Valley
Local police detained a national Honduran campesino leader, Juan Ramón Chinchilla, on Aug. 4 in Copán Ruinas in the western department of Copán and held him almost 21 hours without offering a legal justification. Police agents stopped Chinchilla at around 11:30 am as he was returning with friends from a wake for a relative in a nearby community; the charge was apparently riding without a seatbelt. Chinchilla’s friends paid a fine at a local bank for the traffic violation, but the police continued to hold the campesino leader on various pretexts, such as a supposed need to wait for a deputy commissioner. They finally released him at 8 am on Aug. 5.
Chinchilla is a member of the National Executive Committee of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), which coordinated resistance to the military coup d’état that removed then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales from office in June 2009. He is also a member of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), which represents thousands of campesinos in a land dispute in the Aguán Valley in northern Honduras; the group’s members have suffered violent attacks from the police and the military [see Update #1038].
On Aug. 2, two days before Chinchilla’s detention, two young campesinos were arrested in the community of Las Pilas, Trujillo municipality, Colón department, according to MUCA, which represents the families at the estate where the youths were arrested. The campesinos—Salvador Flores and Olvin Rivas, who is a minor—were charged with illegal possession of firearms. Attorney Rodolfo Zamora wrote in an email that "while they were held in the office of the National Police in Tocoa [a city in Colón department], a police captain…gave an order to have the youths pose without shirts on and with arms in their hands. That’s what they did! I personally heard and saw what I’m telling you. I explained that they were violating the Constitution and the code for criminal trials, and, of course, they didn’t care.” (Adital (Brazil) 8/5/10 from Food First Information & Action Network (FIAN) Honduras; FNRP statement 8/4/10 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras))
*3. Mexico: Supreme Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage
On Aug. 5 Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) upheld a law enacted in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) last December recognizing same-sex marriages [see Update #1024]. Eight of the 11 justices voted with the majority; two opposed the marriage equality law and one was absent for reasons of health.
Federal attorney general Arturo Chávez Chávez, representing an administration led by the center-right National Action Party (PAN), filed a challenge to the DF law in January on the grounds that it violated constitutional protections for the integrity of the family. Six of the justices upheld the law on the basis of constitutional guarantees of fundamental rights, while two based their decision on the narrower grounds that the Constitution doesn’t define marriage and therefore leaves the definition to the states. (In most matters of government the DF counts as a state.)
The court was to rule in a week on two more issues in the DF law: adoption by same-sex couples and recognition of the DF’s same-sex marriages by other states. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/6/10, ___; Jurist 8/6/10)
The SCJN has leaned to the left in two other recent decisions. In April a five-member panel ruled that two women vendors from the Otomí indigenous group had been falsely imprisoned in Querétaro state [see Update #1036], and in June a five-member panel ordered the release of 12 campesinos held in prison since a 2006 confrontation between police and residents of San Salvador Atenco in México state [see Update #1039]. But in July a full session of the court upheld President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s October 2009 liquidation of the state-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC), which resulted in the laying off of some 44,000 unionized workers [see Update #1040].
*4. Haiti: Bands Compete in Election Campaign
A total of 33 candidates met the Aug. 7 deadline for filing to run for president in Haiti’s general elections, scheduled for Nov. 28. The candidacies won’t be official until they are approved by the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP); the decisions are to be made by Aug. 17.
Among the more prominent candidates were: Jude Célestin, running for the Unity party of President René Préval; Jacques Edouard Alexis, a former prime minister in the Préval government who is now the candidate of the Movement for the Progress of Haiti (MPH); Coalition of National Progressive Democrats (RDNP) candidate Myrlande Hyppolite Manigat, a former senator and the wife of former president Leslie Manigat (February-June 1988); economist Leslie Voltaire [see Update #1040], the candidate for the Together We Are Strong coalition; and pastor Chavannes Jeune of the Alliance of Christians and Citizens for the Reconstruction of Haiti (ACCRHA).
Former prime minister Alexis—who was removed from office when high food prices sparked militant protests in April 2008 [see Update #943]—was expected to be Préval’s choice, but the Unity party replaced him at the last minute with Célestin, who heads the National Equipment Center (CNE), the well-funded road construction department of the Public Works, Transport and Communications Ministry (MTPTC). (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 8/6/10, 8/7/10, ___; AlterPresse (Haiti) 8/6/10) The CNE is credited with much of the work of removing tens of thousands of corpses from Port-au-Prince after a major earthquake hit the city on Jan. 12; this was one of the few visible actions of the Préval government in the days after the quake. (AOL News 7/13/10)
Although the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004) has been barred from the ballot, several politicians associated with Aristide or the party filed to run. Yvon Neptune, the prime minister during Aristide’s second administration, is running for the Haitians for Haiti Party; he was imprisoned for two years after Aristide’s ouster in February 2004. Social Affairs Minister Yves Christalin, one of FL’s founders, is the candidate of Organization Future. (In Haiti cabinet ministers are not required to resign before filing to run for office.) Aristide’s former lawyer, Jean Henry Céant, is running for the Love Haiti party. (Radio Kiskeya 8/6/10; Radio Métropole (Haiti) 8/6/10)
In the US, media attention was focused almost exclusively on the candidacy of Wyclef Jean, a Haitian-born US hip-hop star who hasn’t lived in Haiti for 30 years. Jean filed in Port-au-Prince on Aug. 5 accompanied by hundreds of supporters, by disk jockeys on sound trucks and by musicians on foot playing traditional rara music. A reporter compared the scene to Haiti’s carnaval celebrations before the start of Lent. Another musical celebrity, Joseph Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”), filed on the same day, but in contrast to his sometimes controversial performances on stage, the candidate was described as “sober and elegant” on this occasion. (AlterPresse 8/6/10)
Haitian journalist Michèle Montas, who now advises the United Nations in Haiti, noted that Jean doesn’t speak French and has problems in Haitian Creole. “Everything is done in French and Creole in government,” she said. “There is no English.” She questioned his appearances on US television. “His announcing on ‘Larry King’ is very peculiar. I don't think the US public is voting.” (Los Angeles Times 8/6/10 from correspondent)
Many Haitian leftists question the validity of the entire election, which will be held in a devastated country occupied by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member military force; reconstruction spending will be under the control of a commission co-chaired by former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001). “Wyclef has arrived at a time when sovereignty is an empty word in Haiti,” Panel Lindor, apparently a Haitian graduate student in Paris, wrote on the AlterPresse website about Jean’s candidacy. “Wyclef has arrived at a time when nearly 2 million are homeless, at a time when Bill Clinton reigns as lord and master over Haiti.” Lindor noted that Jean’s “first visits were to the White House” in Washington. (AlterPresse 8/6/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, US
Bolivia: protests paralyze Potosí
http://ww4report.com/node/8927
Bolivia: civilian defense training begins amid intervention fears
http://ww4report.com/node/8926
Peru: Amazon strike spreads to north
http://ww4report.com/node/8908
Ecuador Signs Historic Deal to Keep Oil in the Soil and CO2 Out of the Atmosphere
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2623-ecuador-signs-historic-deal-to-keep-oil-in-the-soil-and-co2-out-of-the-atmosphere
Ecuador agrees to keep Amazon biodiversity treasure free of oil drilling
http://ww4report.com/node/8925
Colombia: SOA Watch protests at Tolemaida military base
http://ww4report.com/node/8907
Colombia: hip-hop artist assassinated —again
http://ww4report.com/node/8924
Colombia-Venezuela Conflict Discussed At Mercosur Meeting; Chávez Will No Longer Attend
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/03/colombia-venezuela-conflict-discussed-at-mercosur-meeting-chavez-will-no-longer-attend/
Venezuela Detects Increased Colombian Spy Flights, Increases Border Military Presence
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5545
Auditors: Venezuela’s State Oil Company Recovering from Oil Price Slump
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5554
The Quiet Revolution: Venezuelans experiment with participatory democracy
http://inthesetimes.org/article/6202/the_quiet_revolution
El Salvador: students demand justice on 35th anniversary of massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/8929
World Bank approves mining company suit against El Salvador
http://ww4report.com/node/8928
CAFTA Attack on Green Policy: Did Obama Need More Reasons to Renegotiate Bush's NAFTA-Style Trade Deals? (El Salvador)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/tribunal-oks-mining-corps_b_670740.html
Despite Aguan “Land Agreement”, Continued Repression in Honduran African Palm Oil Plantations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2627--despite-aguan-land-agreement-continued-repression-in-honduran-african-palm-oil-plantations-
Mexican Government Raises Figure For Drug War Deaths For Second Time In Four Months
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/04/mexican-government-raises-figure-for-drug-war-deaths-for-second-time-in-four-months/
Transition to a New Government in Oaxaca? Not so Fast!
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2618-transition-to-a-new-government-in-oaxaca-not-so-fast
Oaxaca: land conflicts turn bloody
http://ww4report.com/node/8923
Dread and Redemption: A History of Monstrous Mexico City
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2624-dread-and-redemption-a-history-of-monstrous-mexico-city-
Wyclef Jean Faces Challenges As He Officially Announces Candidacy In Haiti’s Presidential Race
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/06/wyclef-jean-faces-challenges-as-he-officially-announces-candidacy-in-haitis-presidential-race/
Canada's Failed Aid to Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2625-canadas-failed-aid-to-haiti
Citizen Mobilization For Housing in Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2621-citizen-mobilization-for-housing-in-haiti
Previously unpublished: two reports by Update co-editor on Haiti in January 2010:
Day 4 in Port-au-Prince: On the Veranda
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-4-in-port-au-prince-on-veranda.html
Days 5 and 6 in Port-au-Prince: Escape From Katrina
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/08/days-5-and-6-in-port-au-prince-escape.html
Larry Rohter Strikes Out Yet Again on South of the Border
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2622-larry-rohter-strikes-out-yet-again-on-south-of-the-border
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
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 #1043, August 8, 2010
1. Venezuela: 15 Cops Sentenced in Unionists’ Deaths
2. Honduras: Campesino Leader Detained in Aguán Valley
3. Mexico: Supreme Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage
4. Haiti: Bands Compete in Election Campaign
5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, US
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. Venezuela: 15 Cops Sentenced in Unionists’ Deaths
The Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office announced on Aug. 2 that the Fourth Trial Court of the eastern state of Anzoátegui had handed down prison sentences to 15 police agents for the Jan. 29, 2009 shooting deaths of two unionists at the Mitsubishi Motors Corp (MMC) Automotriz auto factory in the Los Montones de Barcelona industrial park, located outside the city of Barcelona [see Update #977]. Five agents were sentenced to 12 years and nine months for voluntary homicide in the killing of Pedro Jesús Suárez Poito, a plant employee, and Javier Marcano, who worked at the Macusa auto parts factory, and for injuries to Alexander García, a worker at the Barcelona plant. Ten agents received three-year prison terms for their involvement, and six were acquitted.
The same court sentenced police agent Juan Carlos Álvarez Rojas to 16 years and 10 months in prison last December for his part in the killings.
The killings took place when police tried to remove striking Mitsubishi workers who had occupied the Barcelona plant. Workers said they threw rocks and bottles at the police in response to the attempt to end the sit-in and that the police fired tear gas canisters and then shot at them. Company executives claimed that the workers were armed, but the announcement of the court’s decision didn’t mention any charges against the workers.
The leftist news site Laclase.info claims that an Anzoátegui state official initially blamed the strikers for the confrontation and that Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez implied at first that the workers were armed. The site called the sentencing of the police agents “an important victory, although still incomplete,” pointing out that the judge who ordered the operation was not tried. The site also called for an investigation of the role of Anzoátegui governor Tarek William Saab Halabi, a Chávez ally. (Dow Jones 8/2/10 via Fox Business News; Laclase.info (Venezuela) 8/3/10)
*2. Honduras: Campesino Leader Detained in Aguán Valley
Local police detained a national Honduran campesino leader, Juan Ramón Chinchilla, on Aug. 4 in Copán Ruinas in the western department of Copán and held him almost 21 hours without offering a legal justification. Police agents stopped Chinchilla at around 11:30 am as he was returning with friends from a wake for a relative in a nearby community; the charge was apparently riding without a seatbelt. Chinchilla’s friends paid a fine at a local bank for the traffic violation, but the police continued to hold the campesino leader on various pretexts, such as a supposed need to wait for a deputy commissioner. They finally released him at 8 am on Aug. 5.
Chinchilla is a member of the National Executive Committee of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), which coordinated resistance to the military coup d’état that removed then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales from office in June 2009. He is also a member of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), which represents thousands of campesinos in a land dispute in the Aguán Valley in northern Honduras; the group’s members have suffered violent attacks from the police and the military [see Update #1038].
On Aug. 2, two days before Chinchilla’s detention, two young campesinos were arrested in the community of Las Pilas, Trujillo municipality, Colón department, according to MUCA, which represents the families at the estate where the youths were arrested. The campesinos—Salvador Flores and Olvin Rivas, who is a minor—were charged with illegal possession of firearms. Attorney Rodolfo Zamora wrote in an email that "while they were held in the office of the National Police in Tocoa [a city in Colón department], a police captain…gave an order to have the youths pose without shirts on and with arms in their hands. That’s what they did! I personally heard and saw what I’m telling you. I explained that they were violating the Constitution and the code for criminal trials, and, of course, they didn’t care.” (Adital (Brazil) 8/5/10 from Food First Information & Action Network (FIAN) Honduras; FNRP statement 8/4/10 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras))
*3. Mexico: Supreme Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage
On Aug. 5 Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) upheld a law enacted in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) last December recognizing same-sex marriages [see Update #1024]. Eight of the 11 justices voted with the majority; two opposed the marriage equality law and one was absent for reasons of health.
Federal attorney general Arturo Chávez Chávez, representing an administration led by the center-right National Action Party (PAN), filed a challenge to the DF law in January on the grounds that it violated constitutional protections for the integrity of the family. Six of the justices upheld the law on the basis of constitutional guarantees of fundamental rights, while two based their decision on the narrower grounds that the Constitution doesn’t define marriage and therefore leaves the definition to the states. (In most matters of government the DF counts as a state.)
The court was to rule in a week on two more issues in the DF law: adoption by same-sex couples and recognition of the DF’s same-sex marriages by other states. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/6/10, ___; Jurist 8/6/10)
The SCJN has leaned to the left in two other recent decisions. In April a five-member panel ruled that two women vendors from the Otomí indigenous group had been falsely imprisoned in Querétaro state [see Update #1036], and in June a five-member panel ordered the release of 12 campesinos held in prison since a 2006 confrontation between police and residents of San Salvador Atenco in México state [see Update #1039]. But in July a full session of the court upheld President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s October 2009 liquidation of the state-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC), which resulted in the laying off of some 44,000 unionized workers [see Update #1040].
*4. Haiti: Bands Compete in Election Campaign
A total of 33 candidates met the Aug. 7 deadline for filing to run for president in Haiti’s general elections, scheduled for Nov. 28. The candidacies won’t be official until they are approved by the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP); the decisions are to be made by Aug. 17.
Among the more prominent candidates were: Jude Célestin, running for the Unity party of President René Préval; Jacques Edouard Alexis, a former prime minister in the Préval government who is now the candidate of the Movement for the Progress of Haiti (MPH); Coalition of National Progressive Democrats (RDNP) candidate Myrlande Hyppolite Manigat, a former senator and the wife of former president Leslie Manigat (February-June 1988); economist Leslie Voltaire [see Update #1040], the candidate for the Together We Are Strong coalition; and pastor Chavannes Jeune of the Alliance of Christians and Citizens for the Reconstruction of Haiti (ACCRHA).
Former prime minister Alexis—who was removed from office when high food prices sparked militant protests in April 2008 [see Update #943]—was expected to be Préval’s choice, but the Unity party replaced him at the last minute with Célestin, who heads the National Equipment Center (CNE), the well-funded road construction department of the Public Works, Transport and Communications Ministry (MTPTC). (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 8/6/10, 8/7/10, ___; AlterPresse (Haiti) 8/6/10) The CNE is credited with much of the work of removing tens of thousands of corpses from Port-au-Prince after a major earthquake hit the city on Jan. 12; this was one of the few visible actions of the Préval government in the days after the quake. (AOL News 7/13/10)
Although the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004) has been barred from the ballot, several politicians associated with Aristide or the party filed to run. Yvon Neptune, the prime minister during Aristide’s second administration, is running for the Haitians for Haiti Party; he was imprisoned for two years after Aristide’s ouster in February 2004. Social Affairs Minister Yves Christalin, one of FL’s founders, is the candidate of Organization Future. (In Haiti cabinet ministers are not required to resign before filing to run for office.) Aristide’s former lawyer, Jean Henry Céant, is running for the Love Haiti party. (Radio Kiskeya 8/6/10; Radio Métropole (Haiti) 8/6/10)
In the US, media attention was focused almost exclusively on the candidacy of Wyclef Jean, a Haitian-born US hip-hop star who hasn’t lived in Haiti for 30 years. Jean filed in Port-au-Prince on Aug. 5 accompanied by hundreds of supporters, by disk jockeys on sound trucks and by musicians on foot playing traditional rara music. A reporter compared the scene to Haiti’s carnaval celebrations before the start of Lent. Another musical celebrity, Joseph Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”), filed on the same day, but in contrast to his sometimes controversial performances on stage, the candidate was described as “sober and elegant” on this occasion. (AlterPresse 8/6/10)
Haitian journalist Michèle Montas, who now advises the United Nations in Haiti, noted that Jean doesn’t speak French and has problems in Haitian Creole. “Everything is done in French and Creole in government,” she said. “There is no English.” She questioned his appearances on US television. “His announcing on ‘Larry King’ is very peculiar. I don't think the US public is voting.” (Los Angeles Times 8/6/10 from correspondent)
Many Haitian leftists question the validity of the entire election, which will be held in a devastated country occupied by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member military force; reconstruction spending will be under the control of a commission co-chaired by former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001). “Wyclef has arrived at a time when sovereignty is an empty word in Haiti,” Panel Lindor, apparently a Haitian graduate student in Paris, wrote on the AlterPresse website about Jean’s candidacy. “Wyclef has arrived at a time when nearly 2 million are homeless, at a time when Bill Clinton reigns as lord and master over Haiti.” Lindor noted that Jean’s “first visits were to the White House” in Washington. (AlterPresse 8/6/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, US
Bolivia: protests paralyze Potosí
http://ww4report.com/node/8927
Bolivia: civilian defense training begins amid intervention fears
http://ww4report.com/node/8926
Peru: Amazon strike spreads to north
http://ww4report.com/node/8908
Ecuador Signs Historic Deal to Keep Oil in the Soil and CO2 Out of the Atmosphere
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2623-ecuador-signs-historic-deal-to-keep-oil-in-the-soil-and-co2-out-of-the-atmosphere
Ecuador agrees to keep Amazon biodiversity treasure free of oil drilling
http://ww4report.com/node/8925
Colombia: SOA Watch protests at Tolemaida military base
http://ww4report.com/node/8907
Colombia: hip-hop artist assassinated —again
http://ww4report.com/node/8924
Colombia-Venezuela Conflict Discussed At Mercosur Meeting; Chávez Will No Longer Attend
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/03/colombia-venezuela-conflict-discussed-at-mercosur-meeting-chavez-will-no-longer-attend/
Venezuela Detects Increased Colombian Spy Flights, Increases Border Military Presence
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5545
Auditors: Venezuela’s State Oil Company Recovering from Oil Price Slump
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5554
The Quiet Revolution: Venezuelans experiment with participatory democracy
http://inthesetimes.org/article/6202/the_quiet_revolution
El Salvador: students demand justice on 35th anniversary of massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/8929
World Bank approves mining company suit against El Salvador
http://ww4report.com/node/8928
CAFTA Attack on Green Policy: Did Obama Need More Reasons to Renegotiate Bush's NAFTA-Style Trade Deals? (El Salvador)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/tribunal-oks-mining-corps_b_670740.html
Despite Aguan “Land Agreement”, Continued Repression in Honduran African Palm Oil Plantations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2627--despite-aguan-land-agreement-continued-repression-in-honduran-african-palm-oil-plantations-
Mexican Government Raises Figure For Drug War Deaths For Second Time In Four Months
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/04/mexican-government-raises-figure-for-drug-war-deaths-for-second-time-in-four-months/
Transition to a New Government in Oaxaca? Not so Fast!
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2618-transition-to-a-new-government-in-oaxaca-not-so-fast
Oaxaca: land conflicts turn bloody
http://ww4report.com/node/8923
Dread and Redemption: A History of Monstrous Mexico City
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2624-dread-and-redemption-a-history-of-monstrous-mexico-city-
Wyclef Jean Faces Challenges As He Officially Announces Candidacy In Haiti’s Presidential Race
http://latindispatch.com/2010/08/06/wyclef-jean-faces-challenges-as-he-officially-announces-candidacy-in-haitis-presidential-race/
Canada's Failed Aid to Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2625-canadas-failed-aid-to-haiti
Citizen Mobilization For Housing in Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2621-citizen-mobilization-for-housing-in-haiti
Previously unpublished: two reports by Update co-editor on Haiti in January 2010:
Day 4 in Port-au-Prince: On the Veranda
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-4-in-port-au-prince-on-veranda.html
Days 5 and 6 in Port-au-Prince: Escape From Katrina
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/08/days-5-and-6-in-port-au-prince-escape.html
Larry Rohter Strikes Out Yet Again on South of the Border
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2622-larry-rohter-strikes-out-yet-again-on-south-of-the-border
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://americas.irc-online.org/
http://nacla.org/
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, 3 August 2010
WNU #1042: Nike to Pay Laid-off Honduran Workers
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1042, August 1, 2010
1. Honduras: Nike Agrees to Pay Laid-off Workers
2. Mexico: Relations With Honduras Normalized
3. Haiti: Haitians and Brazilians Protest UN Occupation
4. Colombia: Unionist Threatened, Campesino Leader Seized
5. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Honduras: Nike Agrees to Pay Laid-off Workers
On July 26 Nike, Inc and the General Workers Central (CGT), one of Honduras’ three main labor federations, announced that the Oregon-based sports apparel giant was paying $1.54 million to some 1,600 workers laid off in last year’s closure of two Nike subcontractors in the Choloma region of the northwestern department of Cortés. The package also includes a year of medical coverage through the Honduran Social Security system, a training program and priority for hiring at other factories that Nike may use in the country. The fund is to be administered by the CGT; the Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation; and the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), a US-based labor rights monitoring group.
The two apparel assembly plants--Vision Tex, which employed Korean capital, and Hugger de Honduras, owned by Donaldo Reyes Villeda, the son of a legislative deputy for the center-right National Party (PN), Donaldo Reyes Avelar--closed without warning in January 2009. The only compensation the workers received was from the sale of machinery and office equipment. This came to 21% of the severance pay mandated by law for the Hugger workers and 26% for the Vision Tex workers. Workers’ rights advocates say the total package offered by Nike is worth about $2 million, the amount of severance pay still owed to the workers.
Nike claimed it wasn’t responsible for the subcontractors’ failure to compensate their workers. In the fall of 2009 the US-based United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) launched a campaign to pressure Nike to pay, following a model the group used to get Russell Athletic of Atlanta to rehire 1,200 workers laid off in January 2009 when Russell closed its unionized Jerzees de Honduras plant [see Update #1013]. With the slogan “Just pay it,” USAS and affiliated groups arranged tours for two laid-off Honduran workers at more than 40 US campuses that have sports apparel contracts with Nike.
By mid-July, Cornell University had decided to end its contract with Nike, and pressure was growing for Pennsylvania State University and the University of Washington to do the same [see Update #1040]. According to the CGT’s Choloma coordinator, Evangelina Argueta, Nike signed the compensation agreement on July 20. (La Prensa (San Pedro Sula) 7/26/10, some from EFE; New York Times 7/27/10; Revistazo.com (Honduras) 7/28/10; In These Times 7/28/10)
At a press conference in Tegucigalpa on July 28, representatives of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) charged that the economic policies of President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa, a National Party leader, were creating a fiscal and labor paradise for import and export businesses. The FNRP, which was formed to resist the coup d’état that removed then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales in June 2009, cited new taxes which it said penalized the poorest, a plan to legalize hourly temporary work, cancellation of labor rights for teachers, and delays in increasing the minimum wage.
“The de facto president [Lobo] knows that the minimum wage is in direct relation to the price at which business people sell the basic canasta,” the FNRP said, referring to the “basket” of consumer staples which Latin American governments use to measure the cost of living. Currently the canasta is 6,500 lempiras (about $344) a month, according to the FNRP, which is calling for a mobilization on Aug. 18 to demand an increase in the minimum wage and to reject any plans to devalue the currency or impose a temporary work law. The protest will also demand respect for human rights and the dismantling of the regime established by the 2009 coup. (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 7/28/10 from Defensoresenlínea.com)
*2. Mexico: Relations With Honduras Normalized
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretariat (SRE) announced on July 31 that the government of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa was normalizing diplomatic relations with Honduras and that the Mexican ambassador, Tarcisio Navarrete, would return to Tegucigalpa in a few days to resume his functions. Mexico broke off relations with Honduras on June 29, 2009, one day after then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales was removed by a military coup d’état.
The SRE cited a report by a High Level Commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) set up to analyze the situation. According to the Mexican government, the report “reflects significant advances” by the government of Honduran president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa towards resolving problems created by the coup. Lobo won a clear majority in elections held on Nov. 29, but the process was widely questioned: the voting was organized by a de facto regime put in place by the coup, and the OAS refused to send observers. Many Hondurans boycotted the vote; elections officials gave contradictory turnout figures—from 49% to 61.3%--while opponents of the coup estimated that the turnout was just 30-40% [see Update #1015].
Edmundo Hernández-Vela, a retired political science professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada that the SRE’s decision set a bad precedent. “It’s obvious that the régime [Lobo’s government] arose from the coup d’état itself, not from a clean process,” Hernández-Vela said. “But Mexico, like many other countries, understands that the US looks on what happened in Honduras with great sympathy.” He noted that Mexican president Calderón had his own problems, since his election in 2006 “should be qualified as irregular, at the least.” Millions of Mexicans still reject Calderón’s official win over center-left coalition candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador by very narrow margin [see Update #858]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/1/10, ___ )
*3. Haiti: Haitians and Brazilians Protest UN Occupation
On July 28 Haitians protested in Port-au-Prince, Hinche, St-Marc and other cities to mark the 95th anniversary of the start of the 1915-1934 US military occupation of their country.
Dozens of supporters of the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996 and 2001-2004) held a sit-in in front of the US embassy in the northeastern Port-au-Prince suburb of Tabarre to demand Aristide’s return from South Africa, the firing of election officials and the withdrawal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member military and police occupation force. Embassy officials met with a delegation of FL leaders, including Maryse Narcisse, who demanded that the US not finance the scheduled Nov. 28 general elections as long as the FL continued to be excluded from the ballot [see Update #1039].
Hundreds of supporters of other opposition parties marched in the center of the capital to demand the resignation of President René Préval as well as the removal of election officials and of MINUSTAH troops. Some protesters set up barricades of flaming tires and threw rocks at government vehicles. An unknown person on one of these vehicles fired a gun, wounding one protester, Jean-Claude Dorélus, and then escaped. Eventually the police used tear gas to disperse the protesters at Lamartinière Ave in the Bois Verna neighborhood.
Also in Bois Verna, a number of organizations held a sit-in outside the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s new location to demand the removal of MINUSTAH forces. Yanick Etienne, from the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), noted that despite its name, MINUSTAH had done nothing to bring stability to Haiti since the soldiers arrived in 2004. Other groups at the protest included the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP), Haitian Women’s Solidarity (SOFA) and organizations representing the Duvivier neighborhood and laid-off public employees. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 7/28/10; Agence Haïtienne de Presse 7/28/10; Maximini.fr 7/28/10)
The sit-in at the foreign ministry was coordinated with a number of protests in Brazil, the country that heads up the MINUSTAH forces. In São Paulo activists protested in front of the Haitian consulate, whose officials agreed to meet with representatives on July 30. In Belo Horizonte, the protest was headed by the women’s movement and grassroots and student groups; participants denounced violence against women in Brazil as well as in Haiti. In Río de Janeiro, protesters passed out an open letter at the United Nations Information Center calling for an end to the MINUSTAH and charging that other countries had abandoned Haiti, which was devastated by a major earthquake.
The Brazilian protests were sponsored by the National Coordinating Committee of Stuggles (Conlutas), Jubilee South and the Landless Workers Movement (MST). Jubilee South’s Sandra Quintela said that Haiti’s need for international aid was no reason for foreign interference in the country. "It’s not the artists or the politicians going to Haiti to promote themselves that are going to be the protagonists at this time,” she said. “The protagonists required by the country’s reconstruction are Haitian men and women, and organizations from the country.” (Adital (Brazil) 7/29/10)
There was also a protest in New York City, where dozens of activists rallied outside the United Nations headquarters to oppose the MINUSTAH occupation. (Eyewitness report 7/28/10)
According to the non-governmental Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), only Brazil, Estonia and Norway have sent any of the reconstruction aid promised at a Union Nations meeting in New York on Mar. 31—just 1.5% of the total international commitment. The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (ICRH, or CIRH in French and Spanish), set up four months ago to administer international aid, still doesn’t have an executive director, PAPDA wrote on July 22, and the main concern of the donor nations seems to be making sure their own companies get a share of the reconstruction money. (Adital 7/30/10)
*4. Colombia: Unionist Threatened, Campesino Leader Seized
Colombian union sources report that Alejandro Betancur, president of the Union of Mining Industry Workers (SINTRAMINEROS) in the northwestern department of Antioquia, received a death threat by telephone on July 26 in connection with his union activities. According to Carlos Julio, president of Colombia's Unitary Workers Central (CUT), Betancur was threatened because of his efforts on behalf of about 100 miners employed by companies belonging to Industrial Hullera, which is now in liquidation. The dispute, which has gone on for 13 years, concerns labor rights and pensions. (El Mundo (Medellín) 7/31/10; Adital (Brazil) 7/29/10)
Also in Antioquia, the Campesino Association of the Lower Cauca (ASOCBAC) charged on July 29 that José Alcides Ochoa, president of the Communal Action group in the village of El Rayo in Tarazá municipality, was illegally detained that morning by troops from the 25th Mobile Brigade of the army’s Seventh Division. ASOCBAC called for the Public Ministry to locate Alcides Ochoa immediately and to start an investigation into the detention. The group is also asking for activists to write to Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez (auribe@presidencia.gov.co ), president elect Francisco Santos (fsantos@presidencia.gov.co ) and other officials to demand an end to human rights abuses by the 25th Mobile Brigade and other military units. (ASOCBAC urgent action 7/29/10 via Colombia Indymedia; El Mundo 7/31/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
Brazil: indigenous protesters seize hydro-electric plant
http://ww4report.com/node/8893
Indians Hold Construction Workers Hostage at Amazon Dam Site
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2611-indians-hold-construction-workers-hostage-at-amazon-dam-site
Bolivia: remains of "disappeared" socialist leader at military high command?
http://ww4report.com/node/8884
Peru: state of emergency over extreme weather; protests over toxic spill
http://ww4report.com/node/8892
Peru moves to expel ecologist in wake of Amazon oil spill
http://ww4report.com/node/8883
Peru: regional strike paralyzes south over gas exports —again
http://ww4report.com/node/8897
Peru Wages 'Slanderous Campaign' Against Inter-American Court
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2605-peru-wages-slanderous-campaign-against-inter-american-court
Peru cancels US metal company's smelter license, citing eco-disaster
http://ww4report.com/node/8901
Colombia: documents reveal US complicity in atrocities
http://ww4report.com/node/8898
Plan Colombia Linked to Increased Military Abuses
https://nacla.org/node/6685
Colombia: government denies existence of Meta mass grave
http://ww4report.com/node/8885
Colombia: OAS rights commission condemns murder of indigenous leader
http://ww4report.com/node/8902
Reversed: Colombian journalist Hollman Morris is free to come to Harvard as a Nieman Fellow
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/07/reversed-colombia-journalist-hollman-morris-is-free-to-come-to-harvard-as-a-nieman-fellow/
Venezuela Concerned about Colombia Aggression Intentions, UNASUR Concludes without Consensus
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5540
Colombia-Venezuela Dispute Will Be Better Resolved in South America
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5539
Venezuela: indigenous protest at supreme court
http://ww4report.com/node/8882
Panama: General Strike Against Killings
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2614-panama-general-strike-against-killings
Is Free Trade a Gold Mine? (El Salvador)
http://progressive.org/lydersen0710.html
US to file first free trade labor rights case against Guatemala
http://ww4report.com/node/8899
Breaking (Mexico): San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, Under Paramilitary Control Following Police Raid
http://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#label/wnu1042/12a2b8ff620b0642
Mexico: San Juan Copala Again Under Fire
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2615-mexico-san-juan-copala-again-under-fire-
Support the Mexican Electrical Workers
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/07/support-mexican-electrical-workers.html
Protest Against Canadian Mine in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2606-protest-against-canadian-mine-in-mexico
Mexico: biggest "narco-grave" yet yields 51 bodies near Monterrey
http://ww4report.com/node/8886
Mexico: army kills Sinaloa Cartel kingpin —but not El Chapo
http://ww4report.com/node/8900
Mexico’s Economic Collapse
https://nacla.org/node/6679
López Obrador’s Alternative Plans for Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2613-lopez-obradors-alternative-plans-for-mexico
Wyclef Jean May Run For President of Haiti In 2010
http://latindispatch.com/2010/07/27/wyclef-jean-may-run-for-president-of-haiti-in-2010/
Rape a Part of Daily Life for Women in Haitian Relief Camps
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/07/28/rape-a-part-of-daily-life-for-women-in-haitian-relief-camps/
Opportunities are Washing Away in Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2609-opportunities-are-washing-away-in-haiti
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 #1042, August 1, 2010
1. Honduras: Nike Agrees to Pay Laid-off Workers
2. Mexico: Relations With Honduras Normalized
3. Haiti: Haitians and Brazilians Protest UN Occupation
4. Colombia: Unionist Threatened, Campesino Leader Seized
5. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Honduras: Nike Agrees to Pay Laid-off Workers
On July 26 Nike, Inc and the General Workers Central (CGT), one of Honduras’ three main labor federations, announced that the Oregon-based sports apparel giant was paying $1.54 million to some 1,600 workers laid off in last year’s closure of two Nike subcontractors in the Choloma region of the northwestern department of Cortés. The package also includes a year of medical coverage through the Honduran Social Security system, a training program and priority for hiring at other factories that Nike may use in the country. The fund is to be administered by the CGT; the Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation; and the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), a US-based labor rights monitoring group.
The two apparel assembly plants--Vision Tex, which employed Korean capital, and Hugger de Honduras, owned by Donaldo Reyes Villeda, the son of a legislative deputy for the center-right National Party (PN), Donaldo Reyes Avelar--closed without warning in January 2009. The only compensation the workers received was from the sale of machinery and office equipment. This came to 21% of the severance pay mandated by law for the Hugger workers and 26% for the Vision Tex workers. Workers’ rights advocates say the total package offered by Nike is worth about $2 million, the amount of severance pay still owed to the workers.
Nike claimed it wasn’t responsible for the subcontractors’ failure to compensate their workers. In the fall of 2009 the US-based United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) launched a campaign to pressure Nike to pay, following a model the group used to get Russell Athletic of Atlanta to rehire 1,200 workers laid off in January 2009 when Russell closed its unionized Jerzees de Honduras plant [see Update #1013]. With the slogan “Just pay it,” USAS and affiliated groups arranged tours for two laid-off Honduran workers at more than 40 US campuses that have sports apparel contracts with Nike.
By mid-July, Cornell University had decided to end its contract with Nike, and pressure was growing for Pennsylvania State University and the University of Washington to do the same [see Update #1040]. According to the CGT’s Choloma coordinator, Evangelina Argueta, Nike signed the compensation agreement on July 20. (La Prensa (San Pedro Sula) 7/26/10, some from EFE; New York Times 7/27/10; Revistazo.com (Honduras) 7/28/10; In These Times 7/28/10)
At a press conference in Tegucigalpa on July 28, representatives of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) charged that the economic policies of President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa, a National Party leader, were creating a fiscal and labor paradise for import and export businesses. The FNRP, which was formed to resist the coup d’état that removed then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales in June 2009, cited new taxes which it said penalized the poorest, a plan to legalize hourly temporary work, cancellation of labor rights for teachers, and delays in increasing the minimum wage.
“The de facto president [Lobo] knows that the minimum wage is in direct relation to the price at which business people sell the basic canasta,” the FNRP said, referring to the “basket” of consumer staples which Latin American governments use to measure the cost of living. Currently the canasta is 6,500 lempiras (about $344) a month, according to the FNRP, which is calling for a mobilization on Aug. 18 to demand an increase in the minimum wage and to reject any plans to devalue the currency or impose a temporary work law. The protest will also demand respect for human rights and the dismantling of the regime established by the 2009 coup. (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 7/28/10 from Defensoresenlínea.com)
*2. Mexico: Relations With Honduras Normalized
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretariat (SRE) announced on July 31 that the government of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa was normalizing diplomatic relations with Honduras and that the Mexican ambassador, Tarcisio Navarrete, would return to Tegucigalpa in a few days to resume his functions. Mexico broke off relations with Honduras on June 29, 2009, one day after then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales was removed by a military coup d’état.
The SRE cited a report by a High Level Commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) set up to analyze the situation. According to the Mexican government, the report “reflects significant advances” by the government of Honduran president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa towards resolving problems created by the coup. Lobo won a clear majority in elections held on Nov. 29, but the process was widely questioned: the voting was organized by a de facto regime put in place by the coup, and the OAS refused to send observers. Many Hondurans boycotted the vote; elections officials gave contradictory turnout figures—from 49% to 61.3%--while opponents of the coup estimated that the turnout was just 30-40% [see Update #1015].
Edmundo Hernández-Vela, a retired political science professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada that the SRE’s decision set a bad precedent. “It’s obvious that the régime [Lobo’s government] arose from the coup d’état itself, not from a clean process,” Hernández-Vela said. “But Mexico, like many other countries, understands that the US looks on what happened in Honduras with great sympathy.” He noted that Mexican president Calderón had his own problems, since his election in 2006 “should be qualified as irregular, at the least.” Millions of Mexicans still reject Calderón’s official win over center-left coalition candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador by very narrow margin [see Update #858]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/1/10, ___ )
*3. Haiti: Haitians and Brazilians Protest UN Occupation
On July 28 Haitians protested in Port-au-Prince, Hinche, St-Marc and other cities to mark the 95th anniversary of the start of the 1915-1934 US military occupation of their country.
Dozens of supporters of the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996 and 2001-2004) held a sit-in in front of the US embassy in the northeastern Port-au-Prince suburb of Tabarre to demand Aristide’s return from South Africa, the firing of election officials and the withdrawal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member military and police occupation force. Embassy officials met with a delegation of FL leaders, including Maryse Narcisse, who demanded that the US not finance the scheduled Nov. 28 general elections as long as the FL continued to be excluded from the ballot [see Update #1039].
Hundreds of supporters of other opposition parties marched in the center of the capital to demand the resignation of President René Préval as well as the removal of election officials and of MINUSTAH troops. Some protesters set up barricades of flaming tires and threw rocks at government vehicles. An unknown person on one of these vehicles fired a gun, wounding one protester, Jean-Claude Dorélus, and then escaped. Eventually the police used tear gas to disperse the protesters at Lamartinière Ave in the Bois Verna neighborhood.
Also in Bois Verna, a number of organizations held a sit-in outside the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s new location to demand the removal of MINUSTAH forces. Yanick Etienne, from the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), noted that despite its name, MINUSTAH had done nothing to bring stability to Haiti since the soldiers arrived in 2004. Other groups at the protest included the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP), Haitian Women’s Solidarity (SOFA) and organizations representing the Duvivier neighborhood and laid-off public employees. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 7/28/10; Agence Haïtienne de Presse 7/28/10; Maximini.fr 7/28/10)
The sit-in at the foreign ministry was coordinated with a number of protests in Brazil, the country that heads up the MINUSTAH forces. In São Paulo activists protested in front of the Haitian consulate, whose officials agreed to meet with representatives on July 30. In Belo Horizonte, the protest was headed by the women’s movement and grassroots and student groups; participants denounced violence against women in Brazil as well as in Haiti. In Río de Janeiro, protesters passed out an open letter at the United Nations Information Center calling for an end to the MINUSTAH and charging that other countries had abandoned Haiti, which was devastated by a major earthquake.
The Brazilian protests were sponsored by the National Coordinating Committee of Stuggles (Conlutas), Jubilee South and the Landless Workers Movement (MST). Jubilee South’s Sandra Quintela said that Haiti’s need for international aid was no reason for foreign interference in the country. "It’s not the artists or the politicians going to Haiti to promote themselves that are going to be the protagonists at this time,” she said. “The protagonists required by the country’s reconstruction are Haitian men and women, and organizations from the country.” (Adital (Brazil) 7/29/10)
There was also a protest in New York City, where dozens of activists rallied outside the United Nations headquarters to oppose the MINUSTAH occupation. (Eyewitness report 7/28/10)
According to the non-governmental Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), only Brazil, Estonia and Norway have sent any of the reconstruction aid promised at a Union Nations meeting in New York on Mar. 31—just 1.5% of the total international commitment. The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (ICRH, or CIRH in French and Spanish), set up four months ago to administer international aid, still doesn’t have an executive director, PAPDA wrote on July 22, and the main concern of the donor nations seems to be making sure their own companies get a share of the reconstruction money. (Adital 7/30/10)
*4. Colombia: Unionist Threatened, Campesino Leader Seized
Colombian union sources report that Alejandro Betancur, president of the Union of Mining Industry Workers (SINTRAMINEROS) in the northwestern department of Antioquia, received a death threat by telephone on July 26 in connection with his union activities. According to Carlos Julio, president of Colombia's Unitary Workers Central (CUT), Betancur was threatened because of his efforts on behalf of about 100 miners employed by companies belonging to Industrial Hullera, which is now in liquidation. The dispute, which has gone on for 13 years, concerns labor rights and pensions. (El Mundo (Medellín) 7/31/10; Adital (Brazil) 7/29/10)
Also in Antioquia, the Campesino Association of the Lower Cauca (ASOCBAC) charged on July 29 that José Alcides Ochoa, president of the Communal Action group in the village of El Rayo in Tarazá municipality, was illegally detained that morning by troops from the 25th Mobile Brigade of the army’s Seventh Division. ASOCBAC called for the Public Ministry to locate Alcides Ochoa immediately and to start an investigation into the detention. The group is also asking for activists to write to Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez (auribe@presidencia.gov.co ), president elect Francisco Santos (fsantos@presidencia.gov.co ) and other officials to demand an end to human rights abuses by the 25th Mobile Brigade and other military units. (ASOCBAC urgent action 7/29/10 via Colombia Indymedia; El Mundo 7/31/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
Brazil: indigenous protesters seize hydro-electric plant
http://ww4report.com/node/8893
Indians Hold Construction Workers Hostage at Amazon Dam Site
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2611-indians-hold-construction-workers-hostage-at-amazon-dam-site
Bolivia: remains of "disappeared" socialist leader at military high command?
http://ww4report.com/node/8884
Peru: state of emergency over extreme weather; protests over toxic spill
http://ww4report.com/node/8892
Peru moves to expel ecologist in wake of Amazon oil spill
http://ww4report.com/node/8883
Peru: regional strike paralyzes south over gas exports —again
http://ww4report.com/node/8897
Peru Wages 'Slanderous Campaign' Against Inter-American Court
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2605-peru-wages-slanderous-campaign-against-inter-american-court
Peru cancels US metal company's smelter license, citing eco-disaster
http://ww4report.com/node/8901
Colombia: documents reveal US complicity in atrocities
http://ww4report.com/node/8898
Plan Colombia Linked to Increased Military Abuses
https://nacla.org/node/6685
Colombia: government denies existence of Meta mass grave
http://ww4report.com/node/8885
Colombia: OAS rights commission condemns murder of indigenous leader
http://ww4report.com/node/8902
Reversed: Colombian journalist Hollman Morris is free to come to Harvard as a Nieman Fellow
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/07/reversed-colombia-journalist-hollman-morris-is-free-to-come-to-harvard-as-a-nieman-fellow/
Venezuela Concerned about Colombia Aggression Intentions, UNASUR Concludes without Consensus
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5540
Colombia-Venezuela Dispute Will Be Better Resolved in South America
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5539
Venezuela: indigenous protest at supreme court
http://ww4report.com/node/8882
Panama: General Strike Against Killings
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2614-panama-general-strike-against-killings
Is Free Trade a Gold Mine? (El Salvador)
http://progressive.org/lydersen0710.html
US to file first free trade labor rights case against Guatemala
http://ww4report.com/node/8899
Breaking (Mexico): San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, Under Paramilitary Control Following Police Raid
http://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#label/wnu1042/12a2b8ff620b0642
Mexico: San Juan Copala Again Under Fire
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2615-mexico-san-juan-copala-again-under-fire-
Support the Mexican Electrical Workers
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/07/support-mexican-electrical-workers.html
Protest Against Canadian Mine in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2606-protest-against-canadian-mine-in-mexico
Mexico: biggest "narco-grave" yet yields 51 bodies near Monterrey
http://ww4report.com/node/8886
Mexico: army kills Sinaloa Cartel kingpin —but not El Chapo
http://ww4report.com/node/8900
Mexico’s Economic Collapse
https://nacla.org/node/6679
López Obrador’s Alternative Plans for Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2613-lopez-obradors-alternative-plans-for-mexico
Wyclef Jean May Run For President of Haiti In 2010
http://latindispatch.com/2010/07/27/wyclef-jean-may-run-for-president-of-haiti-in-2010/
Rape a Part of Daily Life for Women in Haitian Relief Camps
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/07/28/rape-a-part-of-daily-life-for-women-in-haitian-relief-camps/
Opportunities are Washing Away in Haiti
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2609-opportunities-are-washing-away-in-haiti
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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